In The Beginning?

You wrote:

It seems possible to me that evolution could account for the species on this planet Earth. The initial conditions and rules came from where though? If anywhere then why not from God?

That's really the crux of it all, isn't it? There seems to have been this conflating over time of two concepts that are not necessarily the same thing: the initial creation, and the subsequent development. The theory of evolution -- or, to be more precise, the theory of natural selection -- does not and never did address the question of where things came from in the first place. I think Darwin himself argued that point, but I can't recall where I saw that. Later, after Darwin's death, others used the concept of evolution to try to squeeze God completely out of the picture. In other words, they established this false choice:

• God and the literal account of creation in Genesis
• Evolution without God

The reason why so many Christians become all fouled up in the debate is they fall for this false dichotomy. If the dichotomy was true, then I'd go with God and the literal account of creation. But I don't see why the dichotomy has to be true.

This concept of setting up a false dichotomy is not limited to the account of creation; the same false choice is often posited for the Bible as a whole: "One must take the whole Bible as literal, or one must disregard the whole Bible." And that, I argue, is just crazy. The Bible is very clearly not completely literal. It definitely is literal in parts -- the historical passages. But it definitely is not literal in other parts -- the parables.

Now, while I'm willing to say that "evolution" and "God" are not mutually exclusive, I am equally not willing to put God in the role of mere "blind watchmaker," who set things in motion and stepped back. His involvement is greater than that, if the Bible is to be held as essentially truthful, if not literal.

Could humans have "evolved" with God's guidance from some earlier form of life? Sure ... what aspect of God's omnipotence would prohibit it? Did we turn out as we did based on pure random chance? That I can't reconcile with Biblical teachings. But might God have shepherded the process along to a conclusion he ordained, and at some critical point reach down and infuse into that creature the "likeness" of God; that is, the emotional and spiritual qualities that make us unique? Sure ... why not? The Genesis account of Adam and Eve might be just that -- a picture telling of a deeper mystery we could never comprehend without a simple story to give us a framework of reference.

Who knows when that happened. 10,000 years? 50,000 years? I don't know. But Kubrick knew because he made a movie about it. Some poor pig paid the ultimate price for that spark. And that one monkey had a heck of an arm if he could hurl that bone all the way into space. By the way, how could a bone instantly turn into an orbiting H-bomb? Is that one of the mediation features of the "Advanced ESB?" :-)

R.C. Sproul made this point in the first instalment of his "Overview of the Bible" series -- in today's worldview, what may be the most important two words in the opening of Genesis to get people to really ponder is: In the beginning, God created ...

Get that concept established and other things can flow. But the forces of evil used the theory of evolution to attack that essential first premise.

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now ... or out of the pulpit. :-)