Christian Evolution
Sermon preached in St Salvator's Chapel, St Andrews on the 3rd February, 2008 by Dr Rona Ramsay
Readings: Genesis 2: 5 - 9 and 2 Peter 1: 16 - 21
Sermon
To a Biochemist, giving a talk without PowerPoint illustrations is an almost overwhelming task. Not for the scientist the elegant prose of the philosopher proposing abstract ideas, rather the need to show exact pictures, tables, formulae and statistics.
Most of my talks to a general audience have been on the wider implications of my own research that deals with how enzymes, the biological catalysts, control and alter cell function and how chemicals can inhibit enzymes to rectify cellular malfunction ¿ in other words, drug design. Questions were generally: "Can you cure"? The answers were: yes, we can cure this but no we cannot cure that - yet. Such is the curiosity and creativity of the human brain that we can design sophisticated tools to explore everything that makes us tick (not just biological clocks) to the atomic level. For example, at the Centre For Biomolecular Sciences where I have my lab, X-ray crystallographers clone and purify proteins until they form crystals that can diffract X-rays to reveal every atom. This structural information is one of my tools.
However, in the USA, where I worked for many years, the question of evolution would often be posed. It seems to me (based only on information in the media) that creationists in the USA address evolution from a point of ignorance of science and, similarly, many proponents of evolution address religion as a detractor to be squashed without real knowledge of faith. Thus a divide is set up where there should be none - we do not expect science and art history to give the same analysis of a painting! The question of 'Can a scientist believe in the resurrection?', addressed in the first of the James Gregory lecture series held in St Andrews just before Christmas reflects this vague notion that science and faith are opposite, rather than complementary aspects of intelligent life. So my theme today is evolution, exploring the parallels of the evolutionary process in the life of a Christian.
First, I must nail my flag to the mast: I see Creationism as dangerously underestimating the meaning of omnipotent. It limits God to sketching a process of creation without detail or scale bars, a black box. Given the detail of function in the pinnacle of creation - the human- it would not be logical to do that. If you believe in God then you cannot limit His power to your own narrow view. God is fully capable of creation in high-resolution digital full colour 3-D video accompanied by the book on the series, of course. As a biochemist, I marvel at molecular regulation as I do a butterfly, flower, hills or sky. Every cell in your body is more complicated to run than a large city such as London, yet each one of the individual reactions depends on two or three atoms lining up in the correct place at the correct time.
Quote part of Prof Robert Crawford's poem, Biology:
Our days and ways, our chromosomes are numbered,
Lettered, making up a long tagged story
A still unfolding Book of Genesis,
but one, like poetry, lost in translation.
It continues later,
Enzyme legends each a secret pathway
Through tiny mitochondric organelles
Where carnitine the label proteins read
Acts out unseen, wee recognition scenes
Atom-fine get-togethers, microbondings
Pos and neg held in cyclic shape
And there in trees in cats or human kidneys
Articulates a sort of word made flesh
The poem ends:
...all are held in one
Genetic myth, one loch Ness deep compelling
Deft, intermolecular embrace.
You must remember that the kind of detail that makes up a complex system such as a human being has developed from the primordial soup step by miniscule step. Let me now define evolution. Initially formulated as a theory based on present forms of life by Lamark and by Darwin and much supported by fossil evidence, it is an ongoing process of change in response to the environmental pressure of selection. Modern research made possible by PCR and computer data handling have opened doors to the kind of evidence that scientists need repeatable, statistically significant, and further testable. At the University of Dundee Christmas lecture in December, the geneticist Prof Steve Jones of UCL gave one of the most accessible truly scientific public lectures that I have ever heard. (His books are similarly clear so try them if you want to explore further (Genetics for beginners; In the Blood: God, Genes and Destiny). In the lecture, he described what scientists have learned about the tiny fragment of RNA that is the AIDS virus since its discovery in 1983. It is clear that the virus jumped into the human population at least twice and after transport to the new world, it evolved differently in the different populations, so that Haitian and Bay area types are substantially different. Prof Jones presented the evolutionary tree similar to those you must have seen for the evolution of mammals, birds, fish etc. You must remember that each change arises from one single base mutation (one single error). Many of these will have no effect, but if this 'error' actually helps the survival or success (defined as multiplication) of the virus, then more of these altered viruses survive to reproduce ("selection¿ as defined by Darwin). This ongoing process has been closely monitored worldwide for the AIDS virus and when plotted, the changes give a straight line that can be extrapolated back to about 1930. The extrapolation was given credibility by a sample preserved from 1950 that gave sequence information putting it right on the line. This is clear scientific evidence that evolution has taken place over 25 years studying the AIDS virus.
OK - that is a virus (seen by some as primitive ¿ but actually very sophisticated parasites). What about humans, God's perfect creation, in His own image? We are evolving too. Professor Jones explained, with enviable clarity to the packed two lecture theatres in Dundee, the process of viral entry into cells, a necessary part of the life cycle, and how our cells try to combat such entry. Looking at one short little repeated bit of sequence in the gene for one of these defence proteins, researchers found 2 or 3 repeats in the general population. In the Bay area Caucasian HIV population, they found 4 or 5, but in the African population they found 10 - 13, correlating with the HIV+ve survival proportions. Further when they examined chimps that live quite happily with HIV+ve status, they found 23 or more repeats. Simple duplication acted upon by selection for survival is clear evolution in humans in a remarkably short time. So current high tech science can demonstrate human evolution in addition to the historical traces left by our appendix and tailbones!
I would like to turn now to the parallels in Christian life: evolution of a Christian.
Very few Christians come to God by a 'Big Bang' conversion: St Paul is perhaps the most famous, yet it is clear from Paul's writings and other historical traces that God may have been calling him for some time before - his legalistic approach to persecution would have given him considerable information and discussion with Christians. For most coming to acknowledge God is a slow process where the moment of commitment is not actually clear. How many of these repeats do you need for resistance to HIV? Once you know God's grace, you know that there is no other response but here I am Lord (Samuel). And then you need to evolve to fit the new environment.
Let me quote Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham in his lecture, 'Can a scientist believe in the resurrection': In examining the resurrection, he said that knowledge can come through three paths:
Historic evidence - fragmentary and sometimes biased or misquoted or tampered with;
Scientific - testable theory, repeatable experiments producing accurate data.
Love - Agape - Paul's faith.
The Bishop of Durham explained the knowledge of agape by asking how you know that you are willing to commit to a partner for the rest of your life? I have been married for 25 years and I could not explain it. Similarly with God's love I cannot explain it scientifically but His Spirit is the gift to us to show that love.
So we have historic evidence of Jesus and anthropological evidence thro the faith of all cultures have faith in something outwith ordinary existence (fossils)
Current evidence in the writings of theologians thro the ages (like in the virus AIDS evolution, we see the shifts in thinking)
but faith - the witness of Christians - is unchanged - the basic message that Jesus died for our sins.
Following evolution into development, it is said that Development recapitulates ontogeny - Growth from fertilised egg to adult still takes some of the detours of evolution. A new Christian is like a baby- much evolution and growth before reaching adulthood. A toddler will spend ages trying to fit round pegs into square holes and turning triangles round to get the orientation that will let the shape match the hole for it, yet within a year she will be doing it rapidly, then later mentally, later still applying to art or engineering or abstract mathematics, or just to getting everything into the fridge. We all progress physically and mentally from birth and our growth as a Christian is no different. Just as parents provide educational toys for their children, mature Christians provide education for others, be it ministers teaching, books expanding horizons, prayer groups strengthening. We read the bible and educate ourselves, seek to experience of Christian fellowship and work in all its forms from coffee mornings to praise bands And continue to do so in a process of life long learning and adaptation to all that life or society or relationships throw at us-no Christian can survive without inspiration from fellowship and prayer to make the right choices.
It is the grace of God that directs us towards good evolution in the face of random change. In scientific evolution, random change becomes the norm if the change affects survival to reproduce. (Hence falling apart with age after completion of reproduction). But evolution as a Christian has more stringent goal: not survival but impact on the world
God tells us:
Love God, Neighbour as self
Paul - faith was enough but James tells us that what we do is just as important ¿ faith without works is dead - no longer evolving with God's purpose for each one of us.
In our society, wealth and power are seen as success (survival at all costs - reminiscent of the selfish gene theory). Christian evolution is growth in the grace of God that will make the world a better place- not just in the future but here now around each on of us in daily life. Just that smile as you pass can brighten someone's day!
Truth is what we can learn from history and science, but it is through grace that we know God and have the strength to evolve and develop as Christians working for good in our society.