QUANTUM GENESIS

    As science and religion realize neither can prove anything for certain, and each recalls what it does best for humankind, and each reaches out to the other in the common quest to help humans live successfully in their circumstances, how far apart are they really?   Now  science and religion can each do their respective work for human kind, with complete internal integrity operating out of the same world view.

 This has a harmonizing effect on all of human endeavor.  Science continues working out of the common world view to discover through measurement and empirical verification of falsifiable theories, how to cause change in the universe.  Religion continues to guide the spiritual yearnings of humankind for belongingness, help, communion with all of existence and beyond, meaning of life and guidance toward successful, full life as a whole person in one’s circumstances.  These two areas of human need are different.   They are served by different disciplines.  Science tells how to do something.  Religion tells why or why not to do something.  They can both serve human kind out of a common world view.  The common world view is that the Divine Mystery’s method of creation is evolution, with the possibility of intercession, heard and answered prayer, and spiritual communication with the divine.

     Viewed this way, how far apart are science and religion in the third millennium.  Not as far as one might think.  There has been a long standing controversy between the religions of the Book (Torah, Old Testament of the Bible and the Qu’ran) about the origin of the world as described in Genesis, and the world view of science expressed by modern cosmology.  Genesis was written describing a three layer universe with the land in the middle surrounded by mountains, as the sides and bottom of a can.  The top of the can was the firmament, which stretched across the sky, and under which hung the sun, stars, moon and clouds, and from which came rain, snow and sleet.  Underneath the can were the rivers of the underworld.  All around this in every direction were the primordial waters, what science would call deep space.

 Creationists insisted that this creation happened in six Earth days.  Recently many creationists have given up on the time scale, but still insist on instantaneous creation as a fully formed organism, instead of evolution by slow change over many generations.  However, the description in Genesis, not including a literal time scale is strikingly close in sequence to what modern cosmology believes happened.

 A comparison of the verses in Genesis from the New International Version of the Christian Bible was made with the corresponding steps in evolution as currently understood by science in the following paper.  The quotations from Genesis are given in bold.  The description  from science is given in regular type.  Judge for yourself how close the sequence of events is, and how well it is described in Genesis.  It is easier to see how the Divine Mystery (here called “God”) might have been involved in both Genesis and cosmological evolution.  It is easy to see how evolution is God’s process of creation, as described in the religious texts.
 
 

1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  First God created the heavens, the underlying harmony, and the universe, out of nothing, and there was harmony and there was love.  And God saw that it was good.  God created the rules of the universe.  These rules are the rules of the container, space-time, the rules of the substance contained, energy, and the rules of organization, based on category structure.  Out of the interaction of these rules would come the process of evolution and seekers, organisms with decision systems that would ask about self and other, past, present and future, life and death.  God lovingly awaits every seeker.  God covenanted to follow these rules, yet allowing God personal relationships with free beings to guide them, if they would faithfully follow, to full life, and out of love, to intercede for them to lead them to fulfillment, harmony, unity and love forever.  God watched the universe unfold according to these rules, and saw that it was good.  Out of these three sets of rules came the four forces, particles and combinations of particles organized together to form larger particles.  At each level of organization new kinds of existence emerged.

 Expansion, cooling and the four forces in the quantum world produced clumps of particles in local environments.  These particles came close enough together to interact continuously, producing atoms, molecules and the macro world of continuous existence.

 Particles coming together in new, more complex organization produced new emergent attributes, and there was creation.  Clashes with the surrounding environment produced breakdown of organization in some, but not in others, and there was selection.  Creation and selection in local environments produced the process of evolution, the mighty engine that produced, layer upon layer, the harmony and existence of the universe.

 The process of evolution produces the fulfillment of the potential of the universe to exist at ever higher levels of organization.  Each organism, in its circumstances being all it evolved to be, produces the rise of complexity, new emergent attributes and the fulfillment of the potential of universe to exist.  Higher and higher levels of organization produce new emergent existence, whose potential has been there since the beginning, awaiting the rise of complexity to its level of organization to come into being.  Thus came the cell, the rose, the human, the computer and love.  What will come next in the progress toward the fulfillment of the universe?

 This is God's plan for the universe.  It all unfolds as a part of God's harmony.  Experiencing and being a part of God's harmony as a fulfilled organism, is being in harmony, is being one with all, one with God, one in God's love.  Then all is as it should be, as God created it; all is one, all is God's love.  And God said it was good.
 The harmony of the universe, the natural harmony, God's harmony, is for each evolved organism to be fulfilled as a whole organism in its circumstances, existing and responding to its environment as it evolved to exist in its eco-system.  The universe unfolds in God's time.  We are a part of God's plan in our time.

 In the early universe, clouds of particles gathered into galaxies, which produced stars, elements, exploding stars and the heavy elements, which were thrust out into new clouds again.

 In one local area of the universe, in one remote arm of one galaxy, a cloud gathered together, into a central mass and surrounding disk of gas and dust.

1:2 Now the Earth was formless and empty, a scattered part of the disk, darkness was over the surface of the deep space, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters [all].

1:3 And God said let there be light, and there was light.  The central mass, under the pressure of its gravity, pressing its hydrogen atoms and neutrons together, ignited into a nuclear-burning star, converting hydrogen into helium plus energy, a continuously exploding hydrogen bomb, giving off the radiant light of the Sun.  1:4  God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light on objects facing the Sun from the darkness on objects facing away from the Sun. 1:5  God called the light "day" and the darkness he called "night".  And in this local area of the universe, there was evening, and there was morning - the first day of God's new creation.

1:6  A ring in the disk came together and formed the solid, spinning ball of the earth.  And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water, and let the earth exist in the midst of deep space. 1:7  So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it.  And it was so."  The chemicals in the hot earth and oceans produced gasses that rose above the earth to put an atmosphere buffer between the earth and space.  1:8  God called the expanse "sky."  And there was evening and there was morning - the second day.

1:9  And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place and let the dry ground appear."  The rains came from the sky, the waters were drawn down by gravity to the lower areas and covered part of the Earth.  The rest of the Earth was covered by higher dry ground.  And it was so.  1:10  God called the dry ground "land" and the gathered waters he called "seas."  And God saw that it was good.

 1:11  Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds."  And it was so.  Tiny molecules organized together into larger macromolecules according to the rules of the universe.  Proteins formed, cell walls grew, RNA and DNA became the seeds for new generations, and the universe developed a natural memory.  Chlorophyll emerged to give one-celled, parkaryote celled, plants their distinctive process for converting sunlight into oxygen, even though they could not survive in oxygen.  One-celled vegetation, sunlight and other processes all over the Earth slowly produced a growing oxygen atmosphere.  Smaller cells combined into a lager, much more powerful cell that thrived on oxygen, the eukaryote cell.  Plants made of eukaryote cells grew in complexity and became multicelled, larger and still more complex. The Earth, could never start over now, because the original, tiny parkaryote cells could not survive in the new oxygen atmosphere, but the larger, more complex eukaryote cells flourished. 1:12  The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.  Many species of plants, following their genetic code, flourished and evolved on the Earth.  And God saw that it was good.  1:13  And there was evening and there was morning in God's new local area of the universe - the third day.

1:14  And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 1:15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the Earth."  And it was so.  Through the evolution of  the Solar System, God made the Earth spin to give daylight from the Sun and night from the deep of space to every part of it, and tilted the spin axis of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun to give the seasons.  1:16  God made two great lights- the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night.  He also made the stars.  The Sun glared its light and energy onto the spinning Earth.  The wayward moon was captured in the gravity of the Earth and reflected light from the Sun into Earth's night. Beyond the Sun, new stars were born that filled the night sky with faint light.  1:17  God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the Earth, 1:18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness.  And God saw that it was good.  And there was evening and there was morning - the fourth day.

1:20  And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures", and the oceans of the world nourished a host of multicelled animals in the precambrian explosion of body types, followed by selection that narrowed the phyla and leading to the age of dinosaurs, and birds, "and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky."  1:21  So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.  And God saw that it was good. 1:22  God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 1:23 And there was evening and there was morning - the fifth day.

1:24  And God said, "let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds:, mammals evolved and moved into the niches left by the extinct dinosaurs.  Rodents, horses, dogs, cats and grazing, hoofed animals evolved, livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so.  Evolution by species was the complexity engine that produced the rise of complexity in this period.  1:25  God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds.  And God saw that it was good.

1:26  Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and humans had the ability to decide how to respond to their environment, but no knowledge of alternatives, "and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock", with a mind and cooperative social order superior to those they rule over, "and over all the earth", the environment of the whole earth, "and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

1:27  So God created man in his
  own image, an image, not a duplicate,
  in the image of God he
  created him;
  male and female he
  created them.

1:28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.  Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.  Establish your independent identity from the rest of nature, by learning how to cause change and how to control nature.  Then be a partner with nature tending the garden of the universe to blossom with new existence neither of you can create alone.  Let the goal of your rule and then your partnership be new existence, fulfillment, harmony and love in the universe."

1:29  Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it.  They will be yours for food" and to learn from them how they are organized as organisms and into groups according to their kinds. 1:30  And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground - everything that has the breath of life in it- I give every green plant for food, and for learning and for nurturing unto its fulfillment as a whole organism."And It was so.

1:31  God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.  And there was evening, and there was morning - the sixth day.

2:1  Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array in this local area of the universe in the last third of the existence of the universe to the present.

2:2  By the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.  2:3  And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating he had done.

Adam and Eve

2:4  This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

 When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens - 2:5  and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, 2:6  but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground - tiny molecules in the clay came together and formed the larger molecules that led to one-celled animals, then multicelled animals, vertebrates, mammals, primates and man - 2:7  the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and then out of oxygen-consuming eukaryote cells, and with the now ancient oxygen atmosphere breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

2:8  Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.  It had been a long migration out of Africa through many species over many centuries into the broad land by a great river.  2:9  And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground - trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.  In the middle of the garden were the tree of life, of the eternal, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of the field of opposites, and how to cause change.

 2:10  A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters.  2:11  The name of the first is Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold.  2:12  (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.)  2:13  The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.  2:14  The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur.  And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

 2:15  The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it obediently as God commanded, to lead it into harmony and love.  2:16  And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, 2:17  but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die."

 2:18  The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him."

 2:19  Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground from the same eukaryote cells all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air, all the animals and all the plants.  He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; each kind had its own category and in order for the man to think about each category, each category needed a name by which he called it; and what ever the man called each living creature, that was its kind's name. 2:20  So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field, and every kind of living thing.

 But for Adam, no suitable helper was found.  2:21  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.  2:22  Then the Lord God made a woman, just like the man, but with womanly features, from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

 2:23  The man said,
  "This is bone of my
   bones
  and flesh of my flesh;
  she shall be called
   'woman,'
  for she was taken out of
   man.

 2:24  For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will be one flesh, they will establish a home, nurture each other, nourish the community, bear and rear children unto adulthood, enjoy grandchildren and see their contribution to the harmony and love of the universe.

 2:25  The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.  They had no knowledge of opposites with which to compare.  They simply and happily lived as the Lord God commanded.

The Fall of Man

 3:1  Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.  He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

 3:2  The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3:3  but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will surely die.'"

 3:4  "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman.  3:5  "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  What the serpent did not tell the woman was that having the knowledge of good and evil, knowing opposites in the world, required constant decisions between opposites, and living the consequences of those decisions.  That is surely a death of innocence, and opens the door to sinful, personally destructive decisions.

 3:6  When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.  She also gave some to her husband, who was with her and he ate it.  3:7  Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

...

 3:21  The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them, sheltering them and showing his compassion for their new condition of suffering, pain and toil in the world.  3:22  And the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil", and able to create new existence.  "He must not be allowed to reach the tree of life and eat, and live forever."  3:23  So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.  3:24  After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life, so man, who had knowledge of different ways to respond to life,  would know he would suffer the weight of decisions for sin or fulfillment all his life, and he would never have life forever on earth, but would surely die.  This was the result of God’s process of creation in the third stage of evolution, genetic evolution, the era of life. Yet in their fallen condition the Lord God comforted the man and the woman, and longed for them to be one with him in harmony and love.  The Lord God left the decisions of  how they would live their lives to the man and woman, but if they would listen, the Lord God would guide them each to full life as a whole person, to live as he created them to live through the process of evolution, and to be one again with the Divine in harmony and love forever.