Random Designer VI – Take 2
After some comments that followed my post Random Designer VI, I decided to go back and re-read those chapters to try to make sure I was reading Dr. Colling correctly. I have also finished reading the book and thus am no longer in danger of responding to something which will be clarified in later chapters.
I want to emphasize that I believe Dr. Colling is full orthodox in his expression of Christian faith in these chapters. The problem comes in when he tries to express how the material in the first part of the book, in which he has expressed a purely natural view of the evolution of life on earth, from abiogenesis through human beings. Human beings, by this account, are biologically related to all other life forms. Now while he expresses a natural view of evolution, God is always on the horizon, as the source of the laws and processes that are involved.
When he turns to the relationship between God and these people who have involved, we have what appears to be a disconnect. Somehow we have been created to connect with our creator, at the same time as we have evolved as biological entities. I think that the place where many people have a disconnect with evolution is right there, with the word “somehow.” (“Somehow” is my term, but I believe the gap exists in the book as well.)
I can’t blame some people from taking my description as expressing an unjustified dualism. God kind of pops in and makes man special at the very last moment, so we have an act of spiritual, not physical creation. But Dr. Colling doesn’t express it that way in the book. That element results from my abbreviation of the story. It’s true that he does not propose any sort of detail in terms of how God would accomplish that goal, but in so doing he seems to leave the “how” question here open. There’s this human creature that evolves, and then he desires to be in connection with his creator, the “Random Designer.” How did this happen? Well, we’re not precisely sure. Dr. Colling provides some metaphors.
In a sense I’m much less excited with the second half of the book than I was with the first. Don’t take that as sharp criticism. I’m ecstatic about the quality of the first part, and it would be some accomplishment to keep me that excited about the second part as well.
The first thing I would like to see is some better connection between evolutionary theory and the Genesis account, i.e. some explicit discussion of the scriptural passages. Dr. Colling does not do that. There’s an excellent excuse, in that one wants to keep a book like this to a reasonable length. But of the many hundreds of questions I’ve been asked regarding evolution, that is always the first one–how can I believe in evolution and read Genesis? Indeed, I recall me teacher in elementary school (during the 4 years out of my first 12 I was not homeschooled) informing me that we memorized Genesis 1 & 2 (and we did, every word in the KJV), because it would then be so ingrained in our minds that we would never accept evolution. Nonetheless is is not surprising that there is not extended discussion of these issues. One could write a separate book on that topic.
The second issue is in dealing with the image of God, what it is, and how one gets the image of God. Perhaps someone whose training is primarily theological (or more precisely in Biblical studies/languages) would be hungry for more detailed theological integration of the material about humanity, where we fit, and how we connect with God. But despite a good deal of discussion, I still feel the “somehow” gap.
For a non-theologian, Dr. Colling does a good job tackling the issues involved. I’m wondering, however, if there are not more theologians to the more conservative end of the spectrum who would look at this. We do have some good scientists from the evangelical camp working on it, and they are generally pretty good at theology, but I haven’t seen much in the way of solid work on science and religion from the evangelical side. This may reflect my reading habits more than availability of the material. I would welcome comments on what is available.
From my own perspective, John Haught does quite an excellent job, but I’m not so sure that this would satisfy those in the evangelical community.
As a final note, I personally believe that the creator would enter into communion with any creature who developed consciousness. I think it highly likely that he does so with many, many creatures elsewhere in the universe. I don’t think anything special is needed except God’s willingness to communicate. I think it is inevitable that if this universe is contingent, and thus there is a creator, that we would reach out to that creator. Thus I don’t envision any separate, special act of creation. That may, however, be too far out there for some of my more conservative brethren.
I will finish this series with one more post on the final chapters of the book. I do intend to recommend it strongly. It’s a great contribution to Christian understanding of the theory of evolution.
From your discussion, it seems that, like Miller and Collins and even Falk, Colling is chiefly in the separationist camp – he has the right idea that science and religion can co-exist, but isn’t willing (or as you suggest, simply isn’t qualified) to take the next necessary step ask the important theological question of ‘why.’ Why would God create the world using evolution – a wasteful, imprecise process – when he could just create it all in six days with his words? Why does God prefer random contingency to intimate control? The answers to these questions are much tougher since they require us not only to accept evolution, but also to change some of our fundamental ideas about who God is and what he is doing.
I second your recommendation of Haught’s work. To my mind, he is the best modern interpreter of the theological implications of an ancient, evolving creation.
I think at least a few of the theological problems we think we see exist only if we assume that evolution is nothing more than a method of getting to the modern world and ourselves. If we assume instead that God has valued/intended/communed with all the stages of his creation, then evolution doesn’t seem anymore like a wasteful, imprecise process.
Surely every evolutionary stage of every plant/creature brings something valuable into existence. So the world that God created is far richer even than the world as it exists today. God’s world includes every minute of the billions of years involved and every event and object in every stage in every one of those minutes.
From my perspective, God has been and is in contact with every element of his creation at all times. At some point in our evolution, humans took on the image of God as we gained the ability to recognize the existence of good and evil and, like all children do, to imitate our father; that is, to choose communion, to reach out toward connection and wholeness.
I’m very much enjoying your comments on Colling and look forward to reading his book.
TLTB,
My answer to your question of why evolution might have occurred (by intent) via natural processes is implicit in one reading of Genesis 1 (which I borrow somewhat from Kass Beginning of Wisdom).
Genesis 1, among other things, teaches us that the visible universe is intelligible. Evolution as is being uncovered is also intelligible. Is that not enough?
Thanks for the second look here Henry. In the few readings I have made where evolution and theology are discussed together, there is the same “somehow” question left hanging.
It is my recollection from my limited philosophy classes in college that we are just a relatively short time into what most people have called “post modern” discourse. I thought it used to be a given that most philosophical arguments centered around discerning the underlying ordered rules of our existence using reason and logic as the main tools for arguing one’s point. The problem I seem to see here is that using reason and logic, one can easily prove that evolution and genesis are completely incompatible or one can prove that they are compatible. Our old tools don’t work in this case, and we need some of the new methods of discourse to shed some light on these issues. I thought maybe this book might shed some light on that area, but it sounds like it doesn’t quite go there.
I look forward to any other recommendations you might have.
No, i don’t think it is enough. We could image many other ways God might have created the universe that would have also been intelligible. For instance, he could have done it in six days ten thousand years ago. If he had, we certainly would be able to show it with clear evidence.
Aesthetically, this answer also strikes me as a bit anthropocentric. I do not think God created the cosmos the way he did just so we would be able to comprehend how he’d done it.