Sermon for the 2nd Sunday before Lent – 12th February 2023: (Genesis 1, 1-2, 3; Roman 8, 18-25; Matthew 6, 25-end)

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

In the Old Testament reading we have rehearsed the divine narrative of the creation, as presented to us in the Book of Genesis.

For millennia this narrative was received literally as the sole description of how all things, including humans, came into being. The narrative describes a creator God, a God who outpours all of his creative love into things seen and unseen as we say in the Creed.

For the last few hundred years of human existence the literal acceptance of the narrative in Genesis has been replaced by the findings of the scientific enlightenment, in particular since the theory of evolution was proposed by Charles Darwin.

The Church, feeling under enormous threat from a credible alternative to the Holy Scriptures, of course reacted badly, rather than having a rational debate about this new theory of evolution. In one debate, the Bishop of Oxford, who at the time was Samuel Wilberforce, of the same family as William Wilberforce the great social reformer who took on the evils of slavery. It was a rather undignified event in which the bishop enquired of Darwin whether he (Darwin) was descended from an ape through his father’s side of the family, or his mother’s. Hardly an adult way of approaching things!

Darwin’s Theorem of Evolution has now been widely accepted – even though there may be a clue for us in the word ‘theorem’ or theory. It has become the new orthodoxy for explaining the way things are and the ‘how’ it has all developed, and yet it was proposed as a theory.

Some Christians reject the theory’s dismissal of the Creation Narrative in the Book of Genesis – we refer to them rather disparagingly as ‘creationists’ as if they are the ones who have moved away from believing that God is the Creator, and we his creatures.

Others, including me, have come to live with the settlement that Darwinianism and the Creation Narrative are not polarized, but good, enlightened, rational people can find an accommodation for both. This is mostly at the expense of Genesis, by the way, as the Creation Narrative gets reduced to some sort of poetic metaphor – a menu of a religious truth not fact.

We have to remind ourselves, perhaps, that the opposite of fact is fiction, not truth. Humanity faces great danger in a ‘post-truth age’ for it places mankind at the very centre of everything as we distort what is around us to conform to ‘my truth’. We see too often in public life the appeal to ‘my truth’ when most of us can see it is a blatant lie when measured by its context.

Most us listening to this sermon, or reading it, will have arrived at the rational accommodation of the Genesis Narrative and the Evolutionary Theory. I know I have.

However, as Darwin proposed a ‘theory’ is it not perhaps possible to wonder whether it is an absolute explanation for the existence of everything? Science herself does not stand still, so what lies ahead? Might it be acceptable to let the mind wander a little and ask whether there may be some discovery – or even a re-discovery – that replaces the evolutionary theory. After all for millennia no-one ever thought that there was an alternative to Genesis, and isn’t it one of the principles of science to explore, discover, analyze, and question? Can science itself be placed under its own microscope?

I am not a scientist – the disciplines of my education were classical languages and culture, followed then by theology – but I think the question can rightly be put to science. Is there only one theory possible? What do we lose by placing all our eggs into one basket?

I have recently been re-reading a small book written by Lambros Kamperidis. It is a study of the St. George icons of the artist Peris Ieremiadis. The book is called The Rider, The Steed, The Dragon (published by Denise Harvey) and is translated into English by Fr. John Raffan. The artist uses pigments that are ‘earth-based’ to create his icons. So they are literally earthy, down to earth, of the earth, an in that deeper sense connects with Adam – adhama – who is in the Genesis Narrative created from the earth.

The author is critical of the post-evolutionary theory man. He says this of man:

“For centuries man has been striving to construct a nature of his own that will replace the nature of God, to prove to himself that he himself is god and that there is room for no one else in his universe apart from himself. He has required three centuries of enlightenment to fit his empty self into everything, the arts, the science, the humanities and social reforms, and in describing his great vicious circle of progress he has completed the destruction of nature and of himself.”  (p48).

Not exactly in praise of enlightened man. He goes on to describe the destruction caused by this man-centredness, the result of which are constantly facing us in climate change, and environmental decline, and even the complete annihilation of some species due to changes in human practice.

Bringing us back to a more God-focussed world, or theo-centric view, some 2,000 years ago, and 1,700 years before the evolutionary theory was proposed, St. Paul powerfully references the cries of creation,

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers the pains of labour, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” (Rom 8, 23)

 

For Paul, Christ is the new creation, the second Adam, fulfilling the promise hinted at in the first Adam who is at the heart of the Creation Narrative of Genesis. The truth of the Creation Narrative is an essential part of our understanding and experience of the truth of Christ.

So, as we read the prologue of the Book of Genesis, maybe we are invited again to reconsider how we as people who mostly view and interpret the world, the universe, creation, through the lense of a theory about evolution need to reflect more. It is a challenge – and I hope I have today reminded us all that this challenge is there – that scripture invites us to view and interpret the world, the universe, creation through the lense of a God-shaped theory. After all, we refer often enough to our Creator God – and we sing in praise of a Creator God. So there is something worthwhile spending time to think about.

‘All creatures of our God and King, Lift up your voice and with us sing, Alleluia!