How Do Christians Deal with the Conflict?

Of course, there are a wide range of responses. They tend to fall into four camps (though as was pointed out in class, there can be quite a lot of shading between these positions; they aren't quite as rigid as this may make it seem):

1. Young Earth Creationism - The world is less than 10,000 years old, just as a literal reading of the Bible indicates. Any science that suggests otherwise is wrong. This position is driven as much by an approach to biblical interpretation as it is with an objection to the discoveries of science. That is, the age of the earth only matters because it seems to contradict the Bible. Another way to put this is that there are few, if any scientists who argue for a "Young Earth" who are also not religious.

Some Links (Check out the home pages for more info)

Institute for Creation Research

Creation Research

2. Old Earth Creationism - The "days" in Genesis really mean ages or periods of time, and while science is right about the earth being old, it was created in stages as described in Genesis, and species were created by God as they appear today. This approach is more easily reconciled with some of the discoveries of science, and some proponents hold that God worked through evolution to bring Adam and Eve into existence. Many Old Earth Creationists are comfortable with the Intelligent Design movement, and simply replace the unknown "Intelligent Designer" of the ID movement with God (see the NewCreationism link, below).

Some Useful Links:
Reasons

New Creationism

3. Intelligent Design - this approach holds that science has it more-or-less right in terms of the age of the universe, the development of galaxies, suns and planets, the evolutionary nature of life- but ID rejects the "all by chance" implication of evolution. The ID position holds that it is obvious from the complexity of life that it had to have been designed. ID does not say who the designer is (and holds that science cannot know the identity of the designer), just that careful science reveals that life requires a designer- it could not have happened by accident. As a side note, the leading proponents of ID are careful to not make an association between ID and a religion, because then it could not be taught in public schools as an alternative theory to evolution. As such, ID is offered as a correction to Darwinism, more than a Biblical response to science.

Some ID Sites:

Discovery Institute

Access Research Network

4. Theistic Evolution- God is the Creator, and designed all of creation. However, He did not need to intervene at any particular stage to bring the world we see today about. "Big Bang" cosmology and evolution describes the "How" of creation. So Theistic Evolution shares the notion of God as the Creator with the Young and Old Earth Creationists, and the idea of an Intelligent Designer with the ID movement (though Theistic Evolution explicitly identifies the God of the Bible as the designer, unike the ID movement).

Three Supporters of this Position:
Dr. Kenneth Miller
Christian and Professor of Biology at Brown University
Finding Darwin's God

Dr. Denis Lamoureux,
Professor of Science and Religion at St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta
Home Page
Epic Battle
Overview on Dr. Lamoureux

Dr. Howard van Till
Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy at Calvin College
Second and Third Articles on this Page

And Speaking for the State of Science
One thing you will discover (if you have not already) is that the various creationist positions can be very critical about science, scientists and even other creationist positions. Here are a few sites that talk about science.

Science & Theology News

Talk.Origins FAQ About Evolution

This is quite a lot of information, and these just provide overviews of the subject! I encourage you to work through the various viewpoints, and integrate your view of science into your broader experience of faith and interaction with the world.

I hope you are coming to see that science is an approach to the world around us. As such, it is fair to question the assumptions scientists start with. All of us tend to see what we expect to see- this does not change just because we are "doing science" (or religion, for that matter). The scientific perspective that transformed our culture and worldview was at first radical and skeptical. But like most things human, science as an institution has too often become dogmatic and inflexible. But just like institutional failures of the church do not invalidate Christianity, neither do the failures of scientists or institutions invalidate the practice of science (though they might result in bad science).

My confidence is that the God of Truth is not threatened by hard questions and in-depth exploration of the world around us. It may be difficult, even unsettling to come to understand that the world is different than we thought; but men and women of faith have gone there before us, and we can learn from their experience.