Can Christians accept the big bang theory? Of course, in some circles the answer is a resounding “No!” There are definite places in American Christendom in which a positive answer to this question would cost you your job. Any deviation from a view that creation took place over six 24-hour days about 6000 years ago is, in those circles, treated as anti-Christian heresy. There’s a problem with that view, but more on that later.

If you are a Catholic Christian, on the other hand, you actually are free to espouse a world view that is at many points in line with modern scientific thought. The Church believes and teaches that the biblical creation story is not as much a story of how as a story of who and why. We believe that God created the world, and that He was free to do so in any way He chose.

At the heart of this debate is one’s view of scripture. Many protestant denominations hold to a literal interpretation of scripture, requiring that every word is scientifically accurate. Their view of inspiration treats the Holy Spirit as dictating the words of scripture, and the human writers as little (or nothing) more than secretaries taking dictation. The Catholic view is different. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) paragraph 106: “To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written . . . ” This means that the men who wrote the books of the Bible were allowed to speak the Word of God in words that they and their audiences could understand and appreciate.

CCC par. 107 says: “. . . we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.” The Church teaches that the Bible is completely true and accurate in matters of faith and morals. The Scriptures accurately convey the information we need to enter into relationship with God through Christ, to grow in that relationship through the development of holiness, and ultimately to enter into eternal relationship with God at the end of this life.

The Bible is not, though, a math or science textbook. One famous Baptist preacher proudly proclaimed, “All I ever needed to know, I learned from the Bible!” Rest assured, though, the Bible did not teach him to drive a car, operate a computer, or do his taxes. But none of those things are necessary to our relationship to God. On the other hand, the Bible did teach him how to be a responsible and courteous driver, how to choose between edifying and destructive internet sites, and how to be honest in his dealings with others including the IRS. Those things are bound to a person’s relationship to God. The Bible may not be a science book, but it does give us what we need to get to Heaven.

Some will still want to argue that the Bible is completely accurate, even in math and science. Here we come back to the problem of the creation story. Most evangelical views of creation rely completely on Genesis chapter 1, which teaches that God created the world in six days, and that the creation of the animals preceded the creation of mankind. But then there’s Genesis 2, in which creation is a single-day event (“…in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens” -Genesis 2.4, King James Version), and the creation of man (Genesis 2.7) precedes the creation of animals (“And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast…” -Genesis 2.19, KJV). [I’m using the KJV, the ultimate protestant Bible translation, to show that I’m not making this up. And I’m leaving out a lot of text by necessity; please go read the whole passage for yourself.] The first two chapters of the Bible contain two versions of the creation story which contradict each other’s chronology. If you’re a strict literalist, there’s a real problem here. But I, as a Catholic catechist (fancy word for teacher of the faith), teach that two scriptural passages can disagree in certain particulars and still both be true.

Let me set out “Dr. Bill’s Principle of Scriptural Disagreement.” (I’m probably not the first biblical theologian to come up with this. If you know of anyone teaching this more than 15 years ago, please let me know, so I can give proper credit.) When you encounter two scripture passages that disagree with each other, look for the points on which the two passages do agree. I can just about guarantee that you’ll be looking at the real point of the stories. For example, no two gospels agree on the number of women who went to the cemetery and found the empty tomb, but all four agree that the tomb was empty. In the case of Genesis 1 vs. Genesis 2, they don’t agree on when God did what, but they are in absolute agreement that it was God who did it. Knowing how or in what order God created the heavens and earth is not going to affect your relationship to Him, but believing that He did it is a profound truth that lays the foundation for so much else in our theology.

In Catholic teaching on creation, the “how” is open to all manner of debate. But if you’re going to call yourself Catholic, the “who” is a settled issue.

And the “why?” … I’m a progressive Catholic, but sometimes the classics prove why they became classics. The venerable Baltimore Catechism says: “Who made us? God made us. Why did God make us? God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in Heaven.”