# Is Evolution Compatible With A Belief In God?



## spnadmin (Jun 18, 2010)

BALPREET SINGH BOPARAI works in legal counsel for the World Sikh  Organization of Canada. 

Evolution, or the change over time in the  genetic composition of populations, is a scientific reality. The  process has been observed and studied and there is no doubt it occurs.  For people of faith, God is also an undeniable reality that is felt and  observed every day. For Sikhs, science is a way of celebrating and  appreciating the magnificence of God and no conflict need exist between  the two. Therefore, a belief in God and a belief in evolution can be  completely compatible.


In the Sikh faith, God is the  ultimate creator and all creation is through his will. The Sikh faith,  although having respect for people of all faiths, does not accept or  subscribe to the Semitic story of creation and does not believe that  Adam and Eve were the first humans. The process by which God creates is  exclusively his will and therefore evolution is compatible with Sikh  beliefs. Evolution is a process that can be understood to be a part of  God’s divine will.

The Sikh scripture, Sri Guru Granth  Sahib, speaks specifically about the process of creation. Guru Nanak,  the founder of the Sikh faith, wrote, “from the True One came the air,  from the air came water. From water, the three worlds (sea, earth and  sky) were formed, with God’s light placed in every being.” (ang 18). Sri  Guru Granth Sahib also states that there are countless galaxies and  planets and only God can know the extent of his creation.
So  beyond a belief that God is the creator and resides within his  creation, Sikhs are open to scientific inquiries into the specific  processes through which creation has evolved and exists now. Evolution  and a belief in God are not incompatible for Sikhs.

RADHIKA  SEKAR has a PhD in Religious Studies and taught Hinduism at Carleton  University for several years. She is a disciple of the Sri Ramakrishna  Mission.

Religions like Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism are  primarily concerned with achieving enlightenment. Therefore belief in a  creator god is a non-issue and discussions regarding origins fall under  the 14 unanswerable questions, which, as the Buddha maintained, do not  help achieve enlightenment. They are therefore  not particularly  meaningful or relevant.

A philosophical speculation on the  origin of the universe first occurs in an early Rig Vedic verse. First  there was neither existence or non-existence. No realm of air, or sky  beyond it. What covered it, and where? Who knows whence it first came  into being? He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it  all or did not form it, Verily he knows, or perhaps he too knows not.  (Rig Veda: Book 10 v 129). 

Later Upanishad literature  identifies Purusha (or Brahman) as the primordial “intelligence” (citta)  from which arises matter (Prakriti or Shakti). The result of their  reunion results in genesis, and creation proceeds in continuous cycles  of birth, life and death.

The process is personified in the  Puranas. Lord Brahma is the Creator, who, with his consort the goddess  Saraswati, propagates the universe in its myriad forms. Lord Vishnu  oversees progression from birth to death and the final dissolution is  represented by Lord Shiva. The process then begins again.

Creation  is thus seen, not as a single linear event, but rather as a dynamic and  cyclical process, which Swami Vivekananda found compatible with  Darwinian evolution. But with one essential difference.

While  modern scientists argue that matter evolves before intelligence, Indian  philosophy puts intelligence first, and then  goes on to suggest that  all intelligence is derived or borrowed from a single source, regarded  by Hindus as divine. Hence the Vedantic claim that all beings are divine  and interconnected.

Rabbi REUVEN BULKA is head of  Congregation Machzikei Hadas in Ottawa and host of Sunday night with  Rabbi Bulka on 580 CFRA.

Why not? Leaving aside whether  evolution really holds up under scientific scrutiny, the question can be  rephrased in the following way — is it possible that God created the  world in an evolutionary pattern? This question has an entirely  different ring and spin.

And of course, once we accept that  God created the world, then the “how” of creation is a relatively minor  issue. God can create in any way that God sees fit, and assuming that  the way of creation follows an evolutionary path, there is no problem  with attributing this manner of creation to God.

There is a  significant difference between evolutionary creation and creative  evolution; the first admits God into the picture, the second eliminates  God from the picture.

So, assuming evolution is a “fact,”  it is certainly compatible with belief in God, even if you find people  whose belief in evolution precludes their believing in God. This impacts  on the biblical chronicle of creation. We can see an evolutionary  pattern in creation, culminating in the creation of the human being.  What science presumes to be evolution is biblically presented as God’s  way of developing the world and its inhabitants, animal and human. Even  the age of the world is not necessarily a problem. The six days of  creation are God days, as is clear from Genesis. Human days start after  the human is created. And God’s days are not of the hard-and-fast,  24-hour variety. They could very well be epochs, long epochs.

And  if they could be epochs, why not welcome that possibility and avoid an  unwelcome clash between religion and science? Each gains much from  working together in a co-operative spirit. Science gains a much needed  humility as it strives to understand existence. And religion is more  likely to be respected if it accepts the wisdom of science, both looking  back and going forward.

Father JOHN JILLIONS is a  professor in the Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies at  Saint Paul University. 

Of course. Increasing numbers of prominent  scientists are working with full scientific integrity, following the  trail of the evidence, while being faithful believers at the same time.

Among  them is Dr. Gayle Woloschak, an Orthodox Christian who specializes in  molecular and cell biology at Northwestern University in Chicago. She  also directs the Zygon Center, which seeks to relate religious  traditions and the best scientific knowledge in order to gain insight  into the origins, nature, and destiny of humans and their environment. 

According  to Woloschak, evolution is “a logically self-consistent theory that  explains observable facts.” She stresses that a scientific theory is not  just a hunch. Gravity is also a “theory,” but like evolution it is  backed up by vast amounts of evidence. For her, the DNA evidence,  comparing the genomic maps of various species, shows that evolution does  occur. In fact, evolution is now the unifying theory of biology.  Christianity is committed to true descriptions of reality and denying  evolution is just not truthful, she says. It is also a misunderstanding  of God. Science is limited to the study of nature, but God is beyond  nature. To read the book of Genesis, for example, as a scientific  textbook on nature is to miss its main point.

But  scientists who ignore the spiritual dimension of creation are similarly  closing themselves off from a huge arena of reality. Science can  describe how we got here (evolution), but it can’t say much about what  it means to be human or why we exist. What a tiny slice of the universe  we human beings inhabit, yet what a creative legacy we have of culture,  art, music, language and “hunger for the infinite” (Dostoevsky). There  is so much more to the wonder of the cosmos and life than science can  describe.

Paradoxically, believers who oppose evolution  also keep the conversation from going beyond biology. This much the  creationists and atheists have in common.

Rev. KEVIN FLYNN  is an Anglican priest and director of the Anglican studies program at  Saint Paul University. 

Anglicans understand the Scriptures to  “contain all things necessary to salvation.” This does not mean that we  understand them to be a compendium of scientific facts. Christians who  oppose the theory of evolution hold that it is contrary to the opening  book of the Bible.
Anglicans take the Scriptures so  seriously that we take them as they are, not as we might wish them to  be. In large measure, chapter one of Genesis, with its account of the  seven days of creation, is more a liturgy than a text book, with its  repeated refrain “God saw that it was good.”
Interestingly,  its vision of development and species differentiation does share some  commonalities with contemporary cosmologies.

Genesis 1 was  likely written during the exile of the Jewish people in Babylon. Their  captors worshipped sun, moon, stars and so forth as deities in their own  right. Genesis 1 is a great hymn that declares that all those heavenly  bodies are not gods, but rather creatures of the one true God. Further,  it affirms that the created order is neither random nor indifferent, but  is ordered to its author and maker. Genesis goes on to describe the  role of humankind in relation to God and to the created order: that we  are its stewards, intended  to serve and tend it.

From this  perspective, Anglicans by and large did not have a great deal of  difficulty in receiving the insights of Darwin’s theory of evolution.

With  increasing precision, good science can make clear the how. Genesis is  about the why. 

The worldwide Anglican communion takes as its  motto Jesus’ words from the gospel of John: “The truth shall make you  free.” This is a bold motto for a Church to hold since it challenges us  to receive truth from any source as coming ultimately from God.

Rev.  GEOFFREY KERSLAKE is a priest of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of  Ottawa. 

For Catholic Christians, the short answer to this  question is: yes. The longer answer looks like this: there is not a  conflict between faith and reason (or science). 

Three  years ago Pope Benedict’s book on Creation and Evolution was published  in Germany and in the subsequent stories in the secular press the Holy  Father was quoted several times. What seemed to surprise many people was  his assertion about the false dichotomy some people have made between  evolution and faith. 

He said: “The question is not to  either make a decision for a creationism that fundamentally excludes  science, or for an evolutionary theory that covers over its own gaps and  does not want to see the questions that reach beyond the methodological  possibilities of natural science.”

He went on to add: “I  find it important to underline that the theory of evolution implies  questions that must be assigned to philosophy and which themselves lead  beyond the realms of science.” (CTV News, April 11, 2007)
Science  is very good at investigating “how” questions — how does life change  and evolve over time —, for example, but it is unable to answer many  important “why” or “what” questions — why are we here and what is the  meaning of life? But faith and reason, working together, help us to come  to a more complete understanding of not only the origins of human life,  but also its meaning and ultimate purpose and we cannot exclude either  one of them from the investigation.

Rev. RICK REED is  senior pastor at the Metropolitan Bible Church in Ottawa. 
The  word evolution refers to change. Specifically to “change in the  properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a  single individual” (Douglas Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology). Change  within a species is sometimes called microevolution. Change that results  in an entirely new species could be classified as macroevolution.

Microevolution  is both observable and uncontested; species do change over time.  Macroevolution, however, is not universally accepted. The scientific  evidence for this kind of change is still debated.

Most  proponents of macroevolution also hold to a naturalistic world view.  They believe the world is a closed system. As a result, they conclude  that belief in God is either unnecessary or untenable. There are some  Christians who subscribe to macroevolution but reject a naturalistic  worldview. They maintain God was involved in starting the evolutionary  process. This viewpoint, called theistic evolution, argues that  believing in macroevolution is compatible with faith in God.

All  Christians agree that naturalistic evolution is incompatible with faith  and with true scientific inquiry. After all, naturalistic evolution  begins with the unproven, a priori assumption that all events have a  purely natural explanation. This understanding arbitrarily excludes the  possibility of God’s involvement in the world.
My view is  that microevolution (changes within a species) is a proven reality but  macroevolution is an unproven theory. Further, I see theistic evolution  as standing on shaky scientific and theological ground. Scientifically,  the ample evidence of design in our world points to the existence of a  wise Designer. Theologically, it’s difficult to align theories of  macroevolution with the teachings of Scripture. For example, Romans 5:12  asserts that that death entered the world only after Adam’s sin.
The  opening line of the Bible points Christians to the most reliable  explanation of life’s origins: “In the beginning, God created the  heavens and the earth.”
KEVIN SMITH is on the board of  directors for the Centre for Inquiry, Canada’s premier venue for  humanists, skeptics and freethinkers.
With his discovery of  natural selection, Charles Darwin effectively tore out the first  chapter of his Christian Bible, leaving the belief system of millions of  people in shreds.

This evolution revolution caused many to  contemplate that perhaps the rationalization of gods to explain our  beginnings was false — the simplest explanation is the most accurate.

Darwin  had his own personal evolution. He had achieved a degree in divinity,  but by the time his book, The Origin of Species, was written, he claimed  to be agnostic.

While 22 per cent of Canadians still have  their heads buried in the Garden of Eden, most accept that evolution is a  fact — with or without a designer God. Some have been able to adapt  their faith to believe that the hands of God molded us out of primordial  ooze but I disagree — humanity’s creation story, our cosmic  evolutionary genesis, is a majestic poetry of life. Evolution without  God is not just more credible, it is incredible.

The seed  that created the tree of life began in the warm ocean waters thousands  of millions of years ago. It developed many branches, producing billions  of species that have existed on Earth. Everything that lived before us  or shares our planet today is special in its own right — yet we are all  connected by our shared ancestry. Darwin so clearly articulated that  “from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful have been, and  are being, evolved.”

 We can thank evolution for the  improbable gift of being alive. All who inhabit the Earth, each with  their unique qualities, are part of one brief phase within the  evolutionary process. Our collective destiny is infinite, we are from  the past and of the future.


JACK MCLEAN is a Baha’i  scholar, teacher, essayist and poet published in the fields of  spirituality, Baha’i theology and poetry.

The Bahá’í sacred  writings endorse a qualified “evolution” as being compatible with  belief in God, but important distinctions are made with current  evolutionary theory, which generally excludes God and divine endowment. 

It  should be noted that this question is debated mainly between  literal-fundamentalists and more “liberal” symbolic readers of the  Bible, causing deep divisions. Regrettably, it has also put science and  religion at odds. The Bahá’í sacred writings aim to harmonize religious  beliefs with scientific knowledge.

Here is the gist of the  answer: while Bahá’í scripture recognizes that the human species did  evolve over millions of years, adapting to and changing the environment,  the distinctive, divine nature of our race cannot be explained by  Darwinian natural selection. The divine endowments of intellect, soul,  imagination, faith, reason, insight, and the beautiful human form  itself, were all designed potentially and originally by God, but these  capacities appeared gradually over eons, from more primitive to more  sophisticated forms.

Early in the first trimester of human  embryonic development, an individual seems to resemble a fish or a  seahorse. But the species was distinctly human from conception. A human  being is born nine months later, not an animal. Our species is distinct  and divine in origin. Likewise, although we may have resembled and  behaved like animals throughout the earlier stages of our development,  we were destined to acquire our present form.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá  is clear on this point. In a talk on evolution he said: “To  recapitulate: as man in the womb of the mother passes from form to form,  from shape to shape, changes and develops, and is still the human  species from the beginning of the embryonic period — in the same way  man, from the beginning of his existence in the matrix of the world, is  also a distinct species, that is, man, and has gradually evolved from  one form to another” (Some Answered Questions, p. 192). By accepting  this reasonable explanation, religion does not stand in opposition to  science and reason, nor is the divine endowment of humans denied.

RAY  INNEN PARCHELO is a novice Tendai priest and founder of the Red Maple  Sangha, the first lay Buddhist community in Eastern Ontario.
There  are a couple of questions here, I think. The first is one about  science, proof and an alleged “irrationality” of religious belief. The  second deals with creationism, especially the kind endorsed in certain  Abrahamic faiths, as a theory.

First off, unlike Western  faiths, Buddhism does not depend on any coherent historical narrative.  The Buddha would say, “I come to teach the fact of suffering, its cause  and cessation.” This is not a matter of belief, it is a proposal about  our existential plight and how to escape it. One need not believe, one  only needs to test it out with discipline and sincerity. To borrow a  phrase, “the proof is in the pudding.”

Buddhism is not so  much interested in explaining the origins of humanity as it is in  exposing the mechanisms that keep us bound in cycles of dissatisfaction  and suffering. This allows the presentation of the means of ending  suffering, the Eightfold Path. Buddhists don’t need to align our  teaching with any religious text, on the one hand, or scientific  principles, on the other. The priority is always on religious practices  rather than religious beliefs.

The second question here is  the relationship between evolution and creationism, the so-called  competing theory that proposes that the universe was created in ways  that support the Christian Bible narrative. Buddhism is not in any way  concerned with theories of creation, the origin of the world or the role  of any deity. Shakyamuni Buddha always declined such questions as  irrelevant, maintaining his “noble silence.” He would suggest that if a  soldier were struck with a poisonous arrow in battle, there is no value  in debating what kind of feathers were on the arrow, the type of tree  that produced the arrow shaft, the nationality or motive of the shooter,  and so on. He insisted what we need to know is how to remove the arrow  and reclaim life. Such debate, while captivating, is far from useful.
ABDUL  RASHID is a member of the Ottawa Muslim community, the Christian-Muslim  Dialogue and the Capital Region Interfaith Council.

If by  “evolution” you mean that humanity is the result of a series of natural  events without an intelligent design, it is entirely incompatible to a  belief in God.

A learned Muslim once said that the first  time he truly believed in God Almighty was when he witnessed an  open-heart surgery. He marvelled at the design and efficiency of that  small piece of flesh that pumped many times its own weight with  regularity every minute of every hour of every day for many years of a  person’s life.

There are scores of references in the Muslim  scripture, the Holy Koran, that draw our attention to the law and order  in the universe. The objective of these references is not to teach us  “science” but to guide us to the belief in Our Merciful Creator.  “Behold! In the creation of the heavens and the earth and the  alternation of night and day are indeed Signs for people of  understanding” (3:190).

Islam asks us to study these and  many other signs in the universe to strengthen our faith in our Unique  Creator. It is awe-inspiring to realize that a small reduction in the  earth’s orbit around the sun will burn our world and a small increase in  it would freeze it solid (36:40). Again, any random changes in the  orbits of various planets would lead to destructive collisions and end  of the known world. That this mind-boggling order is without design by a  Designer is unbelievable. The development of human life itself in  successive stages from conception to birth, childhood, adulthood, old  age and death point to the glorious creation of Almighty (22:5,  23:12-14).
The proposition that the origin of life was an  accident that occurred without any preconception, plan or purpose defies  ordinary reason.

Ask the Religion Experts is compiled by  Stephanie Murphy. Write to Ask the Religion Experts, c/o The Ottawa  Citizen, 1101 Baxter Rd., Ottawa, Ont., K2C 3M4. E-mail submissions to experts@thecitizen.canwest.com

Read more: Is evolution compatible with a belief in God?
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