Evolution is a Lousy Story (RJS)

May 10, 2012 By RJS 32 Comments

There is an interesting post by Tom Bartlett, Is Evolution a Lousy Story?, on the blog at The Chronicle of Higher Education. Bartlett notes that more than half of Americans doubt that evolution describes the origin of species and he considers the role that story may play in this. The post builds off of a proposal by Dan McAdams, a psychologist at Northwestern, and the thesis of his 2005 book The Redemptive Self:

McAdams’s research focus is narrative psychology—specifically, the development of a “life-story model of human identity.” As he writes in his book The Redemptive Self, “People create stories to make sense of their lives.” When you think about it, we tell stories to make sense of pretty much everything. The problem is that evolution doesn’t fit neatly into the narrative box. As McAdams puts it: “You can’t really feel anything for this character—natural selection.”

And a bit later in the article:

Jonathan Gottschall thinks McAdams might be onto something. … “If evolution is a story, it is a story without agency,” he writes in an e-mail. “It lacks the universal grammar of storytelling.” Stories are about a character finding a solution to a problem. Evolution has problems and solutions but no character. As a result, according to Gottschall, “it doesn’t connect as well—especially at the emotional level.”

Gottschall is author of a recent book The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. You can find a teaser for his book at The Huffington Post.

Bartlett’s post contains a number of insights worth some consideration – and don’t miss the link to “one Christian Web site.” He is on to something worth some serious thought. The truth of evolutionary biology does not depend on the story that can be told, but we also must not underestimate the power of story.

Is evolution a lousy story?

What makes the traditional Christian creation narrative better?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Creation, Science and Faith 32 Comments

Should We Teach the Storehouse Theory? (RJS)

April 5, 2012 By RJS 30 Comments

The Bible teaches that God governs the weather including the rain (image to the right from wikipedia). Many passages make this quite clear.  Not only this he keeps rain, wind, snow and hail in his storehouses to be sent forth out of his bounty or wrath.

The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. Deut. 28:12

The LORD does whatever pleases him,  in the heavens and on the earth,  in the seas and all their depths.  He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth;  he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses. Psalm 135:6-7

When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth.  He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses. Jer 10:13, 51:16

The Lord asked Job …

Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? Job 38:22-23

The inspired writers of scripture had an understanding of weather that conflicts rather substantially with our modern understanding. We certainly agree that God is governs the weather, but must we accept the storehouse theory? Consider the following scenario:

What causes the rain? Most of us were taught that water evaporates from the ground level, rises to where the air is cooler, and condenses into water droplets that form clouds. We learned how cold fronts and warm fronts and low pressure systems bring rain. … Every year scientists develop increasingly accurate computer models of weather.

Now imagine that debates arise about what should be taught in schools about weather. Imagine that prominent scientists write popular books about meteorology that state, “From our scientific understanding of the causes of wind and rain, it is clear that no divine being controls the weather.” Imagine that a professional organization of science teachers writes a set of guidelines that state, “Students must learn that all weather phenomena follow from natural causes; weather is unguided and no divine action is involved.” Meanwhile, other people insist that these scientific explanations must be wrong because the Bible clearly teaches that God governs the weather. These people write books and give public speeches saying “Atheists invented their godless theories about evaporation and condensation. But we can prove that their so-called scientific theories are false and that the Bible is true.” They go to churches and teach, “If you believe what these scientists are saying about the causes of wind and rain, then you’ve abandoned belief in the Bible.” They petition school boards and courts to require that science classrooms also teach their “storehouses” theory of weather as an alternate explanation to evaporation and condensation.

Why don’t we have battles about the conflict between science and faith in the explanation of weather?

How would you respond to such a scenario?

What similarities or differences do you see with the debates over creation and evolution?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Adam, Creation, Science and Faith Tagged With: , 30 Comments

Is Science Ever-Changing and Thus Untrustworthy? (RJS)

March 27, 2012 By RJS 27 Comments

Karl Giberson’s new book, The Wonder of the Universe: Hints of God in Our Fine-Tuned World, is divided into two parts. Part One describes the wonder of our universe, the process of discovery that led to our modern understanding of the universe, and the fine-tuning of the cosmological constants that make life on our planet possible. Giberson is an excellent writer and he tells this story well. Part Two looks at design arguments in more detail. But between these two sections Giberson has an interlude – a look at the nature of science and the nature of scientific investigation. This interlude is the focus of today’s post.

Giberson begins his discussion of the nature of scientific investigation with a quote from Dr. Mohler’s speech at the Ligonier Ministries 2010 National Conference. (Giberson starts the quote at “remember” – I’ve included a little more of the context.)

The assured results of modern science. There is so much that is packed in that mental category, that intellectual claim. Just remember first of all that science has changed and has gone through many transformations. The assured results of modern science today may very well not be the assured results of modern science tomorrow. And, I can promise you, are not the assured results of science yesterday.

I posted on Dr. Mohler’s speech a couple times shortly after it was given (Houston, We Still Have a Problem and Houston, Here’s the Situation). This speech is a clear and careful presentation of many of the aspects that Christians find troubling with an old earth and evolutionary creation. As such it provides an opportunity to interact with these concerns and consider alternative views.  This view – that the assured results of science are provisional – is not unique to Dr. Mohler. It is expressed by many, from laypeople in our churches to Christian leaders, professors, and thinkers. I have heard variants of this concern even from some who are ready and willing to entertain or embrace an evolutionary understanding of creation.

In the interlude of his book Dr. Giberson frames the discussion to interact with this very common understanding about the “assured results of modern science.” He also looks at the counter claims – that science has “assured results” and that these either disprove God or prove God. This is an excellent section in the book – and I will outline some of the arguments below.

How do you view the “assured results of modern science”?

Is science an ever changing construct or is there something more fundamental?

How does this compare with the assured results of biblical interpretation?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Creation, Science and Faith Tagged With: , 27 Comments

The Wonder of the Universe (RJS)

March 20, 2012 By RJS 18 Comments

Karl Giberson has a new book out, The Wonder of the Universe: Hints of God in Our Fine-Tuned World, published by IVP. I received a copy of the book courtesy of the publisher awhile back and have begun to read it over the last few days.  This book is a description of the wonder of our universe and of the process of discovery that led to our modern understanding of the universe.  It is an excellent book for a general audience – college educated perhaps (although high school students may like it as well), but with little understanding of science required. Although I will not post through the book chapter by chapter, I will put up a few posts on the topics covered by this book.

In the first four chapters of the book Giberson discusses the history of the science that led from the understanding of cosmology with a flat earth on pillars covered by spheres with the lights of the heavens to the modern theory of general relativity and big bang. Giberson is an excellent writer and tells a fascinating story. This story emphasizes the way science progresses with new observations and new capabilities leading to new hypotheses and better understanding but always building off of what had come before.

How do you understand the process and progress of science?

[Read more...]

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In the Interlude 1

December 8, 2011 By scotmcknight 6 Comments

We earth-dwellers are in the interlude between ecological constraint and ecological catastrophe. Formerly our powers were so limited we lived on earth inside natural constraints; the scientific and technological revolutions, while blessing us immensely, have also given us capacities to exploit creation. We are in the interlude. This interlude observation is from George Monbiot as quoted in Richard Bauckham’s newest book, Living with Other Creatures: Green Exegesis and Theology (Baylor, 2011).

How do we live in the interlude? How do Christians live in the interlude?

It is easy to get into an argument about global warming, but there’s not much argument about what the Christian nations did to the forests of Kenya and Haiti (see Paul Farmer, Mountains Beyond Mountains). The name of the game was exploitation, and it was this kind of exploitation that led to the potentiality of the ecological catastrophe. But Bauckham shows that Genesis 1:26-28 has nothing to do with exploitation.

1. To be made in God’s image is to be appointed to stewardship, exercised on behalf of God and with accountability to God. If we read this text in light of the rest of Scripture, we see that humans are not just in a vertical relationship between God and creation but as horizontally related to creatures. (I first saw this in Francis Schaeffer’s little book on ecology when I was a college student.) The neglect of the horizontal is the “great ecological error of modernity” (4).

2. Humans, in Gen 2:7, are “earthy”: Adam is one with the ground as one from the ground. Notice that humans are created on Day 6 but humans do not get a day to themselves. They are created with other land creatures. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Creation, Public Issues 6 Comments

Communicating Science (RJS)

October 20, 2011 By RJS 44 Comments

There are a couple of interesting articles in the latest issue of Physics Today – a monthly magazine published by the American Institute of Physics and delivered as part of the membership dues to those belonging to member societies including the American Physical Society, The American Association of Physics Teachers, and a number of other related societies. These articles look at the issue of global warming and public perception. One impetus for these articles is the growing consensus among scientists active in the various relevant areas of investigation that global warming is real and has an anthropogenic source, and the contrast with the stagnant or increasing doubt in the general public. A recent survey published by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication – Global Warming’s Six Americas shows that while most remain concerned or cautious, 52%-55%, there is a distinct growth in skepticism (those who are dismissive) and a decrease in “true believers” (those who are alarmed).

The first article, Science controversies past and present by Steve Sherwood, compares current reactions to claims about anthropogenic climate change to past controversies including the acceptance of a heliocentric solar system and of Einstein’s theory of relativity. This article is available free from Physics Today online. Steve Sherwood runs through a number of factors and timelines and concludes:

Despite the clear historical precedents … scientists and environmentalists alike appear to have been unprepared for the antiscience backlash now under way. A first step toward better public communication of science, and the reason we need it, may lie in recognizing why the backlash happens: the frailty of human reason and supremacy of emotional concerns that we humans all share but do not always acknowledge.

These articles struck me as particularly interesting in light of a number of issues of importance today, from global warming and climate change to evolution and cancer research. In all of these areas there is evidence of something of an anti-science backlash. The science is misunderstood and distrusted. Now everyone who reads this blog knows that I am a scientist, and a professor – so perhaps you do not want to take my word for it that the science is misunderstood. That is completely understandable, even laudable. It is incumbent on the experts to communicate in a way to be understood. It is not incumbent on the  general public to simply believe what ever they are told by the high priests of science. And Sherwood notes at the end of the paragraph quoted above, speaking specifically to scientists, “tempering confidence with a dose of humility never hurts either.”

What do you think needs to be done to convince you of the accuracy of a scientific result?

How do you interpret the arguments and reach a conclusion?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Creation, Public Issues Tagged With: 44 Comments

The Age to Come – New Creation After Darwin (RJS)

November 18, 2010 By RJS 50 Comments

We’ve been looking at the essays in a book Theology After Darwin centered around a simple question: What are the implications for Christian theology if Darwin was right? The Christian story and Christian worldview is often summarized as Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation. Modern science – cosmology, astrophysics, geology, paleontology and evolutionary biology has an impact, at times a profound impact, on our understanding of all four of these elements. We’ve hit on a number of these in prior posts, yet much remains to be considered.

The last chapter in this book is by Denis Edwards “Hope for Creation After Darwin: The Redemption of ‘All Things.’  Edwards is a Catholic priest and theologian who has written extensively on theology in the context of evolution. In this chapter he starts with an assumption that our Christian hope is for bodily resurrection and asks what this means for all of creation.

The guiding thought in this exploration is what I take to be the fundamental Christian conviction that in the incarnation God has embraced not just humanity, and not just the whole world of flesh, but the whole universe and all its dynamic history, and that this embrace constitutes an unbreakable promise. (p. 171)

This is a powerful idea, and one that must be approached with some caution and constraint. He outlines two fundamental principles that guide the interpretation of eschatological statements in scripture:

The first is that the future of our world in God remains radically hidden to us. The future has been announced and promised in Christ and his resurrection, but it is announces and promised precisely as hidden mystery. (p. 172)

The second principle is that the future will be the fulfilment of the salvation in Christ that is already given to us. It will be the fulfilment of what we experience in God’s self-communication in Christ and in the grace of the Holy Spirit. … We do not have supplementary knowledge of the eschatological future over and above what we have in the theology of Christ and of grace. (p. 173)

A Christian understanding of all elements of the purpose and mission in the world – creation, fall, redemption, and consummation are intrinsically and inseparably connected to the work of God in the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ. This is an important point – any proper theology of creation and the nature of human sin must start with Jesus and the incarnation occupying a central position. Incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection are not plan B correcting an error or oversight in God’s plan nor are they responding to a credible challenge to God’s plan. Incarnation and redemption was part of the plan from the beginning. Turning to consummation then -  the age to come is not simply a return to what might have been had Adam and Eve remained faithful it is something completely new and completely different.

Where do you start when thinking about the future fulfillment of creation? Is this impacted or enhanced by your understanding of science – either cosmology or evolutionary biology?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Creation, Gospel, Heaven, Science and Faith Tagged With: , , 50 Comments

Creation Untamed 4

October 29, 2010 By scotmcknight 8 Comments

“… if God cares for so much for all creatures, why didn’t God create a world in which there would be no natural disasters?”

One of the more significant passage in the Old Testament for shaping our understanding of God — or perhaps a passage that if we take it serious will shape our view of God — is the Flood Story.

What do you think of his sketch of the God of the Flood Story? How do you explain Genesis 6:5-7?

Terence Fretheim in Creation Untamed: The Bible, God, and Natural Disasters (Theological Explorations for the Church Catholic), is probing into the question above and he does it through the lens of the Flood Story. He generates idea after idea in this study, so I’ll keep it to a minimum:

First, he begins by exploring how “judgment” by God in the Old Testament is about the effects of human sin, not so much a penalty or punishment by God. This means that the relationship of sin and its consequence is more intrinsic than forensic. [That's a big idea, but this post would get too long if we developed it.]

Second, God chooses to subject himself to this just created order [which God designed]. God gives creatures freedom; there’s a looseness to the causal weave in the created order; God uses agents and God is at work in the agent, but the agent is the one who does the deed. Thus, one text can say God did something and another one that a human (or flood) did it: Jer 13:14 and 21:7. That is, God portrayal is conformed to the agents God uses. [Another big idea.]

Thus, in the Flood story: God is at work but God doesn’t act until later in direct terms. The actions are those of the “flood of waters” and the “fountains of the great deep burst forth” and the “windows of heaven were opened” (cf. Gen 6:11-13; 7:11, 17-20, 24).

So, for Fretheim, we get a reshaped characterization of God in the Flood Story: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Creation, Problems for Faith, Theology Tagged With: , 8 Comments

Creation Untamed 3

October 22, 2010 By scotmcknight 17 Comments

“… if God cares for so much for all creatures, why didn’t God create a world in which there would be no natural disasters?”

Terence Fretheim asks why God created a world in which bad things happen in his new book, Creation Untamed: The Bible, God, and Natural Disasters (Theological Explorations for the Church Catholic).

Here is the problem: we live in a world that we believe is created by God, and we believe God is good. The good God created this world. But God’s goodness is hard to square with earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes and volcanoes and other “natural” disasters. Why did the good God make a world that can devastate?

One traditional answer is that the world was perfect or good until the Fall. That is, prior to Adam and Eve there were no “natural disasters.” In fact, prior to Adam and Eve, so the traditional view goes, there was no death because death only entered the world through sin. This view conflicts with science.

Perhaps there’s another solution, though it is not one I’ve heard: perhaps there was a cosmic disturbance in the Fall of Lucifer (Satan et al) and it was that Fall that unleashed natural disasters. I’ve never heard this view, perhaps you have.

But if one doesn’t opt for this Fall of Lucifer theory and one posits a more theistic evolutionary theory for both origins and history, then one is left with the problem of the first paragraph unresolved.  A good God created a world in which world there are natural disasters and those natural disasters are part of the way God made this world. One could also then argue that “death” itself was part of the theistic evolutionary theory and that death — say of plants and animals — was at work well before Adam, Eve and their sin.

How do you explain natural disasters with a good God as sovereign?

Filed Under: Books, Creation, Science and Faith Tagged With: , , 17 Comments

The Fall and Sin After Darwin 2 (RJS)

October 19, 2010 By RJS 50 Comments

We’ve been looking at the essays in a book Theology After Darwin centered around a simple question: What are the implications for Christian theology if Darwin was right? At the top of the list for many is the implication for the doctrines of sin and the Fall. After all, evolutionary creation calls into question the existence of Adam and Eve as historical individuals and this has, or so many think, serious consequences. I started a series a couple of weeks ago that began to look at the issues of sin and the Fall (part one) using one essay from Theology After Darwin and three articles from the recent theme issue of the ASA Journal Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith (v. 62 no. 3 2010) Reading Genesis: The Historicity of Adam and Eve, Genomics, and Evolutionary Science. Last week was rather busy and I didn’t have the time to dig into the topic, but today I return and continue the series looking at the article by Daniel C. Harlow, After Adam: Reading Genesis in an Age of Evolutionary Science (pp. 179-195 – pdf available at the link to the left).

Dr. Harlow is a professor of religion at Calvin College, he obtained his Ph.D. at Notre Dame studying the ever fascinating Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch). In his article in PSCF he takes a nonconcordist approach to Genesis and looks at the text as story rather than history. He considers Adam and Eve as symbolic literary figures, and yet upholds what he considers a viable doctrine of both original sin and the fall. He finds the biblical support for these doctrines, not in Genesis or the Old Testament, but in Paul. The doctrines don’t stand or fall with a historical Adam, he suggests, but with the gospel of Jesus Christ preached by Paul. There is much to consider in this article – and we will devote a couple of posts to it. The first, today, will focus on his view of Genesis and reasons for his conclusions; the second will focus on the consequences of this view of Genesis on the doctrines of Original Sin and the Fall.

To begin with, Dr. Harlow sees five basic scenarios within Christian thinking today:

  • Traditional young-earth view that Adam and Eve are recent ancestors of the entire human race (their children married each other because there were no other humans) ca. 10000 years ago (ybp).
  • Old-earth view that God created humans some 150000 ybp, but selected a representative pair some 10000 ybp.
  • Old-earth view that God selected or modified a unique pair of hominids some 150000 ybp.
  • Old-earth view that God revealed himself to a large group of humans some 150000 ybp and Adam and Eve are symbolic of this group.
  • Adam and Eve are literary figures in a divinely inspired story that intends to teach primarily theological not historical truth.

All five of these views take scripture seriously. Note that none of these options dismiss scripture as mere myth, none of them deny inspiration, and none of them deny the existence of God or of his active and personal relationship with his creation or his people.  All of them take scripture very seriously as God given and revealed truth. The first is traditional, the next three assume a level of concordance between history and the Gen.2-3 story. The last four all are or can be consistent with modern science. The last assumes a concordance between truth and scripture, but not between Gen. 2-3 and history.

Before we continue – Which of these best describes your understanding – Literal, Concordist, or Literary? Which do you find troublesome?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Adam, Bible, Creation, Science and Faith Tagged With: , , 50 Comments
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