Creation Story
Genesis 1: 11-12; 24-27
Sermon preached Sunday, July 17, 2005
by Scott Poethig
Those of you who attend Tab regularly will remember that Patricia gave a series of sermons this spring entitled "Quantum Christianity". I found these sermons fascinating, in part because the last course I took in physics was in college some 30 years ago, and that was Newtonian physics. The last place I expected an introduction to quantum theory was in church. I want to thank Patricia, in absentia, for the crash course, and for making it OK to talk about science from the pulpit.
The gist of Patricia's sermons was that quantum theory provides a counter-intuitive-some might say, bizarre--picture of nature. In fact, the picture it provides is so foreign to common experience that even Einstein thought it had to be wrong. His comment "God does not place dice with the universe" described his displeasure with the way that quantum theory relies on equations that define probabilities rather than exactitudes. Despite its inherent bizarreness, quantum theory is considered a correct view of nature because it works: the mathematics that are at the core of quantum theory are able to predict the results of experiments with amazing accuracy. So, even if we can't actually see the subatomic particles described by quantum theory, and even though the picture that quantum theory provides is hard for the human mind to comprehend, physicists believe that it must be so. Their equations and experiments provide "evidence of things unseen". Mendelian genetics works in the same way. Mendel predicted the existence and the behavior of genes and chromosomes by counting how many tall and how many short pea plants he got in different crosses. It took another 50 years before chromosomes were actually observed by scientists, and 100 years before we learned what genes are made of. Mendelian genetics provides an indirect, but an extremely reliable picture of the way genes operate, and thousands scientists, including myself, still use it every day.
Although it is tempting to think that this sort of scientific faith is a bit like religious faith (we can't see God, we can't comprehend how God works, but we believe in God anyway) , this analogy is of course incorrect. Religious faith does not require any evidence for the existence of God, and when people seek such evidence they usually find it in a lot of different places. Some people see evidence of God in rainbows, others see God in an answered prayer; some people see evidence of God in the home runs they hit or touchdown passes they catch, some see God in the love they receive from other people. In contrast, scientific faith requires evidence, and it requires evidence that everyone has access to. Scientists accept the interpretation of nature provided by other scientists because they assume that, if they did the same experiments, they would get the same data, or something close to it; if they want, they can do these experiments and see for themselves. The scientific method has proven to be so powerful that scientists believe that all the mysteries of the natural world can be solved using this approach and, more importantly, that ultimately every mystery will be found to have only one correct explanation. Scientists delight in the unknown, in the mystery of nature. But, as Richard Dawkins says (front page of the bulletin): mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious. Scientists exult in mystery because it gives them something to do.
Although science and religion provide very different ways of understanding the natural world, this does not mean that they have nothing to contribute to each other. If science has taught us anything it is that nature is more strange and wonderful that we can possible imagine. Understanding how nature works does make nature any less wonderful. It makes it more wonderful still.
I want to illustrate this point by talking a bit about creation-the main topic of today's sermon. As we all know, the creation story in Genesis does not really jibe with our scientific understanding of creation. Although most Jews and Christians recognize that the writers of Genesis were not around when the world was being created, and therefore are not a particularly good source of information about this event, many Americans are apparently quite happy to accept the Genesis account as true. I am not interested in presenting the evidence for evolution. I am going to take for granted that most of you accept the idea that all organisms are the product of incremental changes that occurred over millions of years and which continue today. Instead, I want to make the point that the creation story told by evolutionary biology is far more amazing than the Genesis story, and is actually much more consistent with our core beliefs: the truth is not only stranger than fiction, but theologically more satisfying.
According to Genesis, God created each organism independently, and gradually worked up to making a really complicated organism-us. Realizing that there might be a few problems, God put humans in control of the whole show, and informed them that it was their duty to keep it running. The problem with this story from a scientific standpoint is that it doesn't fit the data. The problem with this story from a theological standpoint is that it implies that every organism on earth is fundamentally different from every other organism. If each species is a completely original idea, then there is no fundamental reason why humans should feel connected to other life forms, except that God said we should. Unfortunately, responsibility for mice or cockroaches is something that most people have a hard time accepting. What's worse is that we also have a hard time accepting responsibility for the things we do that make life difficult for all organisms on earth, like polluting the air we all breathe and the water we all drink.
Although our understanding of the mechanism of evolution has not changed significantly since the time of Darwin, our vision of what evolution has produced has increased dramatically in the last few years. This new vision is the result of modern techniques in molecular biology, including our ability to determine the complete DNA sequence of an organism. The picture provided by these studies is so remarkable that even scientists have a hard time believing it is true. But it is. We now know that humans are not only closely related to apes, but are closely related to fish, fruit flies, worms, plants and even yeast. In fact, we are so closely related to some of these organisms that genes from humans work almost as well in these organisms as the native gene. For example, my colleague, Nancy Bonini, has found that genes that cause neurodegenerative diseases in humans, like Huntington's or Parkinson's, cause similar syndromes in flies. If you take the human gene for one of these diseases and put it in a fly, the fly will get a fly version of the disease. You can do the same thing with a gene that is necessary for the development of the human eye, a gene called Pax6. Put this gene in a fruit fly, and the fly will develop eyes all over its body. What about plants? Pull a soybean plant out of a New Jersey field and you will find its roots covered with little nodules. Cut open one of these nodules, and you will find that it is red inside. It is red because it contains hemaglobin--the same molecule that is our red blood cells. This so-called "leghemaglobin"is nearly identical to hemaglobin in animals does the same thing for the soybean plant that it does for us, namely, bind oxygen. If God really did create life in the way Genesis would have us believe, then God was pretty uncreative. Instead of making something new, he or she used the same genes over and over and over again. Plus, this God had a strange sense of humor. God put humans at the top of the heap, but gave plants more genes than humans. Think about that the next time you eat your vegetables.
I don't know HOW God works in nature. I must confess that I don't even know IF God works in nature in a direct way. But it is deeply satisfying to know that all the organisms on earth really are brothers and sisters. The creation we have been asked to care for is our family. Part of our responsibility to understand this deeply, and to value the diversity that we have been given. As Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians which we read this morning. "There are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are a variety of service, but the same Lord. There are many forms of work, but all of them, in all people, are the work of the same God".
I would like to end by reading you a poem written by Richard Feynman, one of the fathers of quantum mechanics and one of the most influential physicists of the 20th century. Feynman was not a religious man, nor was he given to writing poetry. However, he had the capacity to be endlessly enthralled by nature, and the ability to communicate his excitement. Here is his creation story:
There are the rushing waves....mountains of molecules, each stupidly minding its own business....trillions apart....yet forming white surf in unison.
Ages on ages....before any eyes could see...year after year..thunderously pounding the shore as now.
For whom, for what?...on a dead planet, with no life to entertain.
Never at rest...tortured by energy...wasted prodigiously by the sun..poured into space. A mite makes the sea roar.
Deep in the sea, all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are formed. They make others like themselves...and a new dance starts.
Growing in size and complexity...living things, masses of atoms, DNA, protein...dancing a pattern ever more intricate.
Out of the cradle onto the dry land... here it is standing...atoms with conciousness...matter with curiosity.
Stands at the sea...wonders at wondering....I.....a universe of atoms...an atom in the Universe.
© 2005 by Scott Poethig. All rights reserved. Please consult the author at tabernacle@tabunited.org if you wish to use the text of this sermon, in whole or in part.
