Fun With Dick And Jane

In elementary school, my first encounter with reading was the adventures of Dick and Jane. No one, as far as I know, has ever mistaken these reading primers as "serious" literature. They were nothing more, nor less, than primers for beginning readers. Anything which had to do with science or math was purely coincidental. Thankfully, these primers helped to teach me to read and inspired a passion for reading which remains with me still.
Somewhere along the way the Bible became confused with a science textbook and we have been in trouble ever since. The Bible is not a science book, it is a faith book. The point of those two creation stories in Genesis one and two is not the" how" of creation. It is the "Who" of creation. Science helps us understand how, theology points us toward the creator.
Those "young" earth anti-evolutionist believers are at odds with science because they are attempting to impose something on the Bible which the writers did not intend. They claim the earth is six or seven thousand years old based on counting generations through the Old and New Testaments. These numbers are not exact because the numbers don't add up in a consistent way. Check out the genealogy sections in the gospels of Matthew and Luke sometime. Not only does a different cast of characters produce the same result, the numbers don't add up either. This is not to say that one is right and the other wrong. These folks were just coming at their story from different directions.
The question I have is this, "Why couldn't God choose to create through evolution?" As a matter of fact a strong case could be made for this by reading Genesis one. The story of creation unfolds day by day with the human race making an appearance on day six. Don't the evolutionists say the human race is last on the chain of life to develop?
I'm not proposing this interpretation for Genesis one. Again, I believe science can answer the how questions while theology deals with the Who. The very existence of life itself points to the Who. Science is now capable of doing some amazing things with life, cloning and transplants come to mind. But science cannot create life from scratch, God can. Science cannot rule out God, and theology cannot prove God. But life points us to the direction of a creator.
The stories of faith found in the scriptures are there to inform, form, and transform our journey of faith. They are there to teach, challenge, lead, sometimes push us, into a life of discipleship.
So, whether the earth is thirty five billion years old or seven thousand years old, God is creator. My faith is not in the details of creation. My faith is in God the creator. The Bible points me in that direction. If life sprang from a primal goo, God made the goo and the primal as well.
Science and theology should be sitting around the same table comparing notes instead of throwing stones at each other. I think both could learn something.