"Why does Christianity always seem to be changing to fit the knowledge we obtain through science?" This is a question that often puzzles me for a number of reasons which I will try to explain.
The only view I can think that we appear to be wavering on is our "origin of life" view. The claim is made that Christians have always believed that the world was created in six literal days. The claim, however, is false and ignorant of the thinkers throughout church history. Origen (3rd century) opposed the idea of six literal days, Saint Augustine argued that Genesis 1 and 2 were written based on the understanding of the people at that time and Thomas Aquinas felt the same. The idea of a literal six day creation, although most certainly held by some previously (they had no "alternative"), is really a 20th Century advent of fundamentalist, North American based, Christianity.
It would seem to me that some atheists also view Christian acceptance of evolution as a win for naturalism and more proof of the delusion that is Christianity. That in this century of discovery and knowledge, we are grasping at the straws of a belief that - as we come to learn more about how the natural world works - is doomed to failure. I know what this kind of reasoning is like, I too used to think like this, even as a believer. I had no explanation for how God did what was claimed in the Book of Genesis, I just thought there was no way it could be done through evolution, because that meant God wasn't needed. But this line of reasoning was near-sighted and almost demonstrable to my faith as I starting to talk to people, whom I knew and trusted, that studied and endorsed evolutionary biology. They had no reason to lie to me, and I knew this; I was presented with a dilemma. Or so I thought...
Being thoroughly convinced of the existence of God and of the divinity of Jesus, I just couldn't make sense of it all, and was forced to put it on the shelf (way in the back, and covered it with a towel). But as of late I have been doing some thinking about it and came to realize just how foolish I had been. Evolution is far from being a defeater to belief in God or belief in the Christian religion for that matter. I have come to view it for what it is, a natural explanation and it has served to strengthen the conviction of my beliefs and to appreciate God's creation even more. See, once I realized that Evolution by "natural" selection is a presupposition of science based on what is testable, to use it as a logical means to conclude that God doesn't exist just doesn't follow and is really just begging the question/ arguing in a circle. Science is limited, it can't touch God and once you bring God into the equation, you are being philosophical and like I said, arguing in a circle.
As a Christian I believe that the supernatural, created the natural; that God created a natural world and I believe this is the view that has always been held by Christians (they just had no idea where natural ended and supernatural began). The world which God created would have to be self-regenerative, and a world in which He would have to interject as little as possible, if at all, except at the very moment of creation. A universe who's events were planned out in advance to bring about the existence of human beings - child's play for an omniscient Being. God knew that man would be curious in nature (again with the omniscience) and would seek answers to the way in which the world around him works (2 Timothy 3:7). God gave us free-will and made us highly intelligent, so as to not make the case so convincing for His existence that we were forced to conclude that only a God could make it happen, we can conceive of other ways (sort of).
Back to the Genesis account and evolution. Let me pose this to you, and it is somewhat along the lines of Saint Augustine. If you were a Jew living 3500 years ago and God came to you and gave you, seven visions or dreams, or say one vision separated by evening and night, of the history of creation from start to now, how would you describe it so that others around you could relate to it ? Scientifically? But science wasn't even a thought. Would tell it as a tale, as a summary of the events you witnessed? That sounds more like it. The funny thing is, the more we learn about the history of the universe and our planet, the more it looks like a long drawn out tale of the genesis account. We have a long way to go, but everything had a beginning, like an ancient man wrote down long, long ago.
I may be deemed an "theistic evolutionist," but if that is the case then I am also a theistic cosmologist, physicist, chemist, logician, et al. I believe God created a natural world, not a supernatural one and as such our science is only studying His creation, which is representative of His omnipotence and omniscience. Now, if you think I am dismissing the Genesis account I should say that I believe it is a literal representation of the events through the eyes of a ancient man, in an ancient time, who described what was shown to Him as it was shown to him and that is something that every scientist on the planet would kill to see: the very formation of our universe and of our planet from the beginning of time, up until this age.
Never again will I be able to understand how the exploration of the natural world eliminates God, for me it has only enhanced my understanding of Him. Christians are not changing in their beliefs and although we may differ on second, third or fourth order beliefs, this is because we are human and our understanding is where we differ. Our core beliefs remain the same, we believe that God exists and that Jesus died for our sins, just as time goes on we come to know more about our God through the natural world, and a God that we come to know more and more about as we build off of present generations, well, that's a God I can not only come to appreciate, but one in whom I can, and indeed have, come to love.
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