Blog 1: Evolution as an objection to Christian theism
As my first proper blog post I would like to address an issue commonly pressed by atheism. Has evolution destroyed a rational basis for Christian belief? Of course, as a Christian (specifically an evolutionary theist) I reply no, it has not . The majority of objections ‘I’ have encountered to Christian belief from evolution have been based in the explanation of religion as an evolutionary phenomenon and objections to the creation story in the book of Genesis. After careful thought, I am convinced that these objections fail for a number of reasons.
Evolutionary origins
Does an evolutionary explanation of religious origins indicate their falsity? When addressing this objection we should notice that it makes the claim that a belief is false on the basis of how it originated. For example we might be met with the statement,
“ The earliest men developed belief in God due to fear of death, therefore belief in God is false”
I pose the question; does the explanation of a belief’s origin make it false? If you were to say that my belief that ASDA are selling donuts at half price is because I saw it on an advertisement, does it make that belief false? If I were to explain someone’s rejection of theism by pointing out that they despised father figures because they were beaten as a child, so they abandoned the notion of God because of this, what bearing does this have on whether the belief is true or false? None at all. Statements like these all commit what is known to logicians as the genetic fallacy (arguing that a proposition is false on the basis of how it originated). The genetic fallacy invokes what is known as ‘psychological transference’, where one transfers one’s disapproval of the source of an idea to the content of the idea itself. The objection fails because the truth of an idea depends on whether that which it affirms is true or false and not where the idea originated. So, even if it were true that belief in God originated because people feared death, we are not in any way obligated to conclude that belief in God is false on this basis.
Furthermore, many atheists I know are willing to admit that the existence of a God (a grand designer as Hawking might put it) would have been a good explanation for how the world works for our ancestors, my great great great great grandfather Ezekiel didn’t have a detailed understanding of quantum physics so God was an apt explanation for the gap that it filled. But now we are told that aspects of modern science have done away with God. I know of a number of great physicists who would disagree (Sir John Polkinghorne, Professor Rodney Holder etc.). Either a great many clever people are actually very stupid or quantum physics poses no actual threat to Christian theism. I am persuaded by the latter option. It is interesting to note that Richard Dawkins himself conceded in one of his debates with John Lennox, ‘Has science buried God?’, that the debate on God’s existence needed to be decided on other grounds than evolution. It is interesting to note that Michael Ruse, himself an atheist, wrote that;
“When John Paul II wrote a letter endorsing Darwinism, Richard Dawkins’ response was simply that the pope was a hypocrite, that he could not be genuine about science and that Dawkins himself simply preferred an honest fundamentalist.” (McGrath, Dawkins Delusion, pg 26)
Genesis!
Let us now turn to objections to the creation story in Genesis. If evolution is true scientifically does it not follow that Genesis is unreliable and untrue and, therefore, the reliability of the whole Bible is in question? It does not. Firstly, the Bible itself is a collection of books written by different people (not by God as many outside of the Christian circle seem to assume. Not that I deny the influence of the Holy Spirit in its creation) at different points in history. If one individual book is ‘proved’ incorrect, or its content’s literality becomes ambiguous, it does not follow that all of the other books of the Bible come under question in this aspect.
In light of the point explained in the previous paragraph we know that if we find discrepancies in the content we should not automatically assume there to be discrepancies in the rest of the Bible. The theologian Connor Cunningham illustrates the points I hope to raise perfectly in his documentary on this subject ‘Did Darwin kill God?’
Now it has always been my contention that if the Bible seems to contradict itself then we should not look upon the passage (we’ll say passage as a generalisation to indicate a ‘contradictory’ section) as literal in a physical sense. For example we could perhaps live in a world where all we know about the American President is that he is a ‘political lion’. To our surprise after assuming for a good deal of time that the president was literally a lion interested in politics we then happen to meet the president and find he is not a lion. It does not follow that the ‘political lion’ description is untrue or irrelevant. Of course we would have misinterpreted the text, but just because of a misinterpretation one should not dismiss a statement as false or untrue. If there is a contradiction in the aspect of literality concerning a passage we should not dismiss the core of its meaning or assume that the passage’s message is false. This is what I find to be the case when looking at the creation story in Genesis. In my view the Genesis creation story, in light of evolution, retains its meaning, truth and power and, perhaps, when we look at the story in this way these factors are even more effective. Genesis communicates powerful spiritual truth and reveals a great deal concerning man’s relationship with God. If something in the Bible is found to be ambiguous by way of literality we should not then dismiss it but look for a deeper meaning.
Often when faced with this idea the reply is made as follows: ‘Why then didn’t God reveal the theory of evolution in Genesis?’ Now we come to our second important factor that should not be ignored when analysing the Genesis creation story, the Bible is not a science book. The Bible is a theological book, it communicates valuable information concerning spiritual reality and especially man’s need for redemption and salvation. These can be found in Jesus Christ as we know from the New Testament scriptures, and indeed the prophecy in the Old Testament. Further, if God was to include a reference to the theory of evolution in Genesis (See the ‘Genesis Enigma’ concerning this point) or the whole theory would the primitive Mosaic culture concerned in Genesis understand? To appeal to this kind of argument is clearly unreasonable. These people didn’t know about DNA, these people didn’t know about atoms or molecules, electrons, protons or quarks. It is not logical, therefore, to assert that evolution would have been relevant, or appropriate to this kind of society and it is self-evident that if evolution was alluded to in Genesis or the process revealed it would not be understood.
“Philo allegorised the whole story” writes Barclay (Barclay, Romans pg96)
It is apparent that many centuries before Darwin, then, the great thinkers of the day did not necessarily interpret the Genesis story as literal. And I think it is clear that we are not obligated to do so either. Perhaps we should pay heed to the late Dr. William Neil when he writes,
“They (the authors of Genesis) are not attempting to give a scientific account of how the world was made, and it would not perturb them to learn that our modern conception of the universe in the light of what the astronomers can tell us is vastly different from theirs.”
Now I hope I’ve cleared a good deal of rubble away regarding this subject. It’s certainly very heavy stuff! There are a number of Philosophers who would argue that atheism, or more specifically materialism is in conflict with evolution itself, but I should probably leave that for another day…probably…..
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