The evolution will be blogged.
Friday night, Jen and I had a really long phone conversation with a good friend on the topic of evolution. Our friend, like us, comes from a Christian and creationist background, and he seemed most concerned about the impact of evolution on his faith. I promised to try blogging something about that, and this (for better or worse) is what you get:
I suppose the first thing that I would want to say is that, yes, there are huge theological ramifications for evolution. I'm not a theologian, so if you want an educated enumeration of the issues, you'll either need to read a book, or talk to Jen. My current favorite book on the subject is by the theologian, John Haught, called Responses to 101 Questions on God and Evolution (yours for about $10 at Amazon). In Responses, Haught lists six reasons why Darwinian evolution is shocking to religious people:
"Because (1) it offers a whole new story of creation, one that seems to conflict with the biblical accounts; (2) Darwin's notion of natural selection appears to diminish, if not eliminate, the role of God in creating the diverse forms of life; (3) Darwin's theory of human descent from "lower" forms of life appears to question age-old beliefs in human uniqueness and ethical distinctiveness; (4) his emphasis on the prominent role of chance in evolution seems to destroy the notion of divine providence; (5) Darwinian evolution seems to rob the universe of purpose, and human life of any permanent significance; (6) and, at least for many Christians, Darwin's account of human origins seems to conflict with the notion of original sin, of the "Fall," and therefore remove any need for a savior." (p. 5)
Haught's Responses goes on to address these concerns, quite elegantly, I think, and in an easy-to-read format. He also deals with the theology of evolution in his book God After Darwin, but that one required more mental heavy lifting than I'm capable of, and he lost me in the first chapter.
It is important to point out that I don't believe that evolution implies atheism! In another excellent book on the subject, Finding Darwin's God, Kenneth Miller points out that creationists have "taken the bait" in accepting this conclusion. There ARE outspoken evolutionists who also advocate atheism, and I'm sure they're delighted that Christians have painted themselves into a corner on this point.
There are other concerns that are important to acknowledge besides theology. One is ME-ology. Never mind what evolution says about God, what does it say about ME? Am I unimportant? Is there meaning to life beyond propagating my DNA? Some may think those are selfish questions, but I don't.
Tradition and belonging are big concerns too. You're not likely to embrace evolution if your family and friends will call you crazy and accuse you of forsaking holy scripture and embracing atheism. Evolution may look like the top of a slippery slope that ends at the bottom with you wearing Birkenstocks and dreads and calling yourself a, gulp, liberal!
For someone starting from a six-day creationist world view, there will be concerns about the science too. It's tough to get satisfactory answers. The fact is, the science community moved on from the creation vs. evolution debate many, many years ago. Observations about dating techniques, geological layers, etc. aren't defended against young-earth theories, because those theories have already been laid to rest. This is not to say that scientists take a ho-hum, we've-got-this-figured-out attitude to their subject! On the contrary, I think that people familiar with the science are in a much better position to marvel at the intricate beauty of Life, and appreciate our blessings!
[Update: If you're interested in the science, the Talk.Origins Archive is a great place to get started. Thanks, Josh, for asking.]
So, being a Christian, and having been raised to believe in a six-day creation and a young earth, how did I become this raving evolutionist? Well, I wish that I could tell you that I had the personal integrity to embrace Truth at the very beginning, no matter where it took me. In reality, the transition took several years. I had ALL of the concerns about evolution that I've listed above and held them quite stubbornly. For long periods of time, I simply chose to ignore the issue. I could write several long entries about events along the way.
What do I believe in now? I'm not given to instrospection, so this may not make any sense to you! I still believe in God, but certainly a God about whom I know much less (I don't think that's a bad thing though). And I must say that God looks bigger from here. Believing in God still requires faith -- more faith than evolution actually. (People talk about faith a lot, but I'm realizing that they often don't mean faith, but something else. That's a great topic for another day.) A really loud source of cognitive dissonance is gone, and I really groove on science like never before. When hobbit-sized hominid remains are discovered on an Indonesian island, I don't need to rapidly reshuffle a crumbling conspiracy theory. It's all good. Science is cool, and I wish I'd gone for a hard science degree when I first went to college! The fact that I didn't is a major regret.
What about you?
Posted February 20, 2005 10:53 PM