In Science and Grace, Morris and Petcher have a great chapter discussing the biblical story — the creation-fall-redemption-re-creation sequence — in relation to science. Within this they have a welcome focus on the relationship of science to Christ and redemption/re-creation. Having started discussing science in the context of the biblical story in this blog, I really appreciate this; and having (so far?) done poorly on the Christ and redemption step, it is great to see people having this as an emphasis.
However…
The big point that I think is missing from this section of Science and Grace is a proper treatment of the starting point — creation. The book is remarkably terse on this point. The creation story discussion is essentially limited to a source for characteristics of God and little more.
Morris & Petcher are keen to make the focus the end of the story rather than the beginning, which is fine up to a point. But, we need the beginning too. What the beginnings of stories do is to set up the basic characters and the relationships between those characters. If it is limited to information about God only then we have no basis for discussing the relationships between God, mankind and the wider creation. It seems to me that if you want to discuss science, the very least you have to do is clarify the relationship between mankind and creation. After all, that’s where science sits in the big picture.
In fact, in discussing later parts of the story, ideas about the relationship between humans and the rest of creation are assumed (e.g. they talk about “the task of ruling and caring for creation”), but the lack of explicit discussion is unfortunate — there is no established basis for these assumptions and leave the story less rounded out than it could be.
I think that minimising the discussion of the start of the story can also stop us taking creation quite as seriously as we should. For example, in following sections, the book does discuss the subject of stewardship, but though they do say that
… Christians more than anyone else have incentive to pursue basic research and to treat nonhuman aspects of creation with care and respect — it is all God’s stuff, and … all deserves to be explored and examined and cared for.
the focus is really on stewardship for the sake of human neighbours. It is notable that this quote doesn’t really assume a responsibility to creation itself, as much as an indirect interest. I think a fuller reading of the creation story implies responsibility to both human and non-human creation.
Finally, I think that missing this step constrains our ability to understand what it means to be a Christian in science. But maybe that should wait for another post…
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