"If you cast aside the notion that God created the world"
Dude, to say that God made something happen that looks to us like evolution is *not* to cast aside the notion that God created the world.
Did He create it this way, or did He create it that way?
I don't even really see that it's an important question.
As a Christian, I have NEVER seen this as an important question. EVER.
Forest for the trees thing.
****to say that God made something happen that looks to us like evolution is *not* to cast aside the notion that God created the world.****
No, it doesn't cast aside the notion of a diety. It does cast aside the God of the Bible who has spoken to us in an authoritative and trustworth manner through the Scripture.
***Did He create it this way, or did He create it that way?***
...Words which are very close to those of the serpent in the garden when he said...
"Yea, hath God said,...?"
***I don't even really see that it's an important question.***
Theologically it is of critical importance. EVERY theological concept in the Bible has its origin in Genesis. If the events of Genesis are not historical then Biblical theology falls apart.
It is a fundamentally important question, in fact the most fundamental and the most important. This question places before you 2 world views: Creation or Hegelian Dialectic. You can't have it both ways.
To illustrate one important area where this choice of philosophies is crucial: Catholic moral theology is based upon the principle of teleology in which each thing is created by God for a purpose. Thus creation and purpose go together like peanut butter and jelly. But once you remove creation, then you also remove purpose.
Objects in a hegelian dialectical system do not have a purpose. They simply reflect the current status of the process. What darwinists hate most of all is any sort of teleology. To claim a purpose in a Darwinian process is to place yourself outside the pale of publishable scientists.
Today in modern philosophy there is a desperate attempt to create a new teleology without reference to creation. It has been a doomed and misguided project. There is no teleology without creation, and so there is no natural law and no morality without creation.