Human Evolution and Theology

It’s been over six months since my last entry on this blog. My apologies to the many who continue to check in here, only to find the well still dry! There are many reasons for my writing hiatus, most of them personal. But I hope to resume writing, and today I offer this summary of a recent Biologos article, together with a brief facebook exchange from yesterday.

My friend, Dennis Venema, is an Associate Professor of Biology at Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C., and a Senior Fellow of the Biologos Foundation. Yesterday, he posted a fascinating description of early human speciation at the Biologos site. Evolution doubters confused about microevolution versus macroevolution would do well just to read Venema’s opening paragraphs about how new species develop, and when they cross that invisible line demarcating a “new species”. Venema’s main thrust is how genetics is showing the way to a deeper understanding of how the very early Hominid species spread out across the globe, and how they interacted, and interbred. But Venema’s driving passion, much like my own, goes beyond elucidation of our distant past; he longs for the conversation which evangelical Christians must engage which is less about natural history, and more about its theological implications. Venema closes his article with this:

"Even as I stand amazed in what God has revealed to us about our origins through science, I know that this new information will be difficult for some within the evangelical community to accept. Moreover, it is almost certain that some Christian groups, unfortunately, will misrepresent this data to their constituents (whether intentionally or not), and thus spread confusion that hinders the needed theological conversation. Still, I have reason for hope: God has seen it fit to reveal this information to us, and that suggests that He believes the evangelical Christian community is ready for this conversation to happen. As [Biologos President] Darrel [Falk] mentioned at the end of his recent piece, we at BioLogos want to assist our evangelical sisters and brothers in this conversation in any way we can, in full confidence that it can be done in an edifying way ..."

I posted a link to Venema’s article yesterday, and one of my facebook friends commented with several questions. My friend, Tim, is an unbeliever, and puzzles over how or why believers who understand our evolutionary past persist in efforts to reconcile “the biblical narrative from Genesis” with “what science has discovered.” Tim writes, “I just don't get this insane drive to keep believing something that is completely contradictory to the facts.” He goes on to quote Venema’s amazement “in what God has revealed to us about our origins through science.” Tim is incredulous, even infuriated, at such a statement. He writes, “God didn’t reveal anything. Man looked around observed tested and discovered. What God supposedly revealed about the natural world in Genesis is in short a fairy tale. Simply put when it comes to explaining how why things work the way they do or are the way they are its Science a whole whole lot and God zero.”

My answer to Tim’s concerns follows:

“A lot of really good questions, Tim. I'll try to answer succinctly, though each of your questions is worthy of an essay!

“People like Venema and myself make little attempt to align current understandings of natural history and science with the narrative of Genesis in the way you presume. (Some believers do, e.g. Hugh Ross, and his organization "Reasons to Believe" <www.reasons.org>.) Rather, Genesis appears to us to be an ancient text that provides a wealth of early theological insights within it's contemporary cosmological framework, but which contains little or no supernaturally supplied information about science, origins, or natural history.

“But what you are really asking is why maintain faith in any Biblical revelation in light of the Bible's lack of historical/scientific preciseness. I cannot presume to answer for Dennis, but I can tell you that for me, this is a choice that is rooted in my faith in the person of Jesus, who is called in the Bible the "Word of God", and as such is the ultimate expression of God, the ultimate divine revelation. And the Bible, in my opinion a substantially accurate source of history concurrent with its writing, tells us much about Jesus prospectively in the O.T., concurrently in the Gospels, and retrospectively in the rest of the N.T. When I couple together the things we are learning from science about origins, evolution, physics, etc. with what is revealed in Jesus and in the book about him, the results are exciting, refreshing, and captivating (you can read some of my observations on my blog, OutsideTheBox).

“Your question about "God revealing through science" is a fair question. There is a verse in Proverbs that says "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings." That is, God's revelations in nature are concealed, below the surface, awaiting discovery. Science (which you may know was largely driven by theistic belief for much of it's history) is man uncovering the secrets of the Creator. The Biblical presumption is that all of nature is God revealing, and we call this "Natural Revelation".

“So your score card ("science a whole lot, God zero") presumes that God spoon feeds information to us, or that Christians believe that he does this. While some Christians may think that way, I assure you that Venema does not. Nor do I.”

Your comments are welcome ...

Why Science Matters!

Frequently, certain friends seem troubled by my exploration of the sciences, and my willingness to accept evidence which at times runs contrary to earlier theological assumptions. A friend recently wrote to me expressing her concern over my interest in what she regards as “the religion of science.” Below is my response to this friend:

I do not share your view of science. You indicate that science is a religion unto itself, that is it merely "possible" for a scientist to believe the Bible, and that science (or what you call "worldly knowledge") is something that will eventually fade away.

I have a much higher view of science, and of its usefulness to faith, to understanding God, to understanding spiritual things, etc. Without question there are those who wrongly worship science, just as some worship sports, others worship cultural icons of Hollywood, and some (dare I say it?) worship the Bible. I know people who would define their entire relationship with God as a pouring over the Hebrew and Greek, searching out the minutia of the text for hidden clues about God, while they have little personal knowledge of or walk with the true "Word of God", Jesus. They have fallen into bibliolatry. But we have these two great sources (or channels, more accurately) of revelation: Special Revelation, and General Revelation. We learn about God in the pages of Scripture, the person of Jesus, and the illumination of the Holy Spirit; and we also learn about him by paying close attention to Creation, to the works of his hands. If indeed the heavens declare the glory of God, then we have a much fuller understanding of God's greatness, magnitude, and glory post-Hubble than before. The intricacies of the living cell are clueing us into the infinite wisdom and creative genius of God. Quantum mechanics is helping to dismantle the unhealthy notions of strict determinism ... that is, we now know the universe is not a static Newtonian predictable set of causes and effects; that helps to correct our theology! Paul tell us in Romans 1 that we can not only learn of God's existence in nature, but we can even learn about his attributes, perhaps even facets of his character. Knowing the Bible, and personally knowing Jesus, helps us to properly "read" the data from science. But it is equally true to say that science helps us to properly read the Bible. It did so in Galileo's day; it continues to do so today. Technically, of course, you are correct: all knowledge will fade away, including science, and including (in my view, at least) the Bible. But for now, science is an amazing tool for looking deeply into God, how he structured the cosmos, how he created the universe. These profound data give us clues to his purposes, and why he responds (or at times does not respond) as he does. The more I understand from science, the more I come back to the Scriptures and say "Aha ... now I understand that!"

I read in your tone almost disdain for science. That makes me sad. It is true that secularism has hijacked science to a large degree over the last 100 year or so. And, in my view, history reveals that we, the people of faith, are utterly responsible for that hijacking! Through the early centuries of the western scientific enterprise, the primary impetus of science, the motivation for scientific inquiry and study, was God! It was a bottom-line belief in a good and orderly God that gave rise to science, and that fueled its progress for hundreds of years. But when the early fundamentalists of 100 years ago (not all of them, to be sure), tied science (particularly evolution) to the attacks upon the Bible in the late 19th Century, believers abandoned science en masse. Secularists picked up the sciences and ran with them. And the Christian fundamentalist leaders began a century long campaign against science. "Don't trust it" they told us from their pulpits. "It is evil, filled with atheistic lies!" This fundamentalist mantra continues right down to the present day. When I read your comments about science, I fear you have bought into this polemic. I cannot agree with it at all. Not only do I learn about God, understand better his actions in my own life, through peering deeply into nature, but I want Christians everywhere to listen to what we are learning from science; yes, to learn to separate the wheat from the chaff; but to stop the travesty of a church turning its back upon the honest study of our Lord's ingenious and creative works, and deeding it over to atheists and secularist. Christians, of all people, should be the most interested in science. I find it a deplorable tragedy that so many are not, and that we continue to allow atheistic thinkers to set the agenda for science by simple default. Thank God for scientists who are outspoken believers! Thank God for Francis Collins! Thank God for Kenneth Miller! Thank God for Simon Conway-Morris! I thank God for dedicated followers of Jesus who are reassuming positions on the cutting edges of science, who are not denying obvious facts, but who are instead moving science in its proper (and only true) direction: toward God!

Christianity & Science: Are they Compatible?

It seems that most of my on-line conversations now happen on facebook pages. From time to time, I may republish some of those conversations here to reach my blog readers.

The following is an exchange which occurred when a friend posted a link to an article which posed the question,

"Can You Believe in Christianity and Evolution?"

"Josh" gave his answer,

christianity and science can be reconciled... but it has to be good, true science for the reconciliation to work! :-)

... to which I replied,

I found Josh's earlier comment interesting:

Josh, would you also agree with me if I rephrased that?

"Christianity and science can be reconciled... but it has to be good, true Christianity for the reconciliation to work"

From my perspective as a follower of Jesus and a follower of science, science is more often "true and good" than many versions of christianity. Conclusive, objective, and empirical evidence should not be asked to bend to align with subjective, debatable interpretations of the Bible. Would you agree?

When apparent conflicts appear between hard science and our version of Christianity, which should give way?

Evolution: God's Idea?

"Aren't evolution and faith in God incompatible? Can a scientist believe in miracles like the resurrection? Actually, I find no conflict here, and neither apparently do the 40 percent of working scientists who claim to be believers. Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things. But why couldn't this be God's plan for creation?"

~ Dr. Francis Collins

Few Christians I know are even trying to understand how evolution might play into the big picture plan and purpose of God. Many Christians are just straining to get used to the idea of evolution, and many more reject it altogether. When believers get past their initial aversion, get comfortable with the new paradigm, and attempt to look at evolution through the eyes of the purposeful Creator, new and exciting vistas open up on a very large, cosmic scale. Francis Collins, the world’s leading geneticist and an evangelical believer tells us that evolution is clearly true. He accepts it as “God’s plan for creation.”

Where are you on this scale below? Please comment!

o Evolution is not compatible with Christianity.

o Evolution might be true, but I’m not convinced.

o Even if evolution is true, it would not effect Christian theology.

o The evidence for evolution is powerful, and I am trying to adjust my thinking, to understand how it fits into my faith.

o I am comfortable with evolution and common descent.

o I am comfortable with evolution and common descent, and actively exploring how this truth impacts Christian theology.

Retroactive Curse?

I’ve been involved in an interesting discussion over at Undeception. In this post, Steve discusses how William Dembski, one of the foremost proponents of the Intelligent Design movement, has embraced Old Earth Creationism. That is, he understands the incontrovertible evidence for the age of the earth. And he knows that such evidence includes a history of suffering and death on our planet before the dawn of man. While he still rejects evolution (acceptance of evolution in Dembski’s case would apparently spell the end of his employment at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary where he is a philosophy professor), his acceptance of the geological and paleontological records creates a conundrum for his theology: billions of years of suffering and death on our planet prior to the dawn of man. More importantly, all of this death occurs before the Fall of man. And Dembski’s theology posits that death and suffering are included in the curse which resulted from the sin of Adam and Eve. No problem, according to Dembski. God merely set a curse upon Creation in anticipation of the Fall.

This is like blaming that the man who struck a match at 3:30 in the afternoon for thereby causing an early morning fire on that same day. Except that God is all-knowing, and apparently therefore it is perfectly rational that the curse resulting from Man’s sin might extend backward for billions of years. And thus does Dembski solve the theodicy riddle (how can evil exist in the creation of a good God?) in his book, The End of Christianity. Blame the extinction of dinosaurs on Adam! Eve eats an apple, and trillions of preexistent bacteria die over billions of years. Of course, such a view wreaks havoc upon common sense notions of cause and effect, which lie at the foundation of all science. If God plays such a huge cosmic trick with the sequence of events, can a scientist like Dembski really trust anything in the natural order?

Dembski has effectively rewritten Genesis 2:17 to read, “For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely set into motion a whole set of retroactive physical, spiritual, and biological laws including the eventuality of death, laws which will not only henceforth govern your lives and all Creation, but actually have already been governing Creation for 13.7 billion years. So, verily, don’t eat thereof. On second thought, maybe you should eat because if you don’t you’ll really screw things up.” And he has altered the grammar of Genesis 3:14-19, effectively replacing a string of straightforward future tense verbs with past perfects. Exactly how does this solve anything for a man who has so much invested in literalism and inerrancy?

Dembski’s commitment to a literal reading of an inerrant Genesis 1 compels him to reject evolution (God created each species “according to its kind”). His insistence upon a literal understanding of Genesis 2 and 3, (and thus a literal Adam and Eve) lead him to reject common descent. But unlike other Biblical literalists, he cannot square the geological and paleontological record with six-day young earth Creationism. The resulting theological dilemma has Dembski contorting Biblical literalism beyond recognition.

Christians who take seriously their faith must deal with the issue in some way. It won’t go away anytime soon. So I am asking my believing readers, How do you solve this dilemma?

o I avoid science, thus shielding myself from all the potential difficulties of squaring my chosen beliefs with hard facts.

o I avoid the philosophical issue of the problem of evil. If I don’t think about it, it doesn’t effect me.

o I avoid the theological issue of death before the Fall. If I don’t think about it, it doesn’t bother me.

o I accept Dembski’s logic. It is the only way to hold together my acceptance of Biblical inerrancy in the face of the vast fossil record showing a long history of death and extinctions prior to man.

o I reject Dembski’s solution as irrational. I accept Biblical inerrancy, but have another solution to the dilemma.

o My view of reality compels me to redefine how God reveals truth, and I do not read the Bible as the literal, inerrant “Word of God”.

Or do you have a different approach than one listed here?

A Friendly Discussion about Evolution ...

... which is, of course, most often an oxymoron.

C. Michael Patton recently opened a discussion on evolution at his website with a quote from John MacArthur (see my earlier post John MacArthur: "The evolutionary lie ..."). The last three posts here at OutsideTheBox grew out of that discussion. I quit reading and interacting in the thread of comments when they numbered 530. By that time, the discussion had become heated, at times, with the traditionalist/anti-evolutionists demanding answers to many questions which, quite frankly, underscored how poorly they understand evolution. They kept demanding that evolutionists make every aspect of evolution fit into traditional evangelical theology, reveling in their “aha” moments each time they found our answers less than satisfying.

Fellow Evolutionary-Creationist Greg (who is still going strong as the comment thread nears 600), at one point (comment 509 and 511) became, shall we say, slightly agitated, and waxed eloquent! Because his comment so profoundly reflected my own thoughts and feelings, I asked Greg if I could repost his comment here; he consented, and it follows:

My Father in Heaven has blessed me with an unquenchable desire to know. To seek out and understand, to teach the glories of his Word and world to those less fortunate than I. Ignorance is bliss, maybe, but in the wonderful wisdom of His will, I have been denied this common curse.

I cannot unsee what I have seen. I do not have the luxury of ignorance to guide me in my life anymore. The church is the greatest sustainer of ignorance I have yet to encounter. As I walk through it I am struck by the childishness of the people, the simplicity they exhibit. At times I long to have again what they have now! Only to fit in, to be of a simple mind again, and not walk this road alone. But in the end, that would be like a man who can now see preferring instead his blindness. I prefer the color of the empty road.

The world is an amazing and complicated place. The Word of God is an amazing and complicated book. Both will confuse you to death. Those who do not see burn one in favor of another. That is not an option for me. Who am I to condemn a work of God to the fire? As God is the author of both, I have to hold one in my right hand and one in the other. I have to accept both no matter how confusing it may seem or how much guessing I may have to do. I am sure in my heart that my God is faithful and true, not one prone to duplicity, as those who do not see will have me believe.

The Word and the world are complicated. I embrace the challenge. I will glory in the magnificent creation my Father has put me in and pity those who do not see what wonders my God has created. Any who wish to see I will gladly help them. Those who refuse, I, ever praying, will leave them to their unrealized misery.

If you are an anti-evolutionary Christian, please, please do not take offense. Wear the shoe only if it fits. And ensure that you understand evolution before you criticize those of us who have become convinced that it must fit into revealed truth, because it is revealed truth.

John MacArthur: "The evolutionary lie ..."

An interesting discussion at C. Michael Patton’s website, Reclaiming the Mind has ensued from the following citation. The words are those of John MacArthur from his book, The Battle for the Beginning:

“The evolutionary lie is so pointedly antithetical to Christian truth that it would seem unthinkable for evangelical Christians to compromise with evolutionary science in any degree. But during the past century and a half of evolutionary propaganda, evolutionists have had remarkable success in getting evangelicals to meet them halfway. Remarkably, many modern evangelicals . . . have already been convinced that the Genesis account of creation is not a true historical record. Thus they have not only capitulated to evolutionary doctrine at its starting point, but they have also embraced a view that undermines the authority of Scripture at its starting point.”

Wow! If MacArthur represents a broad swath of evangelicalism, it is no wonder my views on evolution have garnered for me rejection from so many of my friends. On the other hand, I am encouraged that MacArthur has apparently discovered “many” evangelicals who are convinced of evolution. I wish he would introduce us to each other. I find such evangelicals to be quite rare!

Well, Dr. John, count me among those evangelicals who have “been convinced that the Genesis account of creation is not a true historical record” (more on that later ...). But I absolutely repudiate your misguided contention that I have “compromised with evolutionary science” any more than the Christians of an earlier age “compromised” with Copernican cosmology. (But of course, they were also accused of heresy and compromise by the Fundamentalists of their day, and even excommunicated.) When one is confronted with irrefutable evidence for some bit of reality, his acceptance of that reality is hardly a “compromise”. My acceptance of evolutionary science is based firmly upon hard evidence, the likes of which, I’m confident, Christian’s like you have never encountered. Do you wish to win me back to the fold, Dr. John? Then try presenting a bit of evidence that I am mistaken, rather than clobbering me over the head with insinuations that I have “capitulated” to “propaganda”. If you are looking for a perfect example of propaganda (which is unsubstantiated, highly biased misinformation), try reading your own book. The writings of evangelical scientists like Francis Collins, Kenneth Miller, Owen Gingerich, et. al. hardly fall under your “propaganda” category. Have you even read them?

The likely answer is that MacArthur, along with the countless evangelicals who stand with him, have not read such authors. Are they so filled with fear that evolutionary science may prove to be factual, and thus trap them in a new set of baffling dilemmas? Or do they genuinely mistrust science in the first place, and avoid it like the plague?

That would be sad! MacArthur, and some of the commenters to the Parchment and Pen post who defend him, believe that 1) Biblical revelation trumps all other sources of information, and 2) Biblical revelation must be understood literally (unless there is, as they would say, strong internal reasons to understand it allegorically). Thus, their theology is impoverished by their ideology. They reject volumes of natural revelation which science has uncovered in the last few centuries. How valuable is this natural revelation? Paul, in Romans 1:20, makes the case that we can know and understand much about God, including his “invisible qualities” (NIV) without ever cracking open a holy book, but merely by examining the work of his creative hand. Science, good science, is nothing more nor less than the close examination of the handiwork of the Creator! Christians, of all people, should embrace science with heart and mind! and when then do, they will discover that evolution is the most likely framework for the history of life. And they will find, as I have, that our vistas upon the mysteries of theology are expanded, and that Biblical theology is not “undermined”, but greatly enhanced.

And what of MacArthur’s lament that "many modern evangelicals . . . have already been convinced that the Genesis account of creation is not a true historical record." I wish MacArthur were more specific about which "true historical record" in Genesis is important to believe: the one in chapter 1, or the one in chapter 2. Both, of course, cannot be "true historical record[s]" since they give irreconcilably contradictory accounts. But if we read them as allegorical literature (as they were surely intended), the result is that both accounts are “true” in the sense that they convey truths. Far from “undermining the authority of Scripture”, a proper view of the Bible sets us free to understand its profound truths unencumbered by some felt need to defend the indefensible notion that it is literally “true” scientifically and historically. A proper view of the Bible, coupled with a healthy view of scientific discovery, will set us free to explore our Creator in ways earlier believers could never do. What an adventure! It is sad that so many intelligent minds, such as that which John MacArthur possesses, refuse to set out upon this adventure.

So what is your view? Is MacArthur correct? Am I a compromised Christian?

Book Review: Paradigms on Pilgrimage

I received my copy of Paradigms on Pilgrimage (Clements Publishing, 2005) this week, and finished it in a couple of sittings ... which is to say that I found it hard to put down. The authors, Stephen J. Godfrey and Christopher R. Smith write of their personal pilgrimages out of a YEC paradigm which they were taught earlier in life, and into an understanding of the evolutionary history of life on earth. The two men, brothers-in-law, have backgrounds in different disciplines. Godfrey is a trained paleontologist, and Smith is a student of the Biblical interpretation and literary science. Each describe the succession of understandings as they struggled to integrate what became for them undeniable — evolutionary science — with their Biblical faith. Any believer who struggles with this huge shift in paradigms would benefit from the personal accounts of their respective journeys.

Stephen Godfrey writes the opening five chapters. His style is engaging and, at times, entertaining (chapter one is entitled, “The Dog Skeleton and My Grandmother’s Toothbrush”). As Godfrey receives his training in descriptive paleontology, and as he becomes proficient in the science of fossils, his long-held assumptions of Young Earth Creationism and Flood Geology are rocked again and again. He entered the field, in part, hoping to find evidence in the fossil record to support his YEC views. But instead he finds that the fossil record renders Flood Geology wholly untenable, and that it strongly supports the evolutionary hypothesis. What I found interesting is that, even in the facing of this mounting evidence, Godfrey clings to a literalist view of early Genesis, and he continues to look for something, anything, some shred of data that might be used to discount Darwin and/or substantiate a literal reading of Genesis. He describes the chronology of his personal discoveries and his ensuing struggle, and leads the open-minded reader to understand why his ultimate acceptance of evolution was the only reasonable conclusion.

These chapters are filled with illustrations and fossils that tell amazing stories of the history of life on earth; I found them fascinating. The chapters dealing with trace fossils should forever put to rest the idea that the Flood is responsible for laying down our fossil rich geological strata. At one time, I found the notion of so-called “polystrate fossils” (fossilized trees which are said to pass through multiple strata of sedimentary deposits suggesting that all these layers were the result of a single catastrophic event) quite convincing. Still looking for that shred of evidence for Flood Geology, Godfrey describes his disappointment when he personally observed this phenomenon: “Some young-earth creationists ... were claiming that places like Joggins, where fossilized trees were seen to pass upright though the surrounding sedimentary rocks, provided powerful evidence that the world had been overtaken suddenly by a global flood. I had once believed this to be true. However, after visiting Joggins, I knew first hand that this could not be. The tree stumps lined up along clearly visible, once horizontal, beds” (page 49).

Christopher Smith takes up his pilgrimage in the second half of the book. Trained in theology, Biblical languages and literary studies, his shifting paradigm travels along a slightly different course from Godfrey’s. Like his co-author and brother-in-law, Smith was taught a YEC perspective as a young person, and he tenaciously stuck to his views even during his years at Harvard University where he was among an extreme minority. Not until the time of his graduation did he begin to experience doubt about his literalist/creationist understandings. He describes the processes involved in the ultimate merging of his Biblical faith with what he was learning about his world from the various fields of scientific inquiry. In short, he develops a hermeneutic which not only accommodates good science, but is far more in keeping with the internal evidence of the Bible itself. Far from undermining his confidence in the Bible, this new paradigm has opened new vistas upon the Biblical truth, and given him fresh insight into what God is really communicating through the inspired scriptures.

Some believers may struggle with some of Smith’s methods of understanding and interpreting Scriptures. Paradigm shifts in theology and Biblical interpretation are never easy. Smith’s views do not entirely line up with my own. But I appreciate his honesty in dealing with Scriptures with intellectual honesty.

The final chapter of the book returns to the first chapter of the Bible, in light of the Ancient Near-eastern Cosmology context in which it was written. Genesis 1 can only be understood in light of its historical context. The authors help us to see that, read properly, Genesis is not in conflict with evolution.

I wish every evangelical and fundamental believer could read this book. Making the journey from a YEC perspective into an acceptance of evolutionary science can be a painful and difficult experience. But in light of the overwhelming evidence for evolution, it is a journey believers must be willing to make. This book can be very useful in smoothing that path. I recommend it to my readers.

Personal Note: Toledo Christian Fellowship

For those of you who do not know me personally, I have for the last 17 years provided leadership for a small fellowship in Toledo, Oregon. Toledo Christian Fellowship (TCF) is an all-volunteer church; I derive my personal support from my business. I have greatly enjoyed serving my friends as an elder and as the main teacher over these years. These pictures were taken three weeks ago at our Resurrection Day dinner, where we reenacted the Jesus story with a candle ceremony. The pictures might help to give you a feel for TCF, my church fellowship. 

In October of last year, I declared my acceptance of evolutionary biology to the TCF body, and spent some time explaining why Genesis 1 must be read in light of its Ancient Near Eastern cosmological context. I knew that many of my TCF friends were committed to YEC (I had taught YEC over the years!), I mistakenly believed that, on the strength of my endorsement, these friends would be open to considering the possibilities of evolution. However, for many of them, their commitment to YEC was much stronger than I had thought. I had hoped that TCF might be a place where various views could be openly discussed, where we could think suppositionally (asking the "what if" questions), and that we could serve as a model of how a church might deal with the difficult issues raised by science today, even if we did not all agree. Instead, I found that my revelations served mainly to inflict pain on my friends. Many, perhaps most of them, felt a sense of loss and betrayal, and a deep emotional wound which has still not healed. I now deeply regret the manner in which I presented my view on that day, a manner which, in retrospect, could be characterized as almost cavalier. I regret the deep pain I caused. Over the last six months, I have become convinced that it will be impossible for me to continue to lead this fellowship.

There is no question of my love for these friends, nor of their love for me. But when so many of my brothers and sisters believe that a YEC position is vital to Christian faith, it is too much to ask them to follow a leader who rejects YEC in favor of an Evolutionary Creationist model. So, last night, I laid down my place of leadership, and officially resigned from our eldership.

As the now well-established science of evolution settles down upon the fundamental and conservative evangelical wings of the church, the resulting paradigm shifts in Biblical and theological understandings are bound to be extremely stressful. I fear that the inevitable struggle will result in many broken relationships, and divided churches. Much evidence of this painful battle can already be seen and has been noted elsewhere. It was my hope that TCF could navigate these waters successfully, and help others to do the same. I still have hope this might happen; but it will not be under my leadership.

POST #13: Randomness, and “Quantum Theology”

Jonathan Edwards is considered by many to be America’s greatest Theologian. He was deeply interested in the interplay of science and the Scriptures. His confidence that science and Christian Theology will always find harmony is inspiring to me. And Edwards was convinced that there is a vital connection between the material and the spiritual worlds. His interest in science, particularly physics, was born of this conviction, and a desire to understand the nature of this interconnection between the two worlds.

As a contemporary of Isaac Newton, Edwards was captivated by Newton’s fresh new understandings of the physics of the universe. As a Calvinist, Edwards looked for and found confirmation to his views of the Sovereignty of God. He built these contemporary scientific findings into his defense of Calvinism.

... since God controls the destiny of every individual, human understanding can be considered to be the product of what God determines a person should experience. Edwards's reading of Isaac Newton also supported traditional convictions about the supremacy of God and the helplessness of man in the face of causes that lie beyond human control.

Edwards read widely in his era's scientific and philosophical literature and was fascinated by the discoveries of Newton and his successors.... He was not threatened by the discoveries of science because he felt they revealed the harmony of the Divine Being. A division between the spiritual and material was uncongenial to the pattern of Edwards's thought.
(these quotes from this site.)

Newton’s theories of physics were built upon the premise of absolute space, and lineal (unbending, unchanging) time. His laws of motion, coupled with absolute space and time, gave a scientific basis that everything was utterly predictable to, if not determined by, an All-Knowing Being. Here is how it works:

If we were to stop all movement at a point in time (any point) and learn the trajectory and velocity of every atom and every subatomic particle, and if we possessed the requisite intelligence and computational skills, we could with absolute accuracy determine where every particle was a second earlier, an hour earlier, and even 10 billion years earlier. Likewise, we could with the same absolute certainty predict where every particle of space would be 24 hours later, or thousands, millions, even billions of years hence. With fixed laws of motion operating in a fixed container of absolute space moving along an immutable time line, there can be no surprises to an Omniscient Being! Hence, for Edwards, his Calvinist views were substantiated, and (if we posit Newtonian Physics) scientifically proven.

Newton’s predictions proved true again and again, and his theories of motion and space and time stood for nearly 200 years ... until Albert Einstein stood the world of physics on edge with his theories of special and general relativity. Time, Einstein showed us, is not unbending. Space is not absolute. Space and time are locked into a continuum, playing off of each other in what might have earlier been considered fanciful ways. Time and space are relative. Today, Einstein's theories have proven the tests of countless experiments, and are almost universally accepted. Meanwhile, other scientists were learning remarkable and unsettling things about motion in the world of subatomic particles. Among other discoveries, they were discovering what is now generally accepted: the movement of these particles through space is completely unpredictable. It is not that we lack the instruments or the understanding to predict their movement; we are able to prove with a high level of certainty the impossibility of determining both the position and the momentum of a subatomic particle. This phenomenon is known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of quantum mechanics, named for Werner Heisenberg, the 20th century German physicist.

Some mathematicians have developed an elegant mathematical proof that, as electrons move through space, not even an All-Knowing Being could predict their destination. Their conclusions were published in a short piece entitled “Electrons Have Free Will” in the January, 2007 issue of Seed magazine.

According to [John] Conway and [Simon] Kochen (two Princeton mathmeticians), even an omniscient mind, capable of knowing everything about everything, would still be unable to predict the position of particles ... [because] “the particles’ response to a certain type of experiment is not determined by the entire previous history of that part of the universe accessible to them.”

Some Christians might recoil from this claim, others would find it preposterous; perhaps we should instead be asking the appropriate “What if” questions of our own theology. If in fact God ordered his creation such that there would exist a randomness that is beyond his knowledge or control, what might that mean to our understanding of God?

(Some might argue that the very suggestion begs the question. Is it possible, they would ask, for God to create a universe he himself cannot control? as much, in their minds, a logical impossibility as “Can God create a rock so big and heavy that he himself could not move it?” But the Uncertainty Principle continues to be supported by experimentation, and it seems at least plausible that God created the cosmos with this strange, almost eerie twist.)

First, the support that Edwards found from science for God’s absolute foreknowledge and control has vanished with the Newtonian world that spawned it. Science may not yet be capable of confirming or denying free will and cosmic randomness, but it can no longer be called upon to confirm Newtonian determinism.

But what of the possibility that God did create the cosmos such that not even he could foresee all outcomes, much less engineer those outcomes. Why might he have done so? I have some ideas; but they will await future posts. For now, I ask my readers to comment. How does this notion of the possibility that God created a cosmos even he could not predict or predetermine sit with you?

Book Review: God's Universe

In the last few months, a number of wonderful books have crossed my desk, and I wish to recommend some of them to you. The first of these is Owen Gingerich’s God’s Universe.

Owen Gingerich is a Harvard Professor of Astronomy and the History of Science, Emeritus, and a life-long Mennonite, a combination I found interesting. As a Bible-believing Christian, his books often deal with the interface of faith and science. God’s Universe (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006), is his most recent offering.

The first chapter is a response to the prevalent scientific understanding known as the Copernican Principle, and its corollary, Mediocrity Principle. Gingerich takes exception to “Mediocrity”, arguing for the unique place humankind may occupy in the Universe, and citing evidence of purposeful design, though the design for which Gingerich advocates is not the same as Intelligent Design. This becomes more clear in the second chapter, entitled “Dare a Scientist Believe in Design?” He is careful to distinguish his view of design from that being asserted by the Intelligent Design movement. On pages 68 - 69, we writes,

Whether we look at the nature and abundance of the atoms themselves or the remarkable ratio of electrostatic to gravitational attraction or the many other details of our physical universe, we know that without these design features we would not be here. In a word, I believe in intelligent design, lower case i and lower case d.

But I have a problem with Intelligent Design, capital I and capital D. It is being sold increasingly as a political movement, as if somehow it is an alternative to Darwinian evolution. Evolution today is an unfinished theory. There are many question about details it does not answer, but these are not grounds for dismissing it.

Indeed, in the ensuing pages, Gingerich expresses substantial agreement with Steven Jay Gould’s assessment of evolution as being fact. So, how might design express itself in the seemingly random processes of Darwinian evolution? Gingerich answers with his own questions on page 70:

Are mutations blind chance, or is God’s miraculous hand continually at work, disguised in the ambiguity of the uncertainty principle? Or we could be more subtle, and ask whether God designed the universe in the first place to make possible the catalysts and unknown pathways that enable the formation of life.

As for design in cosmology, Gingerich devotes several pages to the fascinating studies of Fred Holye, the late British astronomer who, despite his own development of the overwhelming likelihood of design in the cosmos, remained an atheist his entire life. For me, these pages were worth the price of the book.

In the third chapter, “Questions without Answers”, Gingerich suggests that when it comes to the “why” questions, religious belief offers up better answers than unbelief. While Gingerich presents a strong case that contemplation of the universe can be more meaningful and coherent if it is viewed as the work of a transcendent designer, he readily admits that metaphysical assumptions may lead one to such a conclusion. In the end, these assumptions are more matters of the heart than the reason, as the closing Pascal quote suggests: “The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.”

This little book (just over 100 pages) is easy to read, and it is a wonderful primer to science and faith, randomness and reason, design and purpose. I recommend this book to my readers.

I'm back ...

Though I only gave it a somewhat veiled remark, one of the chief reasons for my hiatus from blogging was a disturbance in my own church fellowship. I help to lead a small fellowship of 50 or so believers here in Toledo, Oregon. When my friends here learned (from my own mouth!) that I consider common biological descent to be undeniable, and that I am open to Darwinian evolution, which seems to be the most likely theory to explain common descent, many were deeply troubled. It resulted in a crisis in our church life, and in a number of important relationships.

It has become clear to me that many of my friends either do not understand what I am doing here on this blog, or they suspect that science is somehow leading me away from Biblical faith. Nothing could be farther from the truth!

Evolution is a very small piece of the larger picture I am trying to develop here at “OutsideTheBox” But it is the piece that results in the strongest reactions among my friends. As I reenter this arena of writing, and interacting with you, I wish at the outset to submit to you once again what I am trying to accomplish here, and how evolution fits into the bigger picture.

Some of my friends are offended or deeply disappointed with me. Others are undisturbed, but unconvinced. A handful (mostly those who have read Francis Collins or Gordon Glover) find themselves in agreement with me. But there are others who have indicated that they just "don't care about this issue." That is, it matters little to them whether we got here by special creation or by natural processes. I must say that, as an isolated question, I am right there: it doesn't matter to me either. I frankly hated biology in school. Evolution is not some little hobby horse of mine. (I am far more interested in physics.) But here is the deal. I find that all of the scientific findings of the last 100 years play in big to our understanding of Scripture and theology. And I find that very few evangelical theologians and church leaders of our day have taken notice of this salient fact.

Not many people realize that after he came to his remarkable and earth shaking understandings about gravitational fields and the laws of motion, Newton spent the last years of his life thinking and writing about his favorite subject: theology. But this has not been true for the 20th century leaders of science such as Einstein, Bohr, Hubble, or Dirac. What changed? For many centuries, believers drove the engine of scientific discovery, and the engine was fueled by their love of the Creator. And with each new revelation of natural truth, they would go back and adjust the theology of the church as needed. The exploration of our cosmos and natural phenomena was seen as a doorway to deeper and more accurate understandings of God. Of course, these adjustments were always in line with the written revelation, although often a change in the way we read and understand scripture was necessary. Science was helping us to “rightly divide the word of truth.”

But with the near wholesale rejection of Darwin at the turn of the 20th century, a new course was set. We deeded over nearly all of science to the secularists. The church, as a whole, paid little attention. And certainly, faith no longer drove science.

My main interest is today, as it has always been, theology ... knowing and understanding God and his ways. And ultimately, not theoretical theology, but theology that filters down into the every day life of the believer. I study as I do because I want to make sense of my life and my world. I study science because it profoundly informs my theology ... it helps me to see what God might be up to in this world as he forms his Kingdom though people of faith. 

Evolution is a very small part of this picture. But evolution does imply some things about the possible place of randomness in the workings of God. Evolution does suggest some strong possibilities about how God may have chosen, and may still choose, to operate through natural processes. Evolution may have some extremely profound things to say about an ages-long battle between the powers of death and the Power of Life! 

But I am even more interested in things like Big Bang cosmology and what we have discovered about entropy in the last 40 years. Nothing in recent science touches upon theology more than this! It effects our doctrines of salvation, atonement, etc.; it profoundly effects eschatology; it effects the prayer of the church; it effects how and why we do what we do in the world. I am deeply interested in Einstein's relativity and how that impacts Newton's laws of motion, and how that, in turn, speaks to theological determinism (an expression of ultra-calvinism.) Newton left us with a world in which the very laws of physics strongly endorsed determinism. Einstein changes all of that. But even more, quantum physics changes all of that. Quantum physics may just be God's delayed message to us late-day people that the stage of this life, and the ultimate battle with evil, has not been rigged ... indeed, could not have been rigged.

So, left to itself, I couldn't care less about the competing sciences of origins. Or science in general! But I do care deeply about understanding pain and suffering. I do care deeply about why God watches Hitler and Pol Pot and Stalin from the sidelines, and chooses not to intervene. I do care deeply about the "why" of my wife’s life-threatening cancer. And I care deeply that the church learn to respond with better answers to the reasoned objections and questions currently being voiced by the skeptics. For many believers, the stock answers which the church has been offering for hundreds of years are adequate. For me, and many like me, they simply are not. 

This might be hard for my friends to believe, but I am actually not a science buff! I am, as I have always been, a disciple of Jesus and a student of the Bible first and foremost. But I am jazzed about the possibilities suggested strongly by what science is uncovering in God's universe, and how these possibilities impact the way we think about God, how he operates, and what the Scriptures are saying. 

I think about how science informs my understandings of the Scriptures when I consider and pray for my wife, Ginger. I think about how science informs my understandings of the Scriptures as I listen to and try to minister to hurting people (such as Kathy, a recent guest at our fellowship.) I think about how science informs my understandings of the Scriptures when I deal with hard questions about evil and suffering from young people today. I think about how science informs my understandings of the Scriptures when I encounter the arguments of my atheist friends (and many of those arguments would blow most believers I know right out of the water!). And I think about how science informs my understandings of the Scriptures when I consider the coming train wreck for the church when the powerful DNA evidence for common decent finally filters down to be understood by the masses. It will not be a pretty sight. I feel desperately the need to alert my friends. 

Apart from all of that ... I couldn't care less about evolution!