Book Review: Only a Theory

Subtitle: "Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul."

Author: Brown University Biology Professor, Kenneth R. Miller.

Publisher: Viking, in 2008.

Available at: Amazon

The stakes in the evolution debates are higher than I had imagined. Miller gives a very sobering analysis of the potential ultimate damage possible if the Intelligent Design movement wins the day. Every Christian interested in the I.D. verses Evolution controversy should read this book! My review follows ...

Will I.D. Undo American Leadership in Science?

... for that is precisely what it threatens to do. Ken Miller sets into clear focus all that is at stake in the Intelligent Design verses Evolution controversy. (Miller is a committed Christian, and one of the leading evolutionary biologists in America today.)

If this were merely a science question, if the debate were taking place in laboratories and peer-reviewed science journals, evolution would be winning hands-down. This, Miller contends, was clearly demonstrated at the 2005 Dover, Pennsylvania trial. And Miller devotes several chapters to scientifically dismantling the contentions of Intelligent Design theorists, building a strong case for the overwhelming superiority of Evolution over I.D. However, Miller shows us how the debate has been deftly shifted out of the realms of laboratory, field stations, data, and evidence, and into the realms of philosophy, religious dogma, and the very soul of America.

There is more at stake in the evolution wars then a mere testing of Darwin’s theory. Darwinists, like Miller, have always welcomed challenges to evolution. But I.D. fails miserably as a science. Recognizing this failure, the founder of the I.D. movement, Phillip Johnson, has proposed a strategy that has little to do with defeating evolution scientifically. Rather, he outlined a new set of goals in his Wedge Document, which is an appeal for a new approach to unseating evolution in the American classroom. Apparently concluding that evolution cannot be defeated on scientific grounds, Johnson suggests the battle be engaged in the courtrooms of public opinion, at the ballot box, and by rallying social conservative evangelicals.

While many Christians might applaud this approach, and while it may be effective, this is not the historically proven methodology for arriving at scientific conclusions. If the Copernican controversy had been settled in the courtroom of public opinion, we might be confirmed Geocentrists to this day. No, the scientific method which has served America so well, and thrust us into world leadership on so many fronts, does not settle its questions through public relations, get-out-the-vote drives, or political action committees.

Miller laments that if I.D. is successful in turning the question of origins from a scientific quest into a philosophical debate, the loser will not just be evolution, but our entire scientific enterprise, and our place of leadership in the world. Science, and evolution, will live on in the rest of the industrialized world with or without America’s leadership. (This is a distinctly American issue. Miller points out that America lags far behind the rest of the industrialized world when it come to public acceptance of evolutionary science.) The proponents of I.D. seem content with that prospect. Miller is not.

Written in a readable, and at times entertaining style, Only a Theory deserves more attention within the Christian community. I recommend it to my readers, especially those who take a favorable view of I.D.

One of the most fascinating discussions in the book for me comes in Chapter 8, the last chapter. Here, Miller discusses the paradoxical alignment of anti-evolution dogma and political conservatism. True economic conservatism is based in the teachings of Adam Smith. Smith proposed that the larger economic system is best served by the somewhat chaotic interplay of self-interested capitalists. The economic freedoms of unfettered capitalism result in greater innovations, and growth and development benefiting the entire economic system. Charles Darwin credited Adam Smith with helping him to see how the same principles led to innovation, growth and development in our evolutionary past. Thus, Miller draws the bold conclusion that support for evolutionary science is a more natural fit for economic conservatism than the anti-evolution stance we typically observer in those quarters. Hopefully, our scientific future will continue to lead us into innovation, growth and development, unfettered by the restraints of a philosophical movement, Intelligent Design.

The problem with Intelligent Design ...

 ... "is not that [it] is wrong." So begins the 14th installment of Gordon Glover's video series on Christian education, evolution and folk science. Following that disclaimer, he proceeds to explain why a Bible-believing Christian like himself rejects the teaching of Intelligent Design in the science classroom. Christians are often perplexed when they hear of fellow believers (such as Glover and myself) who accept evolutionary science, but who oppose the teaching of Intelligent Design. The following image from Glover's presentation helps to bring the issue into focus. It is a quote from Isaac Newton, who did so much to advance our understanding of gravity and the laws of motion. While Newton understood planetary movements better than most of his contemporaries, there were aspects of these movements which he found baffling and inexplicable. In the face of such insurmountable mysteries, he made the mistake of turning to Intelligent Design, and divine intervention for an explanation.

In one sense, what Newton said may be true. But what he meant was that the mysteries of our Solar System could only be understood in terms of God's constant active power. Of course, we now understand the physics of our Solar System, and we see how God has put into place natural laws and phenomena by which these movements are governed. We no longer feel a need to appeal to the constant supernatural intervention of "an intelligent and powerful Being." We can be thankful for scientists like French mathematician and astronomer, Pierre-Simon Laplace, who rejected Newton's Intelligent Design theory and continued to pursue scientific investigation of the astronomical data. Laplace helped us to see how God was able to construct a Solar System which did not require his active supernatural intervention to "make it work". Of course, we all take Laplace's explanations for granted, today.

No believer I know rejects the idea of intelligent design, if by that we mean God is the ultimate architect and Creator of the entire cosmos. But many of us do reject the so-called "scientific" theory of Intelligent Design which is a thinly-veiled attack on evolutionary science. We are grateful to Laplace for refusing Newton's science-stopping explanation. And in the same spirit, we say "press on" to the evolutionary scientists of today (with many Bible-believing Christians among them) who continue to fill out our understanding of the natural history of life on earth. Their work will only be done unfettered by the philosophically and religiously driven theories of Intelligent Design.

The point is this: intelligent design may be good philosophy, and sound spiritual reality; Intelligent Design is bad science. 

If this topic interests you (or angers you!), I recommend Gordon's discussion of Intelligent Design in Lessons 13 and 14 of his series.

The Stronghold of Creationism

I will return to the God & Evil series; a post at a friend's site prompted the following ...

I recall a conversation I had with a friend about two years ago. I had recently read Francis Collins’s wonderful book, The Language of God, and I was in the middle of Gordon Glover's Beyond the Firmament. My friend had expressed his astonishment that I accepted the evidence for evolution. I told him that in five years, maybe ten, he too would come to accept evolution, as would most Christians. Wow! How wildly optimistic I was!

I now tell people that I do not expect to live to see the day when most conservative Christians accept evolution, and that it may take another fifty to one hundred years before Christendom abandons its anti-evolution stance. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the publishing of the Origin of the Species. The last time Christians had to adjust to the theological and bibliological implications of unsettling science (following Copernicus and Galileo), the church took 200 years to come to terms. If my 50 year projection is accurate, we're just about on schedule.

Steve Douglas has just posted Why creationists are creationists, an excellent piece detailing the reasons for the solid resistance to evolution in the conservative wing of the American church. I recommend it for those who seek to understand why this resistance is so unyielding. 

Your comments are welcome.

The Problem of Evil III. Pristine Creation (?)

After a lengthy pause, I resume the God and Evil series with this, the third post dealing with the Problem of Evil (hereafter referred to as PoE). In this series, I offer my own resolution to the quadrilemma of Epicurus discussed in this earlier post. The series will be several posts long. The full picture will only become clear as all posts are presented. For this reason, I will not generally respond to challenges or arguments to individual posts. But I am more than happy to answer any questions for clarification.

A central tenet of traditional Christian theology is that evil invaded a once pristine Creation. The assumption is that God’s original Creation was idyllic, unspoiled. It is assumed that God would not create a broken universe, one with a component of evil present at the very beginning. Into this unspoiled Creation, evil enters as an unwanted guest, through the rebellion of Satan and his angelic followers, and/or through the rebellion of man as illustrated in the first three chapters of Genesis.

Is this picture correct? Was all of Creation originally an unspoiled Eden? Is evil an interloper, and invader and spoiler of an otherwise ideal, paradisal cosmos? Does Scripture support this view, or does it suggest the contrary? At the culmination of his creative work, God looked at creation and found it to be “very good” ( Genesis 1:31 ); but was it perfect? Can our study of Creation, our scientific investigation of the universe itself, help us to answer this question? I believe it can.

If you believe, as I do, that God faithfully reveals truth through the nature of the universe (see Romans 1:20), then we can confidently look to the natural history of our cosmos as revealed in science to provide us with insight about God’s creative activity. Amazingly, our study of the present day cosmos has given us a remarkable front-row view of the creation moment. It is as though we can watch God fling this universe into existence. We are treated to such a trail of evidence, echos from the deep past, that astrophysicists today actually subdivide the very first second of time into “epochs” of natural history.

Among other things, they tell us that, following the initial moment of creation (aka “the Big Bang”),there was a very brief period known as the "Planck Epoch", which lasted a tiny fraction of millisecond. After this briefest of moments, the cosmos entered into a condition which has continued to the present day: the state of ever increasing entropy. (For a fuller explanation, see my earlier post on entropy) This Law of Entropy (also known as the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics) dictates that the cosmos, as we know it, has a death sentence. We don’t know how long the universe has to live; some predict only about 100 billion years. Other suggest 100 trillion years or more. But we know that the ultimate fate of the universe is death. And now we understand that God made it this way from the very beginning. Not only is the universe winding down, entropy predicts that all matter, including all living beings, will ultimately die and/or decay.

This understanding is in keeping with the teachings of the Bible. The Psalmist declares that “In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment.  Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded” (Psalm 102:25-26, quoted in Hebrews 1:10-12).

The Christian theological concepts I learned growing up in the church have evil invading the cosmos at some point in time after creation. Following this invasion (either the Fall of Adam and Eve or the judgment of Satan), death and decay begin to spoil an otherwise pristine Creation. Clearly, if 20th century science is close to the truth, this concept does not square with reality. But can the reality of a universe which has included death and decay from its very outset square with the Scriptures?

Your comments are welcome!

"Christianity Benefits Africa," Declares an Atheist

I will return to the "God and Evil" series in the near future. I found the subject of today's post a fascinating twist on the neo-atheism debates. I invite your comments.

It is popular among today’s secularists to portray Western Christian missionaries as damaging to native populations and their indigenous cultures. No one would argue that missionary activities have at times been misguided. The Western church model, typically inappropriate to other cultures, has too often been forcibly applied together with the gospel of Jesus. This needless exporting of Western cultural trappings has resulted in great harm in many places. But is it fair to paint all missionary efforts with the broad brush of condemnation because of these mistakes of the past? Or to put the question another way, has the net effect of the preaching of the gospel been positive for those populations that embraced Christianity, despite the failings of some missionaries? And is it possible that such positive effects could be noted even by a skeptic, one who doubts the gospel message itself?

Matthew Parris is a British journalist who writes for The Times (aka Times of London). In the December 27, 2008 edition, he penned a column which he titled, “As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God”. You can read his full essay here. Below are some excerpts:

“Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa's biggest problem - the crushing passivity of the people's mindset.”

“... I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.”

... only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it”

Fascinating declarations coming from such a well-known atheist. Of course, he throws a bone to his follow-secularists when he writes, “It's a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package.” Say what? Salvation is the very heart of the package, not just a “part”. Nevertheless, Parris’s admission that the God of the missionary is just the medicine Africa needs is all the more remarkable in light of his stated aversion to the message of salvation!

Parris is very clear. The missionary message, and the deeds inspired by it, get more mileage than relief funds, secular NGOs, the U.N., education, etc.

I have a Canadian friend who has long maintained that the best thing a Christian can do for Africa is to go there, even if only for a short time.  Wayne leads teams of North Americans into Liberia, and Sierra Leone two and three times a year. The teams sometimes number 20 or 30 or more. The airfare for those teams could feed thousands of orphans, maybe build a school or two, or staff a small hospital for a year. When practical folks like myself point this out, Wayne objects vehemently. Our “ministry of presence” is simply invaluable, he contends, and Matthew Parris offers his own unique “Amen!”

Personal notes and links of interest

There has been a precipitous decline in Christians commenting on this site. While a number of atheists join in the discussion, it seems that Christians are either 1) offended by my manner (e.g. my rejection of many standard Christian answers to the problem of evil may offend some) or 2) fail to see that the problem of evil has never been adequately answered, or 3) just don't care. (And some readers simply do not engage in posting comments.) Since my primary purpose here is to engage believers in considering the impact scientific discoveries have upon Christian theology (though atheists are welcome and helpful in the process!), the almost total lack of engagement by believers has been a source of discouragement for me. So, a few weeks ago I posted this comment and chose to take a break from posting.

Since that time, I have been encouraged to continue to write. My monitoring of the site tells me that many of you are still coming by to read. Some fellow believers have assured me that they read the posts with interest, but have for various reasons chosen not to offer comments. So, very soon I will resume this series, and continue to develop my thoughts in this venue. I may at some point chose to disable comments if they prove to be unhelpful. 

Blogging takes a toll. Two of my blogging friends Tom and Steve are taking indefinite breaks from blogging, and perhaps trying a different approach. Tom offers very insightful posts and comments from his perspective as a former YEC Christian, and now an atheist/evolutionist, and I hope he finds time to continue blogging in some form. Steve has developed what may be the premier site on the web discussing the theological implications of evolution for evangelical believers. I hope his hiatus is short-lived.

Two additional notes on the more positive side: Beyond the Firmament author, Gordon Glover continues to post his excellent video series on Christian education, evolution and folk science. Earlier today he released Lesson 10. I highly recommend this video series to believers who still question the validity of evolution and common descent. And another blogging friend, Mike Beidler, recently appeared in a BBC radio broadcast, Beyond Belief, in which he recounts his own personal pilgrimage from a staunch YEC special creationist to a Christian who accepts evolution. Follow the links to the program, and give it a listen.

Stay tuned. In my next post, I will tackle this question: Does the universe offer any evidence indicating whether this Creation was ever pristine, edenic, unspoiled? and does this matter?

The Problem of Evil II. Suffering & Glory

This is the second in a series of posts on the Problem of Evil (hereafter referred to as PoE). In this series, I offer my own resolution to the quadrilemma of Epicurus discussed in this earlier post. The series will be several posts long. The full picture will only become clear as all posts are presented. For this reason, I will not generally respond to challenges or arguments to individual posts. But I am more than happy to answer any questions for clarification.

From Epicurus forward, every presentation of the Problem of Evil (PoE) begins with the tacit presumption that suffering must be an unnecessary and unwanted evil, something which a good God would certainly eradicate if he could. And thus the argument goes, either he is not good, or he is not able to eradicate suffering. Believers typically respond to this presumption about suffering in these ways:

1) Suffering adds texture to life (Psalms 30:5; 126:6): we cannot know true joy in the absence of sorrow, we cannot know pleasure without pain, we are not truly human without the full range of experiences including suffering; and

2) Suffering develops character (Romans 5:3-5; James 1:2-3): without suffering, character qualities like endurance might grow stagnant, might never develop to their fullest potential. Even Jesus grew and learned through suffering, we are told (Hebrews 5:8).

Because they do not take such benefits of suffering into account, the typical PoE argument of the skeptics, including the quadrilemma of Epicurus, are too simplistic. The PoE cannot be reduced to such a facile syllogism. Nevertheless, the above defenses of suffering fail, in my opinion, to account for all suffering. Indeed, CS Lewis recognized this in his theodicy, The Problem of Pain, in which he turns to the pain and suffering of animals where the moral arguments carry no water. Skeptical commenters on this blog have asked how the thousands of children crushed or drowned in earthquakes and tsunamis benefited from suffering ... or even how we who have survived such natural calamities benefit from their suffering. Such questions go unanswered. So, while I accept the standard Christian arguments about the benefits of suffering, those arguments do not solve the riddle for me, nor for countless others, nonbelievers and believers alike.

Suffering and the PoE go far beyond human experience where there can be some observable moral benefits in suffering. Indeed, the New Testament tells us that “all creation” is involved in suffering (Romans 8:22). From this passage we learn that suffering is the result of a deliberate choice on the part of the Creator, but that it is not his plan to leave the cosmos in this state. This passage suggests strongly to me that some eternal purpose of God is being fulfilled by this provisional state of suffering in the cosmos.

Christianity teaches us that all history is moving toward an inexorable climatic moment when all evil is destroyed, all processes of decay come to a halt, and death itself dies. Could it be that suffering in this cosmos under the free hand of evil contributes in some way to the ultimate undoing of evil? I believe that the Scriptures intimate that this is the case.

In the previous post, I suggested the possibility that God might combat evil on a cosmic scale using the same tactics he recommends to his followers on a terrestrial scale. Jesus teaches us to defeat evil through patterns of intentional nonresistance. If, in the cosmic battle between good and evil, evil is being overcome by good (see Romans 12:21), the winning of the war may come only at the cost of much suffering. While we learn from Romans 8:22 that this suffering is spread across all of creation, no part of creation suffers more than God himself, in the person of Jesus.

In Colossians 1:24, Paul makes an interesting statement about the suffering that Jesus endured. He says, in effect, that in his own personal suffering, he was “filling up what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ.” Two conclusions can be drawn from this remarkable verse:

1) Something is actually accomplished in the spiritual realm by the sufferings of Christ. The death of Jesus accomplished redemption for mankind, but that is not all. The clearest statement of the purpose for Jesus coming to earth is found in 1 John 3:8, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” And in John 12:31, Jesus declares that his approaching suffering and death would be instrumental in the undoing of the work of the devil.

2) The sufferings of Christ are, in this regard, incomplete. Our sufferings team with his to accomplish the purposes of God. God calls people of faith to co-venture, if you will, with him in the battle against evil. I believe that we are called to share in the suffering which ultimately pays the price for the undoing of evil. And thus is suffering given meaning, purpose and value.

The New Testament has much to say about a connection between suffering and glory. It seems clear that there is a direct corresponding relationship between suffering in this age and glory in the next (2 Corinthians 4:17; Romans 8:18; Matthew 5:11-12; 1 Peter 1:7, 4:13). Is glory merely a consolation offered by God for the unfortunate sufferers? Is it a reward, an eternal “atta-boy” offered to those who buck-up under affliction? I don’t think so. The 2 Corinthians passage suggest the relationship is directly causal. That is, Paul teaches that suffering in this realm is “accomplishing”, or “achieving” future glory.

Does all suffering qualify for glory? Are all forms of suffering accomplishing the purposes of God? I do not know. Romans 8:22 suggests that the writhing of the entire cosmos is somehow instrumental in bringing to birth God’s plan. On the other hand, Peter urges people of faith to suffer with a heart and mind like Jesus had in his suffering (1 Peter 2:21-23; 4:1); and he tells us that there is no value in the sufferings which we bring upon ourselves (2:19-20; 4:15-16). So it would seem that the sufferings of the innocent, and the sufferings borne in faith would be at the top of the list in efficaciousness.

In the next post, we will visit the book of Revelation and observe how our actions and our sufferings here are significant in precipitating the final judgments of God against evil.

Your comments are welcome.