But back to your post, how to educate your children is of grave concern of mine. They have been taught about Adam and Eve; and we basically just present this as historical fact. I don’t’ know how to make that leap where I allow the reality of evolution to come into their education. But be sure of this, eventually I will. Because it is true. And I will not let my two girls go through a crisis of faith when they discover the truth for themselves. I’m going to try to teach them to accept what is reality if it doesn’t jive well with our religious beliefs; whether it is common descent or the JEPD theory of Pentateuch authorship.

I’m not against giving children “age-appropriate” facts. Yes, God did obviously make the oceans. For some kids at some ages, teleological accounts of nature are good enough. In fact, teleology was good enough for all of mankind for thousands of years (when mythology — function being a consequence of divine purpose — was the medium by which questions about the cosmos were answered). Just as science “evolved” from the mythological to the material — teleology is not a bad place to start for the wee ones who lack the faculties to consider the scientific acount.

The Westminster shorter Catechism begins with the question: “Who made you?” with the obvious answer being, “God made me” — knowing full well that we all came from our mother’s wombs after 9 months of gestating (the laws of nature acting on previously inantimate matter without supernatural influence). The very next question is, “What else did God make?” with the answer being, “God made all things”. My kids, being good smart a$$es like their dad, always wanted to know if God built our house when the houses down the street are being built by a bunch of sweaty guys? This silly, but true, story illustrates the problem. We mistaken allow teleology to compete with science for the same territory.

In some ways, science education (in a Christian context) can follow the historical stages of scientific development — sort of an “evo-devo” approach to scientific education. The key is to NEVER allow the teleological account to directly compete with the scientific account for the same territory. This is the topic of my next post — so I’ll leave it at that for now.

Also, what you or I would consider “Historical Fact” was not something that ancient Semetic people would have identified with. We really don’t even have to worry about classifying the Garden of Eden narrative according to literary generes that didn’t exist at the time of its writing (insert big sigh of relief here). What I said about not allowing the mythological to directly compete with the scientific for the same territory is also relavent here. Stay tuned for more on the Garden of Eden…