Two Sides of the Same Coin

September 28, 2020 By JanetKRay.com in Anthony Fauci, BioLogos, corona, Covid, Francis Collins, Michael Zimmerman, vaccine denial 2 Comments

It was a typical birthday party for a ten-year-old boy – balloons, cake, rambunctious kids. Oh, and party favors, too!

But this was not your usual grab bag of gum and cheap toys.

The loot bags also contained a British five-pound note, worth about $10.00 at the time. There was one small catch…

In order to get the party-prize, each little guest had to let the birthday boy’s dad draw a blood sample.

Later, Dad laughingly recounted the hilariousness of the situation: “I lined them up and they stuck out their arms. Kids were fainting. One kid threw up all over his mother. It was just your standard 10-year-old’s birthday.”

And you thought bounce houses got out of control.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield used the blood samples he collected at his son’s birthday party in one of the most notorious medical studies in modern times. Wakefield’s study, published in the prestigious British medical journal Lancet, triggered a decades-long collapse of public confidence in one of the most significant medical advances in human history: vaccination.

In his 1998 article, Wakefield claimed that in eight children, the onset of autism followed immunization with the MMR vaccine. Researchers all over the world tried to replicate his results, but no one could.

Still, vaccination rates plummeted in the UK and in the United States.

The thing is . . . Wakefield made it all up.

The birthday party was just the beginning. In addition to an uncontrolled study with sketchy “volunteer” recruitment, he fabricated data. Before the Lancet article was published, Wakefield filed a patent for his own version of the MMR. Wakefield was also being paid for his “expert” testimony in a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers.

Twelve years after publication, the Lancet retracted the article and Wakefield lost his medical license. Decades of world-wide research and tens of thousands of cases demonstrate no link between autism and vaccination.

Unrepentant, Wakefield continues to travel and speak to anti-vaccine groups. Despite the loss of a “measles-free” status in the UK and multiple measles outbreaks in the United States, groups continue to pay Wakefield thousands of dollars for his “expertise”. To celebrities and everyday moms and dads who do not want to “poison” their children, Wakefield is a martyr.

Unfortunately, the science behind vaccine safety is lost on those with an anti-vaccination mindset. Research shows that exposure to science evidence reenforces anti-vaccination perceptions of parents. Emotions trump evidence.

Welcome to 2020, and welcome to the flip side of the anti-vaccination coin.

As the world awaits the release of one of several Covid-19 vaccines now in phase-3 trials, opposition to the vaccine is rising, and from a very surprising precinct. Anti-Covid-19 vaccine voices are getting louder, and one in particular caught the attention of NIH director Francis Collins.

Michael Zimmerman is a biologist and the founder of the Clergy Letter Project, an effort demonstrating that religion and science are not in conflict. Zimmerman begins his essay by citing his Ph.D. in biology, his opposition to the pseudo-science of vaccine denial, and his generalized rejection of conspiracy theories.

Yet, Zimmerman declares his opposition to a Covid-19 vaccine – at least for the next three months.

Zimmerman and other newly-minted antivaxxers do not trust the current administration. Zimmerman fears the anti-science dogma touted by the Trump administration. Zimmerman and others fear political pressure on the CDC and the FDA will result in the release of a risky vaccine.

Collins, in his public response to Zimmerman, is direct and uncharacteristically blunt.

Shouldn’t you reserve judgement until you see the data? Collins asks.

The vaccine approval process is transparent and is overseen by respected life-long scientists like Collins and Anthony Fauci. And unlike “America’s Frontline Doctors’” claims in their fifteen minutes of summer fame, legitimate science studies are transparent and published for critical review.

In response to Collins’ hope for a Covid-19 vaccine by the end of 2020, Zimmerman writes this:

“I hope your prediction is off by a month and that approval doesn’t occur until after 20 January 2021 with a new administration in place.”

To which Collins replied:

“Be careful that you don’t end up hoping and praying for the vaccine to arrive after January 20 — when an earlier scientifically rigorous result would have potentially saved many lives.”

To those who are usually on Team Science but find themselves rooting against a Covid-19 vaccine: trust the process. If you don’t trust Trump, fine. Trust Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, two scientists with decades of stellar public health service and a history of withstanding political pressure from both parties.

Recently, Fauci publicly took the CDC to task for an announcement made while he was under general anesthesia. Fauci lost no time in setting the record straight with his disapproval. And last week, Fauci scolded Senator Rand Paul in a congressional hearing for his repeated misrepresentations of Covid-19 evidence.

Traditional anti-vaxxers and Covid-19 anti-vaxxers are two sides of the same coin. At their core, both groups mistrust science. Both groups are influenced by deeply held, emotional beliefs.

Both traditional anti-vaxxers and Covid-19 anti-vaxxers threaten public health and the goal of herd immunity.

On September 25, 2020, Francis Collins was awarded the Templeton Prize for a lifetime of demonstrating harmony between modern science and faith. In his acceptance speech, Collins encourages us to return to our calling to love one another – both friends and enemies.

Loving our neighbor as ourselves means loving all our neighbors: our immunocompromised neighbors, our elderly neighbors, our newborn neighbors, our medically fragile neighbors, our neighbors undergoing chemotherapy.

If you are medically able to be vaccinated, you are practicing love in a very real, very practical way.

(Read the correspondence between Francis Collins and Michael Zimmerman here)

And as You speak
A hundred billion creatures catch Your breath
Evolving in pursuit of what You said
If it all reveals Your nature so will I

(Hillsong United “So Will I“)

string theory

“How I Changed My Mind About Evolution”

June 4, 2016 By JanetKRay.com in Creationism, evolution, Francis Collins, Genesis, How I Changed My Mind About Evolution, Kenneth Miller, reading Genesis, science and faith, Scot McKnight Leave a comment

Is there a topic more threatening to evangelicals than evolution?

Many evangelicals are convinced that evolution theory threatens to undermine – even dismantle – core beliefs about the Bible and Christian theology. Evangelical churches tend to fall somewhere on a continuum between an unspoken but default anti-evolution stance on one end and a Ken Ham-style all-out war on the other.

A Gallup Poll (2014) found that 69% of Americans who attend church weekly believe that humans were created in their present form within the last 10,000 years. Weekly church attenders are mostly evangelicals.

How I Changed My Mind About Evolution is a collection of twenty-five short faith memoirs – first-hand accounts from practicing evangelicals. All but one in the group are theologians (academics and/or pastors) or scientists (academics, researchers, editors). Their backgrounds are varied – cradle Christians to atheists/agnostics. All but one came to faith in an evangelical tradition. Most initially embraced the literal Genesis interpretation of their faith mentors or faith tradition.

Several writers described a personal “road to Damascus” experience on their way to acceptance of evolution theory – their study of origins began as a search for ammunition in a culture war against evolution (a war which is, as N. T. Wright points out, primarily fought in America).

The group includes a history-making, world-renown research scientist (Francis Collins), a best-selling author (Scot McKnight), and many other names you might recognize.

Incremental Journeys

The journey to accepting evolution theory was often incremental and usually included a time of closeted acceptance of evolution. A first step for several writers was exposure to books and conversations outside their own faith “tribes”. The exposure was sometimes initially threatening, but eventually embraced:

I began to sense that science was bigger than what I had been taught . . . (p. 24)

How could I have never heard about these things? (p. 182)

Interestingly, tools of the trade used by several of the writers in their vocations were repurposed in their journey to acceptance of evolution theory. For example, in his fundamentalist seminary education, Scot McKnight was trained to read the Bible for himself, to sort out the evidence, and to base his beliefs on the evidence alone. McKnight calls this the “hermeneutical equivalent of the scientific method” (p. 31), and he eventually applied this “hermeneutic” to the scientific evidence of origins.

Likewise, an analytic philosopher applied a tool of philosophy – there are things that are true independent of what we think about the matter – and concluded that all truth is God’s truth.

The backgrounds and stories vary, but common themes wind their way through the memoirs.

So what changed their minds?

“What else did the church lie to me about?”

Raised in a church and Christian school where a young earth was truth and evolution was a lie, she was devastated after she encountered a thoughtful and reasoned explanation of evolution in a university science course. Her parents (members of one writer’s church) were thankful that she was willing to have a conversation, given that the church’s perceived rejection of science is a primary reason eighteen to thirty-year-olds abandon their faith.

The most pervasive theme in this collection of faith memoirs was a realization of personal intellectual dishonesty. The historical and scientific gymnastics required in order to make empirical evidence “fit” a young earth, a literal Genesis, or the claims of the intelligent design movement eventually became harder than accepting the scientific evidence.

As an undergraduate, pastor and developmental psychologist Daniel M. Harrell felt the tension. He chose astronomy as his one required science course, hoping to avoid the “indictments of fossils and DNA”. But stars don’t lie about their age, and Harrell soon went scrambling for a “trick” to combat the cognitive dissonance he felt. His campus minister provided the solution: all evidences of evolution and an old earth are simply “appearances” – the earth only “appears” to be old, for instance. This solution worked through college, seminary, and a Ph.D. program, but eventually the tricks collapsed and the cognitive dissonance returned with force.

Harrell concluded that not only did the “appearances trick” collapse under the evidence, but it also failed theologically.

… it seemed to portray God as an intentional deceiver. This would never do. (p. 126)

Several writers recalled belief (encouraged by their faith communities) in a vast, world-wide scientific conspiracy. Scientists and atheists (aren’t they really the same?) were in cahoots to deceive the world:

A transitional fossil has never been found.
Rock dating techniques aren’t accurate or reliable.
There is evidence supporting creationism, but scientists suppress it.

One writer recalled a poster mocking human evolution hanging in her Christian school’s science classroom. She recalled how she and her twelve-year-old classmates were smug in the knowledge that they knew something that all the scientists in the world didn’t.

Eventually, the overwhelming evidence for evolution and an old earth overcame the science-denying mental gymnastics:

Conspiracy theories about scientists piecing together ordinary bits of bone to make dinosaurs or relying on faulty radio-carbon dating techniques to argue that the earth was hundreds of millions of years old became increasingly absurd once I got to know science and scientists firsthand. (p. 140)

One writer, raised by her atheist father to approach the cosmos with unbridled awe and wonder, came to science before she came to faith:

… the young-earth argument didn’t seem to align with the ever-expansiveness I had experienced with God . . . As I read the arguments that the earth must be only several thousand years old . . . I felt less in awe of our Creator, not a greater sense of glorious mystery . . . (p. 156)

Rethinking Theology

A prevalent theme in the memoirs is a “rethinking” of traditional evangelical theology. Primarily, what do we do with with Adam? Does Christian theology require a literal, historical, and unique Adam?

And what about the image of God? How does common descent of all living beings impact the theology of being “made in the image of God”?

How is God “originator” and “creator” in a naturalistic process?

Some writers elaborated their thoughts on these questions; others confessed to an ongoing wrestling match with theology despite their acceptance of evolution theory. One writer eloquently encouraged patience in the “hard work of learning” (p. 88).

Here’s how another writer put it:

. . . if all truth is God’s truth, then in principle our understanding of Scripture and truth are compatible, even if the precise manner in which they are compatible may not always be clear to us . . . (p. 81)

Probably the greatest resource used by the writers in rethinking traditional interpretations of Genesis was the historical and archeological evidence from ancient near-eastern cultures – the cultural ancestors and cultural neighbors of ancient Israel.

Creation stories and flood stories that far predate the Genesis stories demanded attention. Setting ancient Israel within its cultural, historical, and literary contexts removed obstacles to acceptance of evolution theory for many writers.

Broken Relationships

Sadly, an all-too-common event in the memoirs was a broken relationship of some sort.

Many memoirs described an intellectual no-man’s land. Their faith was suspect by their Christian friends; their intelligence was suspect by their science colleagues.

A wealthy donor threatened to pull support from a seminary if a professor who was critical of the intelligent design movement was given tenure.

A successful, tenured professor was forced out because he refused to publicly support a new anti-evolution university faith statement.

Even Francis Collins was not immune. He definitely felt the love in the room when he spoke to a national group of Christian physicians.

Here’s a world-class science rock star! And – he’s a very public and committed Christian! Yay!

But then:

. . . I mentioned how overwhelming the scientific evidence for evolution is, and suggested that in my view evolution might be God’s elegant plan for creating humankind. The warmth left the room. So did some of the attendees, literally walking out, shaking their heads in dismay. (p. 71)

Changing Your Mind

How I Changed My Mind About Evolution hits the best of both worlds – it is readable and user-friendly, but doesn’t skimp on the science or theology. It’s a book I read with lots of “me, toos!”.

I, too, felt a conflict between what I was learning in public school and in college and what was held as the de facto origins position of my faith “tribe”.

Author and speaker John Clayton, an atheist convert to Christianity, was the first to give me “permission” to think outside my evolution box. As a geologist, Clayton rejected the idea of a young earth. I do not accept Clayton’s intelligent design explanations, but I am thankful he pushed my thinking.

On to the big guns: after Kenneth Miller (Finding Darwin’s God, Only a Theory), Francis Collins (The Language of God), and Darrel Falk (Coming to Peace with Science), there was no turning back.

For an in-depth look at the origin and flood stories of the ancient near east, Old Testament scholar Peter Enns (The Evolution of Adam, Inspiration and Incarnation) is my go-to.

For a very user-friendly introduction to the science and theology of origins, read Reconciling the Bible and Science: A Primer on the Two Books of God (Mitchell and Blackard).

*****

The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they reveal knowledge

*****

What Darwin Got Wrong and Why Creationism Isn’t Science

February 15, 2015 By JanetKRay.com in belief in God, BioLogos, Charles Darwin, Creationism, evolution, faith, Francis Collins, Institute for Creation Research, Intelligent Design, Ken Ham, science and faith Leave a comment

It has been a year since the showdown between Bill Nye “the Science Guy” and Ken Ham “the Six-Thousand Year-Old Earth Guy”. Bill Nye caught a lot of flak from scientists for debating Ham because a “debate” implies two equally credible options. Even the BioLogos Foundation (dedicated to an evolutionary understanding of creation) discouraged the Ham/Nye debate because debates imply that you must choose between evolution and faith.
Public debates are favorites of creationists – the limited time format and simplified concepts needed for a non-scientific audience usually favor the creationist debater. Debaters often employ the “Gish Gallop” (named for a famous creationist), a debating strategy in which an opponent is deluged with small arguments that can’t possibly be answered in the allotted time. If all arguments are not refuted, the creationist debater declares victory.

Debating Canada

When the Institute for Creation Research scheduled their November 2014 anti-evolution “Origin Summit” on the campus of Michigan State University, their first move was to organize a debate. Unfortunately for the group, the science faculty banded together and refused to participate in a debate with the creationist group.

Not only did the science faculty refuse to debate, they refused to comment publicly or on the record until after the event was over. The faculty of MSU steadfastly refused to elevate the status of creationism to science.
A few Michigan State students did, however, set up an outreach booth as a good-will gesture to the summit attendees. Even so, the student volunteers chose not to engage in debate.

The outreach booth organizer explained:

We don’t debate evolution because it’s not debatable. It’s like debating the existence of Canada.

http://getmoki.com/

Darwin

Certainly no scientist has been more maligned or been the subject of more unflattering caricatures than the author of evolution theory, Charles Darwin. But Charles Darwin wasn’t the only or even the first of his day to suggest that living things evolved from a common ancestor. Other scientists had suggested it, including Darwin’s own grandfather.

Darwin developed the theory of evolution in the late 1830’s, but he never published a paper– he planned to present it in one all-inclusive book. Meanwhile, another naturalist (as biologists were called at the time), Alfred Russel Wallace, had arrived at a very similar theory of evolution. Both Darwin and Wallace presented papers in 1858, but the papers were ignored. It was Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species published the following year that caused a scientific and cultural earthquake.

Darwin’s big idea eventually revolutionized science and became the foundation for all of modern biology. Darwin said that evolution occurred because of natural selection: living organisms vary, and some of these variations will better suit individuals to the environment. Individuals that are better suited for the environment will live longer and produce more offspring, thus passing down the traits to future generations. Beneficial traits are retained, useless or harmful traits disappear. Over time, a new species will emerge.

Darwin Was Wrong

Darwin himself realized that there was a gaping hole in his theory: offspring obviously had a mix of their parents’ traits, but how were traits passed from parents to offspring?

Little cell seeds – that was Darwin’s answer. According to Darwin, each cell in the body sheds little cell seeds (Darwin called them “gemmules”). Little cell seeds from both parents blend together to form the offspring. Some gemmules are stronger, so they dominate over the others.

Big problem: if traits are blended in offspring, it would not be very long before beneficial traits are diluted out of future generations.

Darwin’s explanation of how traits are passed from parent to offspring was, in a word, wrong.
Lacking an answer to the problem of heredity, enthusiasm for Darwin’s theory waned.

Super Monk to the Rescue!

While Darwin was busy in the 1850s developing his theory and writing his book, an Augustinian monk was painstakingly carrying out detailed botanical experiments in Brno Abbey (now part of the Czech Republic). The Abbey had a long history of scientific inquiry – specifically in the areas of agriculture and plant science. Gregor Mendel studied the inheritance of traits in pea plants – wrinkled or round seeds, yellow or green pods, and other easily identifiable traits.

(Raise your hand if you remember working out Punnett squares in school – you may thank Brother Mendel for that.)

After eight years, thousands of crosses, and meticulous statistical study, Mendel determined that traits are not blended in offspring but are inherited whole.
Mendel published his work in 1866, but no one paid attention.
Almost twenty years after his death, Mendel’s work was rediscovered, breathing new life into Darwin’s theory. Before long we discovered that DNA is the chemical that holds the information for traits in all living things… then off we went, full-steam ahead into the 20th and 21st centuries and the age of genetics.

We now understand that traits, inherited from parents, are combined in unique ways at conception. Unless you are an identical twin, you differ genetically from your siblings. In addition, mutations (copying mistakes in DNA) occur frequently, and these can change a trait. When humans or any living organisms are born with traits that better suit them to their environment, their chances for surviving and having lots of offspring increase.

Embarrassing Progress

Darwin’s “gemmules” idea was utterly wrong, but his theory of evolution by natural selection has stood the tests of time and countless scientific inquiries. Matt Simon, writing in Wired magazine said this:

Being wildly wrong is perfectly healthy in science, because when someone comes along to prove that you’re wrong, that’s progress. Somewhat embarrassing progress for the person being corrected, sure, but progress nonetheless.

What Makes Something “Science”?

Science theories explain. A science theory isn’t speculation or even an “educated” guess. A science theory is an explanation that fits the evidence. For an idea to gain the status of “theory” in science, it must be confirmed consistently by observation and experimentation. As new evidence is discovered, a theory may be adjusted or tweaked, but the underlying principles remain unchanged.

Gravity is a theory. The earth orbiting the sun is a theory. There’s also germ theory and molecular theory. And, of course, evolution theory. As precise as these are, they are still incomplete. We are still tweaking as evidence unfolds.

Darwin theorized that all living things evolved from simpler forms because of natural selection. What Darwin did not know was all the ways natural selection occurs. We are learning more and more about the “how” of natural selection and how species separate from each other, but the theory – the fact – of evolution remains true.

Science theories have predictive power. A good theory allows scientists to make predictions that will turn out to be roughly correct. When Darwin died, the fossil record was not nearly what it is today. And there certainly was no genetic evidence, much less mapping of genomes.

Yet – fossils of both plants and animals were found just where we expect they’d be found – just where Darwin’s theory predicts they will be found. For example, fish are found in older rock than are amphibians, and Tiktaalik (the famous fish to amphibian transitional fossil) was found in between.

The explosion of genetic data over the last two decades doesn’t just show apparent relationships between living things, it shows actual relationships. DNA evidence is the smoking gun – concrete evidence of the interrelatedness of all living organisms.

Is Creationism Science?

In courtrooms across the United States, as well as in state boards of education and textbook hearings, advocates have fought for creationism (and its science-y sibling, intelligent design) as an “alternative” theory to evolution in science classrooms.

Both young earth creationism and intelligent design claim that all life was designed and created specially, uniquely, and separately. If this is true, then all predictive power is lost. If every organism is self-contained, there are no patterns to discover. There are no relationships to discover. Any direction we look for new information is just a shot in the dark.

Kenneth Miller is a biologist, author of a best-selling biology textbook, and a Christian. As an expert witness in the landmark Dover court case, Miller argued that creationism and intelligent design have no place in the science classroom. If non-natural causes are considered legitimate science explanations, Miller reasons, then all science ground rules change.

Why bother to conduct an exhaustive molecular search through primate virus genomes to find the source of HIV if it was sent from God as a divine warning? Why study the physics of light if the rainbow is a phenomenon given to us by a “whimsical” designer (according to William Dembski, a leader in the Intelligent Design movement)?

sciencefun.wordpress.com

Science is predictable and explainable because it deals with natural causes.
Young Earth Creationism and Intelligent Design can’t predict. They can’t explain. They aren’t science.

What Does the Theory of Evolution Say About God?

Nothing.

The theory of evolution says nothing about God. The theory of evolution says nothing about how life began, or how matter came into being. The theory of evolution explains how life developed once it got going.

Darwin could not have imagined the vast and diverse evidence we have now that supports his theory.

Francis Collins said it succinctly:

Trying to do biology without evolution would be like trying to do physics without mathematics.

***************
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
*************

Indiana Jones and A Tale of Two Books (Reading Genesis, part 2)

September 18, 2014 By JanetKRay.com in Charles Darwin, Creationism, Enuma Elish, Francis Collins, Human Evolution, reading Genesis Leave a comment

George Lucas and Indiana Jones couldn’t have made a better story. In a library that had not checked out a book in several millennia, archeologists discovered stacks of clay tablets in an ancient language.

In the early 1850s, archeologists excavated the library of a Babylonian king (Ashurbanipal) in the ancient city of Nineveh. The trove of clay tablets was treasure. There were records of laws and administration. There was literature. And in the religious texts, there was a story of creation.

In the story, order is created out of chaos.

In the story, light exists before the creation of the sun, moon, and stars.

In the story, the sequence of creation is division of waters, dry land, creation of lights, creation of humanity – all followed by a time of rest.

This Babylonian creation story is called Enuma Elish (from the opening phrase “When on high”). Enuma Elish is dated at 2000 BC, but it appears to have originated in even older Sumerian stories (3000 BC).

It was a bombshell at the time. Enuma Elish was far older than the Genesis creation story. Until the discovery of Enuma Elish, the Genesis creation account was unique. Not only was Genesis not unique, it wasn’t even original.

And to top it off, just a few years later (1858), Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species.

Stop the ride, we’re getting dizzy.

Genesis After Darwin

Just as mid-nineteenth scholars/theologians were grappling with Enuma Elish, here comes Darwin. Popular lore presumes that all scientists immediately discounted everything about Genesis, while fundamentalist Christians (who were not bright enough to understand the science) held to it.

Reality was a bit more complex. There were churchmen and scientists who rejected Darwin’s claims for a variety of reasons which were not always religious. At the same time, a group of 717 “gentlemen” – many of whom were leading scientists of the day – signed a document affirming “science as a gift from God” and that “the author of both (science and scripture) would not allow them to ultimately contradict” (David Wilkinson, in Reading Genesis After Darwin).

As far back as the time of Isaac Newton, British scientists questioned a 6,000 years-old earth. Even in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, geologists had demonstrated that the earth was far older than the 4004 BC start date popularized by Bishop Ussher. Scientists and theologians in the nineteenth century debated the specifics of geologic history, but Christian writers who believed in a young earth were the exception, not the rule.

Even Darwin did not set off an immediate religious firestorm – Darwin was not the first to suggest the idea of evolution. Darwin was ground-breaking because he described the mechanism of evolutionary change (natural selection).

Most nineteenth century Christian leaders and scholars were not all that upset about the evolution of plants and animals. They weren’t all that upset about a very ancient earth. They were not even upset about a non-literal reading of Genesis. The upsetting part was the idea that human beings were in the story, too. To many Christians, the idea of humans sharing a common history with all life diminished the dignity of humans. How could man be a moral being if he shared history with the common animals?

http://reneedezvous.wordpress.com

Even so, B.B. Warfield, founder of the Princeton School of Theology (which birthed the American fundamentalist movement), said this:

I do not think that there is any general statement in the Bible or any part of the account of creation, either given in Genesis 1 and 2 or elsewhere alluded to, that need to be opposed to evolution.

Other scientists, including the noted botanist Asa Gray, saw God in the elegant process of evolution.

In the Christian world contemporary with Darwin, evolution was not collectively panned. There was a sense that because God was revealed ultimately in Jesus, the Christian faith was not dependent on the design argument (D. Wilkinson, Reading Genesis After Darwin)

A Tale of Two Books

The publication of Darwin’s Origen of Species on the heels of the discovery of Eluma Elish forced a conversation on Biblical interpretation like never before.

Fast-forward to the twenty-first century, and again the concurrent publication of two books is driving a conversation among Christians.

Richard Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist and go-to guy for contemporary atheism, published his best-seller The God Delusion in 2006. Dawkins makes no bones about it – “scientific creationism”, “intelligent design”, and of course, a literal Genesis, are complete nonsense and unworthy of attention, except for ridicule.

That same year, another best-seller – The Language of God – was published by an American who will go down as one of the premier scientists of our generation – Francis Collins. Dr. Collins led the Human Genome Project, now heads the National Institutes of Health, and is a frequent public voice for all that is cutting-edge in science. Dr. Collins is also a committed and vocal Christian.

Like Dawkins, Francis Collins has no interest in making Genesis a science textbook.

Unlike Dawkins, Francis Collins believes that the Bible enriches our understanding of science and science helps us better interpret and understand scripture (Reading Genesis After Darwin).

Dawkins argues that modern science is completely incompatible with belief in God. Ironically, many Christians agree with him.

Collins (and many scientists like him) are authentic examples of why that isn’t so.

The Options

In a twenty-first century conversation, Christians have three options for reading Genesis:

Option One – Reading Genesis Literally and Historically. Option one reads the opening chapters of Genesis and interprets exactly as written. The entire cosmos was created in six 24-hour days. All life was created separately and specially. The earth is about 6,000 years old, based on genealogies in Genesis. No additional considerations are needed because the text is taken at face-value. There is a sense of security in believing “what God says and not what man says”.

But for those who read Genesis literally and historically, there are things that cannot be ignored. A literal belief means a stand against the vast, vast majority of modern science and scientists. It means a stand against the science that is trusted for medical care, disease research, agriculture, aviation, engineering, and energy. The science concepts that explain the origin of the cosmos and development of life on earth are the same concepts that support our modern lives. If young-earth creationism is true, modern science collapses. Literalists have to own the contradiction.

Option Two – Forcing Modern Science into Genesis. Option two wants to find modern science in the Genesis creation story. In order to account for an old earth, some have suggested that there is a huge gap of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. Others have proposed a “day-age” solution where the days of creation are actually millions of years. “Intelligent Design” is a well-organized, well-funded movement that recognizes a very old earth, but holds to special creation of living things in the sequence found in Genesis.

This option attempts to take science seriously, but still treats the Genesis creation story as a scientific account. This option has both theological problems and scientific problems. For example:

most agree that the meaning of “day” in Genesis is a real, 24-hour day
the order of appearance in Genesis of different kinds of living things conflicts with genetics and the fossil record

Option Three – Making Peace with Genesis and Modern Science. In Reconciling the Bible and Science: A Primer on the Two Books of God, Lynn Mitchell and Kirk Blackard explain that nature and the Bible are God’s two books – his two revelations. Both books reveal truth about God. Here’s Mitchell and Blackard:

No conflict exists between biological evolution and the belief that God is the source of all there is, with a creative plan that includes natural consequences and divine governance over a continuing and ever changing process…the theory of biological evolution, based on empirical evidence, makes no claim as to why life originated or who was or is the moving force.

Next up in this series on reading Genesis:

How do the ancient Babylonian creation stories differ from the creation story in Genesis? Why is it important?

How was Genesis intended to be read and understood? How would the original hearers have heard the creation story?

***************

I believe that the heavens declare the glory of God.

I believe that day after day the cosmos pours forth speech and

night after night the cosmos reveals knowledge.

I trust that the evidence and knowledge that is revealed is true because

the Creator of the cosmos is Truth.

***************

Evolution and Human Beings

November 15, 2013 By JanetKRay.com in Creationism, evolution, faith, Francis Collins, Human Evolution, Intelligent Design, Karl Giberson, science 3 Comments

We pronounce, judge, and declare, that you, the said Galileo… have rendered yourself vehemently suspected by this Holy Office of heresy, that is, of having believed and held the doctrine (which is false and contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures) that the sun is the center of the world, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the earth does move, and is not the center of the world.

Galileo Galilei, the great astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and telescope whiz was convicted by the Church Inquisition in 1633, threatened with torture, given penance, and sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life.

The Galileo story is a useful analogy in contemporary science-versus-faith discussions: in the face of unequivocal scientific evidence, Christians eventually changed long-held interpretations of scripture.

Actually, seventeenth century Christians were not really all that upset about the science that put the sun (instead of the earth) in the center of the solar system.

Of course there were the literalists who were genuinely upset about the Bible verses that said the earth was fixed and unmovable, but that wasn’t the biggest deal.

Galileo didn’t hurt the Church’s science feelings as much as he hurt their theological feelings.

If the earth is not the center of everything, then man is no longer the central focus of creation.
If the earth is just one of innumerable planets in the universe, the earth is not special to God, and therefore man holds no special place in creation.
Adam has no meaning! Noah has no meaning! All of the Christian story is lost!

(Karl Giberson discusses the theological implications of Galileo’s evidence on 17^th century belief here).

The Great Sticking Point – the Evolution of Humans

Many Christians, faced with the scientific evidence and unwilling to believe in a vast conspiracy of deceitful scientists, are often willing to accept a very ancient earth and even the evolution of plants and animals.

But humans. That’s a problem.

The arguments against humans as part of the great evolutionary story of life on earth sound very much like the theological arguments of the seventeenth century:

If humans are just another branch in the evolutionary tree, we aren’t special to God.
What about Adam?
If we don’t have a real Adam, there can be no “fall of man”… and without the fall, there’s no need for Jesus.
All is lost!

How Can We Reconcile Human Significance and Evolution?

Because evolution is driven to a large degree by random mutations, are human beings just a blind, meaningless accident? In the biological history of the earth, there have been creatures that were vaguely similar to us, some were very similar to us, and some were not even remotely like us (p. 198).

Consider these three ways of looking at human significance in the context of evolution…

A God outside of time: to a Being unbounded by time and existing outside of time, is anything truly random? We have no idea how God and his purposes relate to time. An event that seems absolutely random (such as carbon production inside a distant star billions of years ago) becomes essential to building life on earth.

A God acting in time: if God sustains life through natural laws and processes, could not God create life using natural laws and processes? Genetic mutations are by their very nature unpredictable because they are initiated at the quantum level of the atom. At the quantum level, things are unpredictable, actually unknowable. It is conceivable that God could work undetected within natural laws, within the natural unpredictability of the quantum level and influence the evolution of life.

A God who allows freedom: all of creation, both animate and inanimate, has free will. A third way of understanding is that God has integrated freedom into the evolutionary process. God may have chosen not to specifically direct the winding pathways of evolution (Language of Science and Faith, p. 200), but to let the process unfold.

Please note that scientific evidence supports this very important fact: evolution did not require any outside tinkering or intervention.

Francis Collins sums it up beautifully:

If God chose to create you and me as natural and spiritual beings, and decided to use the mechanism of evolution to accomplish that goal, I think that’s incredibly elegant. And because God is outside of space and time, He knew what the outcome was going to be right at the beginning.

Were Humans an Accident?

The late paleontologist Stephen J. Gould believed that human evolution was completely a happenstance occurrence. For instance, Gould argued that consciousness would have never evolved if a meteor had not wiped out the dinosaurs, allowing for the rise of mammals.

Interestingly, Simon Conway Morris, a Cambridge academic and highly respected evolution scientist (and a Christian) highlighted by Gould in his work, opposes Gould’s “happenstance” view.

Conway Morris supports the idea of convergence in evolutionary history. Convergence means that there are a limited number of ways to solve a biological problem. The best example of convergence is the eye.

Humans and octopuses do not share a close common ancestor, yet the eyes of humans and octopuses are nearly identical. On two very separate evolutionary paths, the process of evolution solved a problem (the need for vision) in the same way. Throughout evolutionary history, the eye has developed independently at least seven times (Language of Science and Faith, p. 203).

According to Conway Morris, the playing field of natural history is tilted toward big brains, remarkable eyes, consciousness, language, and complex thought. Conway Morris’ research supports that these traits would inevitably emerge from the evolutionary process:

Contrary to popular belief, evolution does not belittle us. As I argue, something like ourselves is an evolutionary inevitability, and our existence also reaffirms our one-ness with the rest of Creation (p. 204).

So what do we do with Genesis?

Genesis is an ancient story, passed down, and finally written down in its current form during the time of post-exile Israel. The purpose of Genesis is not to give a biological description of how humans came to be. The purpose of Genesis is to say Who did the creating – God – and that humans are part of God’s plan and purpose.

How does the story of Adam and Eve fit into a billions-of-years-old earth and humans originating in Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago? It might surprise you to know that over the years, there have been many interpretations of the Adam and Eve story among Christians – some literal, some theological.

A literalist reading of the creation story says that Adam and Eve were specially created and that all humans are descendants of this first couple. There are many problems with a literalist reading of the creation story. Narrative problems include the two conflicting creation stories in Genesis, Cain’s wife and where she came from, and the origin of the people who were out to kill Cain, and the origin of the people populating the city built by Cain. Scientific evidence makes a literal reading even more problematic: recent DNA studies demonstrate that modern humans came from a population of thousands, not just two. In addition, both DNA and fossil evidence demonstrates the interrelatedness of humans and all other animals.

One non-literal interpretation of Genesis is the “everyman” interpretation. This view holds that the Adam and Eve story is really the story of us all. The “fall” wasn’t just about Adam and Eve, it was about all humans’ eventual rejection of God and succumbing to our flawed and sinful natures. A non-literal interpretation posed by Old Testament scholar Peter Enns suggests that Adam is the beginning of Israel, not humanity. Enns’ book The Evolution of Adam explores this idea in depth.

Some Christians (including C.S. Lewis) integrate science with a historical view – humans evolved as the science evidence indicates, and at some point God entered in to a special relationship with humans and made them his image-bearers. It is of course all speculative, but this view fits with either an Adam-and-Eve-are-real-people scenario or an Adam-and-Eve-are symbolic-of humanity scenario.

Seeking to populate this otherwise sterile universe with living creatures, God chose the elegant mechanism of evolution to create microbes, plants, animals of all sorts. Most remarkably, God intentionally chose the same mechanism to give rise to special creatures who would have intelligence, a knowledge of right and wrong, free will, and a desire to seek fellowship with Him (The Language of God, Francis Collins).

Christianity survived the fall of a geo-centric solar system, and Christianity can survive human evolution.

And now….

This:

This is probably my favorite video clip of all time. How can you beat a musical combo of the preeminent modern New Testament scholar, N. T. Wright, world-renown geneticist Francis Collins, and the Beatles?

Please watch….

It’s a funny, beautiful, and truthful ending to this discussion:

N.T. Wright sings “Genesis”

This series is a chapter by chapter discussion of The Language of Science and Faith by Karl W. Giberson and Francis S. Collins, with my commentary and my observations.

****************
I believe that the heavens declare the glory of God.
I believe that day after day the cosmos pours forth speech and night after night the cosmos reveals knowledge.
I trust that the evidence and knowledge that is revealed is true because the Creator of the cosmos is Truth.

What is the Fine-Tuning of the Universe?

October 30, 2013 By JanetKRay.com in Age of the Earth, belief in God, Creationism, evolution, faith, Francis Collins, Human Evolution, Intelligent Design, Karl Giberson, science 2 Comments

Apparently the universe knew we were coming.

Freeman Dyson, one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century, said this about the physical laws of the universe:

The more I examine the universe, and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the Universe in some sense must have known we were coming (The Language of Science and Faith, p. 195).

The physical laws of the universe appear to be designed precisely to support life. In addition, the beginning of it all – the Big Bang – appears to have transpired precisely in a way that would result in life.

Nobody debates this fact – the universe is finely tuned to support the appearance and the development of life.

What is the “fine tuning” of the universe?

There are a myriad of constants in our universe. These constants are numerical values that always hold true – for example, the speed of light.

There are also forces in nature: the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, and the most familiar of all, gravitational force.

If any one these myriad factors – the constants or the forces – differed even slightly from their actual values, life in the universe would be impossible.

Fine Tuning – Three Examples

The most important building block of life is the element carbon. Carbon, present in all living things and absolutely essential to life, is a highly improbably element.

But before we talk about carbon – the building block of life – we need to first talk about stars.

Most of the heavy elements in the universe were formed in stars through a process called fusion. Fusion happens when two or more atomic nuclei collide at a very high speed to create a new, heavier element. When fusion occurs, energy is released. Fusion is what fuels the stars and makes them shine:

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
I know exactly what you are

Opaque ball of hot dense gas
Million times our planet’s mass
Looking small because you’re far
I know exactly what you are

Fusing atoms in your core
Hydrogen, helium, carbon and more
With such power you shine far
Twinkle twinkle little star

Stars are primarily composed of the lightest element, hydrogen.

In intensely hot stars, two hydrogen atoms fuse to form helium. Two helium atoms fuse to form lithium, two lithium atoms fuse to form beryllium, and so on as we march across the periodic table.

Some fusions are much more improbable – carbon is one example. In order for carbon to form, three helium atoms have to collide and fuse. And if that wasn’t hard enough, energy levels in the colliding atoms must match up in order to form carbon. If three helium atoms happened to collide under normal circumstances, the energy levels would not match up. The helium atoms wouldn’t stick together and the atoms would fly apart before they could actually form an atom of carbon. In the production of carbon, the strong nuclear forces and the electromagnetic forces collaborate in a delicate-just-so dance, working together in a collaborative way that allows an improbable window of opportunity for the helium atoms to stick together and form an atom of carbon.

The slightest change to either the strong or electromagnetic forces alters the relevant energy levels, resulting in greatly reduced production of carbon. And carbon, of course is essential to life, so reducing its production dramatically reduces the probability that the universe will turn out to be habitable (p. 182).

Fred Hoyle, one of the twentieth century’s most renowned scientists, called this phenomenon the carbon resonance.

A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and there are no blind forces worth speaking of in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question. (Language of Science and Faith, p.182).

(Here’s an interesting side note to the Hoyle quote – Hoyle was an agnostic and in no way wanted to invoke God as an explanation.)

Gravity is the force that attracts you to the surface of the earth (and vice-versa). Gravity is the force that keeps the moon in its path and keeps planets in orbit. Gravity is the force that attracts everything in the universe to each other.

Immediately after the big bang, all matter was randomly distributed – no stars or planets – just individual atoms swirling about in the darkness of space.

Enter gravity.

As matter expanded, gravity began to tug on matter, clumping it into bits, then bigger bits, and bigger. Eventually, matter clumped together as stars and galaxies.

If the force of gravity had been just infinitesimally greater, gravity would have pulled everything back together again, crashing in on itself. If the force of gravity had been just infinitesimally smaller, matter would have been scattered throughout the universe so loosely that stars would have never formed. Without stable stars like our sun, there can be no habitable planets capable of supporting life.

Just how exact must the force of gravity be in order to have the universe we have? A paper clip weighs one gram. If gravity was changed so that you weighed one-billionth of a gram less or one-billionth of a gram more than you do now, our universe would have no stars, galaxies, or planets.

None.

No planets, no life.

Goldilocks and the Big Bang. Just after the bang of the big bang, things proceeded in a way that would pave the way for life. For example, if the rate of expansion had been greater, matter would have been so diffuse (spread out) that gravity would not have been strong enough to gather matter together into stars and galaxies. If the rate of expansion had been any slower, gravity would have pulled everything back into a black hole. The expansion rate was “just right” – just like Goldilock’s porridge – not too fast, not too slow.

Can We Explain Fine-Tuning Without God?

Because humans exist, the laws of nature are obviously conducive to life. Otherwise, no one would be around to notice.

Right?

This is typically the rationale given by those in the “no God” camp. But is it a satisfying explanation?

Here’s an analogy given by philosopher John Leslie (Language of Science and Faith, p. 187): Suppose you are to be executed by firing squad. There you stand, blindfolded, and all of the guns fire. Every shooter misses, and you survive.

What do you think about your situation?

Do you think: Well of course all of the shots missed. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here to notice that I am still alive.

Or do you suspect that something’s up? Something went on behind the scenes? A plot to save you, maybe? Why might such an unlikely event occur?

Our universe appears to have something that went on “behind the scenes”. Intellectual curiosity should lead us to at least consider explanations as to why so many unlikely events converged at the instant of the big bang.

Inflation is another God-free explanation for the apparent fine-tuning of the universe, but this theory simply pushes the fine tuning back a step, it doesn’t eliminate it.

Finally, there is the multiverse explanation. This explanation says that there are an infinite number of universes with infinite combinations of conditions and this is the one we happen to live in. There is not wide-spread support for this idea. Interestingly, Stephen Hawking has said that the multiverse idea is really the only way around the apparent fine tuning of the universe.

Proof of God?

Obviously we can’t prove God, but the fine-tuning of the universe definitely points to a Designer/Creator. Giberson and Collins (p.190) enthusiastically endorse the idea that the universe is intelligently designed (not to be confused with the “Intelligent Design theory” that opposes evolution). The numerous forces, conditions, and constants that must be “just so” provide a compelling argument that a Creator brought matter into existence, governed by finely-tuned natural laws, resulting in a universe where life could develop and thrive.

Modern scientific understanding of physical laws and constants were not what the psalmist had in mind when he wrote:

Creation is maintained by your rulings, since all things are your servants (119:89-91 JB),

nor was Paul speaking as a physicist when he described the Creator-Christ as the one who holds all creation together (Colossians 1:17).

Science can define, observe, describe and articulate natural laws; this does not diminish God as the author and sustainer of those laws.

This series is a chapter by chapter discussion of The Language of Science and Faith by Karl W. Giberson and Francis S. Collins, with my commentary and my observations.

Why is Darwin’s Theory So Controversial?

October 7, 2013 By JanetKRay.com in Age of the Earth, belief in God, Creationism, evolution, faith, Francis Collins, Human Evolution, Intelligent Design, Karl Giberson, science 2 Comments

Elizabeth Gilbert, bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love recently published a new novel – The Signature of All Things. The book is fictional, but the historical setting is not. The book follows a nineteenth century female botanist, Alma Whittaker. Through her own observation, collection, and study, Alma, like many natural scientists of her day, came to understand that life on earth had changed drastically – evolved – over time.

Here’s the catch – the fictional Alma (and her non-fictional counterparts upon whom she was modeled) – lived and worked before Darwin.

Evolution Before Darwin

Prior to Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859, the idea of the development and evolution of living things over time was widely discussed – and accepted – by scientists and natural philosophers. What Darwin did was to articulate the process (natural section) by which these changes occurred.

The vast amounts of time needed for evolution was not initially a sticking point for Christians. The idea of a very old earth was widely accepted before Darwin, even among conservative Christians. Advances in geologic science and a rapidly growing roster of fossils pointed to an ancient earth – and nobody was really upset about it. For most Christians, an old earth did not contradict the Genesis creation story.

An old earth was usually reconciled with a literal reading of Genesis in one of two ways: the day-age theory or the gap theory. Day-age theory said that the “days” of Genesis were not 24-hour days, but instead were epochs of geological time. Gap theory said that there was a great gap of time between God’s creation of the heavens and the earth and the creation week found in Genesis. In light of scientific data, many nineteenth-century Christians adjusted their reading of Genesis without widespread upset.

Reaction to Darwin – Then and Now

Initially, Christian opposition to evolution was focused in two areas.

The non-directed (random) nature of the evolutionary process was seen as purposeless and without meaning. Actually, the thought of animals and plants evolving was far less offensive to most Christians than the thought of a “meaningless” process.

The second point of opposition lay in the biblical scholarship battles of the day. Because religious modernists (the “liberals”) tended to be captivated by new science discoveries, they also tended to accept evolution. The very fact that liberals tended to accept evolution was reason enough for many Christians to deny it. Even so, by the end of the nineteenth century the evolution of species (except humans) was accepted by many Christians, including several conservative theologians.

Practically no one was arguing for a very young earth except the Seventh-Day Adventists, whose founder claimed a vision revealed to her that Noah’s flood was responsible for fossils.

Darwin, Evolution, and Twentieth Century Christians

George MacCready Price, a self-taught geologist and a Seventh-Day Adventist, expanded the flood explanation in a series of books in the early part of the twentieth century. In 1961, the flood/fossil idea was updated and was published in what would become the centerpiece book of the young-earth-creation-science movement: The Genesis Flood. Because of Sputnik (1959) and the subsequent push for improved science education in American schools, evolution as a topic began to appear in earnest in science text books.

In response, The Genesis Flood school of thought caught fire and took off.

It soon became a matter of Christian orthodoxy to deny evolution and an old earth.

Groups like Answers in Genesis and The Institute for Creation Research have advocated “teaching the alternative” or “teaching the controversy” (young earth/special creation/fossils from the flood VS evolution) in schools.

What Are the Challenges to Evolution?

Some questions about evolution were problems at one point, but have now been fully resolved. Not long after Darwin, physicists argued that the earth was only about 100 million years old, not nearly enough time for evolution to have produced the current variation in living things. It was assumed at that time that the earth began in a molten state and had been cooling ever since. Analysis of the rate of cooling from the heat remaining in the ground (volcanoes, geysers) revealed that the earth could not possibly be billions of years old (Language of Science and Faith, p. 162). Not long afterwards, radiation was discovered. Radiation has been releasing heat into the earth since the earth began, countering the cooling process. Radioactive elements are also a very reliable natural clock – because we know the amount of time needed for one element to decay into another, we can determine the age of rocks.

Long-resolved challenges to evolution like this are now only problems for those who are not current with scientific literature or who do not respect the literature.

Some questions about evolution are not really problems at all, but are premised on misunderstandings of science. A common argument against evolution is that evolutionary theory breaks the second law of thermodynamics. The second law states that everything becomes disordered over time. We see examples in everyday life – cars don’t get newer, they rust and corrode. Fruit doesn’t get fresher, it decays. Evolution seems to say just the opposite – simple, primitive cells evolved into the brilliant complexities of modern organisms.

Here’s the important part – the part that is misunderstood: the second law says that disorder increases in an isolated system. Almost every system in nature has input from the outside. Input from outside a system can produce order.

Here’s a familiar example: green plants and the process of photosynthesis. With energy input from the sun, green plants turn carbon dioxide and water into sugars. As long as the green plant has energy input from the sun, sugars will be constructed – order is increased.

Go to any elementary school science fair and I promise that right next to the kid who investigated “playing rock music vs. classical music to potted plants” you’ll find a junior scientist “investigating” what happens when you grow plants under a box in the dark. Take away the outside input, and the plant starts to decay – it becomes “disordered”.

Interesting to note that as the sun produces the energy that is used by plants to become more ordered, the sun itself is becoming more disordered.

As evolution unfolds on earth the sun becomes increasingly disordered and the total order of the solar system and the universe is still decreasing (Language of Science and Faith, p. 167).

Biological systems (living things) are not isolated systems, so the second law does not apply to them.

Some questions about evolution are unanswered…so far. Probably the most concerning unanswered question is about the origin of life itself. Evolution theory explains the development of life on earth. Evolution theory says nothing about the origin of life – that is a separate question. Scientists have a pretty good idea about when life appeared on earth (about four billion years ago) but no agreement on the how.

But – just because we don’t have a science explanation for how life emerged today does not mean that we won’t have one tomorrow. It is tempting to put God in our gap of knowledge: since we don’t know how life began on earth, it must have been a special miraculous intervention by God. Then what happens if tomorrow’s headlines announce that scientists have discovered how life began? Is all lost for believers in God?

Hardly.

If (or when) the origins of life are found, we will not have disproved God; we will have discovered the mechanism by which God brought life about on earth.

…God’s original and elegant plan for the universe may well have included the potential for life to arise without necessarily requiring later “supernatural” engineering to jumpstart the process. In this view, God’s sustaining creative presence undergirds all of life’s history from the beginning to the present (Language of Science and Faith, p.175).

Side note: Last week, Dr. Giberson, one of the co-authors of The Language of Science and Faith, debated a young earth creationist in an event sponsored by the Center for Creation Studies.

It’s lengthy, but very interesting. Here’s the link:

Dr. Giberson is a very patient man!

This series is a chapter by chapter discussion of The Language of Science and Faith by Karl W. Giberson and Francis S. Collins, with my commentary and my observations.

Science and the Existence of God

September 23, 2013 By JanetKRay.com in belief in God, Creationism, evolution, faith, Francis Collins, Human Evolution, Intelligent Design, Karl Giberson, science 1 Comment

Do you believe in God?

Have you ever been put in the spotlight and asked just that question?

You are on the spot now – What say you?

With biting humor, Bill Maher looked at modern belief in God in his 2008 documentary, Religulous. It is cleverly made, but quite often uncomfortable to watch. Why would any educated, intelligent person in the twenty-first century believe in God any more than they would believe in Santa Claus, Zeus, or a Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Can a Reasonable, Rational, Science-believing Person Believe in God?

Common Arguments for the Existence of God

First cause argument: why is there something rather than nothing? Everything in existence was “caused” by something or someone. God is the “first cause” of everything and he started the chain of all other causes. This argument actually predates Christianity – it was proposed by Aristotle in the fourth century B.C.
Design argument: the universe displays intricate and complex design. Just as a complex machine or a fantastic example of architecture points to the existence of its designer, the universe also points to a designer (God).
If you can imagine it, then it is so: if it is possible for God to exist, then he exists. (I know- doesn’t make a lot of sense. This isn’t a very popular argument).
Love is real: and so is morality, beauty, and loyalty. The non-physical aspects of life cannot be completely explained in a purely materialistic way. There is a reality (God) that is not material or physical.
Logic argument: some things are always true and this truth does not depend on human minds. This argument says that things like logic, science, and ethics do not make sense in the absence of God.

The sometimes uncomfortable truth is this: we cannot absolutely prove God’s existence. None of these arguments settles the case once and for all. Some of the arguments are flawed.

All the same, reasons for belief in God can be meaningfully discussed and taken as evidence that he exists.

The Problem of Evil

How can a good, loving, and all-powerful God allow evil and suffering in the world?

Of all the challenges to faith, few are greater and have caused more believers to abandon their faith than the problem of evil (The Language of Science and Faith, p. 127).

Actually, the problem of evil is a conundrum for both believers and nonbelievers.

For nonbelievers, the problem is truth. If truth is not absolute, then there is no absolute morality. “Right and wrong” are simply artifacts of culture and human social development. In the absence of an absolute morality, no one can complain about the unfairness of any kind of suffering or injustice….it just is what it is.

For believers, the problem is inconsistency. Believers must reconcile the apparent conflict between a loving, all powerful God in charge of a world filled with Holocausts, human trafficking, terrorists, disease, and natural disasters.

The Problem of Human Evil

Humans are free-willed beings. From a Christian perspective, free will is a gift from God that gives meaning to life. We were not created as programmed robots that act in a predetermined way. We can choose to accept the love of God – or not. Free will also means that humans are a primary source of evil in the world. Humans are free to choose murder, theft, torture, trafficking, and lies.

Only an actual choice – real freedom – can give us a genuine relationship with God. But with real freedom, evil is always an option.

The Problem of Evil in Nature

Yersinia pestis

Disasters in the natural world cause untold suffering. Polio cripples and malaria kills. People die in tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods.

And on a daily basis, vipers have poison, bees sting, mosquitoes bite, and cats torture their prey before they kill it. Predator and prey in the animal kingdom, where death and suffering are ironically the way of life.

Some Christians do back-bends with their theology in order to reconcile the violence of nature with a good Creator God and the perfection of Eden. A popular explanation is that no animals were carnivores prior to the sins of Adam and Eve in the garden.

We have to suppose that every animal on the planet had its way of life dramatically transformed by the curse. Sharp teeth and poison glands – and the genetic code to produce them – had to pop into existence, since animals were now going to start killing each other for the first time (Language of Science and Faith, p. 131).

Quite simply, there is just no evidence in the fossil record of carnivore-style teeth suddenly appearing – and teeth fossilize very well. Additionally, natural laws such as gravity, force, and tectonic plate movement must be suspended in order to support the supposition of a perfect, nonviolent world: no animal deaths from falls, no squishing an insect with a carelessly placed hoof, no earthquakes or volcanoes.

Overwhelmingly, it is clear that death, suffering, and natural disasters were commonplace billions of years before humans appeared.

The Problem of Evil and Intelligent Design

Intelligent Design (ID) is an explanation of origins that is touted as an alternative to evolution. The Intelligent Design argument says that the exquisite and complex features of creation point to a Designer (understood to be God) who individually designed each component of the natural world. Intelligent Design highlights helpful components of nature such as the human eye, the human blood clotting mechanism, and interesting things like the “cute” little motorboat-like flagellum of bacteria (p. 132).

Intelligent Design proponents, however, do not talk about the more sinister “designs” in nature: the incredibly well-designed and successful AIDS virus or the really efficient bacteria that killed millions with plague. And then there is the especially charming species of wasp that lays its eggs in a caterpillar. When they hatch, the baby wasps nourish themselves by eating the internal organs of their hosts in the order that ensures their hosts live as long as possible (Language of Science and Faith, p.130).

Some have suggested that Satan is responsible for the creation of the distasteful things in nature, but this is elevating Satan to the level of creator (p. 133).

I can’t go there.

How Might Evolution Help Faith?

By faith we believe that all creative power comes from God, but this power can be wielded by nature to form, build, shape, and create. Tides, rivers, wind, even gravity are constantly forming and reforming the earth.

In the most minute sphere of the physical world – the subatomic level – things really get interesting. Identical electrons will “choose” to behave in different ways. This behavior is random and is not predictable.

…many processes in nature exhibit a genuine unpredictability that looks, for all the world, like freedom (p. 134).

Analogous to the freedom given by God to humans is the freedom given by God to all creation. God does not micromanage human behavior, and the result is that we humans abuse our freedom and bad things happen. Bad choices are the result of autonomy. Likewise, God does not micromanage nature. In its autonomy, nature will produce some bad designs (from a human perspective).

Humans and nature have been granted freedom by their Creator – neither are programmed robotic creations.

So why doesn’t God intervene? No one can explain why God doesn’t stop great evils like the Holocaust. No one can resolve the problem of when and why God chooses to intervene in human history or in nature.

It does help, however, to realize that genuine freedom – the very real freedom that allows us to love God – has to allow evil.

If God constantly intervened and blocked the consequences of the moral choices of humans every time they lead to evil, moral responsibility would disappear (p.140). We would be free to lash out, harm, and even murder those who anger us, confident that God would swoop in and undo the results of our wrath.

If God constantly intervened and blocked the consequences of natural laws, our world would be unpredictable and science wouldn’t work.

Moral Laws and God

Just as some use evil to argue against the existence of God, the unfairness of evil can be interpreted as support for God’s existence. Whenever we complain about the unfairness of a situation like cheating, bigotry, or third world debt, we are appealing to some sort of higher standard – the way things “should be”. If we are nothing more than an assemblage of chemicals, why should it matter? One molecule owes nothing to other molecules. Our moral sense of right and wrong transcends our material selves.

It has been suggested that our moral selves evolved as our big brains evolved. It is true that caring and helpfulness and other positive traits are beneficial and could have evolved to aid human survival. It is entirely possible that God could have used natural processes to produce moral standards in humans, but there is currently no compelling theory for this (Language of Science and Faith, p. 143).

The prevalence and universality of moral standards is completely consistent with the existence of God.

If we accept the reality of such moral laws, then we must ask about their origins. God is a reasonable conclusion to such exploration (Language of Science and Faith, p. 144).

Evolution Helps Faith – Really

The subject of evolution makes a lot of Christians really nervous. Many smart, thoughtful believers consciously avoid even investigating evolution for fear that science is corrosive to faith.

In addressing the age-old question of “how can a good God exist when there is so much evil in the world”, science is a positive. Evil, both human and natural, are the results of the freedom in creation. God is not the cause of evil.

Our universe appears to have a beginning. It appears to be fine-tuned for life. Our universe appears to have a place for love and purpose. To deny the existence of God is to say that the universe is not really as it appears – it’s all an illusion.

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” Psalm 14:1

This series is a chapter by chapter discussion of The Language of Science and Faith by Karl W. Giberson and Francis S. Collins, with my commentary and my observations.

Can Scientific and Scriptural Truth be Reconciled?

September 12, 2013 By JanetKRay.com in Creationism, Darrel Falk, evolution, faith, Francis Collins, Human Evolution, Intelligent Design, Karl Giberson, science 1 Comment

Fury broke out in East Kilbride, Scotland last week when it was discovered that a local evangelical church (a Church of Christ congregation) had given elementary school children religious books as part of a chaplaincy program. Pilfering a Facebook photo of one of the church’s young ministers painted up as the pirate Jack Sparrow, a local tabloid newspaper published (screamed really) the story of an outraged community calling the church an extremist U.S. cult bent on brainwashing local children.

The offending books? Exposing the Myth of Evolution and How Do You Know God is Real?

The story about the church was quite exploitative (as UK tabloids tend to be) and painted the group as a scary American cult that dresses up like Johnny Depp and leads little kids astray with nefarious intentions. Church members in Scotland and in the U.S. have responded with righteous indignation and understandable defensiveness.

Peel back the extremism, however, and there are several important observations about this whole brouhaha. Together, the two books given out by the church have a not-so-subtle message: “God is real” and “evolution is not”.

In other words, if you believe in God, you don’t believe in evolution. If you believe in evolution, you don’t believe in God.

In his defense of the books, the minister of the East Kilbride church said, “We believe the teachings of the Bible, which tell us evolution is a myth.” Again, a definitive statement about truth: either the Bible is right and scientists are wrong, or scientists are right and the Bible is wrong.

Is There Such Thing as Truth?

Postmodernist thought says that truth is an illusion – there are no permanent or ubiquitous truths. A postmodernist might say that what we think are eternal truths are really just assumptions people make about their own local situations and time.

Virtually all scientists reject the claim that there is no such thing as truth (The Language of Science and Faith, p. 105). Scientists believe certain fundamental truths about the physical universe are always true, even for distant galaxies (E=mc², for example). This has a very important ramification: if humans can definitively discern truth in the physical world, then truth exists; and if truth exists, it is reasonable to pursue truth in other areas such as theology and ethics.

Does Science Conflict with Scripture?

For a believer, any answer to this question that tosses out the Bible is not acceptable. What to do, then, when given the either/or truth dichotomy of science or the Bible? It is important to remember that the Bible is not a scientific text and was never meant to be one. Every one of the Bible writers lived long before science existed. The writers of the Bible were authentic members of their own time and were not modern scientific thinkers. When the Bible is read using the context of the writers’ understanding of the natural world we don’t learn about modern science, but we do learn about God. The kinds of answers we find in the Bible are usually non-scientific because the Bible is not trying to teach science. The Bible gives us the answers to the Who and why of creation; science answers the how and when.

How Can We Trust Science? Isn’t Science Always Changing?

Defenders of young earth creationism and others who deny evolution and/or an old earth often cite the changing nature of science as their rationale for rejection. After all, if scientists can’t get their story straight, why should we trust the story? That’s why it’s called the theory of evolution, right? It’s “just a theory” and not fact.

Actually, once significant and central scientific ideas are established, these ideas are often tweaked and refined, but they are not changed. When Copernicus originally demonstrated that the sun was the center of the solar system, he thought the orbits of the planets were perfect circles. Years later the shape of orbits was determined to elliptical – a tweak in the idea, but hardly a death-blow. In the same way, geologists who age the earth have refined their dates, but the evidence continually points toward a very ancient date – around 4.5 billion years.

…science, while always advancing, is actually not so much changing as it is improving (Language of Science and Faith, p.113).

Science ideas that are firmly established and are refined but not changed are called theories. This does not mean they are guesses likely to be discarded. Gravity is a theory, as is germ theory and atomic theory. And yes, evolution is a theory.

God and Evolution

It is common to say that God sends the rain, the seasons, day and night – and we thank God for those gifts. A Christian can believe in the water cycle, the orbit of the earth around the sun, and the rotation of the earth on its axis without compromising his/her faith. God does not step outside of natural laws to give us rain, seasons, day, or night. Parents thank God for the “gift” of a child with the complete understanding that this gift is a nine-month embryonic development process.

Nature is not sustained by miracles (actions outside natural laws), but by observable and predictable natural processes.

Theistic evolution (called BioLogos by Francis Collins) is the belief that with the exception of the establishment of natural laws, God’s creative work went forward through the laws of nature.

…once life arose, the process of evolution and natural selection permitted the development of biological diversity and complexity, and humans are a part of that process. Moreover, once evolution got underway, no special supernatural intervention was required (p.115).

The BioLogos position is consistent with what God has revealed to us in the natural world and what has been discovered by science.

God and the Grand Explanation

About 25% of the Americans who claim no religion say they believe in a “higher power”, but not in a personal God. This is very much like deism – a belief that God created the universe and then abandoned it.

BioLogos is not deism. BioLogos affirms “a God who is at all times involved, yet still allows a degree of freedom to the creation” (Language of Science and Faith, p. 117).

Note: If you’re a Big Bang Theory fan, you can take Sheldon’s seat on the sofa because you’re about to feel very physics-smart.

Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727), called the greatest scientist of his era, disproved a previous notion that angels pushed the planets around in their orbits when he gave the world his laws of motion. Newton’s laws proved to be constant, reliable, and inflexible. On one hand, such laws might point to a rational and consistent Creator. But on the other hand, constant and unchangeable natural laws might support the idea of a world that has no need of any kind of ongoing care or intervention by its Creator.

Enter quantum physics.

At the level of the very very small – inside the atom at the electron level – things aren’t quite so cut-and-dried. Electrons, to a surprising degree, “do their own thing”, not following prescribed paths or predetermined behaviors. While bigger things (like planets) predictably follow laws of motion and gravity, things at the subatomic level (like electrons, quarks, neutrinos, and the recently famous Higgs boson) do not. Physicists call this “quantum uncertainty”.

This uncertainty does not mean that the universe might just suddenly fly off the handle – the moon isn’t going to reverse its course and objects aren’t going to start falling up. The big laws of nature are standardized, predictable, and reliable.

But within the crannies of this orderly world, tiny bits of freedom lurk (Language of Science and Faith, p. 119).

Put simply – the quantum level of physics allows for flexibility. Because the actions of particles at the quantum level are random, it is possible that God could influence his creation in subtle ways, undetected by scientific observation. It is therefore completely consistent with science for our Creator to intervene and influence his creation without breaking any natural laws.

Nature is reliable enough to reflect God’s faithfulness, yet flexible enough to permit God’s involvement, just as it is open to our involvement and the involvement of all creatures (Language of Science and Faith, p. 120)

In his book Coming to Peace With Science: Bridging the Worlds Between Faith and Biology, Darrel Falk describes his early struggles as a young man who wanted to be a scientist, yet was conflicted because of his Christian faith. Initially, Dr. Falk purposely avoided biology so he would not have to face the conflict of his fundamentalist faith upbringing with evolutionary science. In Coming to Peace, Falk maintains that God’s command to bring all creation into existence doesn’t mean God created everything separately and uniquely. Here’s Falk:

God’s Spirit guides the progression of life. His presence is never far from creation, just as it is never far from the events of my life. Nonetheless God respects my freedom and (I suspect) values freedom in the rest of creation as well (pp. 102 – 103).

This series is a chapter by chapter discussion of The Language of Science and Faith by Karl W. Giberson and Francis S. Collins, with my commentary and observations.

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I believe that the heavens declare the glory of God.
I believe that day after day the cosmos pours forth speech and night after night the cosmos reveals knowledge.
I trust that the evidence and knowledge that is revealed is true because the Creator of the cosmos is Truth.

How Do We Relate Science and Religion?

July 29, 2013 By JanetKRay.com in Age of the Earth, Creationism, evolution, faith, Francis Collins, Human Evolution, Intelligent Design, Karl Giberson, science 4 Comments

Much of the conflict between science and faith is a trumped-up contention, fed by a media (and to be fair, consumers of media) that is in love with conflict. The players have defined and consistent roles: science is smart, progressive and informed; religion is defensive, backwards and wary.

One response is to “keep the peace” by declaring science and faith to be independent, separate, and non- overlapping. Stephen Jay Gould, a famous evolutionary biologist, best articulated this view and labeled it non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA). Although the term “magisteria” sounds fancy and very royal, it does not imply majesty.

Instead, it is derived from a Latin word that means “teacher”. A magisteria is a domain of teaching authority. Applying the concept of NOMA, science and faith can’t possibly be in conflict because they deal with completely different topics: science has authority in its domain; faith has authority in its domain. Science is only concerned with facts and theory, the “how and when” of the natural world. Faith is only concerned with moral meaning and values, the “who and why” of the story. NOMA therefore is sort of a “live and let live” approach – put the gloves away, no need to fight, science and faith are apples and oranges.

Warfare metaphors have been a part of the science/faith discussion from the nineteenth century till now (Language of Science and Faith, p. 84). The NOMA approach has certainly moderated the dramatics that are common in perceived science and faith conflicts.

NOMA, however, has its limitations. You might think NOMA would be a happy compromise for atheists, but that is not so. Richard Dawkins has called NOMA “rubbish” primarily because he believes that religion has nothing authoritative to say in any situation. To a Dawkins-style atheist, faith is not respectable and is therefore not worthy of recognition as a domain of teaching authority.

Even to a God-believer, NOMA has its limitations. NOMA draws over-simplified lines between factual knowledge and values. Giberson and Collins (Language of Science and Faith, p. 85) illustrate this limitation: If “child abuse is wrong” is said as a statement of fact, then it cannot be a religious statement. According to NOMA, religion doesn’t have authority in fact; religion only has authority in values. However, “rightness” or “wrongness” is not the authority of science. The NOMA model cannot address this type of statement.

Another area in which NOMA is limited is how religion responds to advances in science. At one point in history, the best a Christian could do for the sick was to pray and provide comfort as best he or she could. Medical advances and drugs now offer an opportunity to treat and even cure diseases, and many Christians support and participate in medical missions in order to extend these advantages to the poor.

Things get complicated for Christians, however, in other areas of medical advances. For example, reproduction control that can stem the rate of maternal death, inhibit the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and limit the problems of overpopulation is not universally acceptable to Christians. Scientific advances raise many other moral and ethical questions that must be addressed by people of faith.

I certainly believe that the idea of NOMA has value. It is a great way to frame a conversation, either with a God-believer or with a non-believer. “Science tells us the how and when of the universe; faith tells us the Who and why” is my go-to jumping off point in this kind of conversation. Understand, though, that a model of absolutely separate faith and science breaks down (1) if someone believes that religion has no value or (2) in some areas of ethical and moral decision-making.

Can Science Inform Religion in Helpful Ways?

Before the Scopes trial, Galileo’s trial before the Church Inquisition was the most famous science vs. religion courtroom showdown. Unlike the players in the Scopes trial, Galileo did not see this as a forum for science to “win” and the Church to “lose”. Galileo was not interested in defeating religion – he remained a faithful Catholic till the end of his life. Galileo represented a group of Catholic astronomers who wanted to reform their church.

Galileo did not suggest that his discoveries contradicted the Bible, but that science had offered a refinement to a proper understanding (Language of Science and Faith, p. 89).

Learning that the sun – without a doubt – was the center of the solar system and that the earth did indeed move resulted in a revised understanding of the scriptures that say that the earth does not move. The earth-not-moving psalms (Psalms 93:1, Psalms 96:10, Psalms 104:5) still speak truth, but we now understand this truth is told in a poetic, symbolic way.

Genesis is the grappling-ground for contemporary believers:

We suggest that Darwin’s theory of evolution, now that it has been confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt by science, offers the same sort of help in understanding the Genesis creation story as Galileo’s work helped his generation to better understand the psalmist’s references to the mobility of the earth (p. 89).

N.T. Wright observed that every generation must “chew through” the Bible afresh. As successive generations gain new knowledge, as cultures change, as societal pressure points change, as language changes – believers must continually work through scripture and revise understanding as needed.

New Understanding of Scripture

Is it really just that simple?

Several years ago, Mike Cope wrote a blog series about how to read the Bible. Mike outlined several simple yet deep “rules” to use when reading scripture. My two favorites are “the Bible wasn’t written to me” and “the Bible has to be interpreted”.

The Bible didn’t roll off the press in one grand printing – it was written by many authors in different languages, cultures, and time periods. We need to know what we’re reading if we want understanding. Ernest Lucas, a biochemist and theologian, summarized five questions to ask when approaching the Bible (Language of Science and Faith, pp. 91- 100). These five questions have been used since the time of the early church fathers:

What kind of language is being used? Is the passage written in a figurative, symbolic, historical, scientific or straightforward manner?

What kind of literature is it? Is the passage a historical narrative? An epic? Poetry? Law? Each of these genres has interpretive principles to help understanding.

Who is the audience? What is the cultural context of the original hearers? What were their traditions? What was important to the original hearers?

What is the purpose of the text? Was it written to teach a lesson? Was it written to correct misconceptions? Genesis, for example, appears to scholars to be a polemic – written to challenge a commonly held view or belief. In contrast to the dominant polytheistic cultures of the ancient near east that worshiped the sun, moon, and other aspects of creation as gods, Genesis presents the case for one God, outside of creation and creator of all.

What relevant extratexual knowledge exists? This is particularly useful when translating from ancient languages into modern.

Using what we know from science (or any other discipline for that matter) to readjust our understanding of scripture is not disrespectful of scripture. We are privileged to have insights others did not have, and future believers may again need to readjust.

This series is a chapter by chapter discussion of The Language of Science and Faith by Karl W. Giberson and Francis S. Collins, with commentary and my observations.

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