In the evangelical community, the year 2011 has brought a resurgence of debate over evolution. The current issue of Christianity Today asks if genetic discoveries preclude an historical Adam. While BioLogos, the brainchild of NIH director Francis Collins, is seeking to promote theistic evolution among evangelicals, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary recently argued that true Christians should believe the Earth is only a few thousand years old.
As someone raised evangelical, I realize anti-evolutionists believe they are defending the Christian tradition. But as a seminary graduate now training to be a medical scientist, I can say that, in reality, they've abandoned it.
In theory, if not always in practice, past Christian theologians valued science out of the belief that God created the world scientists study. Augustine castigated those who made the Bible teach bad science, John Calvin argued that Genesis reflects a commoner's view of the physical world, and the Belgic confession likened scripture and nature to two books written by the same author.
These beliefs encouraged past Christians to accept the best science of their day, and these beliefs persisted even into the evangelical tradition. As Princeton Seminary's Charles Hodge, widely considered the father of modern evangelical theology, put it in 1859: "Nature is as truly a revelation of God as the Bible; and we only interpret the Word of God by the Word of God when we interpret the Bible by science."
In this analysis, Christians must accept sound science, not because they don't believe God created the world, but precisely because they do.
Of course, anti-evolutionists claim their rejection of evolution is not a rejection of science. Phillip Johnson, widely considered the leader of the Intelligent Design movement, states that all he's rejecting is the atheistic lens through which evolutionary scientists view the world. Evolution, he argues, is "based not upon any incontrovertible empirical evidence, but upon a highly philosophical presupposition."
And to a certain extent, this line of argument makes sense. Science is not a neutral enterprise. Prior beliefs undoubtedly influence interpretation. If one believes God created vertebrates with a similar design plan, one can acknowledge their structural similarities without believing in common descent. No amount of dating evidence will convince someone the Earth is 4.5 billion years old if that person believes God created the world to look old, with the appearance of age.
But beyond a certain point, this reasoning breaks down. Because no amount of talk about "worldviews" and "presuppositions" can change a simple fact: creationism has failed to provide an alternative explanation for the vast majority of evidence explained by evolution.
It has failed to explain why birds still carry genes to make teeth, whales to make legs, and humans to make tails.
It has failed to explain why the fossil record proposed by modern scientists can be used to make precise and accurate predictions about the location of transition fossils.
It has failed to explain why the fossil record demonstrates a precise order, with simple organisms in the deepest rocks and more complex ones toward the surface.
It has failed to explain why today's animals live in the same geographical area as fossils of similar species.
It has failed to explain why, if carnivorous dinosaurs lived at the same time as modern animals, we don't find the fossils of modern animals in the stomachs of fossilized dinosaurs.
It has failed to explain the broken genes that litter the DNA of humans and apes but are functional in lower vertebrates.
It has failed to explain how the genetic diversity we observe among humans could have arisen in a few thousand years from two biological ancestors.
Those who believe God created the world scientists study, even while ignoring most of the data compiled by those who study it, might as well rip dozens of pages out of their Bibles. Because if "nature is as truly a revelation of God as the Bible," it's basically the same thing.
Many think the widespread rejection of evolution doesn't really matter. Evolution is about what happened in the past, the argument goes, so rejecting it doesn't have an impact on policies we make today. And aside from school curricula, they may be right.
But the belief that scientists can discover truth, and that, once sufficiently debated, challenged and modified, it should be accepted even if it creates tensions for familiar belief systems, has an obvious impact on decisions that are made everyday. And it is that belief Christians reject when they reject evolution.
In doing so, they've not only led America astray on questions ranging from the value of stem cell research to the etiology of homosexuality to the causes of global warming. They've also abandoned a central commitment of orthodox Christianity.
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There are those whose every utterance is science and its tautology becomes a blinding credo. Academe for those who lack a true science background becomes their manifesto. Wherein, their faith is pinned on the hopes that evolution is correct, and their reward is the requiem itself with it being no more quantitative or qualitative than the subsume of their trophic lives.
Viscerally attacking those who choose something greater than themselves, they find comfort and peace in rhetoric. Never for one moment do they really believe in the finality of their own existence. Yet, they will shout it from the mountain tops that they are the progeny of primordial slime, and they take pride that their primogentor was a cosmic accident.
And, no succor by anyone can be availed when they are tremulous before God.
Since when has a choice been both simple and a dilemma?
If secularism leads to “moral decadence” then why are the most highly educated in our secular system both the least likely to be ultra-religious and the least likely to divorce? Why did so many sex scandals plague our founding fathers, and shouldn’t we rate the institution of slavery at the top of any “moral decadence” list? Not to put too fine a point on it, but I have never heard of a suicide bomber, or an abortion clinic murderer, or a KKK leader, ever waving the flag of Secularism.
If it’s true that, “There are those whose every utterance is science,” then how do they get coffee in the morning?
I don’t doubt that you think you can see into the hearts and minds of others, discerning their “real beliefs” and what brings them “comfort and peace.” I don’t doubt that you believe your position to be morally superior. And I nearly broke a tooth reading all those five dollar words…. But in the end, to me, your analysis seems as likely as a million intellectuals driving, tearfully, past the Starbucks each day.
Well. If you haven't heard of them, I'm guessing you need to read a bit more.
The suicide jacket - i.e. what we think of as suicide bombers - was first used by the Tamil Tigers. A secular group.
Now, the KKK may use religion, but much of the racism in the twentieth century was secular - e.g. Stalin and Hitler, who both based their concepts of superior races directly on Darwin. Stalin, and communism in many other nations, went out of their way to try to kill religion.
Abortion clinic murderers would seem a strange choice for the third one. Since the reason behind the murders is normally religious, of course there is no-one waving the flag of secularism. However, you assume that abortion itself is not murder - secularism is waved as a flag to allow millions of human beings to be killed every year. I am not justifying the murders of those who perform them (I'm anti-death penalty), but in terms of sheer numbers of lives taken, secularism wins hands down. Except that secularism doesn't acknowledge they are human lives. Since science has nothing to say one way or the other (we can merely define, not prove, what makes a human) that is a lot of death justified purely by a belief system.
In my experience, those people who are not Christians and yet have lived thoughtful examined lives and strong professional ones, are the most honest and ethical people I have met and known. The worse have been Christians who live but poorly examines but faith filled lives. Of course I live in America where many people are Christians so it may not be surprising that such naughty people are Christians. The numbers make that occurance inevitable.
When they were small I could say, we return to the place we came from, or, we go to that place where our ancestors have already gone, and that was enough.
When they were older I told them how Chuang Tzu dreamed that he was a butterfly, and waking, could no longer tell if he was a man who had dreamed of being a butterfly, or if he was a butterfly dreaming that he was a man.
While I still like to think of Chuang Tzu dancing and laughing his way to funerals, I find that as my children enter their teenage years that I have little left to say about an afterlife beyond, “those who know don’t tell, those who tell don’t know.”
But while we are blind to existence beyond our senses, (and the instruments we use to amplify them) this world gives us a certain assurance, a certain truth.
1+1=2. Every structure and every system, everything we see and do depends on this logic.
Any model of the known universe constructed outside of this basic 1+1 framework is, and must be, so far beyond our reality as to be unknowable, and therefore meaningless in its application.
And so the ancient proverb goes: Pray to God, but tie your camel first.
As far as “indoctrination” goes, you’ve now given me a great image of you, in a business suit, holding down a three year old while you diagram cell death with a power point presentation.
As for 1+1: I think it’s pretty clear that my point is that it’s ok to acknowledge our spiritual side, so long as it doesn’t interfere with our sense of reality. I hope you don’t have a religious aversion to spirituality..
Avoid category mistakes :3
When the Bible talks about being "born again", being "baptized of the Spirit" or about a "new heaven and new earth" it is really talking about states and stages of consciousness, about changing our relationship to God, or Truth, i.e. a learning process. Spirituality is learned, and the learning process always involves an element of creative destruction, i.e. the more poorly understood concept is destroyed to be replaced by the more profoundly understood concept.
In like manner, the material concept is "destroyed" to be replaced by a more spiritual concept. As this takes place we discover that the true universe is entirely Spirit. As for material evolution, the reason it looks like the material universe developed over a time continuum is similar to why the rails of a train track seem to converge. We can only see the track from one standpoint so they run together. Likewise we can only see the material universe from a finite standpoint so it appears to project backward to a point. But, " one day is with the Lord as a thousand years". God doesn't need a calendar. 6 seconds, 6 years, 6000 or six billion years are irrelevant concepts to Spirit.
Bottom line, most of the discussion on thread misses the point.
As the free nations of the world fall behind in science, (and as the article is covers one of the great debates in American about science) I think we’re hitting pretty close to the mark.
"Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection . . . is hopelessly metaphysical, according to the rules of etiquette laid down in the Logic of Scientific Inquiry and widely believed in by practicing scientists who bother to think about the problem. The first rule for any scientific hypothesis ought to be that it is at least possible to conceive of an observation that would contradict the theory. For what good is a theory that is guaranteed by its internal logical structure to agree with all conceivable observations, irrespective of the real structure of the world?
If scientists . . . use logically unbeatable theories about the world, they might as well give up natural science and take up religion. Yet is that not exactly the situation with regard to Darwinism? The theory of evolution by natural selection states that changes in the inherited characters of species occur, giving rise to differentiation in space and time, because different genetical types leave different numbers of offspring in different environments...
Such a theory can never be falsified, for it asserts . . . environmental difference created the conditions for natural selection . . . It is existentially quantified so that the failure to find the environmental factor proves nothing, . . . .
The theory of natural selection is then revealed as metaphysical rather than scientific. Natural selection explains nothing because it explains everything.
Lewontin http://bit.ly/gVwU1T
The genetic structure of humans and fruit flies are pretty well known. Show me a human who carries only the genetic material of a fruit fly, or fruit flies with no genetic material at all and you will have turned evolution theory on it’s head.
So your argument is wrong because the premise is false.
Beyond that, the idea that a theory could be wrong because it’s just too true is nonsensical.
1+1=2 is an argument, a testable theory that explains nature and can not be logically refuted. It is not metaphysical, it’s just how things in this world work. Evolution theory is like gravitational theory: formed by decades of research and defining the physical world as it is.
Me, neither. But this doesn't touch on the point.
"The genetic structure of humans and fruit flies are pretty well known. Show me a human who carries only the genetic material of a fruit fly, or fruit flies with no genetic material at all and you will have turned evolution theory on it’s head."
Right you are, but I'm not disputing any of that, so I'm not sure how it applies here.
"So your argument is wrong because the premise is false."
I'd love to take your word on it, but you haven't said anything that leads me to believe you know what my argument is.
"Beyond that, the idea that a theory could be wrong because it’s just too true is nonsensical."
I have no idea what this means, but I'm certain it doesn't pertain to Lewonton's quote.
"1+1=2 is an argument, a testable theory that explains nature and can not be logically refuted. It is not metaphysical, it’s just how things in this world work."
Is this going anywhere?
"Evolution theory is like gravitational theory: formed by decades of research and defining the physical world as it is."
Uh, evolution certainly happened, so I have no idea what your overall point is, since I said so at the start.
By your argument, we couldn't be sure that gravity, nuclear fusion, etc. is responsible for the development of all the bodies of the cosmos. They all depended on exactly where they developed and when.
You are imposing unnecessarily restrictive binders on science to limit its attempts to understand to what can be directly observed at the present time. Until and unless we find that such things change over time today, there is no reason to assume that the universe in the past on Earth was so different that evolution would not have happened.
The reason it isn't conceivable for an observation to invalidate evolution is that the major pieces that could have invalidated it have all been looked into and everything agrees with it. Multiple independent origins of life, highly disconnected from each other (e.g. no detectable similarities in DNA) would instantly disprove evolution.
The recent event of Biblical literalism seems to conflate what science does (find facts) with what people find to be meaningful. Which causes a lot of sillyness and confusion -- but without which, there would be no need for self-identified atheists.
But the Bible is about just one thing: how man came to be in rebellion against God and how God has brought about a reconciliation. This is the Gospel. The Bible carries the Gospel but not everything in the Bible is Gospel.
Arguing about evolution or creation is to completely miss the point of the Bible.
Arguing about evolution or creation is to completely MISUSE the Bible.
Evolution and 'creationism' come under science.
Art belongs with art. Science belongs with science. Any confusion is the responsibility of the person who thinks so and not to be construed as something 'real' outside themselves.
Faith in the Word of God, faith that it IS the word of GOD, and that its inerrant and true. Your God is fully capable of creating everything out of nothing--no big deal for him
Also the bible DOES NOT, I repeat, DOES NOT present the account of creation as allegory, parable or anything but literal fact--and reconfirms that through other books of the Bible where it is referred to as literal fact. So God at his word or you don't--if you don't you put more faith in a theory that's shot full of holes than God.
And seriously, evolution as a theory has many holes in it.
Genesis 1:11-13; 1:27
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
... 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Genesis 2:4-7
4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth[a] and no plant had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams[b] came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the LORD God formed a man[c] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Two different stories, each presented as inerrant truth. If one is a lie, then that undermines everything you've said.
You comments indicate that you don't know much about evolution.
your science book is nothing more than what man has written, and throughout the ages it is continually needing to be re-written when we discover our discoveries were either completely wrong, or so incomplete as to render the previous 'science fact' useless.
in a hundred years much of what we believe scientifically will have gone this way....
It is not that science is wrong, for it is what we are designed to do, to reach beyond what we can touch, to question, to seek ... only science has missed that it is all just leading back to The Creator, to show that we, being that special creation, are more than just a part of what was created, we are part of The Creator and can (if we accept) return to that intent.