Visualization of the Internet
As I’ve mentioned before one of the benefits of blogging is that one does occasionally have opportunity to enter into discourse with someone who holds to idea or beliefs radically different from one’s own or even antithetical to one’s own. From these exchanges it is possible to learn new ideas and information or to get insight into the mind of people with whom one disagrees. Of course on the Internet there are abundance partisan polemics and “ditto heads” who read nothing other than what they already believe and who have no interest in engaging debate to increase mutual understanding or to change opinions. It always reminds me of the adage I once heard about Bible reading: if you read only those passages which you like or with which you agree then you really you just go to the bible to find your own thoughts rather than to hear what the Lord of the universe might be saying to you.
In one exchange on evolution with people whose worldview is almost exclusively scientific and atheistic and who were concerned about the views of religious fundamentalists being foisted on scientists and biological research, I offered the following thoughts (which I base in the notions that truth is truth, and all truth is also Christian truth):
Perhaps the attitude needed by scientists is “whether or not God exists, what do we know and what can we know about human origins and evolution?” If evolution is true, it will be true whether or not there is a God. Evolution is not dependent on God’s existence for its verification.
Conversely for believers, the existence of God is not dependent on the certainty or impossibility of evolution.
Of course, these ideas work if one is not an absolute biblical literalist. If one places on the bible the condition that the
Dinosaur fossil skull
bible is valuable only if Genesis 1-3 is literally true, then one certainly places a limit on the revelation of God. Additionally one puts one’s faith at the mercy of science which then tends to lead to one opposing some scientific research because it might challenge or question one’s beliefs. If someone wants to be a biblical literalist regarding Genesis 1-3 and to claim it is science, it would seem more reasonable to then encourage scientific research to see if it affirms the bible. But when one’s faith is then challenged by the findings or direction of scientific research, why oppose science since one made “scientific truth” the very foundation for one’s faith?
If God exists, He exists whether or not evolution is true. The existence of God is not dependent on the discoveries of science. However a literal reading of Scriptures might make one’s faith in God dependent on scientific research. It is not science’s fault if its findings do not confirm your faith.
It is important for believers to realize the Bible itself does not advocate absolute literalism in interpreting itself. Take a look at St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans 5:14 - “Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.” Notice that St. Paul calls Adam “a type” of Christ. St. Paul sees the significance of Adam not in deciding the literalness of the story but in how Adam is a type of Christ. Adam can only be fully understood in and because of Christ. God intended for us as readers of the story to get beyond the literalness of the story to its true importance and meaning. We understand best who Jesus is when we understand that Adam is a model or foreshadowing of Christ’s 
coming. The plan of God being unveiled in Genesis 2 cannot be understood apart from Christ. The story of Adam is thus not just about the origins of humankind. For Christ, the “new Adam” reveals true humanity and humanity’s true origins. St. Paul is not very interested in Genesis as the scientific explanation of the origins of humanity. For St. Paul the Genesis 2 story’s significance is only understood in Christ. To read Genesis 2 apart from Christ or to read it as science is to misread it altogether. That is the argument and thinking of St. Paul. (You can see more ideas about “type” in 1 Corinthians 10:6-11 and Hebrews 8:5).
A faith in God ultimately finds its justification in God, not in science. We hope in God. We look for ultimate meaning in God. We understand creation (even the vastness of the universe) as being in God and thus on the grand scale of things only a small part of all that exists. Science studies this small part of existence. Faith is what puts this existence into the greater context of God’s own being.
Pingback: Priest to Biblical Literalists: Stop Blaming Science - Science and Religion Today
If evolution is true and humanity is the pinnacle of the evolutionary process, why does a process as basic as human reproduction fly in the face of everything that evolution holds true? Does it?
I don’t quite understand your question. But, at least in scientific evolution, humanity is not the “pinnacle” of the process as the process has no real direction. Humans are not the intended product of evolution, but happen to be compatible with current conditions on earth like any of the other creatures surviving or thriving. What is true is that humans can observe an apparent “progression” in life forms from simpler to more complex to one’s with bigger brains, more intelligence and more abstract thinking. Though we can make that observation, evolution would not predict that is the natural course for evolution.
A short note on this subject. Although evolutionary theory in terms of the main mechanisms of change: random mutation, genetic drift and natural selection, I agree that there is no ‘teleology’ built into the system that assigns man as the pinnacle.
However, four things –1) As you known, many physicists advocate what is called the ‘strong anthropic principle’ which does posit an overarching teleology to cosmic evolution. In that perspective, not specifically man, but man’s self reflective and cognitive ability (at least for physicists!) to understand the universe is a way for the universe to ‘know itself’ ala Carl Sagen. And, of course, this could happen on any planet with any kind of life form. 2) Darwin himself had a sense of purpose and teleology to nature, in that natural selection tended to optimize the survival and benefit of the organism. He did not elaborate much on this, and seemed to understand God, if at all part of the process, in a deist manner of getting things started and then sitting back and letting nature take its course within the established laws. 3) This kind of ‘built-in’ propensity for life to maximize its adaptive nature not simply according to randomness is part of the concept of ‘facilitated variation’ presented in the book “The Plausibility of Life” . Rather than attempt a summary- which would be too long, I suggest a look at the book. 4) Any kind of cosmic teleology in the Christian faith as stated in the Nicean Creed, that Christ will return, there will be a resurrection of the dead, and the life in the world (age) to come, this is a matter of faith and of necessity does not form part of any scientific theory, whether of cosmology or evolution. But this does not mean that science has or will prove this revelation to be false, or that one should abandon one’s beliefs because ‘dark energy’ guarantees an infinite expansion of time and space to the universe.