Throughout Coming to Peace with Science Darrel Falk
Christian Faith and Evolution Instructions:
The following needs to be completed. It is a chapter summary for Chapter 3 and 4 of coming to peace with Science by Darrel R Falk. I pulled this of the Internet as the summary. Each Chapter summary should be 1 page in length and should expand on the below summary you can add other research that is related to the summary. Throughout Coming to Peace with Science Darrel Falk has to grapple with the problem of how to balance being a scientist with being a Christian. Scientists have to balance carrying out experiments and developing theories that contradict or call into question religious beliefs. The theories concerning evolution have caused much controversy between science and religion especially during the 19th century. In chapter 3 Falk discusses the time frame of creation. Earlier scientific research starting with Charles Darwin had made the time line of creation as described in Genesis seem totally implausible. Evolution dented the belief that the Bible was literally true even if it could not prove whether God was behind the creation of life or not. Darwin himself remained a committed Christian who believed that the evolution theory could still prove that God created life.
Falk simply and carefully outlines many different forms of evidence relating to the age of the earth and universe, and he discusses their reliability, including different forms of radioactive dating. Evidence from the expansion of the universe and the distance of the furthest stars, all pointing to an extremely old earth of about 4.6 billion years and an even older universe. Even the oldest tree ring data, Lake sediment data and ice core data suggest dates greater than 12,000, 35,000 and 180,000years respectively. All, of which, he indicates, greatly increase his sense of awe at the greatness and majesty of God. God is eternal so time to him is unlimited and infinite. God does not think of time in seconds, minutes and hours like people do, he thinks of it in ages of thousands if not millions of years. That is a time scale that people with finite lifetimes find difficult to grasp fully.
In chapter 4 of Coming to Peace with Science Falk deals at length with the fossil record and its links with the age of rocks. Falk points to the increasing evidence of new transitional species being found. In the concluding parts of chapter 4 he suggests that the evidence all consistently point to a picture of God creating the universe rather than a series of chain reactions instigated at random and creating everything by accident rather than by design. Evolution theory does not undermine the idea of God being the Supreme creator of the universe. God can be believed to be “…guiding and influencing a process that involves gradual change…” to create all the organisms of our present world and that God has given us the“…privilege…of being able to peer back in time to see the masterpiece unfolding.” Here Falk is suggesting that God wanted people to understand the greatness of his creations to inspire faith in him and admire the universe he alone created. God started life off in the world to evolve over billions of years, which gradually led to the emergence of humanity, the one species capable of understanding the greatness of his creations, yet also capable of destroying much of those very same creations. Humanity is the greatest user and abuser of God’s creations yet it should assume the role and responsibility of conserving as much as possible of God’s creations. God created the universe for the benefit of humanity and all the other species that live in it. Falk contends that this was and remains a truly wonderful creation that should leave nobody in doubt about God’s great powers and our comparative weakness as individuals although as a species humanity has the ability to affect evolution by accident or inadvertently and occasionally by design. Evolution does not therefore the existence of God less likely, indeed it makes tat existence more likely.
Bibliography
D R Falk Coming to peace with Science