Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: evolution

  • An Answer for Mark: Death as a Divine Tool

    Mark responded to my post Dealing with the Theological Implications of Evolution, and in turn poses a question to me, well summarized in the last sentence of his last paragraph:

    What is the particular problem that is raised that Stegosaurus had a million or so years in the sun but now is no longer?

    Which reminds me that I get in the most trouble for the things I don’t say in a post. That question needs to be put into the context of the point I was trying to address in the post. Some Christians respond to evolution by saying that it doesn’t really make any difference. Genesis tells us that God created; evolution tells us how God created.

    Depending on your audience, that will mean substantially different things. In some ways I regret growing up and essentially completing my formal education as a young earth creationist. There are so many lines of inquiry I would have pursued. I don’t mean things that would have advanced knowledge generally, but that could have advanced my knowledge.

    At the same time, I understand how young earth creationists think, and telling them that evolution doesn’t make any difference is quite futile. You see a substantial part of the young earth creationist background involves an understanding of the fall. I’m not saying that every young earth creationist feels this way, but I personally haven’t encountered one who doesn’t.

    The fall of humanity happened at a specific historical point. There was no sin in the world before that, and there was sin afterward. The physical world suffered as a result of sin, and was, in fact, dramatically altered because physical death was introduced at that point. (Never mind how an ecology would function without death.) In the particular form in which I learned it, the deteriorating ages of the patriarchs in Genesis 5 & 11 indicates the deterioration of the very fabric of the universe, or at least of life, so that people became less and less long-lived as they separated from God.

    In that context, to say that evolution makes no difference theologically is nonsense. Evolution makes all the difference in the world. If God used evolution as his tool to create the world, not only is the chronology different, but the connection between sin and physical death is broken. There might be some deterioration of the world after sin, though no evidence of this is available, but the direct connection cannot exist.

    For people who hold the young earth creationist viewpoint, at least in the form I grew up with, evolution is a devastating blow to all they hold dear. If the fall did not cause deterioration, then how can redemption cause recreation? Remember here that they believe this does involve the physical world, all of creation (Romans 8:22). Everything from God’s personal care of everyone, to redemption, and finally to the life hereafter and the new creation falls under their system if evolution is true. The theological impact is massive.

    I would add a side note on the “gap theory” or “ruin and restoration creationism” which holds that the earth is very old, the same age as that held by mainstream science and by old earth creationists, yet that sin was brought to earth before the creation that occurred in Genesis 1. In their view sin caused death, but did so before Adam was created. Adam then participated in that death at the fall. For them successive extinction events can become successive acts of destruction by God intended to wipe out or punish evil. Evolution is still devastating to their theology and they would reject it vigorously.

    One other odd view is Bill Dembski’s view that death was introduced prospectively, i.e. God knew that evil would occur and dealt with it before the fact. Adam was thus responsible, even though he sinned much later. I blogged about it a bit here, and Dembski’s article can be found here. (Note that he has revised this several times, so quotes from it in any earlier articles may be wrong. I’ve tried to note the date, but I think I forgot a few times. I always used the version that was online as of the date I posted.)

    Old earth creationists and theistic evolutionists are in essentially the same place on this. Death must be seen as a natural part of the way the universe is designed, and death becomes God’s tool. I would say that the issue is even harder for old earth creationists. Let me digress for a moment to explain why.

    I’m not much impressed with the common argument that God didn’t create evil; God created Satan, who then rebelled. In other words, I don’t feel the separation between God taking action directly, God creating someone who has the option to take an action, or God creating a process that has that same effect. If God created Satan knowing he would do evil (a requirement if one accepts foreknowledge, which in the traditional sense I do not), then God is equally responsible. If God creates a world in which the holocaust can occur, he can’t evade responsibility. In scripture, I don’t see any great effort to avoid God’s responsibility for whatever happened. That seems to be mostly a later effort.

    Let me illustrate. Supposing I have responsibility for a group of children, and I let them loose in a room full of valuable but fragile items. I don’t set any parameters, but simply tell them to play and then I run off. I don’t come back, observe, and most importantly intervene when their play gets lively and the valuable items are broken.

    If the owner of the valuables comes to me and charges me with responsible, will he except the excuse that the children did it? I suspect not. I put the children there. I didn’t instruct them properly. I didn’t monitor them, and I didn’t intervene to stop them. I think most people would regard me as responsible for the breakage.

    In the same way I regard God as responsible for the universe. I think I have warrant to believe that God regards God as responsible for the universe.

    But the fact is that in my experience most people do not agree with me with regard to God. They do find “the devil did it” to exonerate God in some sense. In that context, I think the old earth creationists have a bit of a problem. As a theistic evolutionist I believe that God so ordered the universe that there would be processes that would bring about life and allow it to diversify. I must accept that God is thereby responsible for such things as scarcity of resources; no diversification would occur if there was no selective survival.

    The old earth creationist, it seems to me, must see God as creating an incomplete process. Variation and natural selections works some, but appears to be defective. Thus God allows the process to work and then steps in and creates greater variations from time to time. So God is not merely using a tool that is part of the fabric of the universe; he is also getting involved on a day to day (or more likely age to age or period to period basis. I think if they were consistent the same people who accept a devil based theodicy should regard this as God with dirty hands.

    I must restate, however, that I think theistic evolutions and old earth creationists are in the same boat on this one, and that evolution does not make a theological difference on this one point. But that is only true between old earth creationists and theistic evolutionists. Young earth creationists or ruin and restoration creationists would see it somewhat differently.

  • Faith and Imagination

    I haven’t been blogging here for the last couple of days. Even though I only do network management/maintenance work part time, every so often I end up with full days away from my computer, and thus likely to write much less. I must confess that my market value in technical work (I have my own company) is substantially higher than as a writer or lecturer. Thus I keep doing it.

    As always I was collecting ideas for blogging. I found the Rapture Ready site through Exploring Our Matrix, and my plan was to post something about my Revelation study guide on my company blog–and I still plan to do so. (How’s that for sneaking the commercial into the intro?)

    So this is my “Sunday morning, I got up early enough for work, but have time before church” blog! What caught my attention as I worked my way through the Rapture Ready site was a paragraph on evolution, and even there it was not what it said about evolution, but what it says about faith and imagination that really caught my interest:

    In my opinion, it takes less faith to believe that Almighty God created the earth in six days—He could have done it in six minutes if He chose to—than to believe that some cosmic explosion is responsible for the life and beauty all around us. The creation story is not in conflict with science; it is in conflict with any worldview in which God is absent. When I look at a newborn baby, I cannot imagine a big bang, but I can imagine a loving creator.

    “It takes less faith . . .” I’ve heard that one plenty of times. Someone explains some ridiculous conception of origins, and then says that it takes more faith than believing whatever they believe about origins. Now whether you agree with me on the theory of evolution or not, I’d like you to consider whether that is an argument you’d like to use.

    Is there some benefit somewhere in believing the thing that takes less faith? “1Now faith is the substantial nature of things we hope for, the clear conviction of things we don’t see.” — Hebrews 11:1, my translation. There are really two elements here, the first is faith and its value, and the second is “things we don’t see.” I’ll get to that in a moment.

    Regarding faith, however, I have a second question. If you believe God did it, how can there be a difference in the amount of faith it requires to believe in a particular way in which God did it? Apparently for the author of the Rapture Ready web site, it is much easier to believe in a literal creation week. But somehow he finds the Big Bang difficult to comprehend. (Since I’m not really trying to debate evolution here, I’ll ignore the fact that the Big Bang is not a part of the theory of evolution, well, at least mostly ignore it.)

    But if God could make the world in six minutes if he chose, why not six seconds? Why not a fraction of a second? Why not in no time at all? The point I’m trying to make is that if God is omnipotent, or something so close to it that we can’t tell the difference, then there is no difference in the probability that he might use any particular way. If I see a complex creation of human ingenuity, I will assume that it was assembled one part at a time in some logical order. That’s because humans are limited. But if I assume a device that can create whole machines instantly, I would no longer be able to look at an assembled machine and make such an assumption.

    There are no probabilities with God. We can’t say, based solely on theology, what God can or can’t do. That’s what omnipotence is all about. So theologically it truly shouldn’t take any different amount of faith to believe that God accomplished his will through one means or another. God can do it in whatever manner he chose.

    In addition, there is certainly no value in believing the thing that takes less faith. Bluntly for me the “low faith” option is to just accept that the world is, and not worry about its origins. I’m actually quite capable of doing that. Christians might ask if I’m not really defaulting to a “high faith” option of believing that everything came into existence by pure chance. No, I would not be. Some people seem to have problems with unanswered questions. I’m fine with saying, “Here’s the universe. I’m clueless as to why it’s here, but here it is.” It happens that my faith goes beyond that, but that’s another thing. Amongst the various ways in which God could have done it, I see no difference in the faith required to believe any particular one.

    But then we get to imagination. I think spirituality requires some imagination. I don’t really know all that much about any spiritual realm. I frequently disappoint atheist or agnostic friends with my lack of effort to prove any of the things I believe–by faith. You see, they are “not seen” and I don’t try to pretend that they really are seen. So in that gap there is some room for imagination.

    People have imagined things in the spiritual realm for millenia. Descriptions of angels and demons, of God’s home in heaven or the place of torment in hell, and all the various ways God accomplishes things–all these are products of imagination. I believe that there is a spiritual something–we often use “spiritual reality” but that sounds like an oxymoron to me–behind the things that I imagine, but I suspect (or imagine?) that what is, in a spiritual sense, is so much beyond my imagination that I would find it not only hard, but impossible to imagine. MercyMe may only be able to imagine (I love the song), but I can’t even do that.

    I think these are two arguments that should be dropped from our vocabulary. We can’t measure the faith required to believe God did things a particular way, because he is equally capable of using any way he chooses. If we could measure the faith, there is no reason to believe that the means requiring less faith would be better. Our imaginations aren’t the measure of what is true or what is possible. We can only imagine, and we do it poorly.

    I have faith because, well, I just do. I imagine because it’s a great joy to do so. Neither prove anything.

  • An Evangelist for Evolution

    The Rev. Michael Dowd is preaching a surprising message: Evolution is real and science points to the existence of God. (Source: .)

    Rev. Dowd also joins the growing group who acknowledge that accepting evolution does impact one’s theology in some ways. I find his specific take interesting.

    One theme that seems to get someone entry into Christian venues is the idea that science can help support faith. Those who say, “Evolution is true, live with it” don’t get so much of a hearing. Unfortunately, while I believe that scientific evidence can be seen as consistent with the existence of God, I see nothing that forces or drives the conclusion that there truly is a God. Often the evidence makes one drop some definition of God that one had held before.

    In a comment to a previous post Larry B. writes:

    In the same (but different) way, I honestly feel that evolution for a lot of people has unmoored more than a few christians from their foundations.

    (I don’t want to copy the whole comment here, but it is worthwhile reading the entire context.)

    I agree with this statement, but would ask what is the proper response? If people have faith that God will heal everyone for whom prayer is offered, they will very possibly be “unmoored” from that faith when reality doesn’t accord with their expectations. In the case of evolution, I suggest that there is more education needed amongst Christians about the implications and possibilities, so that people can make intelligent decisions.

    I do think it is important to note the real challenges to theology, and to welcome, rather than fear questions. Christianity is ultimately doomed if it cannot find a more friendly way to co-exist with challenges. There’s the “fall over and play dead” option and the “circle the wagons option.” We need more folks in the “let’s have fun with this” camp!

    Or at least that’s my take on it.

  • Dr. Richard Colling Comments on Random Designer Review

    I wanted to call attention to a few of these, as Dr. Colling’s response to elements of my posts on his book is very important. He also makes some substantial points in his comments.

    I’m going to quote and link to two of these so that they are not missed.

    Chapter 14 almost did not make the cut for the book. One of my closest friends had read the manuscript just before it went to press. He had terminal cancer. When I suggested that I might take that chapter out, he was adamant that it needed to be included. He could see that his life was soon to end, but he was supremely confident that his life would never end. Only the physical was terminal in his mind. The spiritual had no end. One of his favorite sayings to me during those last months of his life was, ” All healing is temporary”.

    If I think about this, it is so obvious, but also deep. We sometimes place God before the litmus tests of our experimental designs, saying that if we experience some apparently inexplicable healing or recovery from physical disease, it is God. Well, my friend knew that God does not thrive or even appreciate that kind of notariety. All of us are physical beings, and mortality is common to us all. It is hard for me to believe that God cares a great deal about whether I live to be 60 or 80, but it is easy for me to understand that he cares how I relate to him and to others. In the Bible, Jesus repeatedly cautioned his followers about emphasizing physical health over spiritual.

    Are miracles real? My answer is a resounding “Yes”.
    But in the sense that every biochemical process that has been ordained within us, including the innate healing processes are miracles. Can these be tapped by spiritual means? I have not seen it conclusively demonstrated, but I know others who are very convinced, and I accept that reality as a possibility.
    That is faith, I guess.

    Glad you are finding value in the book.

    Thanks.
    Rick

    Source: Comment 99252.

    Hello Henry, and all.

    The answers to the questions posed in your discussions are, in my opinion, not to be easily had from science. They become matters of faith. I understand very well your thinking Henry, that the creation of intelligent human life may not have been so directly directed as we typically understand the word “directed”. It may be as you describe. The multiverse theory suggests something similar — that there are even multiple universes, and that within some of these, life can develop and evolve to reach similar point perhaps as we. But alas, the stretches of time and space preclude us from ever knowing such things for sure. So here we are, trapped in a sense, in our teeny tiny corner of one of hundreds of billions of solar systems existing within hundreds of billions of galaxies and knowing that we can never learn the answer for certain. All we can do it seems is consider what we do know from science (the physical world) and make the best resonance with our faith.
    I recognize that some of the extrapolations tread on what some consider to be “sacred ground’. but my thinking is that perhaps we have some things wrong in our classic Christian/religious foundations.

    One of you suggest that physical death/suffering does not enter the world before a human being’s sin. But adopting such a rigid explanation of the Bibilical text creates all kinds of problems. Not for science, but the the credibility of the Biblical text. For thousands of years, theologians did something similar when they suggested that the world was flat and that the earth was the center of all existence. But when science demonstrated that that was simply untrue, religion changed their interpretation of scripture. (But not without some weeping and gnashing of teeth.) Perhaps we are at a similar point now. The conflicts between religion and physical sciences has been fairly well resolved post galileo, but the showdown battle between religion and biological sciences appears to be only now coming to a head, at least here in the US. It is not a significant problem in most other areas of the world.
    So back to the fall (first sin.) If we look at the data, mankind has been around roughly between 60,000 years to 150,000 years. But the earths record is quite clear that death, suffering, and massive destructive forces have been ongoing hundreds of millions of years prior to that time.
    How is this information reconciled with the classic interpretation of the fall as being the source of death and suffering. Clearly, these things do not arise for the first time when Adam and Eve ate an apple.

    Also, if the classic interpretation is accepted that physical death and suffering enter at this time, and that Christ’s death reverses this physical phenomenon, then why did death and suffering not immediately cease when his sacrifice was completed?

    It seems to me that we must be consistent, and careful in our interpretation of scripture. I think it was Charles Hodge who said that to continue to interpret scripture in ways clearly inconsistent with nature is a sure killer for the credibility of the faith.
    Especially if there is a different (and in this case, I believe a better) interpretation. Just as Jesus taught, mankind has a tendency to experience and describe our existence in terms of physical, but he suggests over and over to focus on the spiritual. So, when the first man sins, this is spiritual death. When Christ dies, that sacrifice models God’s way, exposing physical death in a puny perspective when stood next to spiritual death. In other words, Christ’s death was not about the physical dying at all as much as it was perhaps about the willingness to give up oneself for another, or in his case for all! Wasn’t it his words? “No greater love has a man than that he give up his life for a another.”?

    So this humble scientist wonders if we are missing the bigger message of Christianity when we build the foundations of the Christian faith around physical interpretations that cannot possible be true.

    On another note, Henry. Yes, I am an unapologetic Christian, but these days, that descriptor often seems to connote something that I do not like, so I am more recently calling myself a Christ follower. A follower is not wed to preexisting interpretations or creeds, but is a traveler attempting as best as he/she can to listen, learn, love and explore the best and the deepest that life has to offer. When Jesus was asked what one must do to inherit eternal life, he responded, ” Love the lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength,… (and then that troubling little addendum) and your neighbor as yourself.” He said, do this and you will be saved.

    So I am trying to do the best I can to model and follow the example he has given, and try to offer hope to others that literal or classic interpretations are not necessarily directly from the hand of God. they are but teachings and sometimes poorly understood understandings of man.

    Thanks for your interest. I tried hard in Random Designer to make it clear that I am a believer, but also that non-believers need not check their intellect at the door of the church to consider the possibilities for faith and belief.
    As always,
    Rick

    Source: Comment 99253.

    Please go to the original posts for context.

  • Evolution of a Moral Sense

    One of the interesting things I’ve noticed over the years is that scientists who are also believers often tend to resolve theological issues in ways that make the theologians uncomfortable. I can’t call myself a professional theologian, because contrary to what most church members seem to think, theology and Biblical studies are different fields, and indeed are each subdivided into a number of fields themselves.

    On the Panda’s Thumb today we have a post on the evolution of altruistic behavior in robots. This is a remarkably interesting post, referencing recent research, and adds to the mounting evidence that many things we might regard as purely spiritual do, in fact, have material causes. In this case we’re dealing with altruism, but the issue goes deeper into the question of right and wrong as opposed to simply beneficial or not for one’s personal survival. That Humanist provided some additional valuable references and pointers.

    In the comments, there’s a brief exchange over Dr. Francis Collins’ view that morality is something provided by God, which does not result from evolution. Now I’m not going to engage Dr. Collins’ viewpoint in detail. In fact, his book The Language of God is sitting on my “read real soon” shelf, and I plan to blog my way through that reading, so I will respond then. (Out of the references provided in those various blog entires, I recommend this one from TalkReason.

    But the notion that human morality strictly separates us from the animals and that the common elements of human morality point to a God who proclaims morals is one I have encountered before. When I returned to faith after some years away from the church, one of the arguments for the existence of God that impressed me and stuck with me was this argument from universal morals as presented by C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. Don’t get me wrong here. I did not think this proved that God exists, but rather that it pointed in that direction on balance.

    (more…)

  • Apes, Lies, and Chick Tracts

    There’s a propaganda piece that has been showing up in Florida, possibly as part of the fight against evolution in new proposed educational standards. It comes from a site with which I’m fairly well acquainted–Chick Publications. One sickening piece of propaganda from that organization is titled Apes, Lies, and Ms. Henn.

    It is obvious that the intention of the publishers is that we see evolution, and particularly the idea that, as the tract says, people “come from monkeys,” but the real lie is in the tract itself. And as we will see, this is not the only such publication produced by this same organization.

    Dirty politicians could learn lessons from this material, though they would probably endanger their own careers if they used too many of these techniques. There’s a line beyond which politicians are seen as negative, and I’m afraid these would qualify.

    Look at these elements:

    We start with a substitute teacher. Did you notice that “Mrs. Tucker is replaced by “Ms. Henn.” In this way one sweeps various elements of modern life, such as women’s liberation, along with the teaching. Of course, Ms. Henn looks like everyone’s notion of a witch–demonic even–which is clearly not accidental. We’re supposed to see her as the embodiment of evil.

    There is no actual teaching of evolutionary theory portrayed, and all questioning is shut down. This is, of course, what a control freak like Ms. Henn would want to do, and is, of course connected to evolution. The tie-in is quite intentional, of course. Propaganda against the theory of evolution frequently suggests not merely that there is insufficient evidence, but rather that there is no evidence. In their view, the only reason people accept the theory of evolution is that they are desperate to find a way to avoid God. Scientists like Dr. Kenneth Miller or Dr. Francis Collins don’t fit into their universe. A Bible teacher who accepts the theory of evolution, such as myself, would certainly be beyond their grasp.

    There’s the standard misuse of the word “prove/proof” when Ms. Henn claims that “scientists have proven it.” She shouts this, of course. Now there’s little point in vetting this whole propaganda piece for facts–there really are none there. It’s not intended to convince anybody of such mundane things as facts; rather, its purpose is to smear those who teach evolution at the same time as one tries to scare people with the fires of hell.

    Yes, as you continue to read, this gets worse. As a Christian Bible teacher, I am appalled to see this go forward into what apparently is intended as a gospel message. Lie first, then threaten, then pretend to be preaching good news. Nobody with the slightest knowledge of the facts will actually be impacted by this kind of thing, except, perhaps, for some nausea. But people who are uncertain of what they believe will be threatened by the fires of hell, because, you see, people who believe in evolution are definitely going to hell. In fact, Susy informs her little classmate that “most people are going to hell.” You have to close your eyes and your mind, or you’re headed for the hot place.

    Frankly, I must tell you that the first part of this was standard. I grew up with jokes and smears about “evolutionists” who ignore God, ignore all facts and evidence, because they are just so determined to believe evolution. As I studied actual data, I found that this picture was completely false, so blatantly false that I have a hard time believing that people teach it honestly.
    But to tack onto that a supposed teaching of the Christian gospel message made it even worse. The intent is to impact young and impressionable minds with the idea that the vast majority of scientists, and even most Christians are part of an evil conspiracy, are lying to themselves and everyone else, and are therefore going to hell. Which is, of course, precisely what these people believe. It almost makes me wish I took hell a bit more literally myself. There would surely be a special level of hell for liars of this caliber.

    But let’s go forward. The folks at Chick are not satisfied merely to tell us that all those who accept the theory of evolution are going to hell. They’re careful to make sure that folks read just the right Bible. Notice at the end that you are advised to “read your Bible (KJV) every day.” They have a number of pages filled with misinformation in support of their position on the KJV. In fact, if you read this, you might get the idea that all those who use any other Bible version are preaching “another gospel.” Probably they’re all headed straight for hell too. (For more information on Bible versions, see the tract What’s in a Version? and my Bible Version Selection Tool.)

    Then we can try this tract in which a Catholic dies and finds out he’s in hell, because he wasn’t a real Christian, at least as defined by the folks at Chick publications. He’s part of “most people” who go to hell. Unfortunately for him, he believe his priest, and you know that won’t do. In fact, he is even depicted tearing up a Chick Tract. (One could almost suspect that’s the unpardonable sin!)

    We find out here that the American Bible Society is also corrupted because they produce the CEV, which, in the twisted logic that applies in the very special world of Chick Tracts, turns out to be much more favorable to the Catholic Church. So an organization of dedicated people who have spread the Bible far and wide are, in fact, not serving God at all, but that other guy.

    There are very few Christian ministries that I will attack outright as I have done here. I try simply to go for statements and not the group as a whole. Doubtless, even at Chick publications, there are people who sincerely believe they are defending the faith. But this type of publication is not a blessing to the church, it is not the right way to reach people for Jesus, and it is not sound doctrine. It needs to be exposed as precisely what it is.

    I do not permit the use of Chick tracts, even the less offensive ones, at any ministry event in which I am involved, and that will continue to be my policy. There is simply too much danger that someone will go further, and be turned aside in their spiritual journey by hate-filled propaganda. That would be a tragedy.

  • Blogroll: Geocreationism.com

    Having decided to blog a couple of times per week about my blogroll, I’m going to start with a site I just added, Geocreationism.com. If you’ve been following this blog for any period of time, you will have noticed occasional comments from Geocreationist, and this is his blog.

    I have a couple of reasons for including it. First, he disagree with a number of positions I take, but is open to dialog. That’s an excellent start. Second, his position on creation and evolution illustrates one of my key contentions: This is not a black and white issue in which there are only two sides. One of the defining features of the moderate position, as I see it, is refusing to be held to a choice of extremes. That’s why moderates are frequently very annoying to extremists–we refuse to get stuck with only two options. Sometimes even if you give us A, B, C, and D, we want E-none of the above.

    Before I go to a particular post, let me look at Geocreationism’s subtitle: Geocreationism – Showing harmony between mainstream science and scripture. It’s very easy to forget that when we look at the interaction between science and scripture that both sides can vary. One can differ on a view of science or of a particular scientific theory, or one can differ on the interpretation of scripture. Any type of reconciliation or harmony involves both. This subtitle is one I would not use, for example, because I don’t think there is any need for harmony simply because I don’t believe science and scripture address the same questions. There are occasional overlaps, but these are incidental, I think. This is one of the issues for Christians. Just what is scripture trying to address, and in what way does it address it?

    We’ll see some of this in action in a recent post, “Evidence for Creation” (Review) – Ground Rules for the Review. Geocreationist is reviewing Tom DeRosa’s book Evidence for Creation – Intelligent Answers for Open Minds. In laying out his own ground rules he distinguishes what he calls “Darwinian evolution” and “Theistic Evolution.” He defines Darwinian evolution as largely equivalent to atheistic evolution, though he sees little difference between that and the various deistic views.

    He contrasts theistic evolution, in which he says that God not only starts everything, but “He started every wave of Evolution as well.” In his view, God is still distant in this view of theistic evolution, and thus he presents his own third view: geocreationism, or geocreationist theistic evolution. In this case, God is continually present and concerned. I’ll have to read more to see how this impacts the process along the way.

    Now I must say that this terminology is somewhat surprising to me. For example, evolution occurring in waves with God starting each wave sounds very much like old earth creationism to me. Further, Geocreationist describes his view in this way: “Evolution would occur with our without the randomness, as long as God remains involved; remove God however, and the randomness would not be enough.” That latter view sounds somewhat like ID or “guided evolution” to me, depending on how one fills in the details.

    If I’m reading all of this correctly, I’m going to fall into the “Darwinian evolution” camp. My problem with being placed there is that I don’t think God is distant. For each and every law of nature I believe we can say it happens “because God.” In other words God wills gravity, and should he stop willing it, there would be no gravity. Not to worry, however, he’s pretty fond of gravity. God also wills variation and natural selection, and those produce certain types of order according to that law. Remove God and you remove everything.

    Now I know that there are some views that allow for indetectible divine intervention, but I’m not particularly interested at the moment in things that are even theoretically indetectible. I believe that God creates the laws, i.e. the system, which in turn produces everything that we see. God can intervene, but he would do so because he wants to, primarily because he wants to communicate with these weird creatures who have come into being.

    I have one further comment initial comment. Geocreationist appears to be looking for at least an historical outline in the Genesis accounts. I think this is doomed to be a disappointing search in the long run. I do not believe that the literature involved was written with the intent to provide a narrative history of anything, but rather to express God’s relationship to creation using the cosmology and symbolic language of the time. I will blog more on it as time goes on, but I have found that everything tends to fit quite nicely when read in that context.

  • The Quest for Absolute Certainty

    When I was a teenager, I was very involved in electronics, something that has stuck with me. My first real efforts at understanding science came in working with electricity. One day I was discussing the theory of electricity, and specifically how it “moves” through a circuit with my father, also an electronics hobbyist. We had gone through electrons moving from one atom to the next, and the reasons why some things are better conductors than others, and why some things are so bad as conductors that they are insulators. This all applied to some circuit or another I wanted to build.

    Then my father dropped a bombshell. “You know this is all a theory,” he said.

    “What do you mean by theory?” I asked. To me at that point a theory was something not so well established. There were facts and then there were theories. Facts were good, theories were not so good.

    “Well,” he continued, “we don’t actually observe subatomic particles in motion. We don’t know that an atom looks like those drawings you have.”

    “So we don’t really know any of this? What good is it then?” Of course I well knew that I could build circuits based on it, but teenagers aren’t required to be logical with a parent.

    “The theory does what it’s supposed to. It explains what we observe. It works. That’s all it has to do.”

    “Oh.”

    But somewhere deep inside I was upset. I liked my little pictures of atoms. I wanted to believe that they were just that way, and that if I could get a good enough microscope, I could actually observe those little electrons doing their thing. Now electricity is based on very good theory, and it does work. My dad was himself a young earth creationist, though we never discussed that much. I suspect now that he was more along the Kurt Wise type–there may be substantial evidence for evolution, but the Bible says otherwise, so we must believe–only he never felt the need to work on a real theory.

    (more…)

  • Biblical Inerrancy and Evolution

    It’s very easy to equate the creation-evolution debate amongst Christians with the inerrancy debate. Many assume that those who accept the theory of evolution will automatically reject inerrancy. But this is not the case. This confusion results from another incorrect equation–Biblical inerrancy with Biblical literalism.

    Biblical literalism is itself a difficult concept to get ahold of. In popular usage, “taking it literally” is often equated with taking it seriously. But the most common form of Biblical literalism means taking the Biblical text as the most concrete form of literature possible. This is expressed, for example, by Tim LaHaye in chapter 11 of his book How to Study the Bible for Yourself as: “A good rule to follow is try to interpret each passage literally. If this is obviously not the case, then as a last resort try to find the spiritual or symbolical [sic] truth it is communicating.” What this means in practice is that a Biblical passage gets interpreted as a form of literature that can be taken literally.

    Let’s take the book of Jonah, for example. To the literalist it appears to relate a series of events, and one can take it as a true story. Jonah did flee in a ship, get swallowed by a great fish, preach in Nineveh, and convert the entire population to the worship of Israel’s God. A non-literalist, on the other hand, can consider that the book might be a fictional story written to make a point. Thus it could express certain teachings, such as a willingness to show grace to foreigners, even if the actual events of the story did not happen.

    To illustrate this from a modern perspective, consider the difference between a historical account of a battle, a historical novel based on the events of the same battle, and a romance set in the time period of the battle. The first intends to tell you what happened in the battle. It may be in error on various points, depending on the quality of the research and what information was available, but its point is to relate a series of events accurately. The historical novel, on the other hand, does not purport to report events strictly as they happened in the actual battle. It may invent actions for lead characters, or attribute historical actions to fictional characters in the novel. It might be intended to portray the feelings of soldiers involved, or even to give a picture of the events based on history, but with more of a personal feel than the available information permits. The romance, finally, may be authentic in terms of costumes, attitudes, places, and connections to historical events, but is much more loosely tied to actual history.

    The Bible is a collection of literature of various types, and thus the interpreter is called upon to determine just what type of literature is involved with each reader. I cannot object strongly enough to LaHaye’s idea that you try to take it literally if at all possible. The first step is to ask what type of literature any particular passage is. If one interpreted a historical novel as though it was a work of history, then one might expect to find things like the home of the lead character in the place where the novel indicates the character lived. But one would be disappointed.

    So how does this relate to inerrancy? Inerrancy itself means different things to different people. But the standard definition amongst theologians can be summarized as “the Bible is without error in what it intends to convey.” Now if you think about it a moment, “fiction” is not “error.” Rather, it is intentionally written as it is for a purpose. Thus if a Biblical writer chooses to express a message in the form of fiction, as is indubitably done in the parable of the trees (Judges 9:7-15), that is certainly not an error–it is the intent.

    The assumption that a belief in inerrancy involves some sort of literalism thus results in some considerable confusion. In the area of origins, this involes assumptions regarding the interpretation of Genesis, especially chapters 1 & 2, assumptions that divide interpretations into two categories: 100% accurate narrative history vs an interesting ancient story that got it all wrong. In fact, most interpretations of Genesis fall somewhere between these extremes.

    Amongst these options are some kind of symbolic meaning, usually associated with Old Earth creationism. In this case, Genesis generally presents creation in phases without getting picky about chronology or other details. Just how picky one can get will vary with the interpreter. Then there is my own interpretation which suggests that Genesis 1:1-2:4a is a form of liturgy, while Genesis 2:4b-25-4:26 is a form closely related to myth. These are designed to express the relationship of humanity to God in the context of an ancient near eastern culture, and their cosmology. A similar relationship can be expressed in a modern cosmology, something I think Dr. Richard Colling has accomplished in his book Random Designer; I blogged on the specific point here.

    As I understand inerrancy, someone who accepts that doctrine could accept either of these two alternatives. In fact, I’ve discussed my position on evolution with a friend who does accept Biblical inerrancy, and he indicated that the difference between my view and his does not involve Biblical inerrancy. If he found me convincing on other grounds, his belief in inerrancy would not prevent him from accepting the conclusions I express about origins (in general, that is).

    Why am I concerned about this, since I do not accept the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy? I would like debates to center on actual issues between those debating. The confusion between literalism, in the form of taking literature in as concrete a manner as possible, and inerrancy, as believing the text contains its intended message without error is unnecessary and unproductive.

  • Differences of Opinion, Lies, and Seeing the Other Side

    I got started this morning on this topic by reading this post at Quintessence of Dust. Dr. Matheson is looking for a good model to use in referring to creationists and their arguments. The temptation is to regard all false statements as lies. But at the same time we have to ask why people who are otherwise honest, and doubtless wouldn’t cheat on tests or steal from their neighbors nonetheless would say so many things that are simply not so.

    Matheson is looks at the model of folk science. I left a comment on his blog in which I question just how well this works. But I’m working on this one myself. I have to ask myself how a microbiologist, for example, could manage to believe in creationism. There is always Kurt Wise (paleontologist), who admits the strong evidence for evolution, but believes that the Bible must be true, and thus no matter what the evidence looks like, eventually he’ll find the proper evidence for young age arguments. Now I can at least understand the mental process in Dr. Wise’s case, though it still astounds me that one could look at the strength of the evidence and study it as a paleontologist and still come out not just a creationist, but a young earth creationist.

    I had already bookmarked his post for a link, if not a substantial response, when I came across this article (HT: It seems to me ….) In a weird sort of way, this article is making a point similar to what Dr. Matheson is making, though perhaps with greater humor and less finesse–there are some beliefs and viewpoints that are comforting to us, and we cling to any means by which we can avoid losing those beliefs.

    I think it’s quite possible that many creationists simply cannot imagine a world in which man is not a separate creation, especially put here by God with a unique and special relationship. It is quite possible that their lives would lose meaning–or at least they feel viscerally that they would–should any element of this prove wrong. If one’s identity is at stake, just how much might one be able to rationalize?

    Just as I was preparing to write this post, I found this post on Pharyngula, in which the Discovery Institute is shown to have taken e-mails out of context (gasp!) regarding the Gonzalez case as ISU. Here, of course, we have a greater level of interpretation involved, but it still is hard to see how the DI got what they did from their source. Liars? Good PR men? Different point of view?

    And immediately after that one, my RSS reader turned up another one, titled Gene Duplication and the GENE project’s … Duplicity?. Again, the author, generally a very polite man and one I respect after reading quite a number of his substantial blog entries, is having trouble finding out just what you call it. ICR is gathering scientists to study the genome, and their going to conclude–you guessed it–that humanity is not related to the other animals. And they haven’t even started yet!

    Now I know that it is very easy to regard a difference of opinion as good evidence of skullduggery on the part of one’s opponent. Sometimes opinions are simply so different that it’s hard for us to imagine that the other guy can possibly have good motivations or can be honest. After all, we know that we are careful with the facts, and our brains are all highly logical. So if we come to conclusion A, and they come to conclusion Z, it can’t be a legitimate difference of opinion–it has to result from questionable morals.

    Of course, sometimes things are what they appear to be on the surface. Not always, perhaps not even frequently, but sometimes. There are people who hold a particular position to keep their power, or because they just can’t admit to having been wrong. But I think there are relatively few people who consciously say, “I know that X is true, but I’m going to say I believe Y instead.” Whatever the motivation, one is going to think of it in some very different way. Which leads us to this question: Is it a lie if the person telling it deceived himself first, and believes he’s telling the truth? I do know one thing–if a person believes he’s telling the truth, it will be hard to influence him by telling him he’s actually a liar. “Truthful” is part of his self-image.

    I would say something to creationists, however. I once was one of you. I made it about half way through college. When I was a child, I started collecting creationist books and reading them. I was totally convinced that evolution was not only evil but stupid, so stupid, in fact, that only evil people could possibly believe it. To me, as is still the case for many creationists, evolutionists were great liars and conspirators, since the truth that God created the earth in a literal week 6,000 years ago was so plain.

    Now I first encountered the problems with the facts when I looked at Biblical genealogies. In doing so, I spent enough time with ancient chronology to see that the hardline young earth position, about 6,000 years (not 10,000!) was in conflict not only with geology, but with archeology, and even with written history. Civilizations would have drowned in the flood, civilizations that had clearly done no such thing.

    But then I was faced with the science side. Now I spend a great deal of time reading popular level science. But I’m a high school dropout, so I never had high school science. I took a GED test and took as little science in college as I could get by with, which turned out to be one year of chemistry. My college allowed one to make it up with math, which I did. So when I first started, the vast majority of the “science” I knew came from those young earth creationist books. How was I to judge the material?

    Well, I concluded I wasn’t very qualified to do so. What I was qualified to do was to see how well creationists represented evolution. What I found out there was that the presentation of evolution in creationist books bore no resemblance to the presentation in books favoring evolution. They were, in fact, talking about two things. Further, when creationists quoted scientists, they generally got the quotation wrong. For me, that was pretty substantial evidence that there was a problem in the creationist camp.

    Since then, I’ve found nothing to suggest to me any differently. One of the best arguments against creationism for the layman (in scientific terms) is that the creationists can’t get their facts straight about evolution. I personally think Dr. Matheson is right, and they don’t do so because they’re congenital liars, but rather because they’re engaging in some form of “folk science.” Or perhaps it’s Santaism as defined in the Ship of Fools article.

    Bottom line: differences of opinion, lies, and failure to see the other side? It’s damn hard to tell the difference!