Creature, Culture and Nature
The conflict between Creationism and Evolutionism has been settled.The author sees both of them as the two facets of the same medal.
Creature, Culture and Nature
The settlement of the conflict between The Theory of Creation and The Theory of Evolution.(First Part)
Peoples of all cultures have always been fascinated by the reality of God(s). Whether it is understood as impersonal absolute or in terms of personal monotheism or in terms of polytheism, the concept of God(s) implies the reality of being, knowledge and joyful power greater than humans.
At some point in time or in life, nearly everyone turns to the self-conscious center of value called God(s) through prayers and offerings for protection and well being. In other words, aware of their limitations, human beings accept themselves as poor creatures that could not go far beyond reason and imagination. Furthermore, this acceptance affirms or confirms the idea of humans being created as one element among others, which constitute the creation.
There may be an advantage in stating our thesis, immediately. That is: The Creation theory is dominating over but not conflicting with The Evolution theory. These are different, but they are not separate. They register the truth from two (2) perspectives, that the ultimate perception may have a depth and vividness greater than either one alone could give.
Mankind with its diversified culture is a fragile creature living in nature. As a matter of fact, you and I are fragile creatures. Although, it is scientifically difficult to swallow, we do not know too many human beings that are willing to disprove such assertion, which is as old as the universe. As Robert S.Ellwood puts it: Because we can think about only one thing at a time, there are millions of real things we are not thinking about, and in this way the nature of our consciousness identified with personality makes us terribly limited. Because our personalities are really constructed out of various human desires, anxieties, defenses, and cosmic ignorance, they provide poor models for God(s).
Mankind can not get along successfully of its smallness. For survival, it needs to rely upon the center of reference called God(s), the touchstone of meaning beyond which one can not go; it needs to rely upon the personality that transcends human limitations. Like a bird within its cage, humankind complies to the idea of a superior being with the will and the ability to implementation. That is the theory of Creation. From a purely human perspective, something comes out from nothing( creation Ex-nihilo).
The earliest account of creation of the world came from the Babylonians and other ancient peoples. It was essentially consisted of the following:
The chaos, which lay back of the created universe, was ruled over by the god Apsu and the goddess Tiamat. The higher gods conquered Apsu; but not until Marduk, the highest of all, was called upon could the more dreadful Tiamat be slain. Then, it was out of the body of Tiamat that the solid frame of things was shaped. Split in two, one half of her was made into the earth and the other half into the firmament above it.
According to William Lyon Phelps, our western civilization is founded upon the Bible than from all other books put together. It may be of great interest to consider also the account of creation as stated in the Bible:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: And God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided 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 the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, let the waters under the heaven are gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters he called Seas. And God saw that it was good (genesis 1:1-10).
Obviously, both accounts of creation emerge from a misty region of tradition and transmitted myth in which imagination precedes knowledge. Yet there is a question, which necessarily will rise- the question as to whether we have a right to shrink the foundations of The Creation theory for lack of consistency with respect to a scientific standpoint.
Between the differing judgments there can be no wholly categorical and dogmatic conclusion. No present knowledge can positively prove or disprove the Creation theory. However, we know that humans have the conviction of things not seen. We all feel realities, which cannot with any mathematical rigidity be defined or described. In any age, our means of expression have always been imperfect. So the poet arises, and the artist gifted with divine inspiration to suggest by symbolic words and forms the truths which no flat prose or scientific measurement can represent. Again, here is Robert S. Ellwood to tell us the virtue of great art is that, it expresses feelings or
visions that many have ha but have not been able to put into form or word.
The poet Shelley wrote: Life, like a dome of many colored-glasses, Stains the white radiance of Eternity. How can life (abstract entity) be like a dome of many colored glasses (concrete entity)? In terms of raw fact, this is not true; in terms of the living meaning it conveys, it is true to the point of inspiration. So, all imaginative stories, including the element of myth, relative to The Creation Theory, constitute the efforts of men to put truth into picture. Babylonians and other ancient peoples have told the truth in such a way that humans can understand things seen, heard, and felt. Moreover, the daring of the poet was critical to these peoples who could not go by any means further in the exploration of the universe and themselves. Although a lack of scientific arguments tends to weaken The Creation theory, it stands like a big tree in the hearts and the minds of innumerable generations that have been powerfully affected by it.
But life is not static; life is growth, and in growth there are often growing pains. New ideas emerge. Copernicus and Galileo asserted that the earth is not the center of the universe but a little satellite that goes around the sun; geologists and paleontologists came to the evidence that the earth had not been made in six days but slowly formed through almost unimaginable time. Later, came Charles Darwin with his astonishing theory of Evolution, which pictured man as emerging slowly out of an ancestry that went back to subhuman life. Primitive traditions, which had come from the naive thinking of various peoples in the human family, are considered to be irrelevant and less convincing. New thinkers seek testable explanations for observed phenomena. This is the context to which the scientific-oriented Theory of Evolution is related.
According to William Haviland, The Evolution is not a single theory. It had been put forward by a number of writers. Because of his works on natural selection, which is critical to the evolutionary process, the whole theory is attributed to Charles Darwin. According to different sources, his theory was best able to account both for changes within species and for the emergence of new species in purely naturalistic terms.
The search for human ancestry and the discoveries in recent years have produced thousands of fossils and an explosion of knowledge about early hominid ancestors. Today, biologists classify all living things with scientific names to show evolutionary relationships. In the latter half of the 19th Century and the early years of the 20th Century, a Neanderthal man was found in Germany, a Cro-Magnon in France and a Java man in the Dutch East Indies. All were well up on the ladder of human evolution, and all belonged to the Genus Homo.
In 1924, the skull of a child born one to two million years ago was found in South Africa. This is the earliest example of primordial bipedal man yet discovered. It pushed human ancestry far back into the shadowy past. Further, it offered the first evidence in Africa of early hominids.
Based on Evolution theory, scientists have been able to track the traces of early man. Consequently, we know that Africa is the birthplace of the earliest biped. It has also been a home to all subsequent hominid species. Four(4) Australopithecines have been found only here, as was Homo Habilis. Equipped with a larger brain and specialized stone tools, his sole successor, Homo Erectus moved beyond Africa, reaching Java, China, and probably Southern Europe. Only Homo Sapiens spread farther-peopling Northern Europe and Siberia, and perhaps by 50,000 years ago, moving on to Australia by sea and later walking across the Bering Straight to the Western hemisphere.
The Theory of Creation and that of Evolution represent, in my view, two(2) facets of the same medal. They both register the truth from two(2) different perspectives. The former turns out to lead into a fabulous world in which only symbols can open up a virtual universe of transcendent feeling and meaning; the latter leads to a real world in which a cat is a cat. The former brings meaning to the object observed by the latter.
The Theory of Evolution has the advantage of standing the test of scientific scrutiny remarquably well whereas The Creation Theory does not. Nevertheless, to some extent, one completes the other.
The Theory of Evolution had come not to blight the oldest one but to stimulate it to new growth. If it seemed at first to break up old patterns of belief, the result was to lift mens eyes to broader perspectives.
William Newton Clarke expresses the right attitude. He wrote of his own change of thought from old traditionalism to a wider understanding: Certainly, no man for the cheap purpose of standing in with what is no more than unenlightened traditionalism, ought to say anything that flies in the face of what he genuinely believes to be the established conclusions which a reverently fearless search for truth has reached. It is a poor business, and ultimately a self-defeating one, to enroll among those who are willing to be orthodox liars for the glory of God.
Harry E. Jean-Philippe
About the Author
Harry E. Jean-Philippe is a former journalist.He is a born-writer.He has published various articles in English and in French.He likes to tackle on complex issues..He lives in Charlotte with his wife,Margarett and his daughter,Linda.
Written by: Harry Jean-Philippe
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