Questions in Genesis: On Theistic Evolution and the Genesis Accounts

Questions in Genesis:

On Theistic Evolution and the Genesis Accounts

            There is no room in the Genesis creation narratives for the coming into being of the earth and all the creatures in it through an evolutionistic process devoid of God.  “In the beginning God,” simply precludes the notion that Genesis could present the world coming into being apart from the activity of God.  Yet, the text certainly could be read in a manner that supports a theistic evolutionary model.  The wording used in the creation account of Genesis 1 could be read from a theistic evolutionist perspective without engaging in exegesis anymore fanciful than that of the Young Earth position. 

            This reading works with the plants, the animals, and humans.  In Genesis 1:11, God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth."  After God says this, we read in verse 12 that the “earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”  In this account God speaks and the earth then brings forth the plants.  The activity of God is seen in his saying that these plants and trees should come into being and then seeing that the finished product was good.  The means by which this plant life came into being from the text is a work of the earth.  Therefore, one could read this as god speaking the divine plan for plant life and then evolution producing the result at which point God looks at this product and declares it to be good.

            This method of creation is repeated in 1:24-25, “And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds - livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so.  And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”  Again, God called for an inanimate object (the earth) to produce animate creatures.  This is how God created the land animals.  The creation of the sea creatures and flying birds appears to be different.  Although the waters are told to swarm with living creatures, the birds lack such a starting point and are simply made.  Yet, such could be taken as an outlier and that the reader should assume that God used similar methods. 

THE PROBLEM OF HUMANITY

            The Genesis 1 creation account lacks any specificity regarding the origin of humanity.  However, the creation account in Genesis 2 could give some difficulty to the evolutionist position on the origin of humanity.  The creation of humanity is given in some detail that, at face value, appears to preclude the idea that humanity came from another creature.  Genesis 2:7 states, “then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”  This statement presents the origin of humanity as dirt. 

            It could be possible to interpret this “dirt” that God formed humanity out of to involve the creatures that God commands the earth to bring forth.  But that would require reading one creation account into the other creation account.  This may well be a valid practice, but requires one to hold to a unity of these accounts that supercedes the minor difference between these accounts.  This reading would also run afoul of a strong Patristic consensus that viewed the creation of humanity as a unique event in creation that explains the very nature of what is means to be human and sets the theological foundation from salvation is viewed.  I am not saying that it is impossible to account for the text of Scripture and the consensus of the Fathers while explaining how humanity evolved from creatures.  I am saying that it is exceptionally problematic.  All this to say that I can see how a theistic evolutionary reading of the Genesis accounts could easily correspond with text and tradition until one arrives at humanity.