Big Bangs
Creationists often assert that the only way a story can be true is if it is literally, historically, and scientifically accurate; here's a link to such an assertion. This requirement for truth means, they claim, that Genesis must be scientifically accurate.
I think this assertion makes God out to be much smaller than He is. Let me see if I can explain by analogy.
If your five-year-old kid asks where babies come from, it is entirely possible that your answer will not be literally, historically, or scientifically accurate. You'll describe sex by analogy ("The mommy and the daddy came together in a special way"), body parts by proximity ("The baby grows inside the mommy's tummy"), and the birthing process according to the barest of details ("The mommy's body tells her that it's time for the baby to be born, so they go to the hospital"). You'll also focus on the parts that it's important for a five-year-old to know: The love of parents, the care of the mother, and the wonder and hope that adults experience during the birth.
Why does a five-year-old need to know about Fallopian tubes?
Kids don't need to have mechanical accuracy about the details of sex, conception, pregnancy, and childbirth, and we don't give those things precisely because we know that they, while interesting, are of very much secondary importance to the important, simple truths that the child really needs to know about. The important stuff might well be obscured in the blizzard of detail needed to communicate technical accuracy.
When it came to the important, simple truths that God wanted to communicate in the Bible, it seems to me that God's people didn't need to know that they descended from other organisms as part of a process that took place over millions of years. They didn't need to know about an event that gave rise to spacetime and matter/energy as we understand them. They needed to know that God is powerful, and good, and purposeful -- and that's what the Genesis story covers, in a way that can be compared and contrasted with other creation myths of the same time and place that the readers would have been familiar with.
Because I really suspect that if God were to try to communicate any truth about creation to us, especially as it appeared from His perspective, He would have to dumb it down. The idea that He would be compelled to get all the mechanical details accurate on every level makes God small, because it implies that that dumbing down is a really short distance, and it implies that what God wants us to know about the affair are the impersonal facts.
Because what really matters is whether or not a kindergartener knows what cellular meiosis is, right?
I think this assertion makes God out to be much smaller than He is. Let me see if I can explain by analogy.
If your five-year-old kid asks where babies come from, it is entirely possible that your answer will not be literally, historically, or scientifically accurate. You'll describe sex by analogy ("The mommy and the daddy came together in a special way"), body parts by proximity ("The baby grows inside the mommy's tummy"), and the birthing process according to the barest of details ("The mommy's body tells her that it's time for the baby to be born, so they go to the hospital"). You'll also focus on the parts that it's important for a five-year-old to know: The love of parents, the care of the mother, and the wonder and hope that adults experience during the birth.
Why does a five-year-old need to know about Fallopian tubes?
Kids don't need to have mechanical accuracy about the details of sex, conception, pregnancy, and childbirth, and we don't give those things precisely because we know that they, while interesting, are of very much secondary importance to the important, simple truths that the child really needs to know about. The important stuff might well be obscured in the blizzard of detail needed to communicate technical accuracy.
When it came to the important, simple truths that God wanted to communicate in the Bible, it seems to me that God's people didn't need to know that they descended from other organisms as part of a process that took place over millions of years. They didn't need to know about an event that gave rise to spacetime and matter/energy as we understand them. They needed to know that God is powerful, and good, and purposeful -- and that's what the Genesis story covers, in a way that can be compared and contrasted with other creation myths of the same time and place that the readers would have been familiar with.
Because I really suspect that if God were to try to communicate any truth about creation to us, especially as it appeared from His perspective, He would have to dumb it down. The idea that He would be compelled to get all the mechanical details accurate on every level makes God small, because it implies that that dumbing down is a really short distance, and it implies that what God wants us to know about the affair are the impersonal facts.
Because what really matters is whether or not a kindergartener knows what cellular meiosis is, right?
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