God and Nature Winter 2022
The Boundaries of Being Human, a Reflection from science and Ecclesiastes
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By Oscar Gonzalez
I am a biologist and a Christian who firmly believes in the Bible’s message that we are creatures loved by God and have transcendence. However, some of my friends told me that science (meaning biology) robs humanity of this exceptional value. Some of them may have heard or read scientists in the media saying things that gave them that impression. I remember my own biology teacher in high school, a well-learned man who spoke with captivating eloquence. He welcomed all sorts of questions and answered them immediately. One day, when we were studying zoology and evolution, he explained the origin of the diversity of animals on earth (using a carrousel of slides, the presentation technology of the day). When he reached humans, he said that the main thing that makes us different from animals is a larger brain. Due to lectures like that, I had a period as an atheist when I was a teenager.
If you were taught that we are unique creatures of God, I bet that the idea that we are not very different than animals is hard or even impossible to swallow. We are the image of God; the Bible says so (Genesis 1:26). Indeed, most of us who call ourselves Christians know that verse by heart. We have heard it quoted as the basis of many sermons about God’s love for us and about how humans are special. That would be enough to reject those pretentious scientists that deny the Word of God by telling us that humans are like animals, would it not?
I am a biologist and a Christian who firmly believes in the Bible’s message that we are creatures loved by God and have transcendence. However, some of my friends told me that science (meaning biology) robs humanity of this exceptional value. Some of them may have heard or read scientists in the media saying things that gave them that impression. I remember my own biology teacher in high school, a well-learned man who spoke with captivating eloquence. He welcomed all sorts of questions and answered them immediately. One day, when we were studying zoology and evolution, he explained the origin of the diversity of animals on earth (using a carrousel of slides, the presentation technology of the day). When he reached humans, he said that the main thing that makes us different from animals is a larger brain. Due to lectures like that, I had a period as an atheist when I was a teenager.
If you were taught that we are unique creatures of God, I bet that the idea that we are not very different than animals is hard or even impossible to swallow. We are the image of God; the Bible says so (Genesis 1:26). Indeed, most of us who call ourselves Christians know that verse by heart. We have heard it quoted as the basis of many sermons about God’s love for us and about how humans are special. That would be enough to reject those pretentious scientists that deny the Word of God by telling us that humans are like animals, would it not?
The “nothing-buttery” that comes from ontological reductionism does not help here |
Well, I learned that no, it’s not that simple. I agree that humans are like animals, but not because I have rejected my faith in what the book of Genesis says, that we are made in the image of God. In fact, if you continue reading the Old Testament, in the book of Ecclesiastes you will learn that we are like animals: “I also said to myself, as for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return…” (Ecclesiastes 3:18-21 NIV).
I know that there are several ways to interpret this passage attributed to King Solomon. One of them is to consider that it was written in the king’s old age; however, not all Bible scholars agree that Solomon was the author. It is a difficult book to read and understand. Many theologians have written about it (1), but not one of them denies or sugarcoats the fact that the writer compared humans with animals. It is clear that humans are like animals and have “no advantage” in the sense that we have a body that works in the same way: we all die (2).
I try to make sense of the meaning of this passage by applying what I learned about evolutionary biology. We have a body that shares characteristics with the animal kingdom. We can see traces of common ancestry in our organs, tissues, cells, and genes (3). We are similar to the apes, but I do not think, and in fact no evolutionary biologists believe, that we come from apes. Evolutionary theory says that we share a common ancestry with apes. Are we just naked apes, then, as a popular book said over half a century ago (4)? Are we, as my high school teacher told me, nothing but primates with a big brain? The “nothing-buttery” that comes from ontological reductionism does not help here (5). However, it is curious how the popular Bible version The Message translates Ecclesiastes 3:18: “God’s testing the lot of us, showing us up as nothing but animals” (6).
Now let us get deeper into the discussion of the possibility or impossibility of accepting evolution as a committed Christian. By the way, when anybody asks me if I believe in evolution, I answer no. I accept evolution as a scientific theory. I believe in Jesus. It is not the same to put your trust and your life in the Lord as to put your faith and life purpose in a scientific theory. Why? Because as a human theory, it could change at any time? No, the main reason is that while science can make our lives easier and better, it cannot address the meaning or purpose of life. As an evangelical in science, my acceptance of evolution could be taken as heresy; however, committed Christians that are also committed scientists can accept both evolution and the Bible as the Word of God (7).
Fossils give us an insight into the connectivity between living beings and are the evidence most often presented to support evolution. The so-called creation scientists insist that there are no transitional fossils and want to convince us that evolution is flawed (8). On human evolution, they argue that the fossils of pre-humans were either apes or humans (9). However, there are several cases where the line they are trying to draw is not at all clear. In the cases of the new fossils of the genus Homo that were discovered recently, it is easy to confirm how different these “humans or animals” were from us and other animals (10). I should mention that even though human evolution is not my area of expertise, I witnessed the hard work and sincerity of researchers who work in this field. I visited the excavation of human hominids of Atapuerca (Spain) in 2004 and met the lead researcher (11).
The author (left) with Dr. José María Bermúdez de Castro
at the Atapuerca excavation site
If paleontology is not convincing, genetics offers more evidence of continuity between humans and the rest of primates. Ultimately, what makes our body is our genes. Genes are the coding machines that produce proteins that make us what we are. The human genome has been described, and we know all the genes in our cells. The scientist in charge of this project was Francis Collins, former head of the National Institute of Health. The study of the human genome and his convictions as a Christian led him to write a classic bestseller in the science-religion dialogue, The language of God (12). If we compare our genome with the apes’, we find we are highly similar. We have the same mutations in several places. We have no-longer-functioning pseudogenes that in our evolutionary past coded for the ability to perceive specific smells in the olfactory receptors (13), the possibility to produce vitamin C (14), and even to make a protein named vitellogenin that produces egg yolk (15)! In genetics and paleontology, we see a continuity with the rest of the creation, not a boundary (16).
Can’t we interpret all those facts from paleontology and genetics as common design? I think that yes, we could understand it that way. However, this concept of design is not based on science; it is founded on faith. Interpreting design as a scientific theory to bring God into the discussion is counterproductive, in my view. It causes not just scientific but also theological problems (17).
Coming back to Ecclesiastes, I can affirm what the preacher said, that “humans have no advantage over animals,” in reference to the body. However, God chose us Homo sapiens to rule over creation and be loved and saved; we are his image. We can question our own existence, have a conscience, and search for God. No other animal can do that. Genetics and evolution do not negate that.
References
(1) A very good reference is: Enns, P. (2011). Ecclesiastes. The Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, W.B. Eerdmans Pub Co.
(2) Towner, W.S. (1997). The book of Ecclesiastes: introduction, commentary and reflections. In: Keck, L. E. et al. (eds) The new interpreter’s Bible. 5:267-360. Nashville, Abingdon press; Longman III, Tremper. (1998). The book of Ecclesiastes. Grand Rapids, W.B Eermans Pub Co.; Moore, D.G. & D.L. Akin. (2003). Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs. In: Anders, M (ed.). Holman Old Testament Commentary Vol 14. Nashville, B&H Publishing Group; Eaton, M.A. (2009). Ecclesiastes. An introduction and commentary. In: Wiseman, D.J. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Vol 18. Downers Grove, IVP Academic.
(3) Shubin, N. (2009). Your inner fish: A journey into 3.5-billion-year history of the human body. New York, Vintage Books. See also https://www.pbs.org/your-inner-fish/about/overview/
(4) Morris, D. (1967). The naked ape: A zoologist’s study of the human animal. London, Jonatan Cape.
(5) MacKay, D.M. (1974). The Clockwork Image: A Christian perspective on science. Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press.
(6) Peterson, E. H. (2003). The message: The Bible in contemporary language. Colorado, NavPress.
(7) Explore both resources and testimonies of Christian scientists and theologians at www.asa3.org and www.biologos.org.
(8) The first book that I read from them was: Gish, D. T. (1979). Evolution: The fossils say no! Green Forest, Master Books. More recent young earth creationists denials of evolution are: Biddle, D.A. (Ed.) (2016). Debunking evolution. What every Christian student should know. Folsom, Genesis Apologetics; DeWitt, D.A. (2007). Unraveling the origins controversy. Lynchburg, Creation Curriculum.
(9) Lubenow, M.L. (2004). Bones of contention: A creationist assessment of human fossils. Grand Rapids, Baker Books.
(10) I am referring to Homo naledi: Berger et al. (2015). Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa. eLife, 4:09560. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.09560; and Homo floresiensis: Aiello, L.C. 2010. Five years of Homo floresiensis. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 142:167-179.
(11) In that area of Europe, the common fossil is Homo antecessor. See Bermúdez-de-Castro, J.M., et al. (2017). Homo antecessor: The state of the art eighteen years later. Quaternary International, 433A: 22-31.
(12) Collins, F. (2006). The language of God: A scientist presents evidence for belief. New York, Free Press.
(13) Zimmer, C. (2013). The smell of evolution. National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/the-smell-of-evolution
(14) Drouin, G., Godin, J.-R., & Page, B. (2011). The Genetics of Vitamin C Loss in Vertebrates. Current Genomics, 12(5), 371–378. http://doi.org/10.2174/138920211796429736
(15) Finn, R.N., Kolarevic, J., Kongshaug, H. et al. (2009) Evolution and differential expression of a vertebrate vitellogenin gene cluster. BMC Evol Biol 9, 2. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-9-2. A good source on the evolution of genes in mammals is done by Sharma, V., Hecker, N., Roscito, J. G., Foerster, L., Langer, B. E., & Hiller, M. (2018). A genomics approach reveals insights into the importance of gene losses for mammalian adaptations. Nature Communications, 9(1). http://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03667-1. A non-technical reference that synthetizes those discoveries is Venema, D. and McNight, S. (2017). Adam and the genome: Reading scripture after genetic science. Grand Rapids, Brazos Press.
(16) An excellent source of information of the scientific and theological implications of human evolution from a Christian point of view is: Bishop et al. (2018). Understanding scientific theories of origins. Downers Grove, Intervarsity Press Academic.
(17) A good critique of the Intelligent Design Movement by a Christian Scientist is: Miller, K.R. (2000). Finding Darwin’s God: A scientist’s search for common ground between God and evolution. New York, Harper Collins. An excellent reference to compare the points of view of young earth creation, old earth creation, intelligent design, and evolutionary creation is: Stump, J. (ed.). (2017). Four views on creation, evolution, and intelligent design. Grand Rapids, Zondervan.
Oscar Gonzalez is a Peruvian Biologist, university professor, and researcher in ornithology. He earned a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Ecology at the University of Florida, an M.Sc. in Tropical Biodiversity Management at Universidad San Pablo CEU of Spain, and another M.Sc. in Zoology at Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Peru. He is a long-time ASA member and also serves on the advisory board of the BioLogos Foundation. See his research at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Oscar_Gonzalez26