Darwin's God Discussion 4: Chapters 8-9

To round out the book, Miller uses the final 2 chapters to discuss how he reconciles his scientific understanding of the material universe with his understanding of God according to the traditional view held by the great western monotheistic religions, a God that created us, loves us, and intervenes in our lives. He first points to the definitive limits to our capacity to understand the universe using science, there is no way we will ever be capable of knowing anything about the universe prior to the moment of it's conception at the Big Bang (pg. 225). So, God may be the generator behind such an event. He then points to the fact that the constants that exist in the universe (such as gravity) are set at just the right values to allow for the existence and evolution of life (pg. 228), giving the appearance that they've been chosen with intention for such a purpose. He also reminds us of the indeterminate behavior of matter itself which ultimately allows room for a God to work in subtle ways that are undetectable to us (pg. 233). He discusses how miracles, by definition are beyond scientific understanting. For believers, miracles (i.e., resurrection, virgin birth) point to a spiritual reality that makes sense religiously but not scientifically. Thus, a loving God who intervenes in the affairs of the world could do so without us being capable of understanding His means for doing so. This conception of God not only allows for Miller's understanding of the scientific data, but it also affirms his belief that God has endowed us with free will to choose our own attitudes and behaviors.

Miller asserts that true knowledge comes only from a combination of faith and reason. Through reason we can scientifically understand God's creation to a great extent, but science is incapable of assigning meaning and purpose to the universe it explores. Additionally, while evolution can explain our basic drives and desires, we look to our faith to understand the proper way to act in response to our drives and desires. In saying all of this, he is simply repeating the theme that he has been asserting throughout the whole book; acceptance of evolution is not incompatible with deep and meaningful faith in a personal and loving God. If a person's reason leads them to accept the evidence supporting evolution, they need not abandon their faith, and their faith may even be affirmed by their understanding of natural history.

Miller's integration of his faith and scientific understanding provide a concrete point at which we can now discuss whether or not his conception of God is satisfying to our sensibilities. I also think that generally speaking I'd be interested to discuss our thoughts about the book; did it provide any great insights? Does the book make any assertions that we fundamentally disagree with? As always, I'll put my actual 'discussion' thoughts in the comments section for this post, please do the same with your own.

Darwin's God Discussion 3: Chapters 6-7

Having discussed the scientific shortcomings of the objections to evolutionary theory and the strength of evolutionary theory, Miller moves on now to discuss why he believes the notion that evolution and faith are incompatible is so persistent. He believes part of this is due to a belief on the part of people of faith that the Genesis account of creation must be literal history in order for their notion of God as creator to be correct. However, a second part of the equation that he discusses more thoroughly is the fact that many in the scientific community are vocally hostile (or patronizing) towards religion. He examines this hostility through the lens of scientific materialism, which is required for good science since it limits the subject matter of science to that which is observable, predictable, and able to be manipulated for experimental purposes. He states that critics of religion inappropriately extend this scientific assumption beyond it's reasonable limits to answer the question of whether or not God exists. He points out that this extension is problematic because God is supernatural and by definition outside the realm of scientific investigation.

Such a rigid materialism excludes forms of knowledge other than scientific from any serious consideration, more as a reflection of it's adherents own personal beliefs and biases, rather than out of scientific necessity. While this assumption serves us well when trying to understand the material world in which we live, religious believers also understand there to be an immaterial/supernatural realm that is innaccessible by means of scientific inquiry. He states that while we can learn about God's creation through science we can only understand God's personality through faith.

To find room for God's creative work in the predictible scientific processes at play as evolution occurs, Miller points out that while there are patterns in the behavior of matter that make it more or less predictable, there is an underlying indeterminacy in all matter at the atomic level what will always remain beyond our capacity to predict. He's careful to point out that this is different from the earlier principle of 'God in the gaps' since it does not represent a (potentially fillable) gap in our knowledge such as a 'missing link' in the evolutionary chain would, but rather it represents known indeterminacy underlying all of matter. Such random processes allow for an open ended and unpredictable future in which new creation can occur and free will can be expressed. It is in this unpredictability of matter that Miller sees God's creative genius at work. While such an understanding does not necessitate a belief in God, it also means that science can only lead us so far in our capacity to understand and predict, thus leaving room for God to work.

These chapters were pretty dense and philosophical, and hopefully I've captured the main ideas that Miller was trying to communicate with them. For discussion purposes, I think that the idea I find most compelling is that there are limits to what we can undestand through science, a person of faith ought to view these limits as providing room for God's creative work. While a certain conception of God isn't necessarily required by such an understanding, Miller is a Catholic and views God as a personal and loving God. Does this sort of conceptualization take us too far from God's nature as we understand it, or is it actually reaffirming of our faith?

Darwin's God Discussion 2: Chapters 3-5

In these chapters Miller addresses the primary objections to Darwin's theory of Evolutionary including Young Earth Creationism, Punctuated Equilibrium, and Intelligent Design. I'll try to summarize his discussion of each:

1. Young Earth Creationism (YEC): This is the idea that the earth is roughly 6 to 10 thousand years old. If I understand it correctly, this age is determined by adding up the various geneologies found throughout the Bible beginning with Adam and Eve. While derived from a very strict interpretation of scripture (i.e., 7 days of creation means 7 days comprised of 24 hours each), it couches it's arguments in (pseudo)scientific terminology in order that this interpretation of scripture be included in scientific discussions. Miller goes to great lengths in this chapter to explain the various dating techniques used that demonstrate the earth and fossil record are much older than 10 thousand years. These techniques corroborate with one another to show the earth as 4.5 billion years old, which allows ample time for evolution to occur. From a theological perspective, Miller argues that in order for YEC to be correct, God must have intentionally and deceptively made the Earth and the fossil record look much older than 10 thousand years, which would be contrary to his understanding of God's nature.

2. Punctuated equilibrium (PE): A less strict interpretation of scripture has led a number of creationists to accept the apparent age of the earth while still maintaining that every species currently or previously in existence was created through special and independent acts of creation by God rather than through evolution. PE is a term coined by Eldredge and Gould to suggest that there were 'sudden' changes within certain lines of descent which contrasts with the Darwinian notion of gradual and constant adaptation and speciation (called phyletic gradualism). These apparent abrupt appearances of new species are used by some creationists to suggest that God performed a special act of independent creation at that time to form a new species. It's important to note that this was not Eldredge and Gould's intention or understanding when they came up with PE, but the idea has been adopted in this manner. While it seems possible that rapid environmental changes may 'speed up' evolutionary processes, Miller points out that these 'sudden' changes are more apparent than they are real. He shows that if one zooms in on the time scale during these abrupt changes, evolution appears to slow down, and show continuous and gradual change. Meaning that the appearance of abrupt changes is more a reflection of the scaling used over immensly long periods of time and that punctuated equilibrium is ultimately not distinguishable from Darwin's original conception of Evolution. From a theological perspective, Miller argues that this take on creation necessarily suggests a God who not only creates, but destroys his creation as well, in addition to the suggestion that God is constantly tinkering with his creation in order to 'improve' the final product. He says this is inconsistent with the notion of a loving creator God who is capable of creating something perfect on the first try, and thus he rejects it on both scientific and theological grounds.

3. Intelligent design (ID): ID is the most recent idea used to challenge Darwinian evolution, it's primary argument is based on the notion of 'irreducible complexity'. Which is to say that for evolution to work, biological structures need to have been build bit by bit, if any one of these bits is incapable of functioning as a peice rather than a whole or serves no apparent purpuse, then it could not have evolved to become a more complex functional structure. Miller states that this is a good point because it provides a testable hypothesis which he fully supports testing. He then puts evolution to the test using various examples, many of which are the same examples that ID proponents say represent irreducible complexity, and shows that these examples are in fact reducible to smaller simpler components. This is seen in small microscopic organisms and structures and in larger structures such as the human eye, in each of the examples evolution is supported by the data rather than refuted. Miller also calls this bad theology since it uses gaps in our understanding as proof of God's role in creation (called 'god in the gaps') which ultimately leaves the belief in God vulnerable to science filling in those gaps. Miller feels that belief in God must go much deeper than our gaps in understanding.

Throughout the discussion of these three ideas, Miller is making the point that science and evolution are fully capable of explaining a number of things that historically we've only been able to explain as divine intervention. He suggests that for people of faith evolution ought to be seen as a way of understanding God's mechanism of creation rather than a threat to their understanding of God as creator.

I think that it's worthwhile discussing whether or not Millers arguments against each of these 3 challenges are sufficient? Also, if we think he doesn't sufficiently address these issues, what's missing? Since this has been an issue in Kansas over the years, do these alternative ideas have enough scientific merit to be taught alongside evolution in science classes?

In person meeting on July 12 to discuss 'Darwin's God'

Just wanted to run a couple of ideas by you regarding the reading club. Since one of the goals was to have an in person conversation about each of the books as we read them I've been thinking about what might be a good date and setting for our first meeting to discuss the book we've been reading this month. Since the book is a little bit dense, I want to make sure everyone has time to get through a good portion of the book, I was thinking Saturday, July 12 @ 8:30 am. The location I was thinking of is the 'It's a Grind' coffee house located at 7929 W. 151st in Overland Park since it's kind of central for most of us. The website for the coffeehouse is http://www.itsagrind.com/location/?c=156. Hopefully this will give you time to put it on your calendars.

An Aside: Videos of Ken Miller on Evolution & Intelligent Design

Just an FYI that Ken Miller, the author of 'Finding Darwin's God' made an appearance on Comedy Central's 'The Colbert Report' last night to promote his new book. In the interview he briefly discusses a number of the points he made in 'Darwin's God', check it out here:

While brief, it's an introduction to the subject matter that he covers in 'Finding Darwin's God'. For a more detailed talk, you may be interested in watching the following video from a few years ago:

Darwin's God Discussion 1: Chapters 1-2

Now that we’re done with the first week of June, I figured I’d try to get some discussion started about the first few chapters of the book. Feel free to contribute any thoughts you have about what you’ve read, or ideas outside of the reading if you think they’re relevant to the discussion. While I’ll probably break the discussion up into 2-3 chapter segments, don’t feel limited to commenting based solely on the content of those chapters. The point of this discussion is to examine ideas, and share new ones with each other.

The main point of this book is to examine the question of, “…whether or not God and evolution can coexist?” (pg. 3). While evolution wasn’t a hotly debated issue during my upbringing (either in school or at home), the general understanding (by me, my church, my family) was that evolution had dangerous implications for the person of faith, specifically with regards to the account of creation depicted in Genesis. To accept evolution would mean that humans (and other creatures) weren’t created out of nothing by God, but rather had descended from other earlier organisms through adaptation and natural selection. If evolution occurred and humans resulted from evolution, then is the foundation of my faith (the literal truth of the Bible) suddenly questionable? My assumption is that most of the people that I know are following along with this reading group have either a similar background or currently feel that evolution and faith are incompatible. My discussion thoughts/questions/points will reflect a person with this background and be directed towards others with a similar perspective, however if your perspective or background differs, I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Within the first couple of chapters Miller doesn’t directly answer the question above, but it is obvious that his position is that Evolution and God can and do coexist, but it’s not yet clear how he integrates these two apparently divergent worldviews. I think the first item worth discussing is the issue of whether or not we think up front this can be done. The second question becomes, ‘Does acceptance of Evolution change the way we view the Bible and understand our relationship to God?’

In the second chapter Miller also goes into detail about the methodology used for understanding biological history using the scientific method. Since history (particularly ancient history) doesn’t lend itself to experimentation (by humans anyway), however we are capable of understanding history though the items it left behind, most notably through the fossil record, but also through geologic, chemical, and radioactive evidence. He discusses in some detail what is entailed by Darwin’s theory of evolution, and how it has maintained the status of ‘scientific theory’ through the accumulation of observed facts, and through it’s ability to make new and interesting predictions about the natural world. I think that it’s worth discussing how exactly we ought to define and view science.

My hope is that these items and my personal opinion of some of these (see the comments section) will spark some good discussion, even disagreement among us. Please feel free to join in the discussion through the comments section whether you’ve read much of the book yet or not. You may have additional points/questions that you think are worth discussing, please go ahead and do so in the comments to this post.

Book for July 2008

OK... Here's my suggested book for July is "The Truth War" by John MacAuthor. In an era where the Emergent Church is gaining momentum, John MacAuthor takes a closer look to see where it's headed. Check it out. You can buy it at Mardel's at 119th and Metcalf for $7.99 in hardback. This is a $23.00 book that is on sale for a limited time. Here's the book description from Mardels website: Right now, Truth is under attack, and much is at stake. Christians are caught in the crossfire of alternative Christian histories, emerging faulty texts, and a cultural push to eliminate absolute Truth altogether. As a result, many churches and Christians have been deceived. Worse still, they propagate the deception that poses itself as Truth In The Truth War Study Guide John MacArthur reclaims the unwavering certainty of God's Truth and anchors Christians in the eternal, immovable promises that are found in His Word.