Statement on Creation and Natural Science

EMU Biology professors believe and teach that God created the cosmos. We believe that God provided "special revelation" (Scriptures) and "general revelation" (nature) for humanity as testimonies of God's goodness. We help students integrate things that we can learn from nature through natural science and the scientific method and things that we learn from Scripture through theology, Bible study, and Christian tradition.

For example, in "Biology as Inquiry," our first-year biology course for biology and science majors, we talk about various ways to integrate faith and science. In addition to a traditional college biology text, students purchase a small companion book called Biology Through the Eyes of Faith. This book, produced by the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities and written by Richard T. Wright, a former biology professor at Gordon College, discusses many ways that Christians integrate their faith and their work as scientists. As professors we want to help our students consider how to take seriously both the Word of God and the things that we can learn about Creation through the scientific process. We raise and discuss the questions about what one does when these two areas seem to be in conflict. This "through the eyes of faith" approach helps us see how other Christians have come to a faithful integration of these perspectives.

While Christians agree that God created the world, they disagree on how God did it. Some believe that the creation process occurred 6000-10,000 years ago, largely in a period of one week. Some, who interpret the various Biblical creation accounts differently, believe that the creation process extended over a long period of time and continues today as God creates and sustains the cosmos. Others search for the handiwork of God in creation by looking for design and complexity in natural science. And still others believe that God used an evolutionary process to create the array of life forms seen in the fossil record as well as the changed structures that exist in our world today.

Students who come to EMU bring a variety of viewpoints on the questions of origins. "Did nature originate itself?" If God created, how did that happen?" When did the universe begin?" "How old is the earth?" In response, we believe a first important task as a Christian university is to teach that God created the heavens and the earth, even while we speculate with interest on the method God may have used to originate ferns, pine trees, trilobites, dinosaurs, duckbill platypi, humans, and viruses. By faith we firmly believe God originated the cosmos, but we remain undogmatic on the specifics of God's methodology. Those scientists, who as Christians accept the authority of Scripture, have a variety of views on the methodology of creation that include: a) six-day 24 hour creation occurring 6000 years ago, b) a progressive creation event that encompassed a long multi-million year time span, c) an intelligent design approach that looks for the "fingerprints" of the Creator in nature, and d) a theistic evolution understanding that in the origination of nature God directed natural processes to meet God's goal. Secondly, we believe that it is important to teach students about natural science, the structures and processes in creation itself. As a third task, we demonstrate how Christians in the past and today have variously integrated their Christian faith and their scientific knowledge. However, we do not insist that our students adopt any specific point of view about this integration. And finally, we teach our students the importance of being responsible stewards of God's creation.

In our biology courses, we teach the concepts of natural selection and the theory of evolution. We especially concentrate on the concepts of what many call microevolution, the way that organisms adapt to changing environments. However, throughout our entire curriculum we try to help our students see that God is the Creator of our world and that God not only created it in the past but also continually creates and sustains the cosmos. Rather than dwelling on disagreements about how God has worked in the past, we feel that it is more important to teach students to look for ways that God is working today in the world around them. We believe an informed response to the organismal health, environmental, and bioethical issues of our day is essential if we are to follow faithfully the Biblical mandate to be caretakers of God's creation. In choosing to study the handiwork of God, we enlist ourselves in a high and holy vocation.

--Approved by the EMU Biology Faculty, October 9, 2003