Postmodernism: Mindful Meanderings

One of the characteristics of Postmodernism is the claim that there is no one meta-narrative  (over riding story) that ties together all the lives of people (and thus their stories).  (I would suggest that the movie CRASH reflects this postmodern thinking quite well – people bump into each other as their lives intersect but they are not connected in any real way and all from their own point of view are normative).    What this ends up meaning is that everyone’s story is as valid, true, good and right as anyone else’s story.  Thus people’s lives cannot be truly evaluated by others since no one’s point of view can properly be considered normative, nor is there any one standard by which all other stories can be understood.  Put another way, any one person’s perspective is as valid as the next for determining good, bad, right wrong, etc.  It is an application of the physic’s Theory of Relativity to every one’s story because everyone’s story is told from a position relative to everyone else’s and no one’s story can be considered the norm since from each relative position everyone’s stories are normative. 

Such a philosophical stance certainly would reject Christian ideas that the Bible serves as a meta-narrative which ties every human life together in one grand story.  It would reject a notion that each of our lives and our life stories should be measured against some standard – divine or human.    It would reject that there is such a thing as human nature which all human beings share and by which all lives can be measured or understood.

Interestingly though, such a philosophical stance cannot be sustained by science.  For one of the things that the science of evolution through the study of genetics shows is that in fact there is a story whose thread runs through the lives of every human being.   That thread is called DNA.   There really is something to the notion of a common human nature which all people share.  And evolution would say we are living out the continued story of the unfolding of life on earth.  We share a common ancestry, a common genetics and on some level everyone’s story as told be and recorded in DNA is part of a greater whole – the meta-narrative of the human genome.   This is a case where evolution and Christianity clearly share a common perspective and do not accept the particular form of individualism which Postmodernism might advocate.  

Postmodern thinking wants to claim that there is no such thing as any one person’s life story having a “place” in a meta-narrative for the very idea of place suggests one perspective which is “right.”   Rather Postmodernism would more suggest all human stories just are, they are not in or part of any great whole and cannot be understood or measured by other stories or by a meta-narrative. 

Regarding the individualism which are so characteristic of the American experience and of Postmodernism – I was listening to The Mars Hill Journal Volume 99 interviews with Andrew Cherlin and Dale Kuehne in which it became very clear that in a society such as American society which so totally embraces both individualism and personal freedom as the highest good,   government will become ever increasingly powerful.  Since no institution can tell anyone what to think or believe and since each person becomes his/her criterion for right and wrong, government becomes the agency to protect and enforce this absolutizing of the individual.  The government becomes the one agency protecting every individual from any intrusion from any other individual, agency or institution.    The only way for the government to protect the absolute sovereignty of each individual is for the government to ever grow in power and capacity over every organization, idea or individual which exists.   As absolute individualism pushes the notion that the only legitimate social unit is the individual, then family, church, neighborhood, clan, city, or state can make no claims over the individual’s beliefs or behaviors.  So nothing really binds all people together.  But a meta-institution is needed to protect the absolute rights of the individual – and that becomes the role of the government whose powers must ever expand as the only legitimate social agency entrusted to enforce the rights of the individual against all forms of social interference.  Absolute individualism ends up needing or demanding an ever more powerful government to keep all other social institutions in check.  In a bizarre science fiction gone wrong sort of way, the government’s job becomes to enforce alienation, isolation and separation between all individuals to ensure that nobody’s personal beliefs are ever violated.   Fractional partisanship must be promoted rather than compromise or co-operation since no one view can be understood as preferred to any other view!

Give a Hand for Descent with Modification

Iguana

One of the ideas found in the basic theory of evolution is “descent with modification.”  

This idea finds its support in genetics and what we now understandabout  how DNA works.

Tiger

All living things on our planet have DNA which are the basic building blocks of how new life is brought into existence.

  The “parent” or “parents” contribute DNA to the offspring. 

Bat

The offspring can genetically be shown to be the offspring of their parents. 

 However each offspring has a slightly different combination of the DNA than the parents had when there is sexual reproduction. 

Gorilla

 So on the one hand the offspring are like their parents, on the other hand, there is descent with modification.

Gibbon

So within any specieces genetic modification is contantly ongoing and is completely natural and is the method God put into His living creatures to continue their species. 

Descent with modification allows species to form a variety of genetic combinations which enable the species to better adapt to and survive the ever changing world in which we live.

Bonobo

Genetic studies also that Evolutionary Theory does give account for both the wide variety of species which exist in the world and why species which cannot successfully breed together have some great genetic similarities.

A visit to the zoo shows just how many ways animals have similar features, which can be accounted for by the theory of evolution and descent with modification.  

Human

It’s in the DNA.

Let’s have a show of hands for all who can see the possibility or the probability that there is a relationship in the vertebrate family. 

Evolution of Language

I have been listening to The Teaching Company series THE STORY OF HUMAN LANGUAGE taught by Dr. John McWhorter – a fascinating account of what linguists have come to know about the development of human language and languages.  I’m learning more than I ever wanted to know, but still it is very informative.

What stood out in my mind was McWhorter’s presentation on languages and dialects naturally changing through time with new combination of sounds and other combinations of prefixes and endings and grammar occurring constantly in every generation.     It sounded exactly like the descent with modification which occurs genetically in evolution.  Language is living, not static and constantly undergoing change and thus new dialects emerge and from them given enough time, new languages are developed.  Language seems like another natural model following the patterns of evolution.   Perhaps because genetics is presented through the recombination of the DNA nucleotides referred to at G A T C it seemed to me exactly what was happening in human language as well as letters/sounds are recombined to form dialects and then new languages.  We receive our languages from those around us but just like our genetic recombination, we do modify what we received and some of these modifications become part of a dialect.

Though major changes in language take long periods of time, changes in language – in pronunciation and in the meaning of words – are constantly occurring.     Linguists seem to think change occurs naturally, and even perhaps somewhat by chance, though the changes tend to follow certain now identifiable patterns.   The changes don’t necessarily serve a purpose even if they follow a path recognized throughout the family of languages.  (For example one word whose meaning has changed in my lifetime – gay.  The cartoon Flintstones theme song used to tell us that we’d have a “gay old time” if we joined them as also in “The gay ‘90’s” referring to the rowdy end of the 1800’s.  The word back then innocently enough just referred to a good time.  But eventually “gay” came to mean almost exclusively homosexual – the gay ‘90’s in the 1900’s had a new meaning – I don’t know if the Flintstones ever dropped “gay” from their theme song or if the cartoon series stopped production before the word gay became a synonym for homosexual.  The word underwent further change – a few years ago I began to hear some young people use the word gay in a negative way to mean “lame” or “stupid” or “worthless.”    When something frustratingly didn’t work right, they would say, “That’s gay.”  Even if that terminology has not caught on in politically correct society, it becomes slang within a certain population which can eventually become a distinct way of speaking).

As a language becomes written rather than just spoken, some change slows down especially as dictionaries and grammar books endeavor to record meanings and fix the “correct” pronunciation or spelling or grammar.  This I think corresponds in genetic evolution to modern medicine’s ability to keep many people alive into their reproductive years thus “unnaturally” keeping genes in the gene pool that would have been eliminated by nature.  We can and do alter descent with modification in the same way we can alter the way languages change over time.

Evolution: Descent with Modification

The debate regarding whether the Theory of Evolution is compatible with Christian belief has been driven by those who are at the extremes of the possible positions.  I have followed this debate with varying degrees of interest, attempting to understand the nuances of the issues as well as the positions of the hard core polemicists.  Neil Shubin’s book YOUR INNER FISH: A JOURNEY INTO THE 3.5 BILLION-YEAR HISTORY OF THE HUMAN BODY was recommended to me as a good book to read for understanding why so many scientists are convinced that evolution is true.  The vast majority of scientists involved in fields related to biology do accept that evolution is true, and they do think there is so much evidence supporting the Theory that they can speak about it as fact.   (see the NY TIMES Book Review “Evolution All Around” which does take scientist Richard Dawkins to task for mixing up theory and fact).

I found Shubin’s book to be an enjoyable read and comprehensible for me the non-scientist (though admittedly I have read enough in this field to be familiar with the concepts).   I would recommend this book to any who want to understand how evolution works in theory and how the current known facts about human life do give solid support to the theory.

What Shubin does so well is to show that “evolution” fundamentally means that all living things reproduce in the same basic way: “descent with modification.”    Any of us with the most basic knowledge of genetics or DNA understand that every human child receives from his/her parents a set of genes – half from the father and half from the mother.  Every human child is thus clearly a genetic descendant of his/her parents (thus the Genesis reproduction law – according to their kind).  However no child is genetically identical to either parent – thus descent with modification.   Descent with modification is visible everywhere in which we can see life.  Even those who accept a notion that the earth is less than 10,000 years and that all humans are descendants of Adam and Eve have to admit there is tremendous variety in humanity today – not one of us is a clone of Adam or Eve, but rather we each share the genetic diversity which belongs to all humanity and makes each of us genetically unique;  in Shubin’s words: “all of us are modified descendants of our parents or parental genetic information.”

That is evolutionary fundamentalism.    Of course evolution has other ideas which are more controversial – especially speciation.   But in other works I’ve read there are known examples of biological speciation – where offspring are genetically different enough from their parents so as not to be able to reproduce with their parent’s “species.”   The offspring though sharing the genetic recombination of its parent’s genes, have such a genetic makeup that they cannot reproduce with others genetically similar to their parents but can reproduce with others genetically similar to themselves.  The offspring may even look identical to their parent but have in fact become a separate species.   And when given the millions of years which science says life has had to evolve, it is easier to understand how small changes through large periods of times can lead to speciation – where though two life forms share a common ancestor in their distant past, they no longer even look anything alike and have undergone the steps and stages macro-evolution.  Just a few examples of how long ago science is seeing significant changes in life on earth according to Shubin:

1)    Multicellular creatures first appear in the fossil record some 600 million years ago. 

2)     In fossils which are 385 million years old, we find only things that look like fish, while in fossils 365 million years old we find amphibians.  Somewhere in that time period animals with necks and ears and 4 legs emerge.

3)    The teeth structure of mammals and the mammalian way of chewing emerge in fossils between 225-195 million years ago.

4)    Structures associated with primate color vision first emerge in the fossil record 55 million years ago.

Shubin writes:

“The oldest many-celled fossil is over 600 million years old.  The earliest fossil with a three-boned middle ear is less than 200 million years old.  The oldest fossil with a bipedal gait is around 4 million years old.  Are all these facts just coincidence, or do they reflect a law of biology we can see at work around us every day?”  (p 184) 

Shubin offers pretty sound evidence that if evolution theory is true regarding  human life evolving from singular cell life forms 600 million years ago then certain evidence should be found in the fossil record of specific time periods and scientists should be able to make certain predictions about when in the fossil record to look for specific physiological developments.    What Shubin shows is that in fact in both the fossil record and DNA record we find the evidence exactly where it should be if evolution is true.    This gives incredible support that the Theory of Evolution is giving us an accurate picture of how life emerged and evolved since it first appeared on earth.

Blastomeres

If one still doubts that the complex human body could ever have emerged from a single cell, consider the following.  When in the mother’s body the fertilization of an egg takes place, the fertilized cell soon splits into two IDENTICAL cells.  These two cells then divide and form 4 identical cells.  This cellular division continues as the embryo grows into a fetus and then into a baby.  All the cells in a human body are identical, but some form into the nervous system, others into the circulatory system, others into skin, bones or other organs.   It is not the cells themselves that differ, nor does each specialized cell contain DNA unique to itself or its function in the body.  Rather in each cell genes are being turned on or off to cause different cells to specialize so that a complete human with trillions of cells can form and function.    From a one celled egg emerged a complete human being.   As Shubin notes the component parts work together to form a complete human being:  cells with no brains, containing nothing more than chemical proteins or enzymes, are able to work together to form the human.  This is a true miracle.

Shubin in his book looks at three different functions of the human body: smelling, seeing and hearing, and then traces the development in the fossil record of the corresponding human body parts (nose, eyes and ears) that make these senses possible.   In each case, the evolutionary signs indicating the development of these senses appears precisely where it should in the fossil record; again giving credence to the basic framework of the Theory of Evolution.  Shubin avoided polemics with anti-evolutionary folk.  He simply states the fossil and DNA evidence that we currently have and then shows how it does in fact fit in and support the Theory of Evolution.  It answers the questions science raises, though not necessarily the questions of philosophers or theologians.

Evolution from Creation to New Creation (3)

This is part 3 and the conclusion of my blog which began with Evolution from Creation to New Creation (1), and then continued in Evolution from Creation to New Creation (2).       These three blogs are all my own ruminations upon the book by Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett EVOLUTION FROM CREATION TO NEW CREATION: CONFLICT, CONVERSATION AND CONVERGENCE.

Peters and Hewlett examine the various responses that believers have and can take to evolution from the viewpoint of biblical creationists, to intelligent design adherents, to theistic evolutionists.   They pose Five Questions for which they feel Theistic Evolutionists must be willing to give account in order to have a believable, credible and defensible position of arguing that science and theology are compatible (pp 117-118).   Their five questions summarized are these:

1)     Can theology accept “that it has taken life 3.8 billion years to develop on a 4.5-billion-year-old planet”?

2)   “Can theology accept that contingency, randomness, and chance characterize the process of speciation”…?

3)    “Can theological anthropology incorporate the evidence that biological continuity between human life and all other forms of life exists … “?

4)    How does God act in time?

5)    Can theological affirmations of divine love and omnipotence by reconciled with the fact that animals suffer because of predators, disease and disaster, and the fact that 98 percent of all species have perished?

For believers to present a credible scientific understanding of creation they must be willing to address head on the violence in nature which so troubled Darwin: “to see violence, suffering, and death as merely natural and hence value-neutral—represents a failure of theological nerve.  … From the theological point of view, we simply cannot let science alone define what is natural or, worse, redefine violence, suffering, and death as value neutral.”  If God is all powerful and all good how can one explain the violence and suffering which is obvious in nature, and not just in sinful human beings?    If God could intervene and change the world, why doesn’t He?   Is violence natural and inherent in creation, or do we have free will which enables us to aspire to something greater than our biologically determined selves? 

There is no doubt in the Orthodox tradition at least that many saints were greatly troubled by these questions, and they wept for a creation that had been so distorted by the sinfulness of humanity.   The condition of the world at times seems so hellish that it is hard to imagine that God can see any good in it at all.  And yet He does.  Certainly Christianity sees the answer to these questions and the purpose of the world itself being found in the “bigger picture” which is beyond the limits of space and time.   There is a logic to the universe which is not a human logic and so we cannot grasp the entire purpose nor see the entire picture.  We are limited by space and time.   And through the dense shroud which suffering imposes on our ability to see, we still perceive glimpses of beauty, order and design in the universe.   We long for the entire picture to be revealed, but that requires us to move into dimensions which are not yet ours to perceive.  Peters and Hewlett write:

 

Darwinius

“Each moment God imparts openness to the future that releases the present from bondage to past causes.  God’s creative activity is never ceasing; each moment the entire physical universe is given its existence in such a way that it is open toward what comes next.  This ceaseless future-giving by God explains why the laws of nature cannot grip nature in rigid determinism.” 

 

Biology would say we live within the limits imposed upon us by genetic determinism.  We are made in the image of our ancestors whose genes determine our current behavior.  Christian theology would deny genetic pre-determinism and says, yes we bear the genetic traits passed down to us through the billions of year that life has been evolving on this planet.  However we have been endowed by our Creation with His image and likeness which means we can aspire to something greater than our biological limitations.  We have not only a past but also a future, all of which are part of God’s plan even if that is hidden from our understanding.

“Once we apprehend that God intends a future, our task is to discern as best we can the direction of divine purpose and employ that as an ethical guide.  When we invoke the apocalyptic symbol of the New Jerusalem, where ‘crying and pain will be no more,’ then this will inspire and guide the decisions we make today that will affect our progeny tomorrow.”  

Chaos theory and quantum mechanics have caused us to realize that there are relationships in the universe which we do not understand and apparently cannot ever know: not because we lack the instrumentation but because it cannot be known.  The world is far more complicated and interrelated than is commonly imagined.   There are patterns in nature  and paradigms in logic which we have not yet discovered – both micro- and macro-.  There also are interrelationships which because of the limits of space and time and of our own one-sidedness,  the tiny place we occupy in the vast universe, we can never see.  Thus the logic as to why things happen the way they do remain obscure to us in our limited knowledge and vision.

According to these modern theories even the flapping of a butterfly in the rain forest can affect the weather – there is so much that we cannot know or understand about the universe we occupy.  If it is true that the tiniest of events (the micro) can alter the macro events of the world, it means that God does not have to do spectacular interventions in world history to affect its course.   He too can gently nudge His creation by doing the smallest of things.  All He has to do is be patient and let time take its course in working out His will.  So the vastness of both space and time are not wasted, but rather are the very canvasses upon which God gently and with the greatest regard for the free will of His creatures influences the design which He is creating.

Evolution from Creation to New Creation (2)

This is part two of my blog Evolution from Creation to New Creation.   It is the continuation of Evolution from Creation to New Creation (1).       The previous blog, this one and the next are all my own ruminations upon the book by Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett EVOLUTION FROM CREATION TO NEW CREATION: CONFLICT, CONVERSATION AND CONVERGENCE.  

Peters and Hewlett do not think evolutionary theory is inherently atheistic.  However, Darwin in his research became increasingly troubled by the claims of theistic Christianity about an omniscient and loving Creator God.  “Darwin… observed in the natural world: laws by which the predator devoured the prey and a history in which 98 percent of all species had become extinct before the modern era.  Such waste, Darwin thought, could not be reconciled with a God of purpose or design or compassion.  Without positively advocating atheism, Darwin could not ascribe the creation of this biological world to a divine designer.”     Darwin wrote: 

“There seems to me too much misery in the world.  I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae  [insects whose larvae are usually internal parasites of other insect larvae] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.” 

Darwin’s doubts and troubled soul are the result of his own sensitive nature and in fact are common to any thinking believer.   There are aspects of life in this world which are incredibly harsh and very difficult to reconcile with ideas of a merciful, loving, all knowing and all powerful God.  His words are not coming from a heart that hates God, but from one that is deeply troubled by the reality he sees around himself and yet wants to reconcile with a faith in God.    He obviously could not rationalize away the ravages of death and suffering which he could observe in the natural world.   

I can say from experience, having at one point in my life considered myself an atheist, that his thoughts and doubts are very rational.    They reflect very strongly pleas and lamentations one can read in our Scriptures in the Psalms:  Where is God, why is He silent?  Why does evil prosper and the innocent suffer?     Focusing on these questions certainly causes one to doubt that God is anything like what the Church proclaims.  On the other side of the equation however – in a universe without God – there is just as much suffering, pain, violence, but without a God the suffering and sorrow of the world lacks any true purpose or meaning and there is nothing ultimate for or in which to hope.   For believers, God offers the hope that there is some greater meaning and purpose to the suffering and sorrow that we experience in our daily lives.  For the believer we each experience but one piece of the puzzle which is life in this universe and we do not yet see the whole picture:  the tapestry is still being woven, God is still telling the story which He began when He first spoke creation into existence.  In the end the universe is proven not to be purely random, irrational, meaningless and hopeless, for the final chapter in which the entire story of the universe is revealed is found in the words, or the Word, proceeding from the mouth of the Creator. 

As Peters and Hewlett describe evolution it is not in the writings of Darwin that we find an absolute embrace of atheism.   The equating of evolution with atheism has been promoted by neo-Darwinists who embrace a particular materialistic and even nihilistic ideological philosophy which they termed as a “naturalistic fallacy.”   It is this neo-Darwinian synthesis which completely emphasizes chance and denies purpose toward some goal in evolution.  However, as Peters and Hewlett note, some  evolutionary biologists in promoting ideas such as the “selfish gene” are really arguing that “Nature is nihilistic  on every matter except genetic survival.”  Peters and Hewlett argue that these scientists suddenly move away from absolute adherence to the scientific method and promote as science something which is a philosophical assumption and bias – an idea based on faith not on scientific proof.

When challenged that his theory would lead to further atheism, Darwin himself reminded his contemporaries:  “… remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, ‘as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion.’”    Darwin simply pointed out what had become true in Western Europe – an increased conflict between science and religion with religionists being always quick to reject every scientific truth as a threat to religion.   True science is no threat to true religion as both seek the truth about the universe, and the bottom line is there is not a scientific truth which is not Christian, because truth is truth.

In the next blog in this series I will look at what Peters and Hewlett describe as the five questions theistic scientists must be able and willing to answer in order to show that science and religion are not necessarily in opposition to one another. 

Evolution from Creation to New Creation (3).

Evolution from Creation to New Creation (1)

This is the continuation of my blog series which began with Journey into the Unknown:  Science and Religion, and then continued in Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? (1).   The immediately preceding blog to this blog was    Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? (2).    

In this blog I will be looking at ideas presented by Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett in their book EVOLUTION FROM CREATION TO NEW CREATION: CONFLICT, CONVERSATION AND CONVERGENCE.   My goal is not to do a book report or critique of their ideas but rather to comment on how their ideas have influenced my own thinking on the relationship between science and religion especially in relationship to arguments surrounding creation and evolution.   As a believer in God, there are some difficult questions which evolution raises.   Like these authors my position is probably best described as one of theistic science.  I do not think I have to choose between science or religion as I think they are describing creation in very different terms.   For example a chemist, a biologist and a poet might each describe a rose in totally different terms, not once acknowledging what the others wrote, and yet what each said might be perfectly true.   We can describe a human purely in terms of his/her chemical composition – humans are largely composed of the four elements oxygen, carbon hydrogen, and nitrogen (by mass these 4 elements make up almost 97% of a human).  Yet, for many of us no matter how scientifically accurate and factually true that description is, it would come nowhere close to describing what it means to be human. 

One of the main contentions of Peters and Hewlett is that most of the problems which evolution presents to Christianity are really not because of science but because of philosophical ideology masquerading as science.

“The problem in the evolution controversy is not biological science per se.  Rather, the philosophical or ideological inferences labeled ‘Darwinian’ that go far beyond the biological science are responsible for generating most of the controversy that evolutionary theory has precipitated.    …  To observe descent with modification in biological history and then to draw from this justification for social values and moral philosophy is a fallacious move.  We call it the ‘naturalistic fallacy.’”

Peters and Hewlett argue that some atheists and some scientists are trying to make a religion out of evolution.  (Which is an interesting twist on the atheistic argument that believers are trying to make science out of creationism).   The task for Christians in their opinion is to “to discriminate between evolution as a scientific research program and evolution as a religious ideology.”   This is very similar to what Intelligent Design adherents advocate, though Peters and Hewlett argue for an approach different from ID and certainly distance themselves completely from biblical creationism.  They both accept the tenets of evolution as being true.   They accept the evidence for speciation (Examples of speciation can be found at:  http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html)

“Is Darwinism merely an ideology that parades as a science?  No.  … Darwinian evolutionary biology qualifies as solid science because it generates progressive research – that is, hypotheses based upon its assumptions lead eventually to new knowledge about the natural world.” 

The problem for Peters and Hewlett is that many have hijacked the principles of scientific evolution for ideological purposes.

“If evolution would come to us in limited form as a scientific theory about biological origins, it could be calmly debated and readily absorbed into Christian theology.  But that’s not how it came packaged.  It came packaged as naturalistic philosophy, as a set of social values, as an arrogantly revolutionary way of life.”

If evolution is allowed to remain a true science and not be co-opted by philosophical ideologues, then Peters and Hewlett say that in evolution,“Scientists have been reading the Book of Nature and writing a book review to be read by students in our school systems.”

They see no reason for Christians to fear true science.  They conclude their book with this reminder:

“In the early editions of ORIGIN OF SPECIES, Darwin opened with a quotation from Francis Bacon admonishing us to read ‘the book of God’s word’ and also ‘the book of God’s works.’”

Next:  Evolution from Creation to New Creation (2).

Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? (2)

This is the continuation of my blog  Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? (1).    In this blog I am reflecting on Denis Alexander’s book CREATION OR EVOLUTION: DO WE HAVE TO CHOOSE?     The answer to the book title’s question for Alexander and for my self is “no, we don’t have to choose because the two are opposed only if one demands only a literalist reading of Genesis 1-3 or if one is an atheist.”

There is a certain difficulty for Christians in accepting a notion that Adam and Eve were created as eternal beings not subject to death, for this would imply that that Adam and Eve had some kind of existence apart from earth and were not created from real dirt/dust and that life in Paradise was not subject to the same scientific law as we are today.   For example if Adam and Eve ate fruit in Eden, were the cells and plants subject to death or not?     If they had made fig leaf garments before the fall, would they garments also have been eternal?   Were all fish, amphibians and insects completely vegan and not predators or parasites?    It would imply that Adam and Eve were angelic beings who fell to earth from some other kind of place because of sin and not because God created them with bodies.  It would imply that this world is not God’s creation but a lesser world destined for beings beneath God’s dignity.  This is Babylonian cosmology but not a Biblical one; certainly this would be an idea that the Jews and Genesis would argue against as Genesis 1 unlike the Babylonian creation stories has a good God making a good creation.   Genesis 2 admittedly is more ambivalent on the goodness of creation for there is a serpent already in Paradise and a fruit that if eaten leads to death.

Alexander however sticks with his Genesis-Jeremiah notion that the Biblical story is not meant to be read as science but rather offers a cosmological understanding of creation in which ultimately “Physical death has no place in the fulfilled kingdom of God, the new heavens and the new earth.”   Sin and death are part of this world, but this world is only a small part of the entire story which God is telling beginning with Genesis.   For Alexander the coming of Christ is inaugurating that hoped for new age in which the rules of nature (which science studies) have no final say:  the healing ministry of Jesus points not back to a pre-fallen state but looks forward to the new heaven and new earth.   The Bible’s account of creation from Genesis to Revelation is thus not intended to be science but rather God revealing His own plan which gives this world meaning which is outside of the study of science.  To try to force the Scriptures to be science is in fact to limit them and reduce them to this world rather than tying this world into the world to come.

Turning to look at some scientific concepts which are part of an evolutionary worldview, Alexander notes, “The term ‘survival of the fittest’ has sometimes been used to describe natural selection, but is not very accurate because survival is not really the main point in this process… the key point about natural selection is the successful reproduction that ensures that an individual’s genes are passed on to the next generation.”   The concept of “survival of the fittest” has been co-opted by secular social scientists and political ideologues and used for all kinds of purposes that are far removed from the original idea of natural selection.   Natural selection is a creative and life giving process not a political justification for oppressing the weak.

Alexander also notes that there are philosophical assumptions at the basis of evolution which are a matter of faith.   “Chance is simply a handy description that we humans use for our beliefs about the properties of matter.  There is no such agent as ‘metaphysical chance’, but there is the human belief held by some people that the universe has no ultimate meaning.”  In other words chance is a concept we put apply to how we perceive natural selection working.  The reality is we cannot know scientifically whether events we perceive of as chance are part of a pattern and plan that we cannot detect. 

“Evolutionary history on this planet displays overall increased complexity, genomic constraint and convergence.  …   an ‘atheism-of-the-gaps’ type of argument in which atheists seek to support their disbelief in God based on interpretations of scientific data which appear initially plausible due to lack of knowledge about the data, but appear less believable as our understanding of the process –  in this case the evolutionary process – become more complete.”

It is not only believers who have to choose faith in a God who guides the universe.  For non-believers “chance” is just as much an issue of belief because there is no way to prove that events are random rather than part of a pattern we cannot detect.

Alexander is a Christian believer, a theist and a scientist, whose writings have won him praise from evangelical Christians as well as from scientists.  He has not embraced the ideas of Intelligent Design because he feels that is an “argument from ignorance” – because we currently don’t know how complexity could emerge spontaneously does not mean that it can’t or didn’t.  It only means our ability to know is limited.  This however is the same argument he applies to atheistic scientists – we do not have the complete picture about God and His role in creation and so concluding there is no God is an assumption based in incomplete evidence. 

Next:  Evolution from Creation to New Creation (1) 

Journey into the Unknown: Science and Religion

Physicist and author Brian Greene wrote an article in the May 2009 magazine WIRED entitled, “Journey into the Unknown: It’s the Questions, not the answers, that make science the ultimate adventure.”   In that article he captures what seems to me to be the very essence of science:  it is about exploring mystery without which science would come to an end.  He says science is not memorizing  facts, charts and equations, rather “science is the journey.”  His definition of science is how I normally conceive science, and not only science but theology as well.  Greene writes:

Science is about immersing ourselves in piercing uncertainty while struggling with the deepest of mysteries. It is the ultimate adventure. Against staggering odds, a species that has walked upright for only a few million years is trying to unravel puzzles that are billions of years in the making. How did the universe begin? How was life initiated? How did consciousness emerge? Einstein captured it best when he wrote, “the years of anxious searching in the dark for a truth that one feels but cannot express.” That’s what science is about.

For me it is also what theology is about for not only do we exist in a universe which we can explore and endeavor to discover its hidden truths, the universe also exists in God who has chosen to reveal Himself in and through the universe which He made.  Science and religion are both quests – science into the macro-cosmos and the microcosmic universe, and theology into the depths of the soul of humans as well as into the eternal life of the Triune God.  Greene says,

Established truths are comforting, but it is the mysteries that make the soul ache and render a life of exploration worth living.

The wrestling with mystery, not the ascension to resolution, defines who we are.

We all are in search of understanding what it means to be human, whether we consider the human to be created by the Divine or a purely material product of random natural forces.   Theology too is about trying to move us from what is known (the physical, material universe) into the unknown (the mysteries of God).   For many religion is nothing more than repeating ancient formuli:  “God said it. I believe it.  That settles it.”  I on the other hand along with so many others have experienced in theology a great sojourn often taking the answers to discover what is the right question?

Because I conceive science and theology the way that I do, I look to both science and theology to enrich my understanding of what it is to be human.  I see no need for the two to be in opposition to each other -  if they are seeking to find answers to the universal questions of humanity, they are going about it in different ways and making very different assumptions.  I don’t see any basic reason for science and religion to be in opposition to each other for they are both different ways of knowing the universe AND what they conceive of as ultimate reality are totally distinct.  In science ultimate reality is the material universe while in religion ultimate reality lies in God the creator of the material universe and who is not coterminous with this universe.  Our ability to know God may in some way be limited by our being part of the material universe, but we humans also have the roots of our being in God.

Taking these things into consideration I do not feel the threat or pressure from the arguments conducted between some scientists and some religious people who see God and science as being in opposition over such issues as evolution or the age of the universe.  While I have been interested in the writings of Intelligent Design folk in trying to bridge the gap between science and religion, I have not become convinced that have found the way to build the bridge.

I read two books earlier this year  which explore the relationship between science and religion on the issues of creation and evolution which I will comment on is this series of blogs.  The books are Denis Alexander’s CREATION OR EVOLUTION: DO WE HAVE TO CHOOSE?  and Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett’s EVOLUTION FROM CREATION TO NEW CREATION: CONFLICT, CONVERSATION, AND CONVERGENCE.   Both books do a good job of using scientific fact and information and Christian theology to look at science, intelligent design and theology.  They propose slightly different solutions for how to hold science and religion together but both believe they are compatible.   The effort to insist that science and religion are in fact compatible is one that appeals to my own interests.  I have read at times Jerry Coyne’s blog Why Evolution is True and note his frequent criticisms of religious people who attack science and also his well expressed doubt that religious efforts (such as intelligent design) to find compatibility with science do so only by co-opting science and requiring that science abandon its own principles and logic. 

Next:  Creation or Evolution: Do We have to Choose?

The “Missing Link” in Evolution

A 47 million year old lemur-like fossil was unveiled this week, and the media especially hailed the find as the “missing link” which connects humans to monkeys and apes back in history – an early branch in the fabled Darwinian tree of life.  The BBC proclaimed “Scientists Hail Stunning Fossil“, while elsewhere on the Internet a more subdued report headlined, “Early Skeleton Sheds Light on Evolution.”

Was this fossil find the earth shattering “missing link” that would prove evolution once for all or was this some kind of media show?

The unveiling, at New York’s Museum of Natural History, was promoted by a press release for the cable TV show History, which called it a “revolutionary scientific find that will change everything.”

There was a huge media blitz about the fossil find which also promoted among other things an upcoming television, soon to be published book and the Museum of Natural History in New York.   So the sensationalism was not purely (mostly?) the fossil find itself but all of the media promotion going on with other media products related to the fossil.

The scientific article in which the fossil find was reported did not herald all the claims that the media blitz was promoting.  In fact the title of the article is scientifically intimidating and completely lacks the glitz of a media blitz:  Complete Primate Skeleton from the Middle Eocen of Messel in Germany: Morphology and Paleobiology .    Hard for the entertainment addicted world to get excited over that title.

In Jerry Coyne’s Blog, Why Evolution is True, Gary Mayer addressed the recent fossil find adding his voice to those of other scientists who think the media presentation of the new fossil is potentially harmful to science – Darwinius:what’s at issue?

It does appear that what this fossil represents – a nearly intact 47 million year old specimen – is exciting for scientists indeed.  It is not bad science which is being promoted, but in a consumer and entertainment driven culture such as ours, it shows how even science can be co-opted for other purposes.

The fossil find will be one more piece in the evolutionary puzzle; it may push back a little the God-of-the-gaps promoters who say the evidence for evolution isn’t there.    It is an important scientific discovery and evolutionary evidence, but it doesn’t seem to “change everything” as some were proclaiming in the media.

Science in pursuit of truth continues to seek pieces of the puzzle and to put them into their place in the grand scheme of things.   The media thrives on news that is spectacular, bizarre or which can feed controversy or confrontation.  I just found it interesting that a number of scientists found the media play bizarre as they were distancing themselves from the media blitz and the comments of a few spokespersons.   

God, or some say the devil, is in the details.   It is important that we pay attention to the truth in the small details rather than to get lost in the hyped up claims of the media.  It is also important for those interested in the relationship between theology and science to take note again the role the media can play in presenting “information” to the public.  The media’s need to sensationalize news means those interested in serious dialogue have to see through the news media in order to understand the significance of what is happening in the world of science.  Culture wars are very attractive to the media as they make the media more self-important (and the media believes indispensible as the supposed sole source of information).    It is the very reason the media loves popular political pundits – they generate controversy and thus create “news” even if it is only about themselves (just think about how often they appear on each other’s shows – they have become the news).    In a democracy, certainly the opinion of the public is always important.  Scientists and theologians would do well to learn how to communicate what is important to them, not what is important to the needs of the media.  Also scientists and theologians need to know how to present their ideas without getting caught up in the media frenzy and circus and not acquiesce and allow the media to interpret the importance of what they are writing about in science or theology.

The real missing link for scientists in evolution is how to convey their findings to the public without having to rely on the media circus to make their ideas known.   The media has its own agenda and is trying to sell itself – it is thus not always the best way to bring scientific knowledge to the public.