Two Ways of Thinking

Let us make sure we understand that when we are dealing with religious questions and scientific questions, we are dealing with two different ways of describing reality, and that the two should not be confused. Genesis is not a scientific account of the Creation, and should not be so interpreted. It deals with "Why?" and its answer is "God." Modern science looks at the world and asks, "How" and its answer is that the world slowly evolved -- an answer that in no sense undermines belief in God.Here are four statements: 2+2=4.
I love you.
Babe Ruth hit 619 home runs in his major league career. I love you too.

It should be clear that statements one and three are of a different order from statements two and four. One and three are factually verifiable: "you can look them up." Statements two and four cannot be "proved" in the same way; but they can be much "truer" for the meaningful living of life than any number of so-called "factual" statements.

Look at the point in one other way, since it is important. In Shakespeare play As You Like It, we are told that there are ". . . tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones." The speaker is saying that there are lessons to be learned from the woods. The metaphors help to underline the truth of his statement. But the statement is obviously not "true" as an actual literal set of facts. Just let some factually minded proofreader get ahold of Shakespeare's play, and he would soon set Shakespeare straight! He would revise it as follows:

which we would decode to read "trunks in trees, stones in the running brooks, sermons in books." These statements would be factually true but quite unimportant. Shakespeare's statement is a valuable description of the woods, while the proofreader's statement is pointless, even though scientifically accurate.

Return now to the Creation stories. The point of the Creation stories is not illumined by a squabble over the number of hours in each "day" (and let it be remembered that the Bible says that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years," so that there is really no conflict from that point of view). The important thing is that God created. (Read that sentence out loud twice, emphasizing first one, and then the other, italicized word.) Whether it was done in 24 hours, or 24,000 years, or 24,000,000,000, years, is quite beside the point. In other words, we can accept all that science has to tell us within its legitimate field of inquiry (which is answering the question "How?") and not be disturbed when we turn to religious inquiry (which deals with the question "Why?"). Our only quarrel will be with the people who claim that science has all the answers, that it can answer the question "Why?" as well as the question "How?" The scientist has a perfect right to tell us how old the world is, and how it has come to be what it is, by analyzing rock structures, tree rings, and so forth. But if he tries to tell us why the world has come into being at all, he is immediately in an area where he has to go beyond the strict scientific evidence.

The Genesis stories, then, are the product of religious devotion meditating on the significance of the Creation, and pointing out its inescapable religious truth and relevance to us.