I’ve been debating evolution and Genesis 1 for decades, and honestly, I’m getting a little weary of it. Still, having discussed the topic at this week’s Brew Theology gathering, it seems like a good time to go ahead and lay out my thoughts. Please know that I have not arrived at my position lightly; it has involved decades of reading scripture, reflecting on the relationship between science and religion, and prayers to God for clarity. Here goes.

I do believe God could create the world in six 24-hour days
(i.e. it is well within God’s power to do so);
I just don’t believe God did create the world in six 24-hour days,
and I don’t think the Bible demands we believe this either.

I believe we should exercise greater care when reading the Bible.
You see, “literal” and “true” are not the same thing,
just as “figurative” and “fictional” are not the same thing,
and none of these words are the same thing as “important.”
A story doesn’t have to be literal in order to be beautiful, powerful, formative, and absolutely central to how we see the world, and nowhere is this truer than with the Bible.

The Bible is an anthology of different styles of literature
—poems, sermons, law books, parables, histories, instructional letters—,
and to read them all as literal history is to intentionally distort their meaning.
To say “I only take the Bible literally”
is not to take the Bible seriously.

So the question “Did God create the world in six 24-hour days?”
becomes secondary to another question: “What style of literature is Genesis 1?”

Theologians of the past have suggested the days of Genesis 1 could be figurative, with Augustine of Hippo and Basil of Caesarea famously writing on the subject. Not only can the Hebrew word for “day” also mean “age” (a sentiment echoed in 2 Peter 3:8), but Augustine argued literal days would be impossible without first creating the sun, which doesn’t happen until day four of the Genesis 1 account. On the other hand, theologians like the Venerable Bede and Bishop James Ussher still opted for literal days based on the scripture and science they had available. In short, the timeframe for the creation of the world has always been disputed among Christians, and myriad theories on the subject exist today.

The 19th Century publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species forever changed this discussion by publicizing the idea of natural selection, which some readers understood as eliminating the need for God. While many thinkers (including Darwin himself) believed in moderated stances, two extreme camps formed and remain the loudest voices on the issue:

non-theistic evolution guided solely by natural selection
vs.
literal six day creation based solely on Genesis 1 

Both of these mindsets require more assumptions and manipulation of data and scripture than I’m comfortable with, but thankfully, there’s a lot of gray area in between them. There is a long history of belief in some combination of evolution and creation, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either uninformed, lying to you, or possibly both. Trying to force a dichotomy between these viewpoints really just reveals a lot of insecurity on the part of the people forcing that dichotomy. Think of it this way:

If your religion is threatened by science,
it’s a pretty weak religion,
and if your science can’t leave space for religion,
it’s pretty shoddy science.

Religion and science ask different questions of the world.
As such, they work best when they complement one another.
Science can invite reverence for God,
just as religion can motivate scientific inquiry.
No good can come from religion claiming to be science,
and no good can come from science claiming to replace religion.
They’re too different in their purposes and their methodologies,
and I can’t imagine life without either of them.
Thankfully, I don’t have to.

So yeah, I believe in both creation and evolution,
I value both religion and science,
I take the Bible very seriously,
and while I still respect people on the extremes of this issue,
I think there’s a lot they’re overlooking.