Professor Neil Ormerod says he's dismayed when he hears people trying to reconcile the stories in the Bible with scientific discoveries.
Recently I was presenting at a seminar on the question of science and religion for teachers and students. Among the many questions which were asked was one which was both predictable and sad: 'How can we reconcile what the Bible says with evolution?' It is sad because it indicates how little many Catholics know about what the Church actually says about these matters.
Some seventy years ago Pope Pius XII taught that to understand the Bible we need to understand the 'literary form' of its writings. Sometimes the Bible speaks in poetry, sometimes in legend, sometimes through historical narrative. If we misread the literary form we will misunderstand the meaning intended by the Biblical author. This teaching was reaffirmed at Vatican II and in subsequent Church documents.
When we turn to the text of Genesis, especially the first chapter which describes God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh, we have to ask what the 'literary form' of this text is. Clearly it is not a scientific text, because such books were unknown at the time. In fact when read as literature we begin to note the structure, the repeated phrases, and the rhythm of the text. We might then begin to understand it more as a form of poetic writing. As such while it conveys truth, it does so through symbol and metaphor. If we try to read poetry literally is makes no sense. Similarly if we read Genesis 1 literally we completely misunderstand what it is saying.
When he was facing his trial by Church authorities Galileo cited a comment by a certain cardinal to the effect that 'The Bible was written to show us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go'. Genesis teaches us many things about God, about his freedom in creating the world, his loving care for everything he created, and the goodness of all creation, especially human beings. In all this it helps us to know and love God. But what is does not teach us is 'how the heavens go' or anything that would contradict what science might teach us about the origins of life.