Appreciate your thoughts, Jude. I’ll check out those links, too!

It isn’t the purpose of science to prove anything. If more people — Christians and atheists alike — understood this, our Christian witness to atheists would be much more effective. Proofs are for mathematics. Science only offers the best available explanation for a set of facts. Such an explanation, when it is well-supported, is called a theory. It’s funny how some people decry the use of statistical models in climate change, and then it’s usually those very same people who turn around and use statistical models (very poorly made ones) to “prove” how evolution cannot be true.

Gravity is a theory. So is evolution. They are both extremely well-supported theories, and they are both observable — even macroevolution. And for Christians (like myself), there is nothing in the theory of evolution that preludes God’s involvement. God is the cause, but Christians should at least be open to undertanding that macroevolution is the method that God used for the diversification of life over millions of years.

http://truecreation.info

http://truecreation.info/is-evolution-statistically-impossible/

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

http://phylointelligence.com/evidence.html

And for those who decry “Darwinism”, recognize that there is nothing in Darwin’s writing which precludes the existence or direct workings of God in nature.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2011/09/what_darwin_said_about_god.html

Nonetheless, equating the modern theory of evolution with “Darwinism” would be akin to equating the modern theory of gravity with “Newtonism”. We’ve come a long way in both. Do science offer all the answers? Nope. For all we know about gravity, we still don’t know everything about how it works. Gravitons? Gravity waves? These things are still being tested. Similarly, we don’t know every last detail about evolution. But the theory paints a very consistent picture of how life diversified.

Thanks, Scott. Which one of these was your favorite?

Awesome. Then I’ll ask you the same question I asked Michelle… what was the source/curriculum your daughter used? Any way to access it?

Good stuff, Sunni. I’ll check that out!

I haven’t read that, Lynette. Thanks for the suggestion here. It’s always good to know what’s worth reading out there. And question are huge. Maybe it’s both – i.e. “Hey everyone… let’s read this together and discern what new thoughts and new questions this raises.”

Thanks so much, Tom… your feedback here is personally inspiring.

And per your point – just imagine how many conversations would be different if we simply asked, “Help me understand what you do and don’t mean by that word.” They’d be slower, which is perhaps why we avoid that… but they’d be richer.

That’s a great link, Rusty. Tim Keller does a decent job there of walking through God’s role versus nature’s witness. He’s sort of a contemporary C.S. Lewis in some respects… I wonder if we’d still like Lewis if he blogged. 😉

Hmm… still chewing on your last thought there. You’re right – especially with immediate, smartphone access to someone who can contradict what you just said, students will be one Google search away from saying, “Oh yeah?” But if you show them how to think, they may just for a moment not even think about Google.

http://biologos.org/uploads/projects/Keller_white_paper.pdf

I want to teach students how to have a conversation about creation, rather than telling them what to believe. Teach them how to have a conversation that holds to biblical truths, but that also ultimately makes Jesus appealing to both sides of the issue, since we have already established that someone can be a Christian and hold either view. I don’t want them to sacrifice representing Jesus well because they have held on too tightly to an important, yet secondary issue such as how exactly God created creation. C.S. Lewis did not believe in a literal Adam and Eve and there are few who doubt his faith, or his contribution to the faith of many.