As I write this we are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin whose work, published 50 years later, caused such a stir and opened up a great debate between religious and scientific circles. On the one side we have the proponents of evolution and on the other the fundamental element of the Christian Church. Today the debate about whether there is a supreme controlling being or whether the universe, of which we are a part, just arose of its own accord continues. The litteralists on the religious side are perhaps being replaced by those who allow for a form of evolution that is directed by an external influence which we call God. On the Evolution side the concept has been taken much further than Darwin would have conceived, claiming that evolution can be applied on a cosmic scale defining the very laws of the universe. Indeed Evolutionism has almost become a religion of its own.

The popular concept is that battle lines are drawn up between the 'There is no God' side which use evolution to disprove the existence of a supreme being, God the creator: and the religious community who look to an all powerful God who not only created the universe, including mankind, but also continues to direct it's affairs. But in my view trying to prove or disprove the existence of God from the natural universe leads the wrong way and ultimately brings God down to a level little higher than mankind. The concept of God is like that of a sculptor to the marble he is working. He is entirely outside the object, disconnected from it. If this were true it might conceivably be possible to prove something about His existence or non-existence but some scientists and theologians have a view of God which makes Him much more connected with the world around us. A view that might worry some of my more fundamentalist acquaintances who would be suspicious that it is tending to what used to be called New Age thinking where God is to be found in nature. I put forward three clues about the nature of God.

Firstly John, the disciple of Jesus, writing to the early Christians gives us a clue. When talking about how we should show love towards each other he give this insight, 'God is Love'. This takes us to the higher, spiritual plane, the area of relationship, where perhaps we have the biggest hurdle to overcome, does God have personality that we can connect to? However for the moment let us consider the possibility that we might also say 'God is the laws of nature or physics'. The opening words of the Bible give us an indication that this may be true when we read the insight of the early story tellers as they say that the Spirit (or nature) of God moved over the unformed universe. When God spoke things happened, may be including the so called Big Bang. Could this be God giving physical expression to His nature, a nature which defines everything both physical and spiritual.

Another indication is the name by which God announces Himself to Moses and through him to the Israelites in Egypt, God says His name is "I AM WHO I AM". This rather enigmatic statement is perhaps God's way of indicating His intimate connectedness with the whole of life and creation. There is not anything which is apart from God. Consider also the possibility that we can also say that 'God is Mercy' or 'God is Justice' etc. and especially that 'God is Goodness'. Notice that we cannot turn these statements round, if we do we create lots of little gods instead of one Supreme God.

If these ideas are true there are many implications and some deep questions to ask, but they also give us a hint at how the questions can be answered. Perhaps the most often asked and deepest of these questions is 'How can a good all powerful God allow all the evil and suffering in the world?' A negative answer to this question is a much more valid reason for rejecting the existence of God than the fact that evolution can seemingly explain everything. It is perfectly possible for God to exist and be using evolution as a tool in His purposes. All our probing into physics, biology and cosmology are ways of understanding one aspect of the nature of God.

For myself I believe that these arguments between Evolution and Creationism are distractions that draw us away from the important issues of Christianity. Of course if God does not exist then those claims are nothing but groundless stories. But if there is a God he may be like the Heavenly Father to whom Jesus Christ introduces us. A personal presence who has laid down the laws by which we should live and who desires that we acknowledge Him and live by those rules. Jesus came to teach us how we should conduct our lives, with love for God and our neighbour as the grounding. But he also came to do something else much more important. He came to restore us to that relationship with our creator that we initially had, being made in the image of God.

The relationship with our creator was broken when mankind, epitomised by Adam and Eve in the creation stories, said in effect to God, "We want to go our own way and make our own rules about living" Ever since then we have let selfishness, hatred, bitterness and apathy, and many other Godless attitudes, govern our lives. We can see all these things going on around us as we read or see the news each day, and if we are truly honest with ourselves we can see these things in us. Most of us often feel sorry that we let these negative attitudes creep into our relationships but we know too how difficult it is to go any other way and we can see how if taken to excess they can lead to the terrible things that humans seem capable of. The gospels tell us that Jesus Christ was sent by God to experience what it was like to be human and to take upon himself the ultimate penalty for letting these attitudes be part of our lives. As Christians we believe that in some mysterious way Jesus was both Man and God and that as he was crucified on the cross he suffered that utter rejection that we are destined for. Our faith and hope is that if we surrender ourselves to the Father God in true repentance for our rejection of His ways and call upon Jesus Christ for forgiveness we can share in eternal life in the presence of a loving God.

Our basis for belief in God is not in evolution or cosmology but in the way people have been changed by meeting with Jesus. The New Testament in the Bible is full of accounts of people being changed after meeting Jesus or one of his followers, and down the ages there are many other tales of radical changes in people's attitudes and ways of life. And many of us can testify to being changed ourselves, though imperfectly, by meeting with the risen Jesus Christ. It is not so much that we are argued into the Heavenly Kingdom as being drawn there by the work of God's Spirit.

  Written - 12th Feb. 2009

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