God and evolution
Tonight I went to a lecture on evolution–specifically, evolution as it applies to viruses, such as HIV. And the science professor giving the lecture made the point that people can debate all they want whether evolution is real, but when it comes to HIV, we do not have the luxury of pretending evolution does not occur. HIV is spreading too rapidly, mutating all the time, and if we don’t understand it we can’t fight it, and the secret to all of it is this graceful mechanism called evolution.
I’ve been reading Finding Darwin’s God by Dr. Kenneth Miller, and if I were a scientist I would want to be him (and not just because he appeared on The Colbert Report and fully held his own–check out the video on his website). He is a Christian who believes in and advocates the teaching of evolution. Rather than see any contradiction between believing in both God and evolution, he celebrates the complete correlation between the two. I wish I had Science Mind and could fully absorb everything I hear and read, but I’m doing what I can with English Major Mind.
I have a novel coming out next year that will explore this theme that means so much to me–the idea that we can believe in and appreciate what science tells us about our world and universe, and still–or maybe then, finally–believe in God. We can love the beauty of the Bible, pull from it as many lessons as it offers, and still train our minds on deciphering the clues left scattered around the earth and the heavens and within our own bodies. Taking the time to understand the where and when and why and how it all works seems like an appropriate tribute to creation.
It’s like hearing a soothing stretch of music and wondering how a cello could create those sounds. Some people might be content thinking, “That’s just how a cello is. It was made that way.” Others might like to take it apart and trace the melody through the wood. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to know as much as we possibly can.
In fact, some might say we were made that way.
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