The theory of evolution as it stands would have to be rethought. It could be modified, extended, or rejected. That’s what science is.
Exactly!!
This is what science does, particularly when it comes to piecing out areas of interest for which the data is largely still hidden or destroyed. When better means of analyzing data or some new source of data comes up, then all the previous attempts to explain what was known have to be adjusted to explain the new data.
What people who do not like Darwin’s proposals have to understand is that they are free to propose a better PHYSICAL explanation for how the work of Providence left the world in the condition scientists have been finding it.
God is not a deceiver. We have not been commanded not to try to figure out how the creation of the world was accomplished in specific terms. The Bible gives the Genesis story, yes, but it also says, “But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day.” (2 Peter 3:8), Our Lord said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). Was He not speaking the truth just because he did not mean what he said in the sense his listeners took him to mean it? No, sometimes God speaks in metaphors when his listeners want to assume God is being literal. That is reason enough to be willing to believe that Genesis was also not meant literally, even though it is true.
Which is more likely, that God left physical clues meant to mislead scientists or that God said something in His Revelation that some people would interpret literally when it was not meant that way? Well, we know from the example just cited from John and from other instances that God does speak in ways that people interpret the wrong way. What is the example of God would leave physical evidence of animals that never existed? There is none. Could we accept that we may have interpreted that evidence incorrectly? Well, of course that is possible. The evidence is, however, that we must also be ready to accept that we have interpreted Divine Revelation incorrectly, too, when we tried to make it into a science textbook in spite of physical evidence that contradicts that interpretation.
