Evolution for Christians – Part I
Jim Babka on Nov 5th 2007 02:37 pm |
I’m an evangelical Christian. (Right now, some of you are making notes to yourself to ask Jason, Jon, and Ed, “How the heck did he get in here?”).
Well, I’m not your traditional blend. For one thing, I believe that evolution is the best explanation of our natural history. After thorough research, I became convinced of this. Our own, Ed Brayton served as one of my guides. I told that story at my old blog.
And, as it turns out, God is not the least bit threatened by evolution.
Most Christians have been manipulated into thinking that their beliefs are under direct attack by evolution. And guys like Richard Dawkins are ready straw men that serve as convincing examples that evolution = no God.
This issue matters to me in a way it may not matter to you. Young, naive people of faith, arriving at a secular university, discover they were taught myths and lose their faith. And a new market opportunity has “evolved” within the Evangelical community, with ministries targeted at “worldview” training of youth specifically because this phenomenon is so widespread. Most of them just use better brainwashing technique on these matter of origins.
Now, many of the readers of this blog could care less about Christian kids losing their faith. You might even consider that good news. For you, that’s the metaphysical point of evolution. Well, this post isn’t for you. It’s for people who have Christian friends they’d like to persuade.
However, if you really do care about truth in the field of natural history — of origins — and you want to see Intelligent Design relegated to the dustbin of history, then you’ll be at least half as excited as I am that a movement has “evolved” of Christians who love science and are committed to empirical truth on the matter of evolution. They too see theological danger in incorrect, demonstrably false beliefs, but are also excited by the theological opportunities provided by an accurate understanding of natural history.
Along with the link I gave you to my old blog (near the top of this post), you can share the following list of things with your Christian friends, because this list of blogs and websites (and books in my next post) know how to speak their language.
The Blogs — All three of these are wonderful resources that I would highly recommend.
The most hard-core scientific of the bunch is Quintessence of Dust, run by a practicing biologist, Stephen Matheson. Seriously, I’m waiting for Science blogs to offer this guy a job.
Gordon Glover is much more interested in hermeneutics — the tools and rules by which someone interprets Scripture. His blog, Beyond the Firmament, is designed to promote his new book of same title. But I highly recommend, for your Christian friends, his wonderful video series (online and free!), “Does Science contradict the Bible?” This set of videos can be watched in just over a half-hour, and they’ll pry the mind of your close-minded, Bible-thumping friends faster than anything else I’ve seen.
An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution strikes a middle balance between these two blogs. Quintessence is more rigorous science and Firmament is more theological, but blogger Steve Martin writes the kind of blog I would write, if I had the time to devote to this issue — a half and half approach.
The Websites
Perspectives on Theistic Evolution is kind of an all-purpose clearing house on this issue. If you lose track of this blog post, it’s a good place to start. It has recommended books and articles.
Glenn Morton, a geologist and former Young Earth Creationist, decimates the “Answers in Genesis” case with facts, charisma, and wit.
The Metanexus Institute is involved in dialogue and bridging of science and faith. It’s not overtly about theistic evolution and it’s probably too “liberal” for your evangelical and fundamentalist friends, but it’s still a resource where some practical, effective articles appear from time to time.
In my next post, I’ll share with you some books targeted directly at Christians who believe in some form of Creationism or Intelligent Design, along with an interesting observation.
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Jim,
Thanks for posting this, and please continue in this vein. I am myself near the tail end of a transition from creationist to theistic evolutionist. (Like you, Brayton was a guide.) I’ll take all the resources I can get.
Is it safe to say that the inventor also knows the best way to destroy the thing he created? Darwin in his own writing said that and I paraphrase if we later discover that the cell is more than a glob of goo ie. the cell is complex his theory should be thrown out. This is the creator of evolution and he even admits that his argument doesn’t hold water. So why are we still bothring with this dumb theory? Move on.
CS Lewis in Miracles has given a plausible scenrio for the Fall (he takes Evolution for granted) but I have nowhere seen a discussion of the Flood
in evolutioanry terms.
AMW, Thank you for the encouraging comment. This is a good time to be investigating this because of the new, free, web-based resources that are now out there, that weren’t there even two years ago. Stay tuned for the next post.
Greetings in Christ, brother!
I’m a Lutheran, and perhaps also an evangelical (we’d have to compare definitions).
I’ll spend some time poking through your recommendations before I comment on them, but can you point out any resource that takes the view that ID and strong-form evolution (‘evolution’ is, after all, the ambiguous name of many scientific positions) are both nonscientific, or perhaps at best episcientific?
By strong-form evolution I mean the view that evolution (as the theory of random variation, inheritance, and selection explaining progress and diversification) must, for lack of alternatives, explain every step in the historical development of life as we know it. This view is connected with a definition of science that is committed a priori to physical (matter/energy/wavefunction) explanations of all phenomena.
It seems to me that strong-form evolution is more dangerous to science than it is to Christianity: it confronts one from the outside, but corrupts the other from the inside. It is a joy to read through biology textbooks of 40-50 years ago, with their simple presentation of science without unnecessary metaphysics. Today my children’s AP biology textbooks declare right in their prefaces that one of their purposes is to write evolution into biology, and it is indeed inserted all over the place in cute boxes with color pictures.
Kristo Miettinen
Is it safe to say that the inventor also knows the best way to destroy the thing he created?
No, it is not. Scientific theory is not something that is “invented” in the same sense that the computer or automobile was invented. Scientific theory could be said to be discovered more than invented. That is, the truth exists all along; whether we know it to be true or not. Scientific theory can only be destroyed (or reformed) to the extent that it is found to be out of step with reality (i.e., it makes predictions that are false or fails to predict things that are true).
Darwin in his own writing said that and I paraphrase if we later discover that the cell is more than a glob of goo ie. the cell is complex his theory should be thrown out.
If that is indeed what Darwin wrote, (and I have my doubts, because creationists misquote Darwin ad nauseum) then he was incorrect in his assertion. If the cell is complex but one can delineate a theory that explains this complexity via evolution by natural selection, his theory is still intact. And even if one can’t, the theory may be intact for some phenomena (say, the diversification of species), but not others (i.e., the rise of the cell).
This is the creator of evolution and he even admits that his argument doesn’t hold water.
First, as I stated before, no one “invented” evolution. People discovered it. Whether or not they made a bona fide discovery is a matter for empirical inquiry. Given the resounding scientific consensus it would appear that they did.
Second, Darwin was not the first to embrace the theory of evolution. He layed out the most plausible mechanism for it, and set the theory on a higher level of scientific rigor.
Third, even if Darwin had immediately recanted his theory upon the publication of The Origin of Species and spent the rest of his life condemning it, this would not demonstrate that it was false. It would only demonstrate that he thought it was false. Whether or not it is false is, again, a matter for empirical inquiry.
Fourth, to point back to the first advocate of a theory, who was proposing something totally new, and suggest that hesitance on his part disproves the theory is rubbish. If Darwin were alive today, awash in all of the scientific evidence in support of his theory, he would undoubtedly not be in significant doubt. He may be amazed at how his original theory has been altered and updated to explain the facts on hand, and in that sense be humbled at how limited his own knowledge had been. But he would certainly not say that because we know that cells are complex he was wrong all along.
What significance does Man’s Fallen state have in this theology? (Playing Devil’s acvocate – or someone’s – here) I understood Christ’s sacrifice was to redeem Original Sin., and I don’t see OS, as described in Genesis, fitting with evolution. I may have missed an explanation above, and if I did, I apologize.
Hello Jim, and thanks for the link and the nice plug. I’m glad you like the blog, and it’s interesting to see how Steve and Gordon and I are viewed as a group. They’re doing the heavy lifting (i.e. writing about theology and hermeneutics) so I don’t have to; I can just breezily chime in with some hard science every now and then :-).
Good to see other evangelicals embracing evolutionary theory, and I hope more of our kind can at least have a chance to understand what it is that so many claim to reject.
[...] In my previous post, I shared the evidence (and locations) of a growing movement of Christians who practice real science (and sound theology) on origins. “Phony” would be the opposite of “real” and would in this case include Intelligent Design. Not only do I have a list, but I also have an interesting observation to offer. [...]