Of course not. Creation and evolution are mutually contradictory. But as is so often the case, reality is not as black-and-white as you have been led to believe. There are more than two possible positions on the creation and evolution debate, forming somewhat of a continuum. Millard Erickson (Christian Theology, second ed, pp. 501-7) identifies five major positions that people take on the debate between creation and evolution:

1. Naturalistic Evolution – The position that God does not exist, and that each species evolved by chance through natural selection alone.
2. Deistic Evolution – The position that God exists, but did not play a role in guiding evolution. At most, God created conditions that would facilitate independent evolution.
3. Theistic Evolution – Similar to Deistic Evolution, this position holds that God exists but allowed physical evolution to play out on its own. Where this position differs from the deistic view is in positing that at some point God added a spiritual element in order to create humanity.
4. Progressive Creation – This position holds that God created each individual species, but allowed for natural development within each species, which Erickson calls “intrakind” evolution, or microevolution.
5. Fiat Creation – God made each species in its entirety as a unique, direct creative act. There is no sense in which humanity developed out of other species.

Erickson himself argues for position four because he believes it takes account of the biblical data as well as the physical evidence that there appear to be transitions between species.

Erickson’s mistake is in drawing a sharp distinction between natural processes and God’s intervention. Erickson’s posits that God sometimes acts supernaturally and sometimes acts through natural processes. But I would want to press him on exactly this point. If God is acting and directing in both cases, then is there really even a distinction between the two? It would seem more appropriate to say that God directed the entire process, but sometimes His direction was more evident than at other times. If this is the case, I fail to see why we wouldn’t just call it Theistic Evolution. It is essentially evolution at God’s direction.

If Erickson is wrong, then which of the other four positions should we adopt?

I’m not sure that any of them are right. Erickson’s five categories miss some of the most important distinctions in the debate. Before deciding on an answer, consider the following questions:

• If God exists, would it be more likely that life developed independently, or under God’s direction?
• Is it possible that God could have guided the process of natural chance? Or is this merely a contradiction of terms? Scripture seems to leave a place for finding God’s order behind apparent randomness. Does God direct every seemingly random event?
• Can it rightly be called creation if God worked through ordinary processes to create? Or does creation require supernatural intervention?

Erickson’s categories do not capture the importance of these questions. I suggest reworking the options as follows:

1. Naturalistic Evolution – This position can be held independently of one’s view of the existence of God. But on this view one thing is certain: regardless of whether God exists, He was not the guiding force behind the development of life.
2. Theistic Natural Evolution – God exists and brought about life providentially through the natural processes of chance. This view would require that it is possible for an event to be completely random and yet have the result be directed by God. What appears to be a contradiction is, on this view, merely a paradox that is difficult to comprehend but not actually contradictory.
3. Evolutionary Creation – This position holds that life developed over time, as in Darwinian evolution, but the most important  developments were due to God’s intervention, not the ordinary process of chance.
4. Sequential Creation – God created life sequentially, from less complex to more complex, like a master architect, building upon the previous plans. God has never caused one species to evolve into another species.

This way of drawing the map differs from Erickson’s in several key ways. First, I don’t see any relevant distinction between Naturalistic Evolution and Deistic Evolution. The essential question is whether the process was guided. God’s existence is not particularly relevant to this discussion. Either way, on the Naturalistic Evolution view, it would be a misnomer to call nature, “creation.” Second, Erickson does not seem to consider the possibility that randomness could be divinely directed through God’s providence. If such a concept is not a logical absurdity, then it is not a contradiction to believe in both “creation” and Darwinian evolution; they would be two words for the same thing. Third, the term “Progressive Creation” is misleading. Erickson’s position is really a form of evolution; it’s just that he rejects naturalism. This is why I think ”Evolutionary Creation” is a better term for his position.

So which position should a Christians hold? Historically, the most important element that theologians have stressed is the divine plan behind our existence. Thus a Christian may legitimately hold options two, three, or four. Only option one may not be held consistently with traditional Orthodox Christian theology.

It appears that Option four, Sequential Creation, sits somewhat uncomfortably with the physical evidence. But it is not as incompatible as Erickson would have us believe. ”Sequential Creation” makes more sense out of transitional forms than when it is labeled “Fiat Creation.”

Options two and three sit somewhat uncomfortably with Genesis 1. But they are not as incompatible as our more conservative brothers and sisters would have us believe. There is a long tradition in Christian theology, going back at least to Augustine, that holds that Genesis 1 is meant to be interpreted as a poem (and thus we should be open to the possible use of metaphor) rather than a straightforward historical account.

My view of scripture is that it is primarily a covenantal document between God and His people. I have not found a compelling theological reason to invest  the first several chapters of Genesis  with the historical authority that conservatives want to give it. That is not to say that I reject these chapters, but merely that I am just not quite sure what to do with them. I am much more comfortable withholding judgment on the grounds of conflicting evidence than I am taking a stand either way and being forced to shut my eyes to any evidence that doesn’t fit my view.

1. Context is crucial for understanding Marx. The Manifesto was written in response to the social situation of Europe in 1847. As a stupid American, I was never taught this history in school. What I know about the mid 1800s is the civil war and the abolition of slavery. Marx makes frequent reference to European social developments in his recent history but I don’t know any of them. Surprisingly, he never once references African-American slavery.  I can find no points of connection with Marx. The public school system has completely failed me.

2. What is the context? We all know that factories in the late 1800s and early 1900s were bad. After all, Samantha’s best friend Nelly had to work in a factory, and she got to see first hand how bad the conditions were. (You can learn a lot from having a daughter who loves American Girl.) But this is not the context of Marx’s manifesto. In fact, in his introduction from the 1872 edition, he comments how much things have changed in 25 years since 1847. He would have written things differently at this point, but did not feel he had the right to alter his own book, which had already become a historical document.

3. Aren’t manifestos supposed to be timeless? Not that any document can be truly timeless, but it would seem that a manifesto of this sort should strive for timelessness. And with this being the quintessential manifesto, I was surprised to realize how completely time-dependent it was. Rather than a statement of general communist principles, the communist manifesto was really an application of the communist principles to a particular point in time, i.e. 1847. This is not to say that he doesn’t cover general principles. He does. But before he does, he responds to the criticisms of communism from his opponents, which presupposes a basic knowledge of communism to begin with. The problem for me, as a reader who grew up in the 80s, is that I associate communism with Lenin, Stalin, Gorbechov, and the downfall of the U.S.S.R. As someone trying to disassociate Marx from a so-called communist system that came after him, he is not giving me very much help.

4. The world situation is much different today. I find myself reading Marx and saying, “Yeah but it’s not like that anymore.” We live in such a different world now, an information age instead of an industrial age. I can’t really even comprehend how Marx’s philosophy would even apply to my world, much less evaluate whether I agree or disagree with him.

5. Was Marx a hero? Today anti-monopoly and labor laws have eliminated many of the grossest abuses of Marx’s day. Employers give paid vacations, and if you earn minimum wage in America you are in the wealthiest 15% of world. (Click here to see what percentile you are in comparison with the rest of the world.) In his introduction to the Bantum Classic edition, Vladimir Pozner argues that these improvements were at least partially in response to the Communist Russian revolution. At times I found myself reading the Manifesto and wondering if we owe Marx a debt of gratitude.

6. Was Marx a villain? Marx did advocate for bloody revolution wherever necessary. With this in mind, I may have a debt of gratitude, but I am placing a call to dispute the charges. Why did Marx feel revolution was okay? Simply because he was convinced that he was right. Yikes! Marx was more extremest than any fundamentalist.

7. Communism is not a political system. The biggest disappointment I have is that I still don’t “get” Communism. I am aware that we are not to equate Communism with Fascism, as we saw exemplified in the U.S.S.R. and every other communist country. Communism is supposed to be opposed to capitalism, not opposed to democracy. In fact, true communism, in its fight for equality, is supposed to be most democratic. In the Manifesto, Marx seems completely unaware that anything but equality could come from a proletariat uprising. History has shown that as soon as people revolt for the cause of equality, wicked leaders will soon rise up and declare themselves to be more equal than everybody else.

What do you think? Does Marx deserve our praise? Our condemnation? Is he even worthy of our attention anymore? Leave a comment below.

Admitedly, I studied the wrong word list, which is why I got all but two wrong. Don’t ask me why I thought hypakoe was a verb rather than a noun. Probably because I was so flustered.

But what I really hate about Greek exegesis is that it is so far removed from real life. Why do I have to know that a particular participle is an “instrumental participle of means” instead of an “attributive adjectival participle?” Okay, I get how the grammar is working. (Not the vocab perhaps, as demonstrated above, but I do generally get the grammar.) But why do I have to memorize a series of inane technical terms?

Do you know why? Because lots of people use these technical terms to overexegete the text and twist it to say something it’s not saying.

I am putting off studying right now. I am sitting down at the computer, frustrated, resisting getting into my exegesis homework. Why? Because I don’t want to have to pick apart every prepositional phrase and every clause in every verse in 1 Peter 1, and decide which dumb grammatical name to give it.

I was really excited because my professor put together a couple of PDFs that she called “The Least You Need to Know” (LYNK). Cool, I like that. I can learn the least I need to know. What is that? Like 3 pages of notes? A quick reference list? Something useful? Nope, none of the above. It is a 49-page grammatical manual. The least I need to know is 49 pages! What would I do if she had given me the Most I Should Know (MISK)? What, like 400 pages?

So what bothers me is that I should love exegesis. I should be eating this stuff up because it’s right up my alley. Okay, maybe not the vocab. Okay, maybe not the verb paradigms. But judging from my bookshelves, I’m supposed to love this stuff.

Why is it that I would rather shoot myself than do my exegesis homework?