It's been 200 years since Darwin suggested that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors through the process he called natural selection. Today everyone concedes that some form of evolution is taking place all the time through variations that emerge within species of plants and animals-that's why there are so many different kinds of dogs, seedless grapes, hybrid corn, horses that can be bred to race faster, bacteria that develop immunity to antibiotics, etc. But Darwin's theory goes way beyond that kind of microevolution. It claims that, without the guidance of any intelligent designer, life began millions of years ago from a kind of primordial ooze that gave rise to single-celled creatures, which then evolved into more complex ones, all the way up to we homo sapiens. This is referred to as macroevolution. But is the theory true?

It definitely has its problems, but whether it is true really doesn't impact the faith conviction that God is the Creator of the world. Scientific theories about origins simply talk about HOW things came to be, not whether or not God was behind it. To be honest, it seems silly to me for Christians to argue against the theory of evolution, or any other scientific theory. A belief in God does not necessitate that a person accept the position that the earth is just six thousand years old. In fact, the historical, biblical argument is simply that God is the "why" behind what is here-whenever and however it got here.

Scientists may ultimately tell us how and when everything happened in ways not articulated in the biblical text, but science will never be able to tell us why. "Why" is the stuff of belief. Understanding this helps us be open to the research and questioning of science, while recognizing such endeavors are not an enemy to faith. Science is ultimately the friend of faith. Nanoscientist James Tour, a professor at Rice University, spends his life building molecules in the lab. He says, "I stand in awe of God because of what he has done through his creation. Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God."

Well said, nanoscience guy.

However things got here, the Christian believes God is the ultimate source of life and love and the power behind the universe, no matter what science proves about how it all happened. We believe God holds all things together. He is "Our Father, who fills the heavens" and we say, "hallowed be your Name." We believe that "[God] stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in." That, according to Scripture, the universe is not empty, impersonal space, but a home for God's glory. The Christian believes God's presence is everywhere-on every moon of every world of every star of every galaxy, on every pulsar and quasar and comet and black hole-and he has names for them all. He has a purpose and a plan for everything.

I feel sorry for the atheist. In the atheist story there is no Creator-God. The universe is a cold, dead, purposeless universe, the product of random chance, a roll of the dice. In this story, things that exist must have always been here; there was no creation event. Matter exists and that is all that matters. Carl Sagan, states the story well, "The Cosmos is all there is, or ever was, or ever will be."

For this crowd, the universe is a closed system. It is not open to being reordered from the outside from any transcendent Being. There are no miracles. If there is a god, he or she is irrelevant. Life has no reason, no overarching purpose; it is just what happens, a sequential stream of cause and effect events.

According to this view, we are no one in particular. We are not special or chosen. We arrived here because our lottery number came up. We have no destiny. No one is looking out for us or planning anything for us. Human beings are just complex machines that have personality because of chemical and physical interactions we do not fully understand. Life is not mystery; it is mechanical complexity.

Death is not a transition from one kind of living to another; it is simply the extinction of personality and individuality. According to the popular twentieth-century philosopher Ernest Nagel, "Human destiny [is] is an episode between two oblivions." Pretty dark.

In the absence of the Creator, the universe is a giant clock whose gears and levers mesh with mechanical precision, ticking and tocking through time in a perfectly ordered way-all on its own, of course. God is not immanent, not fully personal, and certainly not providential (there is no divine plan).

Which story you hold to be true will profoundly impact the way you feel about yourself and how you respond to the things that happen to you. If this really is a dice-tossed world, life is just a race of the rats and it's every rat for him/herself. If the Bible is true, we matter. It would mean that what you and I do and how we live counts; we are part of something bigger than ourselves, part of a story God is telling.

Me thinks it's a better story.

I think the scientific community needs to more carefully consider the biblical story of origins. It needs to admit it is not insanity to discuss intelligent design when having a conversation about origins of the physical universe. Belief about origins seems to me to be more tenable from the theistic perspective than from the this-is-all-here-by-chance perspective. But then, I'm biased; I've had an encounter with Jesus Christ.