Bill Powers 2008-06-12

From Summa Bergania

Date: Thu Jun 12, 2008 6:49 pm

From: David Bergan

To: Bill Powers

Subject: My take on evolution

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Hi Bill,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I'm from a different generation, so the "tension" between science and Christianity strikes me differently. Indeed you claim to have been studying evolution for 25 years, which means you started when I was 3.

While evolution was certainly mainstream in our culture throughout my formative years, my dad (who is also in this class) had brought me in touch with anti-Darwinists since I was in the junior high. Before I even had evolution in biology class, I knew the best arguments against it from Dean Kenyon and Philip Johnson. In high school speech I did a 13-minute presentation on the probabilistic difficulties in abiogenesis (while my fellow students yawned), and in my extra-curricular forensics I read oratories on the absurdity of whale evolution. At the time, mainstream biologists speculated that whales evolved from a bear- or wolf-like ancestor... which is easy to ridicule. I took the audience on wild hypothetical journeys, imagining the survival value of a bear's hind legs merging into a fin while it simultaneously moved its nose to the top of its head.

My old-earth creationist beliefs lasted through my 4 years of college (1998-2002), too. I wasn't a biology major, but I did kick up many discussions in the science building while I was taking classes there.

Since college, I have kept up on the discussion... my bookshelf has specimens of both intelligent design (Dembski, Behe, etc.) and mainstream evolution (Miller, Dennett, etc.). And it was in my post-academic leisure reading where I changed my mind on this subject. If I were to point to one thing it would be this: the discovery of intermediate whale-evolution fossils. I was so certain that the biologists' theory of whale evolution was nothing more than a cartoon, and I had used it so frequently in discussion with colleagues from the biology department, that I could scarcely take in the evidence. But sure enough, there is a fossil trajectory from bear-like land mammals to the whale. Last summer three intermediate fossils were even on display at the museum at the Univ. of Neb. Lincoln, where I coincidentally happened upon them as my wife and I were taking a little weekend trip to see her friend in Lincoln.

It's hard to put in words the kind of shame and embarrassment I felt. It felt like God was purposely teaching me a lesson in humility... like He wasn't content having me know about the developments in whale-evolution from a book or magazine, He wanted me to see the fossils. (Well, technically, they were casts of the fossils, but it was still solid evidence in three dimensions.) Since I had often held the whale as the clincher in discussions about evolution, this new evidence profoundly changed my approach to the subject.

I wouldn't say that the case for evolution is "proven"... It's not really the kind of subject that sets itself up for conclusive proof. For one, it doesn't offer much in the way of repeatable experiments. But as a general explanation for the diversity of life, it seems to work. There are interesting phenomenon in the details that I think suggest a higher intelligence at work (ie the bacterial flagellum), but at this point I am also prepared to accept that even those details might someday have a naturalistic (ie non-intelligent) explanation.

Let me move in the direction of theology, now. What really is threatened by accepting evolution as a mechanism for describing the diversity of life? Personally, I don't ever remember taking Genesis too literally. Maybe there was a time when I thought creation occurred over 144 hours, but it was probably at about the same time when I thought God was a giant octopus with eyes at the ends of his tentacles. (Mom told me that God was watching us at home and my grandparents in Watertown, and my other grandparents in Minneapolis all at the same time.) To me, creation ex nihilo is extremely consistent with the Big Bang, and the Genesis "days" are merely poetic.

Evolution itself only seems to threaten the claim that God created animals as "kinds" and Adam and Eve in His image. Regarding kinds, there's nothing wrong in my opinion with thinking that God created each kind of animal from other derivative kinds... using evolution as the creation mechanism. I mean, do I really care if God created bats from flying squirrels rather than just saying "poof, now we have a flying mammal"? It almost seems rather more efficient for Him to design an algorithm (evolution) that makes all the varieties of flora and fauna for Him.

[And bear in mind that the algorithm of evolution is subject to restraints and requirements. As a restraint, evolution cannot create flying pigs in one generation (if ever). As a requirement, there is a very careful balance of number of genes that are retained from one generation to the next, and those that are subject to mutation. Too much mutation... the species can't stabilize. Too little mutation... the species can't adapt and survive. As a computer programmer who deals with algorithms daily, recognizing evolution as a specialized algorithm infers that it (like the other laws of nature) probably had an author.]

But I don't think the "kinds" question is as big an issue as the human question. Let me address this one in parts:

1) The Genesis story says we were formed out of dust (and Eve, a rib), with God breathing life into our nostrils.

This clearly doesn't square with the explanation of evolution, that we share a common ancestor with modern chimpanzees. So which is it? Well, I'm inclined to think that the high correlation of DNA between chimps and humans is not a coincidence. So does that mean Genesis is wrong? Well, again, we might be able to take it poetically. God might not have breathed "humanness" into a lump of mud, but rather into a pre-human hominid. I do think there is something special and unique about human beings that separates us from chimps by more than merely genetics. The short list includes: math, reason, logic, justice, virtue, love, free will, organization, cleanliness, language, and art. The presence of these attributes are how I understand us to be in the image of God. Whether God imprinted them on a pile of dirt or a great ape doesn't really matter.

Analogously, those of us who believe in the Incarnation believe that God enriched a human egg with the Holy Spirit to beget Jesus, the second Adam. Perhaps the first Adam came about with God enriching a hominid embryo in a similar way.

2) Original Sin?

I understand that with what I said above, it would sound weird if I next said that those special "enriched" apes lived in a Garden called Eden and that they would thus live forever so long as they refrained from eating from a particular tree. To me, the enriched apes (aka first humans) were probably mortal from the start. They didn't do anything special to merit mortality... what was special is that they understood morality.

The truth of original sin to me isn't something historical. The truth is that every human being recognizes the absolutes of morality, and yet none (no, not one) can live in perfect accord with them. God has a mark set for us (and we all know it), yet none of us can consistently hit that mark. This is quite a profound truth about human nature, and it is related both vividly and memorably in the Garden of Eden story. But even though it relates a truth about human nature does not mean that it has to be historically true. (Jesus's parable about the Good Samaritan (and many others) is another example of a story that is absolutely true morally, but not historically.)

In Eden we learn that we are separated from God (which is true), and that it is our own doing (also true), and that we do it because we wanted a shortcut to happiness/greatness (supremely true). I can't think of any other religious story that says that. (ie Pandora's box explains the origin of sins, but explains it as the result of curiosity, not willful disobedience where we are trying to get one ahead on God.) That there may not have historically been talking snakes or magical fruits is fully irrelevant. The truth is not that our cuisine got us in trouble... the truth is that we all need a redeemer.

As I've stated in my other posts, I engage in these discussions because I am looking for truth. Part of the seeking process is separating historical truth from moral truth. We may not know much historically about the first man and woman, but morally I have no doubt that they recognized and committed sin like us.

Kind regards,

David