Evolution for Christians – Part II
Jim Babka on Nov 8th 2007 10:55 am |
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.
There are many books targeted at this group (not all of which are written by Christians) some of which are still on my Amazon Wish List (meaning, I haven’t read them yet). I’m not in a position, therefore, to recommend all of them. As you can see, the list is arranged somewhat chronologically:
New/Newer…
* “Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution” by Kenneth Miller
* “Beyond the Firmament” by Gordon J. Glover
* “Perspectives on an Evolving Creation” edited by Keith B. Miller
* “God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution” by John F. Haught (I’m reading this right now)
* “Coming to Peace With Science: Bridging the Worlds Between Faith and Biology” by Darrel Falk
* “The God of Evolution: A Trinitarian Theology” by Denis Edwards
* “Can You Believe in God and Evolution?” by Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett
* “Science of Love: The Wisdom of Well-Being” by Thomas Jay Oord
* “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief” by Francis S. Collins
* “Living with Darwin: Evolution, Design, and the Future of Faith” by Philip Kitcher
* “Religion and Scientific Naturalism, Overcoming the Conflicts” by David Ray Griffin
* “Evolution and Christian Faith: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist” by Joan Roughgarden
1990s…
* “Three Views on Creation and Evolution” edited by J.P. Moreland
* “The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism” by Ronald Numbers
* “The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom” by Gerald L. Schroeder
* “Creator and Creation: Nature in the Worldview of Ancient Israel” by Ronald A. Simkins
* “Can a Darwinian be a Christian?: The Relationship between Science and Religion” by Michael Ruse
1980s…
* “The Meaning of Creation: Genesis and Modern Science” by Conrad Hyers
* “The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens Are Telling Us About Creation” by Howard Van Till
* “Is God a Creationist? The Religious Case Against Creation-Science” by Roland Mushat Frye
* “Abusing Science” by Philip Kitcher
Pre-1980s…
* “Christianity and Evolution” by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
While this list is almost certainly not complete, observe the trend-line. I believe it would hold fairly true even if books were added. Only one pre-1980s book. But there are more 1990s titles than 1980s, and more than double the number of 21st century titles (and the decade isn’t over yet) when compared with 1990s list.
But the trend is even more dramatic than it appears. Ken Miller’s book was updated and re-released this year. Glover, Kitcher, Roughgarden, and Collins have all published during 2006 and 2007. Several of the writers listed above have had books released in paperback or had a revised, updated version published during that period as well (meaning they’re selling).
On top of that other books have been issued specifically as a result of the Kitzmiller trial. One can almost hear Intelligent Design’s death rattle. Thank God, I don’t think the younger generation of evangelicals are (by and large) buying this form of neo-creationism. No one in my church who knows my position, is even shocked, let alone dismayed. Admittedly, only a few of them know or care what my position is, but still…
I’m filled with hope.
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Thanks for making good on your promised book list. The next time I go amazon shopping I’m sure I’ll pick up a few of these titles.
I must point out that orthodox religionists who say evolution poses serious problems for their theistic beliefs are usually correct.
An interventionist God had to produce millions of failed species over billions of years to arrive at the present state of the world. If today’s world were God’s only intent, just how “intelligent” could he be? Furthermore, it turns out that this designer-God has crafted some pretty awful things along the way. One wonders about the day he designed the malaria parasite so well that it could kill a million children a year, or the poliio genome that crippled my aunt, or the parasites that eat the livers of millions of souls in the tropics. Is each vicious parasite and fatal disease is the the direct and intentional work of the designer?
Here is the way Richard Dawkins put this:
“Cheetahs give every indication of being superbly designed for something, and it should be easy enough to reverse-engineer them and work out their utility function. They appear to be well-designed to kill antelopes. The teeth, claws, eyes, nose, leg muscles, backbone and brain of a cheetah are all precisely what we should expect if God’s purpose in designing cheetahs was to maximize deaths among antelopes. Conversely, if we reverse-engineer an antelope we find equally impressive evidence of design for precisely the opposite end: the survival of antelopes and starvation among cheetahs. It is as though cheetahs had been designed by one deity and antelopes by a rival deity. Alternatively, if there is only one Creator who made the tiger and the lamb, the cheetah and the gazelle, what is He playing at? Is he a sadist who enjoys spectator blood sports? Is he trying to avoid overpopulation in the mammals of Africa? Is He maneuvering to maximize David Attenborough’s television ratings?
And:
The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive; others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear; others are being slowly devoured from within by rasping parasites; thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease. It must be so. If there is ever a time of plenty. this very fact will autmoatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.”
Explicit Atheist,
The God of the Bible is clearly capable of countenancing animal death. Witness the requirement of animal sacrifice as atonement for sin. Witness also his willingness in the flood narrative (though I don’t believe in it’s literal historicity) to wipe out almost all animal life on the planet despite no indictment of guilt against them (as opposed to mankind of the age).
So it’s unclear to me how an argument from animal death should convince a Christian that there is no God.
Jim,
I just perused your wish-list and found some reading material on open future theology. The God of the Possible is a pretty decent read, though it’s really just an introduction, and I wish it would go deeper into the arguments. A lot of evangelicals are highly critical of open future theology, but I think (and hope) it’s going to become a pretty popular point of view over the next couple of decades. We’ll see.
If you view the world through the filter of naturalism and reason, as you must in order “to practice real science on origins”, you must reject the supernaturalism rampant in much of the Bible. For example, no good scientist could accept the great breaches in the laws of physics required by many of the miracles in the Bible, or by the parting of the Red Sea, or a seven-day young-earth creation for that matter. How is a Christian to come to grips with such things? To me, the only sound Christianity is one stripped of all supernatural beliefs, with only the moral teachings of an ordinary Jewish rabbi – Jesus – remaining. The Christianity of certain archaic Gnostic sects is compatible with materialism as well, in many cases. What room is there in all this for “evangelical Christians”, as you’ve called yourself?
I just want to point out that I consider Christians such as you allies in the battles over science education and whatnot, and not an enemy as P.Z. Myers would. I’m simply curious how you make the pieces fit.
I agree with the thrust of Explicit Atheist’s post. An interventionist God and evolution seem to clash. Also, as someone pointed out in response to the first evolution post, what of the the Fall and Original Sin? We know from the historical sciences that there was never a time when all creatures lived in peace, as portrayed in the Eden narratives. There was never a time when humans were not mortal, and wracked by disease and suffering. What, then, did we fall from and how?
To AMW, if the God of the Bible is able to dismiss, or even encourage, cruelty to animals, why should we think him good or worship him? Explicit Atheist’s question about God being a sadist is not answered by saying the God of the Bible isn’t portrayed that way. First, why should we think God to be like the Bible portrays, and second, why should we call such a God good, if he has the power to stop immense suffering, but does not?
Setting animal suffering aside, there is enough human suffering to make me doubt the existence of a loving, all-powerful God. Why would God allow his precious creatures to be afflicted with diseases like Tay-Sachs or infant leukemia? Why would God design a world where bacteria are able to evolve to get around our defenses? It doesn’t seem too loving to me, to enable agents of disease and suffering, such as MRSA or VRE to come into being. How a loving God can allow natural evil is still punctuated with a giant question mark.
Let me make one other point about religion in general and science in general. While the two may be able to be harmonized, as apparently many religious believers seem to do to their own satisfaction, I think the two mindsets are antithetical. The scientific mindset is one that is questioning, seeking, has no sacred cows, so to speak. Everything is open to revision. The religious mindset starts with a set of beliefs and tries to fit everything into the frame those beliefs creates. It is not open to revision, because it has been revealed as Absolute Truth, and we, mere mortals, are not capable of questioning Truth, or understanding it fully, or if we can question it, we shall be punished eternally for doing so. So, while a religious person can also be a scientist, I think that person’s mind must be compartmentalized. When in the lab, everything is open to question; outside the lab, certain things can never be questioned.
Why would God allow his precious creatures to be afflicted with diseases like Tay-Sachs or infant leukemia? Why would God design a world where bacteria are able to evolve to get around our defenses? It doesn’t seem too loving to me, to enable agents of disease and suffering, such as MRSA or VRE to come into being. How a loving God can allow natural evil is still punctuated with a giant question mark.
Maybe a learning experience like a big survivalist camp experience.
What I find particularly offensive is the notion that all of this terrible suffering is humans’ fault through original sin, and that when we die we actually deserve much worse than the Hell that is clearly here on Earth. I think God is only justified in allowing such suffering if a better place presumptively waits for everyone, taking into considering the different rewards and punishments that individual humans merit because of their conduct on Earth.
Jon, I am reminded of what Lord Byron wrote about religion: “I do not believe in revealed religion – I will have nothing to do with your immortality; we are miserable enough in this life, without speculating on another.”
Perhaps God wants life to be like a survival camp, but it is literally in-credible to call such a God benevolent, and interested in what is best for us like a loving Father. What father would allow his children to damn themselves to eternal suffering, much less injure themselves out of ignorance in some smaller way?
Religious claims are offensive to common sense. All of the suffering in the world must be rationalized, against what our common sense tells us. Now, in some cases, it is good to violate our common sense. The General Theory of Relativity and all of Quantum Theory comes to mind. However, there are good reasons in such cases to mistrust our common sense. However, with religious claims, that seems to me to be precisely what is at issue. Is there evidence that there is a good God? No, there is not. So the religious person tries to get us to abandon our common sense – but whether we should or not is precisely what we are trying to figure out!
Matt,
I agree with you on the eternal damnation part. Though, if every gets to “go home eventually” so to speak, I think that humans suffer is still consistent with the notion of a loving benevolent God. You don’t think there is learning in suffering?
In some suffering, surely. But in watching an infant die from Tay-Sachs or leukemia? No. Even Nietzsche would not have affirmed the NICU, I think.
So much of human suffering stands in the way of learning anything, in the way of continuing life so that we are able to learn.
Jon, just out of curiousity, what benefit does learning have if we all go ‘home’ anyway?
Secondly, if suffering is good/god wants us to suffer, then is it bad to attempt to wipe out these sicknesses and cancers and make our lives better?
If getting into heaven is the most important thing in life, why don’t we just kill all our childen and ensure they go straight to heaven?
Random comments.
Chuck said ”The Christianity of certain archaic Gnostic sects is compatible with materialism”, I’m intrigued, from my sparse reading I thought Gnostics were if anything further from materialism than other Christians, believing for example that the material world is inherently evil. It sounds as if there were a bunch of other, very different Gnostics and as someone with too much curiosity I’d be interested to hear about them.
I know you all realise this but can’t resist writing it anyway just to be a smart arse. The anti-theistic argument from suffering has nothing to do with evolution, even if the young earth creationists were right it would still be an observable fact that humans and animals suffer. So given that Mr Babka and those like him can already solve the problem to their own satisfaction (if not mine) why should anything under the heading of evolution make the problem worse?
Thanks for a fascinating blog, I don’t always agree with everything written but I always feel I’ve learned something. It makes me feel that messing about on the intertubs or whatever they call it these days is not a total waste of time.
Jon, just out of curiousity, what benefit does learning have if we all go ‘home’ anyway?
Well, maybe that’s the reason why we are here as opposed to there to begin with.
Secondly, if suffering is good/god wants us to suffer, then is it bad to attempt to wipe out these sicknesses and cancers and make our lives better?
Of course not. If God didn’t want humans wiping those diseases out She wouldn’t allow it.
If getting into heaven is the most important thing in life, why don’t we just kill all our childen and ensure they go straight to heaven?
That’s a good question to ask a traditional religious believer. I don’t believe that it’s the most important thing in life. Rather, I’m pondering the notion that everyone gets into Heaven, but we are here for a different reason. If we are here to learn and we die before we learn what we are supposed to, well, that’s not good in God’s eyes (perhaps then we’d have to go back; perhaps we already go back over and over again because all the lessons can’t be learned in one life anyway). Maybe that’s why God covers Its tracks and doesn’t leave without a doubt evidence of Its existence of what comes next: God doesn’t want us killing ourselves to get to the other side.
The material world is harsh, brutish, and evil (for the purposes of the following discussion anyway).
The more one does to improve the world, and make it more like Heaven, the more one deserves to go to Heaven. And the more one defiles the world and harms others, the more one deserves the Hell their actions would create. This basic conjunction of the Golden Rule with a Final reward is probably the most powerful influence on people of Christianity and many other religions, and also the best.
Religion is good inasmuch as it encourages people to better the lives of others in this material world. If religion is thus “good,” then so may be God if It created the harsh crucible that is this world. But, if God exists, and if God created the world for such a purposes (and perhaps others), then it only really makes sense if some people go to Heaven, and others to Hell.
However, if God does not exist, then the conjunction of the Golden Rule with the Final Reward becomes but a powerful allegory, teaching us as children and reminding us throughout our lives that this material world is what we make of it, and that we will reap what we sow. It doesn’t mean bad things don’t sometimes happen to good people, and vice versa. It only provides a kind of mind-spanning mnemonic device, called a conscience, that helps us live the minutiae of our lives without tripping up too much.
So, at its most fundamentally useful, it doesn’t really matter whether or not you believe in the Nicene Creed, or in eternal damnation or the existence of Satan, or that there is a supernatural man watching over this nation and protecting (or not protecting) us from our enemies. It only matters whether you improve the world for yourself and others, in an effort to make this world as much like Heaven as possible.
I’m enjoying your posts, Jim. Keep us thinking!
Chuck: If you view the world through the filter of naturalism and reason, as you must in order “to practice real science on origins”, you must reject the supernaturalism rampant in much of the Bible.
Someone who views the world through the filter of naturalism and reason rarely relies entirely on those filters. Consideration of discrete events in the past is often beyond empiricism. Empiricism can address the evidence regarding a universal flood or the age of the earth, but cannot provide evidence regarding an ancients donkey’s capacity for speech or the paternity (or lack of it) of an individual born two millenia ago. In the absence of empirical evidence, reason permits some arguments for the miraculous. In short, Orthodox Christianity can be informed by reason and naturalism, but it is not based on them.
I applaud Christians who accept evolution, but now they have a problem, don’t they? They believe in an invisible magician who lives in the clouds, and their magician has nothing to do. I suppose they can find some gap in our scientific knowledge to stick their magician, but why bother? The god of the gaps is constantly being chased out of its hiding places. Eventually the man-made magician won’t have anywhere to hide from new scientific discoveries. Why not throw out this childish belief in a universe boss now? What does believing in the stupidity of the myth there’s an invisible man accomplish?
“then it only really makes sense if some people go to Heaven, and others to Hell.”
Not necessarily. Certainly not if Hell is eternal. The way the Founders put it, all that was needed was a system of state of future rewards and punishments. They believed good people go to Heaven via their works, bad people temporarily punished in Hell or purgatory eventually redeemed. And even Washington termed John Murray’s Universalist Church which believed all immediately go to Heaven as the type of religion that supports republican government. Even if everyone goes to Heaven, there can still be different levels of rewards merited there because of one’s work on Earth.
Is the idea that good people go to heaven relevant if we’re discussing christians? all the christians I know would insist that going to heaven is determined by belief in God not your morality or as they put it faith not works
Daniel wrote “Empiricism can address the evidence regarding a universal flood or the age of the earth, but cannot provide evidence regarding an ancients donkey’s capacity for speech or the paternity (or lack of it) of an individual born two millenia ago.”
The evidence is excellent that donkey’s born two millenia ago, like those today, did not speak, as is the evidence that they did not fly then as they do not today. The physical vocal and mental mechanisms required to speak, like those required to fly, are absent. Reason dictates that if the bible says otherwise then the bible is wrong.
Matt, for the record, Catholicism is now, um, agnostic for lack of a better term, on whether we all go to heaven. It hopes we do.
It’s called
Apokatastasis. [Luther and Calvin, following Augustine, rejected it.]
Mr. Rowe, some lovely musings on the Greatest Question of All, and my compliments. Without joy and suffering in this life, we would have no context and no individuality in the next, or as you put it, why are we here and not already there?
For some, especially in the East, getting stirred into the undifferentiated soup of the Great Everything is an adequately satisfying teleology for man.
But we Westerners don’t work that way, and the primacy of the individual and individuality underlies our culture, and as I’m fond of arguing, thereby our political institutions, especially this America thing.
Matt wrote “Is the idea that good people go to heaven relevant if we’re discussing christians? all the christians I know would insist that going to heaven is determined by belief in God not your morality or as they put it faith not works”
I would say that the form of religion you describe is not good. I am aware that many such believers will claim that they live their lives as well as they can. But, ultimately, they are saved no matter what they do, so long as they love and fear Jesus.
This is a religion designed to give people permission to behave badly. It’s the opposite of a good religion. And, when I meet a person professing to be Christian, but who is pompous, materialistic, greedy, xenophobic, violent, or otherwise spiritually venomous, they will generally be of the type that you describe, rather than the type that believes their reward depends on how much their life resembles Christ’s life.
Very interesting posts. This type of frank discussion is needed if people are to understand the difference between what the bible says and what traditional religion states.
Regarding the gaining of Heaven by solely by belief in Christ or by living a life that resembles the life of Christ — neither are not entirely accurate.
Stated briefly, there are two issues here: One is the matter of eternal salvation from damnation. This is gained by belief in the salvation of Christ — regardless of behavior or deeds — and this salvation cannot be lost. It is this salvation that makes us the children of God. The other issue is the matter of what we do and how we behave once we are made the children of God. Once in the divine family, we are under the household law and subject to the discipline of the Father.
So, some may become saved Christians, but then be the naughty children that the Father must discipline. This discipline – which is not eternal and is quite different from damnation – may be either in this age or in the next age.
So, as far as eternal salvation is concerned, behavior and deeds do not affect it. But behavior and deeds do affect how God deals with us once we become Christians.
One last thing. The bible NEVER says that we go to Heaven when we die or that Heaven is a place for us to spend eternity. Actually, that belief is a good example of Christian tradition clouding what the bible really states. The end of the bible is pretty clear on where eternity is spent.