Excursus on the Origin of Life and Evolution of Biological Complexity (Part 1)
August 07, 2025When most people think of the doctrine of creation, they think exclusively of the creation-evolution debate. But I hope that our study of the doctrine of creation over the last several months has helped you to see how much richer the doctrine of creation is. Still, the question of how God created life and the biological diversity around us is an important and interesting aspect of the doctrine of creation. So I want to now take an excursus from our survey of Christian doctrine to discuss this specific issue.
I. Interpretation of Genesis 1
A. Hermeneutical Principles
Let's begin with the interpretation of Genesis chapter 1. As we saw, Genesis 1:1 is a statement of God's creation of the entire universe ex nihilo. Beginning with verse 2, the first chapter of Genesis then goes on to describe God's creation of a wonderful environment for human beings to live in – a habitable Earth where man might live. We want, first of all then, to take up the interpretation of the remainder of Genesis 1 after verse 1, particularly in conversation with what modern science and the biological theory of evolution has to say about the origins of biological complexity. So let's begin by reading the first chapter of Genesis beginning with verse 2.
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.
And God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
And God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. And God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth.” And it was so. 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. And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the firmament of the heavens.” So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: cattle 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 cattle according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation.
These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
In order to interpret this passage correctly we have to follow some fundamental hermeneutical principles, or principles of interpretation. A fundamental hermeneutical principle that is important in this regard is interpreting a writing according to the literary genre or type in which it belongs. Considerations of genre are absolutely critical to the interpretation of a literary text because if the genre of that literary text is of the sort that isn't intended to be taken literally, then you will misinterpret it if you do interpret it in a literal fashion. For example, when the psalmist says, Let the trees of the wood clap their hands before the Lord, he's not trying to teach botany. This is of the genre of poetry, and it would be a disastrous misinterpretation of the Psalms to apply a literalistic interpretation to what the psalmist says. Or, again, think how inappropriate it would be to apply a literalistic hermeneutic to the book of Revelation where the monsters and other figures represent nation-states or alliances of nation-states. They are symbolic. When I first became a Christian as a teenager, I thought that the book of Revelation was describing literal seven-headed monsters that were going to come out of the ocean and attack mankind. But, as you begin to understand the type of literature that the book of Revelation is, then you understand that Jewish apocalyptic literature is highly symbolic and figurative and that therefore it would be a mistake to take it literally. If you interpreted the book of Revelation literally you would fundamentally misunderstand it. So when we come to Genesis chapter 1, considerations of genre will be important in deciding how to interpret it correctly.
Another hermeneutical principle that we should observe here is to try to determine how the original author and audience would have understood the text. We should examine the account on its own basis as the author and original audience would have understood it. A great many Christians today follow a hermeneutic that has been called concordism, which involves reading modern science into the text of Scripture. For example, some Christians have claimed that the Bible predicts the invention of television because it says that when Christ returns every eye will see him, and that's impossible on a spherical Earth and therefore the Bible must be predicting the invention of television which will televise the second coming of Christ so that everyone will be able to see him. They're reading modern science into the biblical text. Or, again, more relevant to Genesis 1 and the creation account, some Christians read texts like the Lord stretched out the heavens to be a reference to the expansion of space predicted by the contemporary Big Bang model according to which space is expanding as time goes on. It seems to me that it is absolutely wrong-headed to think that this is what the original author had in mind. When he said that the Lord stretched out the heavens, he's probably thinking of a tent which is spread out, and in the same way that the tent has been erected so God is responsible for creating the heavens overhead.
The obvious danger of concordism, apart from misunderstanding the text, is that it runs into the danger of reading obsolete science into the text. You can imagine some 17th or 18th century Newtonian physicist reading the Scripture in light of Newtonian physics, which are now out of date, so that that understanding of Scripture would be obsolete. Every generation would be reading its science into the text. Rather, we need to understand the original text as its author and his audience would have understood it.
Now, I'm obviously not saying that we should not engage in the project of seeking an integrative understanding of science and the teaching of Scripture. On the contrary, such a project is vital, I think, if we're to have an informed and relevant theological worldview. We need to have a synoptic worldview which takes account of the findings of modern science as well as theology. But that's a later project. The first project is the task of interpreting the text itself, and rather than trying to impose modern science onto the Genesis account (or to read it in light of modern science), we want to bracket, as it were, what we know of modern science – set that aside – and try to read the account as it would have been understood by the original people who read it. I think when we do that, a number of different competing interpretations of the Genesis account emerge. What I'd like to do is go through some of these competing interpretations with you.
That brings us to the end of the class. What we'll do next week is to take up the first of several rival interpretations of Genesis 1, and this will be the literal interpretation of the passage.