In this, my first column for Uncommon Descent, I’d like to address what seems to be a fundamental contradiction running through the writings of many “theistic evolutionists,” and propose an adjustment to their theoretical framework.
Critics of theistic evolution (TE) have often suggested that theistic evolutionists (TEs) have to put themselves through mental contortions in order to remain Christian while embracing Darwin. Yet a person very well versed in TE literature has informed me that many TEs do not appear to feel any such intellectual discomfort. They reconcile Christianity and Darwin, he suggests, by holding to an “old earth creationist” position, by interpreting Genesis non-literally, and by treating evolution as God’s “creation tool.”
The first two points are non-controversial. There is plenty of room within orthodox Christianity for the belief that the earth is very old, and for less-than-completely-literal interpretations of Genesis. However, the proposition that evolution could be “God’s creation tool” is open to more than one interpretation, and bears closer examination. Given that most TEs appear to be strict Darwinists with respect to the mechanism of evolution (i.e., chance mutations plus natural selection), critical observers are justified in inquiring about the suitability of the Darwinian mechanism as a “creation tool” for a specifically Christian God.
I would not have a problem understanding evolution as God’s “creation tool,” if TEs conceived of evolution as a “tool” in the strict sense. A tool in the strict sense is fully in the control of the tool-user, and the results it achieves (when properly used by a competent user) are not due to chance but to intelligence and skill. But Darwin’s mechanism leaves room for neither intelligence nor skill; it is the unconscious operation of impersonal natural selection upon mutations which are the products of chance. It follows that Darwinian evolution is not a tool, but an autonomous process, and therefore out of God’s control.
This has a theological consequence. If evolution is out of God’s control, it is incompatible with the notion of providence — the notion that God provides for the future needs of the earth and its inhabitants. God can hardly, for example, provide for the need of Hagar in the desert, if he can’t even guarantee that the human race, of which Hagar is a member, will ever emerge from the primordial seas. (The radical contingency of the Darwinian mechanism is captured well by Darwinist Stephen Jay Gould, when he wrote that if the tape of evolution were rewound and played again, the results would be entirely different. Once God sets a truly Darwinian process in motion, he has no control over whether it will produce Adam and Eve, a race of pointy-eared Vulcans, or just an ocean full of bacteria.)
A non-providential God is clearly not an orthodox Christian God, and it therefore appears that theistic evolutionism generates heretical Christianity. As I see it, the only way for theistic evolutionists to escape this consequence is to argue that mutations seem like chance events from the human perspective, but from God’s perspective are foreordained. But in that case, “evolution” is really just the actualization of a foreseen design over a very long time frame; the “purely natural causes” spoken of by the TEs are really just the unrecognized fingertips of the very long arm of God. This view, which we might call “apparent Darwinism,” fails to get God out of the process of natural causation, which was (as Cornelius Hunter has argued) Darwinism’s historical raison d’être.
In response to this, TEs could say: “Well, we are Christians, so of course we believe that these apparently chance events were divinely foreordained and therefore are not ultimately chance events. Our goal is not to deny the ultimate agency of God, but only to establish that the design of living things, though certainly in the mind of God at the beginning of the world’s creation, is not humanly DETECTABLE, as the ID proponents say it is. Evolution proceeds as if directed by chance; neither our sense nor our instruments are capable of registering the difference between mutations produced by the hidden hand of God and mutations produced by chance. Operationally, science must proceed as if chance alone is at work. There is therefore no legitimately scientific design inference. Design is a theological interpretation of the natural data, not a scientific one. And that is why we remain theistic evolutionists, appealing to strictly Darwinian causation in our science and keeping our theological interpretation of nature out of the labs, schools and universities.”
This has surface plausibility. But note that, if this argument is accepted, there is no longer any metaphysical difference between TE and ID. Given this argument, both ID and TE acknowledge that living creatures are in fact designed by God and brought into being exactly in accord with God’s will. The difference that remains between TE and ID is not over metaphysics but over epistemology, i.e., over the question: How do we KNOW that the flagellum or the wing of a bird or the circulatory system is a consequence of design rather than chance? And here is where TE takes its final stand: it is only by faith, not by the scientific study of nature, that we can know this.
But how does TE verify this doctrine? Surely the question whether design detection can be an empirical science is itself subject to empirical investigation, and cannot be prematurely settled by any dogmatic pronouncement. TE is thus obliged to look at the work of those who claim that design detection can be an empirical science, and to consider that claim on its merits, not dismiss it out of hand. It thus must engage the arguments of Dembski, Behe, etc. TE is of course free to argue that Dembski and Behe and the others fail to provide an adequate basis for a science of design detection, by pointing to real or alleged flaws in their arguments. But this still means that TE must abandon a priori epistemological declarations and enter whole-heartedly into the honest consideration of whether design in nature is detectable by scientific means.
Thus, we see that the foundational contradiction at the very core of TE (that orthodox Christianity is 100% true, and that the Darwinian mechanism is also 100% true), puts TEs on the horns of a dilemma. Accept the complete truth of the Darwinian mechanism, and one must deny at least one key Christian doctrine, i.e., providence. Alternately, accept the complete truth of all the core Christian doctrines, including providence, and “chance” is a fiction, Darwinism is a guided process, there is design, and design may in principle be detectable. TEs thus have a choice. If their priority, their most important motivation, is to ban the notion of design from science, they can do so, by affirming that chance rather than providence is ultimately real; the cost is the adoption of a non-Christian theology. If, on the other hand, their priority is to account for the origin of species and of man within the framework of providence, they must affirm that chance is not ultimately real; the cost is the abandonment of the Darwinian mechanism.
Let me summarize. It is possible to be a theistic evolutionist without contradiction. It is possible to be a specifically Christian theistic evolutionist without contradiction. It is not, however, possible to be a Christian DARWINIST without contradiction. A Christian Darwinist is bound to maintain logically incompatible positions: that evolution is both a tool and an autonomous process, that providence and chance are both ultimately real, that design is potentially detectable and that it is a priori indetectable. This intellectual schizophrenia cannot be maintained. TEs must decide whether or not their grudge against ID and its proponents is more important to them than the maintenance of a consistently orthodox Christian theology.
Thus, we see that the foundational contradiction at the very core of TE (that orthodox Christianity is 100% true, and that the Darwinian mechanism is also 100% true), puts TEs on the horns of a dilemma. Accept the complete truth of the Darwinian mechanism, and one must deny at least one key Christian doctrine, i.e., providence. Alternately, accept the complete truth of all the core Christian doctrines, including providence, and “chance” is a fiction, Darwinism is a guided process, there is design, and design may in principle be detectable. TEs thus have a choice. If their priority, their most important motivation, is to ban the notion of design from science, they can do so, by affirming that chance rather than providence is ultimately real; the cost is the adoption of a non-Christian theology. If, on the other hand, their priority is to account for the origin of species and of man within the framework of providence, they must affirm that chance is not ultimately real; the cost is the abandonment of the Darwinian mechanism.
Let me summarize. It is possible to be a theistic evolutionist without contradiction. It is possible to be a specifically Christian theistic evolutionist without contradiction. It is not, however, possible to be a Christian DARWINIST without contradiction. A Christian Darwinist is bound to maintain logically incompatible positions: that evolution is both a tool and an autonomous process, that providence and chance are both ultimately real, that design is potentially detectable and that it is a priori indetectable. This intellectual schizophrenia cannot be maintained. TEs must decide whether or not their grudge against ID and its proponents is more important to them than the maintenance of a consistently orthodox Christian theology.
TEs, you can join us at no real cost. You can keep your Christian faith (which incidentally is more highly respected by even non-Christian ID advocates than it is by many of your current colleagues). You can keep evolution (understood as common descent) and all its evidences, including the fossil record, Darwin’s arguments about biogeographical distribution, and a 4.5-billion-year-old earth. We don’t even ask you to pledge allegiance to intelligent design; we just ask you to abandon your a priori prejudice that design in nature can’t possibly be detectable, and to join us in investigating the question.
And there’s an added bonus. You’ll finally be able to abandon the unsavory company of angry, paranoid, condescending atheists like Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, P.Z. Myers, Jeffrey Shallit, and Barbara Forrest. Talk about the icing on the cake!
Think about it.