Creation, Evolution, and the Origin of Civilization
By Lawrence Monks, OCL, MLA
To really understand Western Civilization, we need to go back to where it all started - with the origin of human beings. After all, civilizations are made up of people, so it's only logical that we begin with them. When humans first appeared on the scene, they were nomads, roaming from place to place in search of food and shelter. They didn't settle in one spot, and their lives were heavily influenced by their natural surroundings. However, as time passed, humans began to come together, forming communities and eventually settling in permanent homes.
This marked the beginning of civilization, as people learned to control their environment and work together to create a better life for themselves. Interestingly, this process of civilization first took place in the Fertile Crescent, a region in Sumaria that lies between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Some people even draw parallels between this ancient civilization and the biblical narrative of the Garden of Eden, which describes a paradise on earth where humans first lived in harmony with their surroundings.
By exploring the origins of human civilization, we can gain a deeper understanding of how Western Civilization came to be, and what factors contributed to its growth and development over time. For a long time, people have seen the evolution of the universe, world, and life to be very different from the story of creation in the Bible. But now, with new scientific findings and a better understanding of old languages, it's clear that science and the Bible actually go hand in hand. WHAT? YES! This is especially true when it comes to how humans first appeared on Earth and how the first civilizations started.
It's interesting to think about how these two ways of understanding the world can actually work together to help us learn more about our history and where we come from. By looking at both physical science and the Bible, we can gain a deeper understanding of the origins of our world and our place in it. This new way of thinking can help us see that the story of creation and scientific evolution are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary explanations that can help us better understand the complexities of our existence.
The Scientific Perspective
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Niels Bohr, one of the founders of quantum physics, is quoted by physicist and scientific biographer Abraham Pais in his book The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery (2000) as saying:
"The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you."
Similarly, astro-physicist Dr. Gerald Schroeder, former professor at MIT, argues in his book Genesis and the Big Bang (1991):
"There is no discrepancy between six days of creation and 14 billion years of evolution."
According to the theory of relativity, Schoreder states, time can pass at different rates depending on one's frame of reference. Scientists estimate that “the universe is approximately 14 billion years old, while Genesis describes creation occurring in six days. Schroeder proposes that these six days are measured from the perspective of the early universe rather than from a present Earth day. From this perspective, six biblical ‘days’ could correspond to billions of years of Earth time.”
The Jewish and Christian Perspective
Fr. Seraphim Slobodskoy, a Russian Orthodox priest who immigrated to America during the Cold War, offered a philosophical approach to uniting modern science and the Bible in his book The Law of God. Slobodskoy emphasized the importance of understanding the original Hebrew for “morning” and “evening” as they are used in the Book of Genesis. When these words are properly understood, the apparent conflict between science and Scripture starts to disappear.
The First Day of Creation
On the first day of creation, God created light:
"1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. … 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day."
Hebrew scholars note that the Hebrew word originally used in this biblical passage for “light” is boker, which means “morning” and “order” or “clarity” or “arrangement”. Likewise, the Hebrew word used for “night” is erev, which can mean “evening” or “mixture” or “confusion” or “disorder”. So, the more direct translation of Genesis 1:1-3 can read, “God said, ‘Let there be order from where order does not exist.’”
With regards to what a “day” in the story of creation, the Hebrew word used is yom, which depending on the context can mean either a “24-hour day” or “daylight” or “a season” or “an age or era”. Because of these meanings, many biblical scholars now believe the six days of creation may represent six stages in the development of the universe with its stars, planets, the Earth, and various stages of life until the creation of homo-sapiens.
Together, these meanings suggest that creation moved from disorder to order under God's direction in six clear distinct yoms, and that evolution is currently in the seventh yom. This means that in both Genesis and modern science, the universe has developed in six previous distinct stages from simplicity toward greater complexity and organization. See the diagram of evolution below appears on NASA’s website.
Comparison with Science and the Beginning of the Universe
For many years, scientists believed that the universe was eternal. However, discoveries by astronomers Vesto Slipher and Edwin Hubble showed that galaxies are moving away from one another, revealing that the universe is expanding.
This led to the development of the Big Bang Theory, which teaches that time, space, and matter had a beginning; the universe began in an extremely hot, dense state; as it expanded and cooled stars, planets, and galaxies formed. It is from this point that some Christian theologians began to see a connection between the Big Bang Theory and Genesis 1:3:
"And God said, 'Let there be light.'"
Further, the discovery of cosmic background radiation in1965 by by American radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson provided strong evidence that the universe had a beginning. Therefore, in the first period or yom of evolution of the universe light first appeared. Therefore, the biblical account of the ”first day” teaches that God brought light, energy, order, and purpose into existence where before there was no existence.
The Second Day of Creation
On the second day, God created the “firmament”, which is an English translation from the original Hebrew term raqia, which means “a vast, solid dome or expanse”.
"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters..."
During this period, “God separated the waters and created the space between them. The Hebrew word for water is mah-yim, which refers to the “substance” because the term shares the same linguistic root as the Hebrew word for "heavens" or "sky," which is shamayim. Likewise, the term mah-yim can refer to the substance of what the English language defines as “water” itself.
This reveals that the substance of the physical universe and the abode of God (Heaven) became separated from one another amongst those who can perceive the separation only from the senses of the physical universe. It is at this point in the creation story in the Book of Genesis that God established order and the laws to govern the universe, which includes time itself.” Additionally, it was during this period that energy coalesced to form what human senses perceive to be solidifying matter from non-solidifying matter, which is also known as outer space. With regard to Genesis 1:6-8, St. John of Damascus describes God as having "fixed the earth upon the void" Many educated Christians today see the biblcal passage of the second day as being consistent with the modern understanding of the heavenly bodies, such as earth, beginning to form in their places.
The Third Day of Creation
On the third day, God gathered the waters together so that dry land appeared.
"Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear."
God called the dry land Earth and the gathered waters Seas. He then commanded the Earth to produce grass, plants, trees, seed-bearing vegetation. The earth became prepared for life. Mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, and seas formed, while plant life started to appear acrowss much of the land.
Some scientists have discovered fossils of giant ancient plants. Fr. Seraphim suggests that such plants could have grown under the original light or energy that was created during the day, before the sun became visible. This is what is most important. In comparing this with the creation of the first atoms per the NASA evolutionary process at this time, one can see the beginning stages of perceived matter and the basis of life, which corroborates with the Genesis story.
The Fourth Day of Creation
On the fourth day, God made the sun, moon, and stars visible.
"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven..."
These heavenly lights were established to separate day from night, mark seasons, measure days and years, and give light to the earth. According to Fr. Seraphim, the outer heavenly bodies may have already existed but became visible as Earth's atmosphere cleared. As plants produced oxygen, thick atmospheric gases diminished, allowing the sun, moon, and stars to be seen from the Earth's surface.
The Fifth Day of Creation
On the fifth day, God filled the waters and skies with living creatures.
"And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life..."
During this period, God created fish, sea creatures, shellfish, flying creatures, birds. During this stage of evolution NASA states that galaxies formed amongst the many stars and planets. As such, the flowing pattern of solar systems and the galaxies themselves did “take flight.” So, the explanation of this one planet of earth could have clearly already produced living creatures as the universe had produced planets and stars, and the moving creatures Earth would have produced the first to have taken flight either within the water or in the atmosphere. Either way, they were moving. the God blessed them and commanded them to multiply. Yes, the many planets and stars did come together to create many new galaxies and even new planets. Likewise, on earth life giving form to new life became the natural and yet guided process of life developing into new forms of life. Genesis uses the Hebrew word bara, meaning "to create out of nothing." Fr. Seraphim notes that this word indicates God brought something entirely new into existence: animal life. This something out of nothing applies to new forms of life which did not exist before on Earth as well as new forms of order within the heavens – galaxies.
The Sixth Day of Creation
On the sixth day, God created: reptiles, and land animals. Finally, God created man and woman in His image and likeness.
"Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness."
Now, when comparing the creation story from the Bible with science as Dr. Schroeder does, one may find that the creation of man according to God’s time and science may absolujtely accept the evolution of man from an earlier primate to present day homo sapien. First, the Book of Ecclesiastes provides that "there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens..." Second, 2 Peter provides that "with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." Therefore, the appearance of homo-sapiens man could have taken a yom made up of a long evolutionary period as this term for “day” is now understood.
The Seventh Day of Creation
The seventh day is known as the Sabbath, meaning "rest." After completing creation, God blessed and sanctified this day.
Some Christians understand the seventh day as the ongoing age of human history, which is still continuing today. This means that although God completed the work of creation, Christianity teaches that He continues to sustain and guide the universe. Further, it is during this day or yom that humanity went from becoming homo-sapiens who roamed and gathered to finally establishing its first civilization in the area that anthropologists call the Fertile Crecent, which lies amidst the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Fascinatingly, this matches humanity’s first settlement, which the Bible calls Eden:
"A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. … the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."
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