We are living in New York City for a few months, and so are out of the ‘bubble’ of our home church. Because of that, I am having more conversations with believers who are not as saturated with the Bible as tends to be the case back home.
One of the things that has surprised me—but probably shouldn’t have—is the number of times I have already talked with Christians who are trying to bundle the cultural view of creation into their faith in Jesus. They say something like, ‘I think that God could have created the world in any number of ways,’ or, ‘I don’t think that evolution conflicts with God as Creator.’
I understand where they are coming from. I became a believer after I was already a professional scientist. More than that, I had begun my career in evolutionary biology, so I very much came to Christ out of an understanding that all life had come into being through the process of evolution. I remember that I left Genesis 1-11 alone for the first couple of years of my Christian life: I knew that the Biblical view of creation would hold challenges for me that I was not ready to deal with.
When I finally began to investigate Biblical creation, I was greatly helped by the writings of a lawyer: Phillip E. Johnson. Johnson is most famous for his book Darwin on Trial, but I remember reading an essay in which Johnson addressed specifically the concept of ‘theistic evolution’—the idea that God created life through the process of evolution. Here is a paragraph from Johnson:
Of course, theists can think of evolution as God-guided whether naturalistic Darwinists like it or not. The trouble with having a private definition for theists, however, is that the scientific naturalists have the power to decide what that term “evolution” means in public discourse, including the science classes in the public schools. If theistic evolutionists broadcast the message that evolution as they understand it is harmless to theistic religion, they are misleading their constituents unless they add a clear warning that the version of evolution advocated by the entire body of mainstream science is something else altogether. That warning is never clearly delivered, however, because the main point of theistic evolution is to preserve peace with the mainstream scientific community. The theistic evolutionists therefore unwitting[ly] serve the purposes of the scientific naturalists, by helping persuade the religious community to lower its guard against the incursion of naturalism. [From: http://www.arn.org/docs/johnson/wid.htm]
Let me walk you through this: When someone believes that God created life through the process of evolution, they certainly can do that. However, when they put these two ideas together, they need to realize that the evolution they believe in is something quite different from what the schools teach about evolution.
The schools—and television, and movies, and museums, and universities—teach the concept of evolution that is mainstream, that is supported by the intellectual elite, that is embraced by most of the culture. Johnson captures this concept of evolution in another place by modifying John chapter 1 to say, ‘In the beginning were the particles and the impersonal laws of physics.’ [from a message delivered by Johnson to the Evangelical Free Church of Hershey PA, May 13, 2001, reproduced at http://www.ldolphin.org/ntcreation.html]
Phillip Johnson is helpful to me because he thought clearly about these things. A Christian can say that he believes that God created through evolution, but the moment that he says the word ‘evolution’ he has defined something different from the evolution taught in our culture. Evolution taught in our culture is, by definition and intent, a picture of life coming into being in a non-supernatural way, with no purpose or direction. As Richard Dawkins wrote:
The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. [from Dawkins’ book, River Out of Eden]
No design. No purpose. ‘In the beginning were the particles….’ Not guided. No God. No supernatural anything.
So, if a Christian believer says that he or she has no problem with the concept that God created life through the process of evolution, they should always add that by ‘evolution’ they mean something different from what is taught in schools. They could say something like, ‘I believe that God created the world slowly, through a process of development of different life forms so as to leave a record of different creatures in different layers of the earth. The process was guided by God but in such a way that it looks to have happened naturally.’ Then they also need to usually add something like, ‘And yet I believe that human beings are special, and I still believe the Bible.’
Bottom line: If a Christian says that he or she believes that God could have created through evolution, they are believing in some kind of evolution that is different from what the larger culture means. And this is the problem, because I think that most Christians who embrace evolution do so because they want to fit in with culture. But when they construct a supernaturally guided process of evolution, they have already broken away from the culture. I believe that Johnson was right: You cannot have both ‘God created’ and evolution. Something has to give.
To say this another way, nobody wants to look like an idiot. But when Christians say they believe in evolution, they have already entered a place that is intellectually indefensible, and that place will not protect them from disapproving looks and derision. Indeed, in one interview Dawkins called such people ‘deluded’ [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BAbpfn9QgGA]. He did not use the term ‘idiot,’ but Dawkins frankly showed more respect for creationists in that interview than he did for people who try to keep evolution along with some faith in God.
So, if you embrace evolution to avoid looking foolish in the culture, you leave yourself open to looking foolish from every direction. An evolutionist will tell you that your definition of evolution is foolish and unscientific. An atheist can still accuse you of being deluded by your hope in something that is not true. A Christian embracing a more Bibcial view of creation may shake his head in sadness about your compromise. And anyone who can follow simple logic can dismiss your combination of theism and evolutionary leanings as weak, at best. It is only your fellow theistic evolutionists who will support you in your beliefs; you are open to scorn from any other direction.
So, what about me? How do I believe in Jesus and also work as a professional scientist? That will be another post.…
jwillia33 