This morning in my evolution class the professor continued a lecture on geologic time, and talked about how-- in the roughly 4.5 billion years the Earth has been around (yes, that's 4,500,000,000 years-- you can't even fathom it)-- about 80% of that time was just geological formation. No life at all. (And even of that later 20%, we are but a little blip at the end.) And all I could think was, wow-- my God spent a lot of time getting this home ready for me.
The remainder of the class period was spent in that sort of completely humbled, awe-filled state of worship. The magnitude of the processes which God set into place to make this create this perfect place for us-- a planet with the right climates, the amazing variety of foods for us to be nourished by and enjoy, the amazing way everything from the abiotic environment to the plants that breathe out what we need to breathe in, to the delicate chemical balances and processes of our bodies-- truly a unique spot in the universe, of what we've found so far, anyway-- is completely overwhelming.
I held a two-billion-year-old piece of iron in my hands today. Everybody else looked briefly at the narrow red-and-black bands on the smooth-cut face of the rock, and passed it along to the next person. I could just stare at it for several minutes, totally-- shoot, what's another word for humbled? Two billion years. Two billion years (plus-- though at that level of our non-comprehension, what's another couple billion years, give or take?), that God spent shaping, forming, perfecting this planet as a place precisely suited for children made in his image.
Dear young-Earth delusionals: pardon my French, but that shit is just impressive. Take an evolution class, or even a genetics class if that's less scary for you, and you'll never again doubt, not for the merest of moments, that God exists.
I find it sort of odd, at times, to feel like I am bouncing back and forth between two worlds in which I don't fit, yet which I feel blend together beautifully. It is only some within them who think I don't belong there, who cannot imagine that I believe the same things that they do, if I also happen to believe a few others. Because, in case this wasn't already apparent, it's true that I am that most frightening of creatures: in the great creationism vs. evolution debate, I refuse the take sides. Or rather, I reject the two false "sides," and just take the right one.
My God not only doesn't live in a very tiny box, he doesn't live in a box at all. He invented the boxes, yo. He does what he wants! (Bonus points if you just read that last line in a very I'm-on-Jerry-Springer tone of voice, in your head.)
My God is not tricky. He does not lay a great plan, interwoven throughout all of creation, to try to test and deceive me. He is a good God, because he is God. My God doesn't play like that.
I refuse to take sides because Jesus is my Lord. We kick it, we talk. I have no doubt he is with me. All the time. And I also have little doubt in the multitude of observations that so many, myself included, have made about the world around us. I say little doubt, because I believe that what we observe is really there (e.g. I would bet everything I own on the fact that dinosaur bones are not just some big cosmic joke on humanity) but I am open to and endlessly excited about the fact that we keep learning more every day, answers and new questions just leaps and bounds so far above the last questions we even knew to ask, that I know we as people have so infinitely much more to learn. Creation is so far beyond our understanding that we will always get to learn more about God's amazing design and his plans so far beyond anything we could ever come up with.
Because I know we will never get there. We will never, ever, ever understand it all. How could we? I don't think I want a brain that full. The universe is too amazing. See? No adequate words, even. I'll just leave it at that.
So I don't worry about this or that little detail I don't know about-- because it's not like I'm ever going to have all the details; the puzzle will never be done. I don't really worry about exactly how it all works out to be consistent, I just know enough details to know that it does, and trust in the rest. God gives us bits of information as we can handle them. If he were to just lay it all out there, the mysterious and complicated and all-knowing plan for how he wove the universe from nothing into everything it is today, I'm pretty sure it would incinerate our brains from the inside out. But I can look at a 2-billion-year-old chunk of rock, and know that my God loves me.
So when a friend at church the other day-- and fortunately this friend was not of hostile intent, but rather appeared actually curious as to my view-- upon learning that I'm currently taking an evolution class and hope to go on to graduate school in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, asked, "so, as a Christian, how do you feel about all that?" I (hopefully with the minimal amount of defensiveness) just replied "I feel just fine about it."
Ok, I didn't leave it at that. See, Christian friends keep asking me to defend evolution in terms of the Bible, or if there's a good book about evolution and being a Christian-- and you know, I'm sure there are a bunch. I've just never read them, because I haven't felt the need to. I read nonfiction books to be inspired, or learn something new, or help me find an answer to a question I'm struggling with-- but I'm already down with a God who created everything through the magical, the natural-yet-supernatural, and just so involved process of evolution. It does not shake my faith nor rock my world. In fact, learning that evolution was just a silly mistake all along would do much more to upend my worldview, to disturb my notion of who God is and what he is capable of.
So I'm sorry, but I don't have a good book to recommend to you who wish to learn more. I actually checked a couple out from the library once, in response to a sermon where I felt the need to call somebody out on mocking the idea of evolution, just because I felt the need to be able to explain myself to those who need an explanation. Unfortunately, I was too busy doing my work and my school and my church and my life to actually get through either of them. So if you find a good one, let me know. I'll stock it in my personal library to lend out, willy-nilly.
But I did explain more to that friend I mentioned. I told him that the more I learn about the world and how it works, how unspeakably complex and elegant it is, the more I know that there is somebody behind it. That friend did mention the book The Language of God, written by a Christian geneticist who headed up the Human Genome Project. So having not read it myself, I'll pass on that recommendation to you. If someone gets it for me for Christmas, I'll even read it myself-- I'll hopefully be done with the never-ending grad school applications by then.
But, fellow lovers of God: Don't make me wonder how you're going to react when I'm reading a National Geographic article on a newly-discovered hominid fossil. Don't make me hesitate, when I don't know you well yet, to talk about what I'm studying. Don't try to act like because I believe in an old, old Earth and an evolutionary past, that means I have a tenuous hold on my faith and a casual interpretation of the Bible. Don't make some scoffing and ignorant joke about being descended from monkeys to draw attention away from your own uncertainty. Own it. It's ok to not get how it all works. I certainly don't. I just know that it does, because God says so, and because the way I see it work, is just far too unspeakably beautiful not to be the his handiwork.
Someday I'm going to work, too, on the professor who seems to sometimes confuse "What The Bible Says" with "Things Certain People Believe The Bible Says." But that's not where I wish to start. (Though I do find it funny to listen to scientists try to explain the origin of life.) We who know how truly amazing God is should see no other explanation than his hand in every marvelous mystery that science unfolds, each astounding new discovery and unfathomable puzzle.
(Selected verses from Isaiah 40. Though I highly recommend the entire chapter.)
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?
Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
or weighed the mountains on the scales
and the hills in a balance?
13 Who can fathom the Spirit of the LORD,
or instruct the LORD as his counselor?
14 Whom did the LORD consult to enlighten him,
and who taught him the right way?
Who was it that taught him knowledge,
or showed him the path of understanding?
15 Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
they are regarded as dust on the scales;
he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.
16 Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires,
nor its animals enough for burnt offerings.
17 Before him all the nations are as nothing;
they are regarded by him as worthless
and less than nothing.
18 With whom, then, will you compare God?
To what image will you liken him?
21 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood since the earth was founded?
22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
23 He brings princes to naught
and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
24 No sooner are they planted,
no sooner are they sown,
no sooner do they take root in the ground,
than he blows on them and they wither,
and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.
25 “To whom will you compare me?
Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing.
27 Why do you complain, Jacob?
Why do you say, Israel,
“My way is hidden from the LORD;
my cause is disregarded by my God”?
28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
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