Why I believe Creationists get it wrong part 1 - Science

In the last post I looked at the main non-scientific Creationist objections to evolution - non-scientific because I don't believe the primary reasons most Creationists reject evolution are scientific. Now on to why in my view Creationism is founded on a misunderstanding of Science and (next post) Scripture.

Creationists seem to me to show a fundamental misconception of science, particularly its remit and limits, when they seek to bring God into science to explain the origins of the universe and of life. God can never be invoked as a scientific explanation, mechanism or cause for the simple reason that science deals solely with the natural, and God is super-natural: he stands outside or beyond or above nature, and is not a part of it nor physically discernible within it. Science can of course study God's works within nature, but in so doing it can only focus on their physical aspects and causes; supernatural causes must be excluded. (NB this does not mean that God is not a cause or explanation on a different level and of a different kind to the scientific and natural.)

So the proper subject of science is physical nature, and that nature is a seamless whole; it is not littered with parts that God left behind like an untidy mechanic, nor with unaccountable gaps that require a non-scientific explanation.

It's important to understand that God works invisibly within nature; his actions are not discernible from within nature except by spiritual (i.e. non-scientific) means. So for example we may perfectly validly believe that God 'knits together' babies in their mothers' wombs (Psalm 139:13), but an ultrasound scan will not reveal God tinkering away inside - his knitting-together utilises entirely natural biological processes. Similarly, the Genesis 2:7 description of God forming Adam from the dust of the ground is a powerful metaphor containing a deep truth, but it doesn't mean that if we could go back to the beginning we would be able to see God literally sculpting a human figure out of mud. The Creation accounts in Genesis simply are not, nor could they be, a scientific description of what happened; they are a God's-eye view, or a theologically-illuminated view, not a scientific one.

But what of miracles?

If God's acts are generally natural acts (or performed through natural agency), where does that leave miracle? Well, it partly depends what you mean by 'miracle'. Is it something scientifically impossible, against the laws of nature, or is it something wonderful, unusual, significant - an act of power and perfect timing?

The words the Bible uses tend to fall into the latter category. However, it's clear that many of them - walking on water, turning water into wine, raising the dead etc - do not comply with the normal workings of any current laws of nature as we understand them. These can perhaps best be seen as foretastes - or temporary in-breakings - of God's Kingdom, the renewed heavens and earth, which will have a new nature and new laws, and so presumably (if such pursuits are still relevant) a new science. They are the signs of another world and of a power beyond nature.

In one sense all of God's acts are miraculous; in another, they are all 'natural', or mediated through natural laws, processes and matter. So the Creation of the universe and of life were, in this sense, miraculous acts; in another, they involved entirely natural and scientifically-studiable processes.

Flaws, gaps and anomalies

Creationists and ID-ers can and do usefully contribute to science by pointing out potential flaws, gaps and anomalies in current evolutionary theory and in the evidence for it. But it seems to me that almost their whole case is built on on these gaps and anomalies, which they desperately hope can sustain proof of a young earth and undermine the science of evolution. Mary Schweitzer's discovery of soft tissue in a T. Rex bone; fossils apparently out of sequence in the geological strata - these kinds of examples seem to be the primary materials of 'Creation science'.

But it is a false hope to imagine that these flaws cannot be ironed out, the gaps cannot be filled or the anomalies not be explained without reference to God; that they will somehow topple the vast edifice of evolution. Rather, they provide fruitful areas for new research which time after time leads to new findings which strengthen evolutionary theory (such as with Michael Behe's well-refuted examples of 'irreducible complexity').

Creationists remind me irresistibly of conspiracy theorists, clinging to their minority beliefs not because the evidence justifies it but simply because their worldview demands it.

Speaking of which and going off on a tangent, did you know that there really still is a genuine flat-earth society? Check out http://theflatearthsociety.org. You couldn't make this stuff up.

Now on to part 2 of this post - Scripture...

Addressing Creationist concerns

This post came out of an email conversation with a Creationist friend. He is a good, kind, patient, thoughtful and intelligent man of faith, as far from Dawkins' stereotype of Creationists as moronic anti-scientific flat-earthers as you could get. I consider his beliefs on evolution/creation to be mistaken, but he raises valid concerns for those like me who seek to reconcile their Christian faith with their acceptance of current evolutionary science. In this and following posts I want to look at these concerns and also why I believe Creationism is fundamentally flawed.

Christians who reject Darwinism usually do so because of a set of theological and philosophical concerns. These concerns are so serious for them that they are unable to brook evolution on any terms, however strong the evidence may be. (I'm not convinced that most Creationists reject evolution initially on the basis of the science - rather,  I suspect they generally construct their science and marshal their evidence after having already philosophically rejected evolution.)

Creationists' main problems with evolution are that, in their view, it:

1. denies the accuracy of Genesis 1-2 and therefore undermines the whole Bible, which they see as God's perfect and literal Word
   
   
2. denies the historicity of Adam and Eve and the Fall, and so undermines the gospel and our need for salvation
   
   
3. relegates humans from the pinnacle of creation, made in God's image, to technologically-advanced monkeys
   
   
4. replaces God's good and purposive actions with random, meaningless chance and cruel, selfishness-driven processes
   
   
5. renders a divine creator unnecessary and so gives atheism an intellectual backing it would otherwise lack, leading many to stop believing in God
   
   
6. leads inevitably to 'might is right' philosophies, fascism, eugenics etc.

I do not deny the seriousness of these concerns for Christians, but I read them very differently. In my view:

1. Evolution does not deny the accuracy of Genesis unless you are committed to a particular modernist and literalist way of reading the text (more about this when we get to why I think Creationists are wrong). In my view, Genesis 1-2 was never meant to be read in this way and has not generally been read this way throughout history. I see evolution as quite compatible with the original intentions of the Genesis account, and indeed as quite an obvious reading of it in places.
   
   
2. Similarly, I don't believe that the precise historicity of Adam and Eve was ever the point of Gen 2, or that the eating of a literal forbidden fruit is in any way necessary to the Christian gospel. The language and forms of Gen 2 are, in my view, clearly symbolic and mythopoeic, and the point is to convey a deep spiritual truth about our alienation from God and one another. The need of redemption is in no way removed by a different understanding of the Adam and Eve story. I personally see little need to read Gen 2 as literal history at all, but it's certainly possible to see a genuine neolithic couple behind it, chosen by God as the first 'spiritual' humans.
   
   
3. It does indeed seem that evolution relegates us biologically to the position of upright-walking monkeys. But it all depends on how you understand 'the image of God'. What makes us valuable to God - as I see it - is that he has specially chosen humans and put his spirit in us, his consciousness, the ability to think and choose and to know him in ways that (as far as we can tell) no other animal has, however intelligent. We mirror his image in far deeper and more important ways than our biological natures.
   
   
4. Perhaps the greatest difficulty is to see how the Christian God of love could be behind the violent, selfish competitive processes we see at work in natural selection. However, denial doesn't help - the evidence of prehistoric animal suffering is clearly written into the fossil record. There are a range of possible answers to the dilemma, including downplaying the horror of animal suffering and saying that it's the only way to let morally free beings develop in the universe, and it's all worth it in the end. However, some are starting to suggest that genuine altruism may play a larger part in the mechanics of evolution than has previously been realised, and that primal evil/chaos might be behind most of the selfishness and suffering inherent in natural selection. If evil has been present within creation pretty much from the outset, it simply means that God's redemptive work must also have started then. I admit these are deep and murky waters though (see my post on Why does God allow evil?).
   
   The other objection is that instead of God's purposive action we have 'blind chance'. But that Darwinian evolution relies on blind chance is a fallacy. Evolution is on the whole a tightly-constrained process of tiny adaptations and incremental accruals, not a series of blind leaps. And I'll look at why this doesn't push God out in the next point.
   
   
5. Evolution is not inherently atheistic, nor does it inherently relegate God to irrelevance. Whatever processes, whatever 'chance' may be involved on the natural side of the equation has nothing to say about what's going on on the supernatural side. Seemingly random events and even purposefully evil creaturely acts can be woven by the supernatural God into his greater purposes (as Joseph says to his brothers who had sold him into slavery, 'You intended to harm me but God intended it for good, to accomplish... the saving of many lives', Gen 50:20).
   
   Similarly, there's nothing in evolution that denies God if you rightly understand the relations of God, nature and science - something I believe neither the Creationists nor the New Atheists do, which I'll deal with in following posts. Unfortunately evolution has been co-opted by both these extreme positions on the spectrum, but it is this co-option and conflict that damages Christianity, not evolution itself. Sadly I believe well-meaning Creationists have often done more to put people off Christ than evolution itself could ever have done.
   
   
6. Finally, the biological theory of evolution merely describes what happens in nature - it does not provide an imperative or mandate for how we are to behave. The obvious fact that there is competition for survival in nature and that the best-adapted generally do survive to bear offspring has no bearing on how we should live our lives. 

Nonetheless, I am on the whole glad that Creationists raise these concerns which certainly need grappling with.

Next time - why I believe Creationism is based on a set of fundamental misunderstandings of Science and Scripture. Apologies to all my Creationist friends, most of whom are much better people than I am. :-)