Can Evolution and the Bible Co-Exist?

Many mainstream Western religions appear willing to believe in both the Bible and Evolution, feeling God must have used evolution in some form to create life. This duality of creationism and evolution is based in the theory that God created or programmed the universe to develop from lifeless chemicals to living beings. This is known as theistic evolution. It requires a God, but one that once starting the process did not stop it and largely did not interfere - thus allowing the universe, as we know it to evolve. While this approach acknowledges the existence of God and explains how certain basic elements of life came into existence, not all religious considerations are addressed by theistic evolution.

What about the Genesis creation account?

If some form of evolution is true, how are we to interpret the account of how the earth and its living inhabitants came to exist, especially as it is detailed in Genesis 1:26,27 and Genesis 2:18-24? Does the Bible intend for us to understand Genesis chapters one and two as figurative and to not be taken literally? What does this imply for the existence f Adam and Eve? What is its' intended moral or lesson if this is a figurative story? One way to find out what the intention of this Genesis account would be to see how it is referenced in other sections of the Bible itself.

For background is the creation account pertaining to the creation of humans as seen in the New International Version of Genesis 1:26,27 which says: "Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Genesis 2:18-24 says: "The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man." For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."

Several Bible writers apparently viewed the Genesis account of creation as literal history; specifically that Adam was the first human. Luke 3:23-38 traces Jesus Christ's lineage back to Adam of the same Genesis account, lending toward the belief that Adam was an actual person, the first human male. St. Paul cites the Genesis account and Adam in 1 Corinthians 15:22 where it says "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive". Adam of the Genesis account is also cited in Roman 5:12 where it says in the page subtopic listing "Death Through Adam, Life Through Christ" in reference to verse 12: "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned." Most pointedly, Jesus quotes from Genesis chapter two as the basis for God's opinion on marriage when speaking in Matthew 19:4-6, which seems to be indicating he felt the Genesis account was true history.

In Matthew 19 Jesus said: "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? 6So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." The Footnotes from the NIV Bible to the phrase "made them male and female" is Genesis 1:27 and the footnote for "become one flesh" is Genesis 2:24.

Theistic evolution allows for the possibility of some involvement or direction from God by its' definition. The Bible's Genesis account of creation and the subsequent scriptures that quote this account as historical and not allegorical would require a Bible reader to evaluate if the Genesis creation account is credible as a historical account, and if the reader feels this is so, does the Genesis account allow for the co-existence of theistic evolution.