CREATION AND EVOLUTION ( Page 2) |
| At the peak of biological evolution, when one of the
branches of primates went through comparatively rapid stages of evolution
and finally reached the stage of Homo sapiens, God created the human
soul, which is the human being and made the homo body as a vehicle
to carry this being of spirit. In the first chapter of genesis the
creation of man is given special treatment as distinguished from the
rest of the creation. Compared to verses like - “Let there be
light. And there was light” or “Let the earth bring forth
all kinds of animals.”- the creation of man was preceded by
the words, “Let us create humans in Our image and likeness”
The fact that the human being is made in the likeness of God and not
as one of the animals is brought out by special emphasis of repetition:
“Thus God created humans in His image and likeness. In the likeness
of God He created them. He created them as male and female.”
What was created in the likeness of God was obviously not this physical
body of ours with a head, trunk and limbs. Apes and other animals
also have similar bodies. What is in the likeness of God is the soul
or spirit, the real self of the human being. It is in this respect
that we resemble God and that is why we can call ourselves the ‘children
of God’, a title that cannot be applied to any other animal.
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| Many Biblical scholars consider the creation story
especially the story of Adam and Eve as myth and suggest that we must
look for the message in them and not literal meaning. I agree that
we cannot take literally much of the creation story especially the
fact that the whole creation from the beginning to that of humans
took six days of twenty four hours each. But I do think there is much
in the story of Adam and Eve that we cannot discount as mere myth
or fiction. The analysis of Mitochondrial DNA of people from all the
races of the world have shown that we all have descended from one
single female whom the scientists have dubbed the Mitochondrial Eve.
This shows that it is possible to have a common mother or parents
for all of us humans - a Biblical Adam and Eve. How should we take
the story of the original sin? Surely that is a myth? I do not think
so. Before the creation of the human soul our ancestors - let me call
them Adam and Eve - were animals, like Chimp or Gorilla. Once God
had “breathed the breath of life into his nostrils” they
became ‘alive’ in spirit and ceased to be animals. They
were now divine - children of God. One of the faculties of this spiritual
being was conscience, the ability to distinguish between good and
evil and the free will to do what you wish - the ability to give selfless
love, to be selfish in love, to be indifferent or to hate. The first
act of exercising this free will was the act of ‘eating the
forbidden fruit’. Evil or sin is not connected with sex as some
moralists think but arises out of the absence of true, selfless love.
Adam and eve were in ‘paradise’ as long as they lived
in love. When that love become selfish or turned to indifference or
hatred they were “turned out of the paradise” and they
became fully human. |
| Creation of the universe, of the state of singularity
where matter existed at infinite density, is supposed to have taken
place some 12.5 to 15 billion years back. Science cannot say where
this came from. But we believers can say that this was created by
God. Cosmic and chemical evolution took some 10 billion years before
life was created. Biological evolution has gone on for about 3 billion
years before the human being was created. The ancestors of the humans,
the hominids, branched of from the rest of primates and started on
the new journey of evolution about 7 million years ago. And the Homo
sapiens came on the scene around a hundred thousand years ago. To
believe that all this took place in 6 days or 144 hours is rather
difficult. The October, 2002, issue of the Scientific American had
an article by an eminent scientist entitled ‘Fifteen answers
to Creationist nonsense’. Worried by the title, I read the article
with apprehension to find that the author was questioning the views
of the fundamentalists, the view that there is no evolution and that
creation was done in six days. He was not at all questioning my faith.
There are many Christian churches and groups that are totally against
the idea of evolution and believe in the seven days of creation. A
friend of mine once told me that God created the world with fossils
in it. These are the people mentioned in the article as creationists. |
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