Making Sense of Evolution: A Book Review

By Benjamin Chicka Making Sense of Evolution (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010) is John F. Haught's invitation to a view of biological life as a drama with God's activity at its depths. Darwin's dangerous idea about the common ancestry of all life formed through natural selection has made many ponder whether God can be called the author of life anymore. Are biological accidents that lead to organisms with better fits in any given environment and considered over great spans of time the ultimate explanations of life? While Haught does not endorse the atheistic conclusions Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins draw from this natural process, he does think evolutionary science should shock theologians into new ways of thinking about God in relation to the world. Haught's answer is that life is a drama that, like any good drama, must contain enough novelty to keep an audience interested, enough coherence to maintain a story, and enough time for that story to unfold. Haught is not interested in criticizing the science of evolution, only its scope. Of course evolutionary biology, like all science, can be improved, but it has withstood every test thrown its way. Thus, desires to reject Darwin should be expelled from churches and religious life. In fact, he believes theology can make even better sense in light of evolution. To support this belief he must devote sizeable portions of his argument to presenting the science and Darwin's personal struggles over the religious implications of his work. If for no other reason, Making Sense of Evolution should be read because almost every chapter begins with a readable introduction to the facts of evolution as related to specific topics such as the design and diversity of species. Readers should come away able to make sense of what scientists are talking about. But the life of Darwin is just as important in this book. Darwin's personal discomfort with what he saw as the atheistic conclusions of evolution makes the point Haught uses to open space for theological claims. Once impressed by arguments that the universe must have a divine designer, the discovery of small variations among geographically separated species led Darwin to believe the origin and diversity of life occurred naturally though a gradual process over many years. Haught believes this connection between a theological conclusion and its scientific replacement reveals that scientists have never really stopped doing theology. As long as atheistic scientists argue their explanations of the world should be accepted rather than theological explanations, they are inherently tackling theological issues. That is, "whenever evolutionists declare or imply that evolution is an alternative to traditional theological understanding, they are not yet doing pure science" (17). So when someone like Dawkins says natural selection caused an event instead of divine action, theological undertones live on in the form of this alternative ultimate explanation. The problem Haught identifies in this transition from theology to science is that both sides of the argument must have the same goal in order for one explanation to replace the other. However, if theology is not primitive pseudo-science and was never meant to be so, it makes no sense to say science has won the day. Haught's basic answer to this problem is that science is science and theology is theology. Science considers physical causes while theology provides ultimate explanations. In his earlier and more technical book on Darwin and theology, Deeper than Darwin: the Prospect for Religion in the Age of Evolution (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2003), he methodologically distinguishes what he calls his "engagement" approach from the conflict and separatist camps (72-73). Conflict includes the stance just mentioned, that science replaces theology, as well as the reaction by intelligent design theorists that theology is the only true science. Separatists essentially hold an independence model for relating science and religion. Both are allowed to exist because any conflict or chance for constructive dialogue is ignored. Haught rejects these views in favor of his engagement approach, which looks to the heart of scientific knowledge to consider whether a divine depth remains. In Making Sense of Evolution this engagement approach results in what Haught calls a "layered" understanding of reality. This layered approach holds that there can be many different explanations of a single phenomenon as long as the differences exist on different levels not in competition with one another. Haught's frequent analogy for clarifying this point relates to his method for delivering it, writing (24-25). The chemistry that allows black letters to appear on white pages and the author's intent in writing those words are different non-contradictory layers of explanation. However, the author's intent is the more ultimate explanation for any book's existence. Likewise, natural selection can account for life as can divine creativity at a deeper level. And furthermore, just like an author's intentions will not literally appear in the chemistry involved in printing, no evidence for God's action will be found in scientific studies of causation. So if scientists ask for the definitive evidence of God's existence and activity in the world, the answer, which they will not accept as long as they have in mind one layer in which science replaces theology, is that scientific methods are simply not supposed to find such evidence. The implication is that scientists remain blind to meanings and values as long as their work is taken to be the ultimate explanation of all phenomena, and theologians rob religion of truth when God is forced as an explanation for areas in which scientific research is growing. So what theological position is left that is able to avoid contradiction with science by making affirmations on its own level? Haught makes four claims on behalf of what he names a "theology of evolution" (73). First, life has always been increasing in complexity carrying with it adventure and beauty. Second, the existence of such novelty frees nature from static lifelessness and determinism. Third, God urges the novel advances of nature through love, a love revealed in Jesus, rather than by force. And fourth, the minimal purpose of this drama is the increase in beauty and complexity throughout the entire process. In other words, once theologically attuned to the drama of life, Christians should focus on the contingency, continuity, and time underlying reality rather than promoting theological battles against scientific explanations of design, diversity, and descent. Scientifically, these latter three features of life result from natural processes and random chance. But understood dramatically and theologically, such contingent features are part of a continuous story in which meaning in relation to God that is still unfolding can be found. What should be even more attractive for those worried by this proposal is that Haught understands the God allowing such drama to be more biblical than a detached perfect designer. The God luring this drama forward has not provided a specific direction with one predetermined conclusion, but the drama is nonetheless unfolding toward God. "God's ultimate relation with the world is before all else one of liberation and promise rather than the imposition of design" (64). Regardless of science, such a focus should have always been present in Christianity. While I appreciate Haught's attempt to engage a wide audience with biological science and theological resources that demonstrate how Christianity can avoid conflict with that science, some problems remain in need of clarification. It can be hard to determine whether Haught believes his theological language is necessary given current facts about reality or whether it serves as a strategy for weaseling theological claims into a place science cannot reach. I am not convinced his language is the former and thus remain unsure that Haught is not promoting an independence model for relating science and religion despite his insistence to the contrary. If science was never meant to provide ultimate explanations and theology was never meant to impact scientific claims, then the disciplines really seem to be unrelated and this book's conclusion could have been reached by analyzing what theology should focus on independent of any treatment of biology. The problem of adopting such a model in relation to science is as follows. How can there be different layers containing different non-contradictory truths? Presumably it is because the layers are independent of each other. If so, Making Sense of Evolution would not be a proposal for dialogue between science and religion but an anti-dialogue proposal suggesting they should keep their hands off each other. However, resources for a give and take between layers seem to be lying dormant in Haught's approach. Doesn't the mere fact that Haught took biological science as an indication that God must be the depth of reality's unfolding drama rather than the meddling designer that intervenes in creation indicate a stronger connection between layers? Or take his writing analogy. Just as an author's means of getting any message across will be limited by the nature of print media, the ultimate divine activity at the depths of reality could have its mode of operation limited by the world to which it is the depth. But I see no explicit exchange of content present in Haught's thought as it currently stands. My fear is that because scientific understandings of reality ranging from the emergence of complex life to the quantum entanglement of all reality mark every instance of reality we know including our own bodies, the lack of more explicit statements about possible lines of exchange between layers makes it feel like any reality not interacting with the scientific level is cut off from us permanently. Presumably highly educated Christian philosophers and theologians can find comfort in this ultimate layer that does not seem to be readily acknowledged as public fact outside their circles. What of those who are not so astute? Are they left to walk off a cliff and hope Haught is right about support being there? Surely more immediate assurance is available for comprehension by every person than the distant hope of a conclusion to an unfolding drama if Christianity contains any truths that matter here and now. Read more articles on Religion and Science from the Mainline Protestant Portal at Patheos: Befriending Science: Christian Theologians Respond Living in the Intersections : Asking the Big Questions of Science and Religion The Brain on God: Christian Neuro-Spirituality Benjamin J. Chicka is a Ph.D. student in philosophy of religion and theology at Claremont Graduate University. His doctoral research focuses on combining the religion and science and religious pluralism discussions through the methodology of the American pragmatists. Benjamin has published articles in science, astronomy and neuroscience, as well as theology. His most recent work, "Indeterminacy, Ultimacy, and the World: the Self-Creation of Religious Pluralism through Community and Creation," is forthcoming in the next issue of Sophia.