"You Asked for It" Week 5: The Compatibility of Evolution and a Creator

Notes again:

Preliminaries:

There are roughly three-ish basic Christian views about God’s creation of the world (young-earth, old-earth, and evolutionary forms of creation) and a lot of variety within those three. There are smart, well-informed people on all sides who disagree based on different views or interpretations of the Bible, philosophy, theology, and science. There are many people of each of these types who are faithful, believing Christians who simply want to follow truth but disagree about what that is. And there are people right here in this church whose views fall into each of these categories! So let’s allow that people in the church will - and should be allowed to - disagree about issues surrounding creation and evolution.

With that in mind, it’s important to note that answering this question doesn’t depend on taking any particular position on evolution. The question is purely hypothetical - IF there is a creator then COULD evolution be possible? Or, what is logically equivalent, IF evolution happened, WOULD that mean there was no creator? So we need to put the question of WHETHER it happened aside and consider what would be true IF it did.

So, for those who reject evolution, why would this question still be important? Many people believe in evolution who are not Christians and are convinced it happened. If the existence of a creator is compatible with it, this removes one obstacle to the faith for them. In addition, many Christians believe in evolution or are unsure whether it might be true. For such Christians, the compatibility or incompatibility of a creator and evolution will be a crucial issue.

On to the question:

Is a creator compatible with evolution? Suppose evolution is correct. There still could be a creator since the creator could have simply used evolution to create. Just because someone uses a tool to make something doesn’t mean they weren’t the one to make it. A sculptor might use a chisel or other tools on a piece of marble to make a statue but that wouldn’t mean the sculptor wasn’t the one who made it. Similarly, evolution could be a tool used by a creator to create - a creator could use physically random mutations to shape new species, etc.

So evolution appears to be compatible with there being some kind of creator - but what about a creator in the biblical sense? That is, could evolution be compatible with a biblical God creating in a biblical sense of “creating”? (Note that this is not asking whether it is compatible with biblical accounts of creation - just with the biblical sense of what it means to create or be a creator)

To address this, we should consider both whether the biblical God uses tools to do things and also whether, in the biblical sense, the creator could use tools to specifically create. (Note that these tools could be any kind of intermediary - nature, natural laws, physical material, created beings, etc.)

So first, does the biblical God use tools to do things at all? A quick look at the Bible reveals a definite affirmative in answer to this. God uses things as diverse as plagues, human armies, free actions, prayers, humans and evil spirits in rebellion against him, and more to accomplish his ends. There is no contradiction, for instance, between “The doctor saved my life” and “God saved my life” - God can use doctors to accomplish his ends as well as anything else. The Bible can slide easily back and forth between ‘So-and-so caused A’ and ‘God caused A’. (For instance, compare II Samuel and I Chronicles on who instigated David to take a census) (Side note: Not only are there tons of events which have no predetermined physical explanation or are not determined by natural laws (e.g., quantum mechanics), but even if there weren’t, it seems important to note that the biblical God is the creator and sustainer of everything that is not God - he not only created space, time, matter, natural laws, etc. but every second, every event, every natural law, everything that is, is directly dependent for its existence on God. God is the source of natural laws and the one who sustains them in place. Anytime any things interact by virtue of natural laws, for instance, God is there. Colossians - all things held together by him. Acts - in him, we live and move and have our being. When the doctor saves the patient, God is there sustaining the natural laws and physical interactions that will make that a success, even if everything is just going according to physics, biology, etc. God works under and through the natural processes)

Given then that he uses tools, could a biblical God use evolution as a tool to create in a biblical sense of “create”? The first thing to note is that the notions of create and creator in Israel (and in the ancient Near East more widely) do not necessarily entail a creation out of nothing without any tools at all (not that there was no ultimate creation ex nihilo, just that the concepts themselves don't require it in every case). Instead, in the ancient Near East, the most important aspect of creating and being a creator is that of ordering - producing order and arranging things so that they function appropriately - with little to no restriction on how this order is accomplished by the one creating. We see this in Genesis, for instance, when God creates humans using already present material, or when in creating land animals God explicitly calls on the land to produce these same animals (there are more potential examples of intermediaries in the creation accounts here as well). We in a sense acknowledge this when we say things like “God is my creator” or “God created me”, even though we know that our parents probably had something to do with it. So the use of tools is compatible with creating in a biblical sense. (Side note: Early Genesis presents a picture of a creation that is very good but not yet complete - the creation (specifically, under the direction of humans as the priest-kings ruling as God’s intermediaries) is itself supposed to participate in completing God’s act of creation, which now we know won’t be accomplished until after Christ returns - humans were meant to be co-creators with God)

So given that the biblical God uses tools and can use tools to create, it seems that evolution would be compatible with the existence of the biblical Creator God since that same God could use evolution as his tool to create.

(Whether or not evolution is compatible with the specifics of the biblical accounts of God creating or with the scientific evidence is, as already said, a separate question, of course!) 

Vaccination is NOT a "Personal Decision"

I have seen many times recently where someone posts an article, a comment, or whatever about how vaccination of children is the moral thing to do and then all sorts of people chime in with bad science and bad reasoning.  It drives me crazy and, frankly, makes me a bit angry at all the innocent people, especially kids, who will get horrible diseases as a result of the perpetuation of this latest bit of American gullibility, scientific ignorance and anti-intellectualism.  (So apologies if this post comes across more strongly worded than usual) But what irks me the most (well, one of the things at least) is when people trivialize or dismiss the issue by saying things like "it's a personal decision" or "every family must decide for themselves", etc. 

Now, let's back up for a second.  There are five basic groups (here's where I'll probably get in trouble!) of which I think most anti-vaccine folks fall into at least one (often more): 1) Charlatans; 2) quacks; 3) people with poor reasoning skills; 4) people who, as a result of poor reasoning skills (thus making this a subset of 3), think that faith in God is incompatible with modern medicine; 5) people who have been deceived by any or all of the above.  It's really a very similar phenomena to snake oil, superstitions, and all manner of popularly spread falsehoods that have polluted society from its very beginning.  It's really all in the same boat.

So when people say the sorts of things I listed at the end of the first paragraph, I can't stand it. Seriously, it's only a personal decision in the same sense in which it is a personal decision whether to fire a gun into a crowded room is a personal decision.  And every family must decide for themselves, yes, but in the same sense in which every family must decide for themselves whether to commit murder (thankfully, most choose not to).  These attempts to sidestep the issue or ward off the ethical duties associated with it are perilously close to a lapse into utter ethical or even factual relativism - the whole vaccine thing might be true for you, but not for me! Such attempts make it seem like it's a matter of taste whether we ought to vaccinate or how safe vaccines are, rather than a matter of objective fact.  They make it seem like the issue is unclear in some way or that reasonable people, reasoning well, with the same facts available, would disagree with each other.  But, of course, none of that is remotely true.  Nor is it true that it is strictly personal, since the effects of such decisions affect others and society as a whole.

I think it is telling that the issue is often spoken of in terms of "my beliefs" or "personal beliefs" and other language usually reserved for matters of taste, "philosophies of life", or weakly-held religious convictions, as opposed to the language of scientific fact, evidence, or objective ethical realities.  The latter kind of language is appropriate here, not the former.  Yet I think the former actually does capture how this opposition to vaccines actually functions in many people, even though it shouldn't.  It is a quasi-religious belief held dogmatically and immune to actual evidence or reasoning (and not based on any good evidence or reasoning and certainly anti-scientific authority).  Whereas I think religious beliefs can in fact be justified, being responsive to evidence and reasons, and, if true, can have adequate epistemic grounding, this anti-vaccine position does not have the benefit of being a central node in a foundational world view or being even supposedly divinely revealed. Whereas religious beliefs, for instance, can at least make claims to divine authority, anti-vaccine positions do not have anything close going for them - there is no real claim to authority here and hence no reason to treat it in the way it gets treated by its proponents.

Ultimately, there should not be "sides" as to whether most children should be vaccinated - any more than there should be sides over whether we should let toddlers play alone in a pool with a live handgrenade and a family of water moccasins.  And, what's more, these "sides" matter - lives, health, and economy are all on the line here - but people do not think properly about them; they do not actually look at the evidence objectively and without resorting to logical fallacy.  People should stop merely "feeling strongly" about the issue and start thinking strongly (and, more importantly, thinking well).  Perhaps critical thinking classes or classes on scientific reasoning would be useful, assuming people would pay attention or actually absorb what they were taught.  At the end of the day, I would make vaccinations mandatory for everyone for whom there was no special health risk associated with them.  That way, people can be ignorant, deluded, and so on all they want without it hurting others. But then, that's why, in America, I'd probably never be elected for office in the first place!

Short Science and God Presentation Notes

Some brief working notes I used to put together my 10 minute presentation I gave at Cornerstone Fellowship's Faith and Doubt event.  Fitting these sorts of things into 10 minutes is pretty difficult and, obviously, a lot has to be left out:

*“Science has disproven the existence of God”

Usually the idea is that we have no use for God.  Laplace: “I have no use for that hypothesis”.  The Big Bang gives us the origin of the universe and evolution the origin of living things.  So no room for God – we can explain the existence of things using only physical stuff and natural laws.

Several responses:

1)      Suppose the Big Bang and evolution are correct explanations of the universe and life.  God could still be the Creator since he could have used the Big Bang and evolution to create.  Just because someone uses a tool to make something doesn’t mean that they aren’t the one who made it.  Big Bang/evolution could be the tools God used.

2)      There are some things science cannot explain using only natural things (physical stuff and natural laws).  For example, natural things might not have existed and so need an explanation outside of themselves.  Science, then, cannot explain why there are any natural things at all by appealing to more natural things since those are part of what needs explaining – you can explain some natural things in terms of others, but not why there are any at all in the first place.  (Like trying to explain why there is any cereal in your house by saying you got the cereal in your bowl from the box in your cupboard – you’ve explained how some of the cereal got in your bowl, but not how any cereal got in your house in the first place)   Natural things cannot explain this, but God can.

3)      Science actually offers us evidence of God.  There is evidence everywhere that the universe was designed to support complex life.  If any of the most basic laws of physics, for example, or the basic values that show up in their equations, were slightly off, life would not be possible.  Without electromagnetic forces, for instance, we could not have chemistry and without chemistry, there could be no life.  Since the universe is so exactly fit for life and this is much more likely if it was designed than if not, we have good evidence for design.

Notes on ideas that didn't make it into the presentation:

* God is not, for the Christian, a theoretical postulate!  We don’t think up God merely in order to fill in some gap in our understanding of the world.  God is a person with whom we have a relationship – a someone we know, not a something we know about.  Ex: My mom is not some entity I posit to explain certain bizarre phenomena such as cell phone transmissions, birthday cards, past experiences, etc.  Not something I know about merely as an inference based on evidence but someone I know through my relationship with them.

* Suppose we did, however, explain how something in the physical universe works only in terms of physical stuff and natural laws.  Is there now no room for God in explaining it?  No – a fully physical explanations and a divine one are not mutually exclusive. 

Ordinary Christian thought: No contradiction between “The doctor saved my life” and “God saved my life” (contrast with some faith healing groups).  Bible accounts with same idea . 

* Not only are there tons of events which have no predetermined physical explanation and are not determined by natural laws (quantum mechanics), but even if there weren’t, we must remember that God is the creator and sustainer of everything that is not God – he not only created space, time, matter, etc. but every second, every event, every natural law, everything that is, is directly dependent for its existence on God.  God is the source of natural laws and the one who sustains them in place.  Anytime any physical things interact by virtue of natural laws, God is there.  Colossians – all things held together by him.  Acts – in him, we live and move and have our being.  When the doctor saves the patient, God is there sustaining the natural laws and physical interactions that will make that a success, even if everything is just going according to physics.  God works under and through natural processes.

* (1) Science cannot use God in its theories (methodological naturalism).  (2) Science gives/will give/can give a complete, unified, fully accurate picture of the whole world.  BUT: If 2 and there IS a God, science must include God, so 1 is only true if no God.  And so if 1, 2 is true only if no God.  So cannot accept BOTH 1 and 2 without already showing God does not exist – at most, can accept one of these.  2 wildly optimistic anyway.