Thursday, December 5, 2019

Darwin, Pro and Con

Who was born on February 12, 1809? Yes, Abraham Lincoln was born on that day—and so was Charles Darwin. Lincoln is 15th on the list of “The 25 Most Influential People of All Time” (see here). Darwin is #9 on that same list, largely because of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, his revolutionary book published 160 years ago, on November 24, 1859.
Darwin’s Discoveries
Born about 175 miles northwest of London, from 1825 to 1831 Darwin studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and then went to the University of Cambridge to study for an ordinary degree, the usual preliminary for theological training.
Rather than becoming a medical doctor or a clergyman, though, Darwin became a natural scientist, and his voyage on HMS Beagle (1831~36) established him as an eminent geologist.
Based on his meticulous scientific research, by the end of that decade he had mostly constructed his theory of evolution, although his seminal book on that was not published until 20 years later.
On the Origin of Species led to a revolution in the way human beings thought about the world and themselves. As a 1999 essay in the Scientific American says, “Almost every component in modern man’s belief system is somehow affected by Darwinian principles.” 
Darwin’s Detractors
From the beginning until the present, however, Darwin has had his distractors. In the years following the publishing of his groundbreaking book, there were scientists who did not agree with his assertions.
By the 1870s, though, the scientific community and most of the educated public had accepted evolution as a fact.
The main detractors have been Christians whose belief in a literally interpreted Bible caused them to oppose evolution of the natural world, including humans. One of the contemporary evangelical Christian leaders of this opposition to Darwin was Phillip E. Johnson (b. 1940), who died last month.
Darwin on Trial (1991) was Johnson’s influential book widely read and cited by conservative Christians.
Darwin’s Defense
Since I am not a scientist, I have no way to authenticate Darwin’s scientific assertions. As a student of Christian theology and philosophy, I can (and will) offer a limited defense of Darwin.
I suppose there was a time when I did not accept Darwin’s theory of evolution as being correct—but even though I grew up in a conservative Baptist church, I don’t remember that ever being a live issue.
I also don’t know when it was that I first accepted evolution as being “true,” but by the time I had finished my seminary and graduate school courses/seminars under Dr. Eric C. Rust, my major professor, I no longer had any qualms about affirming the truth of evolution.
Because of Dr. Rust, who was a trained scientist as well as a theologian, I accepted a both/and position with regards to science and religion rather than an either/or position. That meant accepting both evolution and divine creation—and a rejecting both Darwinism and creationism.
The importance of that position became abundantly apparent when I began teaching Christian Studies to non-Christian students in Japan. Almost without exception, the students had been taught evolution in high school and believed it to be scientifically true.
Of the (literally) thousands of non-Christian students I taught, if presented the choice between science (evolution) or Christianity based on a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation stories, 99% or so would most likely have quickly chosen science.
I was happy to be able to emphasize that such a choice is not necessary. It was only in my last years in Japan that I was able to augment my assertions with the writings of Catholic theologian John Haught of Georgetown University.
Haught’s books God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution (2000) and Deeper Than Darwin (2003) are highly significant books for theologically evaluating evolution. I highly recommend them.

13 comments:

  1. Thinking Friend Truett Baker of Arizona shares these comments:

    "Thanks for another well-written blog.I too grew up in a fundamentalist Southern Baptist Home, but I can't remember evolution being a big issue. Later, in college and seminary, I remember reading about the acrimonious Scopes Trial and its diminishing effect it had upon Fundamentalism.

    "I guess I'm not a deep enough thinker to never have had a problem with evolution. In my mind, God created the world. How He choose to do that was His business. It has never made any difference to me whether it took seven days or 70 million years to accomplish His divine creation. In my early years of college, I was a pre-med major and took comparative anatomy.The body similarity of various species was impressive and I could see how the various stages of development made sense in the animal kingdom."

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    1. Thanks for your comments, Truett. The position you describe is often called "theistic evolution." That position is not something that can be taught in science classes in public schools, but I think it is the kind of both/and position which we Christian believers can and should affirm.

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  2. Next, I received these comments from Thinking Friend Andrew Bolton in England:

    "Good blog on Darwin. I did a PhD in plant genetics (some peculiar genetics in flax plants). I have also both/and. The first biology teacher I had who taught me about evolution was a both/and. This has saved me a lot of difficulty. Since then I have found it helpful to distinguish between the methodology of science and the methodology of Christian faith. Science gives us many blessings like improved medicine etc. However, it is reductionist and can be misapplied, like in logical positivism.

    "Darwin’s theory of evolution was grossly misapplied in ‘social Darwinism’ by racists, the Nazis etc."

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    1. Thanks for your significant comments, Andrew. I didn't realize you were Dr. Bolton with a degree in natural science. You are a good example of how one does not have to choose between science and faith.

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  3. And then local Thinking Friend Bob Leeper sent these pertinent comments:

    "Leroy, thanks for triggering my review of my belief in this matter. I grew up in Assembly of God holy-roller environment where one grandfather claimed that FOSSILS had been placed there by the DEVIL to confound and confuse us.
    "After a misspent year at Bob Jones Univ. I attended UMKC, where I saw science sustaining our knowledge that bone-for-bone, we (vertebrate animals) share a connection. I long-ago concluded that Genesis may have been a description of ancient tales about creation. Those folks did not have to be labeled as Liars ... they were simply trying to explain and describe the world the way they viewed it ... without benefit of microscopes.

    "I long-ago reached peace on those topics and no longer give it a thought. Thanks again for bringing up Darwin and his book for review. I recall the movie INHERIT THE WIND. That old man who defended Genesis versus Darwin reminded me of Joe Sharp, my very religious grandpa. I had another grandpa, Jim Leeper, who derided and cursed all preachers; was convinced that all preachers were impostors and free-loaders. I have been deeply impacted by both of them.

    "Thanks for your dedicated work to produce AND SHARE these weekly posts."

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    1. Thanks for sharing your comments, Bob. I appreciate your sharing personal matters in addition to your thoughtful responses.

      It is my firm belief that the purpose of Genesis is not in the least to inform us HOW God created the world but is completely for the purpose of emphasizing that the world was created by God and that we humans should live in gratitude to our Creator and act responsibly to take care of the world God has placed us in.

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  4. Local friend Ed Chasteen shares these brief comments:

    "In college I took a Bible class and a Biology class back to back. In Bible I learned that anyone who believed in evolution was of the devil. In Biology I learned that anyone who believed in the Bible was simpleminded. Neither teacher knew what they were talking about. I argued with both."

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  5. A key part of life is learning to live with paradox. Even scientists have to live with paradox. Two great theories of cosmology collide in a black hole. Quantum mechanics and general relativity, both discovered by Einstein, cannot both be right in a black hole. Perhaps they are both wrong. So scientists use both where appropriate outside of black holes, and admit they still do not know what happens inside black holes. Evolution and the Bible bring us to a similar paradox. When we pose scientific questions, and examine evidence using the scientific method, the evidence is simply overwhelming. Just one example, while Darwin published his book over a century and a half ago, powerful confirmation came just in recent decades as scientists finally began to unlock the code of DNA, which in turn, strongly supported the evolutionary tree proposed by Darwin. Indeed, even the random mutation part of the theory is strongly supported, because some species of evolved in ways that look to us like de-evolution, and many species show signs of not have reached an ideal form. Take human backaches as an example, we have not reached an ideal solution to the problem of upright walking. Our bodies still carry many reminders of our four-legged past. We even have a vestige tail.

    The Bible is not a science book, not even a cookbook. We can confess it as the Word of God only if we read it carefully, the way we would read Shakespeare, or your favorite poet. Later biblical writers were frequently reinterpreting earlier writers, as when Psalm 90 explodes a literal reading of the dating of Genesis 1. Isaac Watts even wrote a famous hymn based on Psalm 90 long before Darwin was even born. "A thousand ages in thy sight are but an evening gone." Whether it is a thousand ages, as Watts wrote, or a thousand years, as Psalm 90 says, if it took God that long to say "Let there be light." then it leave a lot of room for us to reinterpret how we should read the creation story. Then there is Genesis 2, where we might better read it as a parable of the dawning of human consciousness and the natural lifecycle of humans, complete with discovering of the paradoxes of adulthood.

    We worship Jesus as fully man and fully God, not as a traditional god-man who is only half of each. For that reason I do not think theistic evolution is the best theological solution to the question. When we are asking scientific questions we should be fully scientific, which is to say, not expecting answers about what it all means. When we ask what it all means, we are in the realm of what Elijah called "a still small voice" that speaks to us frequently throughout the Bible. Let science prune away unprofitable readings of the Bible, but do not stop reading. The Bible can take us to the mountaintop, where we can see the promised land. Is that not enough? Read the Beatitudes. Has science damaged even one of them? "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."

    One last thought. I wish I could be as concise as Ed Chasteen!

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    1. Craig, I much appreciate your erudite comments, even though they are not as concise as our friend Ed's. And I especially appreciate your emphasis on paradox, which has been a central part of my worldview since the 1960s.

      I am not sure I understand your objection to theistic evolution, though. Perhaps it can (and should) be thought of in the same sort of way as "fully man and fully God"--that is, evolution as fully a natural phenomenon and fully divine creation--with both being affirmed (at least by people of faith) as "true." What do you think?

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  6. Growing up I do not remember Darwin being an issue. None of my childhood pastors ever raised the issue as I remember. It was not until I attended college that I became aware that there was any difficulty with science and faith.

    I admit that I never felt any real need to make an absolute decision about which was correct. I found biology exciting and the systems of creation wonderful. I never saw a real paradox and lived with confrontable openness to both science and faith.

    I see/saw that the Bible was a book of stories about the activity of God with humanity. Additionally, I saw science as seeking to discover the secrets of creation and interpret the world from a systematic method. I still feel confrontable with both science and faith.

    While at seminary Temp Sparkman challenged me to work on my perspective about faith, science and evolution. I remember a book by a gentleman by the name of Law who considered the issue of Darwin and faith. His book discussed “Scientism”.
    Law suggested that today’s science has made a religion out of science in response to the challenges of the American church and its denial of scientific facts. Thus, the conflict has escalated with both sides discounting the other and neither having space or openness for the other’s perspective.

    After reading Law and others I concluded that humanity is standing on a hill looking at creation. On one side we see creation from faith/Bible. On the other side we see creation from science and the dripline of scientific hypothesis and academic study.

    My world can embrace both and understand that both are seeking understanding. Being finite I want to give space for new discoveries and new insight into the activity of God past, present and future.

    Frank

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  7. Leroy, Dr. Rust was on my graduate committee--(Old Testament Theology). We didn't call it Hebrew Scriptures then. Dr. Rust probably had more influence on my thinking than any other Prof. at Southern. Maybe tied with Dr. Frank Stagg. Charles Kiker

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    1. Thanks for your comments, Charles. It was good to hear from you again.

      Yes, I studied Old Testament Theology as well as Christian Philosophy under Dr. Rust--and the reason we didn't call it Hebrew Scriptures then is because we were studying it as a part of Christian theology and not as Jewish theology or interfaith studies.

      I regret I didn't get to have a class under Dr. Stagg or get to know him. He didn't come to SBTS until 1964, and I was working on my doctoral dissertation then.

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