Playing the Role of Nuanced Creationist
Sen. Sam Brownback wrote an op-ed for the NY Times on his stance in the evolution-creation debate. It has a very Catholic feel which makes sense since Brownback is a convert.
The heart of the issue is that we cannot drive a wedge between faith and reason. I believe wholeheartedly that there cannot be any contradiction between the two. The scientific method, based on reason, seeks to discover truths about the nature of the created order and how it operates, whereas faith deals with spiritual truths. The truths of science and faith are complementary: they deal with very different questions, but they do not contradict each other because the spiritual order and the material order were created by the same God.
People of faith should be rational, using the gift of reason that God has given us. At the same time, reason itself cannot answer every question. Faith seeks to purify reason so that we might be able to see more clearly, not less. Faith supplements the scientific method by providing an understanding of values, meaning and purpose. More than that, faith — not science — can help us understand the breadth of human suffering or the depth of human love. Faith and science should go together, not be driven apart.
Michael van der Galien simultaneously believes in macro-evolution and a God who used it to create the world around us. I left a comment at his weblog but I’m guessing TAM readers will also be interested. So I’ve expanded it.
Evolution has explanatory power. That’s why it has endured as an idea this long. To be a good Christian doesn’t require one to accept the literal version of creation in Genesis. One can be a Christian and believe in evolution. I could argue that God saying, “Let there be light” is analagous to the Big Bang. The details of how the universe came to be is not as important in Christian theology as a belief in Christ as God’s son or the importance of His sacrifice on the cross. (That’s why I’ve never jumped into the evolution/creationism battles in public schools.)
In a similar manner someone such as myself can praise the power of science while also believing God created the world in six days. It is God we’re talking about. An all-powerful being can form the universe in any manner He so chooses.
How about this for a semi-coherent hypothesis: God creates the world in six days 10,000 years ago. During the process He inserts evolutionary process into the creation. The resulting world appears to be the result of millions of years of evolution yet was actually much younger.
I can’t prove this is how the world came about. Just as much as I can’t prove God’s existence.
Such a hypothesis allows evolution to maintain its explanatory power. At the same time we avoid the materialist notion that humans are just higher primates.
Why would God create a world like this?
My best guess is it’s a test of faith. God is so much higher than Man that Man’s reason can barely comprehend Him. God cannot be proven to exist. Reason is a tool in God’s creation so it can’t extend beyond it. To attempt to reach that level of understanding requires faith. Believing God created the universe when all the scientific evidence says otherwise test’s a Christian’s faith.
The huge flaw in this hypothesis is I’m using reason itself to try to explain God’s purpose. But befuddling the mere minds of us humans certainly isn’t beyond the abilities of an omniscient being.
My thinking makes me a creationist. Ok, fine. I have no problem with that. Am I trying to have my cake and eat it too? Probably. My view does offer a way through the ever-hardening positions in the evolution-creationism debate.
“What I Think About Evolution” [via memeorandum]
Have you read God’s Debris by Dilbert creator Scott Adams yet? It’s a fun little piece of philosophical dialogue that theorizes some interesting bits about the nature of God and its place in the Universe. No real new ground is broken in it, but it’s a nice little summary of some currently existing theories about how God and science fit together.
As a person with pretty deep faith in a higher power, be it God or whatever, i’ll never understand why the Bible needs to be taken literally for one’s faith to remain intact. Has no one ever heard of metaphors?