Responses to: Evolution is Not the Problem. Darwinism is the Problem
It seems to me that Mr. Wiker wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to be scientific as defined by popular science and he wants to believe in the Christian-style God at the same time. In other words, he allows popular scientists to define the basis of the reasonableness of Christianity.
In short, he does not allow his Christianity to be held to any sort of test. He accepts the existence of God and the life of Christ as "true" by definition, not subject to testing or potential falsification, while rejecting the Genesis account as historically falsified - i.e., mythical or allegorical - a moral fable.
For me, the following passage from Wiker's essay is the most telling in this regard:
The reasonable Christian holds, first of all, that science cannot contradict the faith because he assumes that the Creator God and the Redeemer God are one and the same God. He differs markedly in this from both the Christian fideist and the rationalist Christian. The fideist is often driven to deny science that seems to contradict the faith; the rationalist to deny every aspect of faith that seems to contradict science. The reasonable Christian does not allow that a contradiction is possible on either side. He knows from the history of science itself that science, including evolutionary science, is a merely human activity, and that despite its pretensions, scientists are often wandering in confusion, hobbled by bad theories, and misled by their very victories into assuming that they are omniscient. He knows that nature, as a creation of the profound wisdom of God, is much more magnificent and mysterious than our human attempts to grasp it, and so assumes that evolution must be something far grander than Darwin made it out to be, something so marvelous that, if we fully understood it, it would appear miraculous-a manifestation of the glory and wisdom of the Creator. Darwinism is too small for him as a theory of evolution because nature is too big for Darwinism to be true.
This argument is most interesting because it points out that scientists are often confused and come up with bad theories. Yet, Wiker seems convinced that the basic ideas of modern evolutionary scientists are obviously correct? - just not grand or big enough to express the magnificence, miraculous, and even the Supernatural that must be there behind it all?
Wiker knows that this aspect, a God, must be there somehow - - not based on evidence, but based on his own personal blind faith that some form of a Christian-style God simply must exist. He does not allow that any contradictions with this idea are "even possible".
This particular argument as to the impossibility of any contradiction is itself inherently anti-science. From a scientific perspective, Wiker's thinking is irrational. If it is determined, a priori, that any contradiction to a given idea or conclusion is by definition impossible, what good is that idea when it comes to saying anything reliable or useful about reality?
Richard Dawkins strongly argues that such thinking is equivalent to someone arguing that the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster is really the one who made it all. It is what I like to call a "Santa Claus argument". It is meaningless when it comes to establishing the reasonableness or the solidness of a viable or meaningful Christian Hope in the physical reality of a bright future.
A proper theory of evolution would not (as Darwinism does) reduce the real complexity of human beings to make them fit within a tight materialist and reductionist framework; it would expand the theory of evolution so that the real moral, aesthetic, and intellectual complexity of human beings, as the pinnacle of evolution, defines the framework to understand all of evolution. It would place human beings, once again, at the very center of creation.
That's the entire problem. One simply cannot expand the modern synthesis view of the theory of evolution as Wiker imagines. Darwin's big idea, and the basis of evolutionary thought in modern mainstream science today, hinges on the mechanism of natural selection as a mindless force of nature.
Even if one argues, as Wiker tries to do, that God is really behind this force and that evolution is really much bigger and more magnificent and miraculous than we can possibly imagine, that doesn't help us to actually recognize the necessity of God or see his signature through nature. If God and his methods are all so much bigger than we can possibly imagine, if he has not actually toned anything down for us to a point where we can actually recognize the need for his activity vs. the potential of mindless natural processes, then it is equally impossible for us, from such a limited perspective, to see the need for God beyond what seems to be explainable through mindless natural processes alone. Only through completely blind faith is Wiker actually able to argue that the evolutionary perspective can likely be expanded to include the necessity for God in science. He presents no reason or rational argument otherwise.
In this light, William Provine, late professor of biological sciences at Cornell University, gave a very interesting speech for a 1998 Darwin Day keynote address in which he pointed out the following:
"Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly.
• No gods worth having exist;
• No life after death exists;
• No ultimate foundation for ethics exists;|
• No ultimate meaning in life exists; and
• Human free will is nonexistent.”
Provine, William B. [Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University], "Evolution: Free will and punishment and meaning in life", Abstract of Will Provine's 1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address.
Provine also wrote, "In other words, religion is compatible with modern evolutionary biology (and indeed all of modern science) if the religion is effectively indistinguishable from atheism." - Academe January 1987, pp.51-52
As I see it, both Dawkins and Provine are correct here. Given their starting premise of belief in the realities of evolution occurring via mindless natural selection (or at least a process that is humanly indistinguishable from a mindless natural process) the idea that there is really a God behind it all, not the mention a Christian-style God, is effectively indistinguishable from not believing in a God at all - i.e., essential atheism.
I'm sorry, but as much as I sympathize with Wiker's need for there to be a God, you just can't have a meaningful God in your life if you truly have nothing more than a strong desire for God to exist. You must also see physical evidence and have an empirical argument that can only be rationally explained by a God or a God-like power before you will in fact gain a solid faith or hope in the future that is substantively superior from a belief in Dawkins' Flying Spaghetti Monster or a child's faith in Santa Claus.
Sean Pitman, M.D. |
