Hypothesis: both pieces argumentation are valid.
Thesis: they can be merged to give a reasonable
explanation about our origin and existence on the Earth.
I’ll start by illustrating an element these two
theories have in common: generation.
Whether we go by creation or evolution, we can't deny
that a living being has the ability to generate another living being of the
same species: animals generate animals, human beings generate human beings,
plants generate other plants through their seeds, etc...
Now as this generation takes place there is also an
evolution, as in what comes after is better and stronger than what was before.
This has been proved by scientific studies that show human beings today live
longer and also adapt faster to different types of environment. Also we've
grown taller and bigger in structure, thus a change in our morphology.
Having said there was indeed an evolution and that, as
long there is a generation, there will always be an evolution: in a thousand of
years we'll have a human race that will share similarities with us, as we are
today but that will look somewhat different from us; let’s move to the next
point.
Generation causes evolution, but we need to find the
beginning of this whole process, because nothing generates out of nothing.
Physicians have tried but they still haven’t found a plausible theory that can
explain the origin of the World: even the Big Bang theory still hangs on to
creation to explain why we are here today. We know why we are what we are
today, but the question is: how did this whole journey start?
This is where creation takes the upper hand in this
argumentation, because it offers a possible genesis, even though it leaves
rooms for so many questions without answers, mainly because of the dualistic
nature it attributes to mankind: the matter and the soul. The flaw in this
theory is that it contradicts a lot that is said about the first creation: it
can't explain the imperfection that came after that and that has persisted till
today. Christians have traced this imperfection down to the Original Sin
committed by Adam and Eve when they ate the forbidden fruit placed in the Garden
of Eden by their intelligent designer called God, but, in my opinion, the
problem actually starts with the creation of Adam and Eve.
It is said that God created Adam in Its own image:
-
God
is a pure soul, a spirit;
-
Human
beings made of matter and soul.
If God is not a physical entity, how could It have
created man in Its own image?
If God is the perfect being, how come the image It
gave humans is so imperfect and vulnerable?
Perhaps the image Christians are talking about is not
the same image God created humans with. Given that God is a soul; he can only
have created something similar to a soul. The image as intended by the
Christian doctrine is nothing but the container God in which hid this precious
content, which is the body made of matter, which is nothing like the image of
God.
And why would God need to place the soul in a body?
The Earth is made of matter only. In order to interact
with it, we need a physical aspect added to our form (the soul is the real
essence of human beings). Given the three levels of creation, as taught by the
Christian doctrine: the terrain (only matter or matter + soul), the terrestrial
(soul awaiting judgment) and the celestial (soul cleansed of all sins); humans,
when they are alive, are suspended between the terrain and the terrestrial.
When they die, they ascend from the terrain to the terrestrial, where judgment
awaits them. According to their deeds they are either sent to the celestial
where heaven is or beneath the terrain, where hell is.
In this ascending process they drop the container, the
body, because it belongs to the terrain sphere as it is made purely of matter
and wouldn’t fit into a matter free sphere. It is dropped also because the
matter carries imperfection and makes humans vulnerable. Everything on Earth is
prone to corruption.
Even the Christians admit that God gets in touch with
human beings through their soul, so it is easily deduced that what God created
in Its own image is the soul, which is what man kind have in common with It and
what makes that special connection between them.
Another evidence to back up this claim is the
hypothesized son of God: Jesus Christ. Why did God have to send Itself through
a man for It to cleanse men of their sins?
God operates on a supernatural level. Limited by the
free will It gave humans itself, It can interact with the soul, but then the
body acts differently because of the needs it has. In order to win both body
and soul, he needed to act both on the physical and on the supernatural sphere.
Jesus mainly showed human that the body is not what matters (the 40 days and 40
nights he fasted, walking on the waters, his martyrdom, etc…): it can be
deprived of primary necessities such as food and water, it can be made massless
and it can endure all sort of pain, because as long as the soul (the content)
is strong, the body (the container) is irrelevant. Jesus even died to prove
this point.
Now that I’ve explained in my words why I think God
created the human soul in Its own image and not the human appearance as it
commonly preached in Christianity, I want to try and merge creation and
evolution as previously stated in my thesis.
Let's start from creation and think of God as an
intelligent designer and let’s make an analogy between It and a computer
programmer. A programmer is a person that lays the basis for a self-sufficient
software that offers the user the possibility to personalize the product they
create with this software: likewise God created the human body (the matter) and
programmed it through the brain to be self-sufficient and through the DNA to
generate other bodies. However unlike a computer which is controlled by the law
of determination, the software that operates in human beings works with the law
of probability, which more than often makes the outcome of these products casual.
The only element that can’t be replicated in the
process of generation is the soul, which is unique for every human being. This
is where the breath of life comes to play. When Christians say that God gives
life, we can assume they mean that when the container has been created, God
breathes into it and gives it a soul. In fact soul, in Latin, anima and in
ancient Greek, anemos, means wind, breath. From the same words, anima and
anemos, we have the words animation and animated, that signify movement. In
order words, God breathes into these bodies to put them in motion and make them
function.
To conclude I’ll say this: God created the first
matter ever in Adam and Eve and breathed into it to give it life (through the
soul). It programmed this matter so it could generate other matters with the
same DNA. But, since matter is prone to imperfection, it can only generate
other imperfect matters. However through this generation, the matter continues
to improve itself by eliminating each time, some imperfections which causes an
evolution in the human morphology and ability to adapt and survive. But this improvement
will never lead to a complete absence of error, because this error is in the
code the matter was programmed with.
I think this is a good attempt to merge creationism
and evolutionism, but I’d like to hear from you readers. As an Atheist or a
Christian or an Agnostic, do you think this brief write-up works?
Let me know through your comments.
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