Debates Discussions

[cslewislover]

I went to a debate last night and present some of my notes here. I thought it might be of interest and stir some debate here as well. I did not record it, so I couldn't go back and check on some things, but all this should be a good starter for discussing theistic evolution if anyone wishes.

Can a Christian Be a Darwinist?

with Karl Giberson and John West, presented by the Master of Arts Program in Science and Religion, Biola University; February 5, 2009

Karl Giberson, Ph.D. (physics), Eastern Nazarene College, theistic evolutionist, author of: Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution.
John West, Ph.D. (government), Associate Director of Center for Science & Culture, author of: Darwin Day in America.

Giberson. This debate was confusing to me at first. The reason? Dr. Giberson went first, and he presented, in general terms (which I think just about everyone knows here), why a person should believe evolution is true. He also presented theological reasons why we should consider evolution as compatible with the Christian faith. Cruelty in nature, coupled with examples of poor design, make God look like a sadist. So evolution lets God off the hook. He thought other issues, such as no actual Adam, were not that insurmountable. His presentation made it seem like a person has to accept evolution as true, and therefore one has to make the bible fit in with it; this is just the reality of it. New website with F. Collins (and Darrel Falk) will be fully functional in March: http://www.biologos.org.

West. Dr. West's presentation was so different that it made me think they asked the wrong person to speak. But, I realized later, West was presenting his case as to why you cannot be a Darwinist — or theistic evolutionist — he was not there to prove evolution true or false (although he cited an interesting new article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... ?full=true ). He did contest two things, but not as much as I would have liked to see: common ancestry and blind evolution. This debate did not distinguish between theistic evolutionists who differ in their ideas about blind or directed evolution, although questions about this came up.

At any rate, West wanted to make two strong points about the Christian faith, and how they cannot be accepted by theistic evolutionists. One was that the doctrine of creation is central to the faith. Blind evolution cannot fit into creation doctrine. Two, the concept of the fall, and thus our need for redemption, is undermined with theistic evolution.

Giberson Rebuttal. He does not care about the fall doctrinal issue. He thinks that if we are sinful now, if we developed this concept of sin, then we need a redeemer.

West Response. The point is that theistic evolutionists don't believe in Christian doctrine, so they are not Christians. God created purposefully and lovingly. There was a fall and we need a redeemer. Many “bad designs” turn out later to not be bad. Junk DNA and pseudo genes are turning out to be myths. Darwin had given up his faith, and others that had been Christians often give up their faith after believing in evolution.

Giberson asks West about the creation account — it's like poetry. What does West think? West says he is not fundamentalist or even literalist, but he does believe in the concepts of God's creation and the fall (West is obviously not a young earth creationist). He says that even if it is written like poetry, it doesn't matter, as there is truth in it. What about carnivores before the fall, Giberson asks. West says he doesn't know and it matters not; some things are mysteries, in any case.

West asks Giberson about how blind evolution was. Is he like Ken Miller, who thinks God didn't really know how we'd turn out. We could have been big-brained mollusks. And Giberson agrees. Then West asks about the fall; if we just evolved/developed selfishly, how could there be a fall? Giberson says we just developed and there was no actual fall, he just uses the theological terminology (! — this was my best understanding of what he said — it seemed pretty clear). Giberson said the microevolution is a fact, but that it's true, macroevolution is an extrapolation of that. He thinks common ancestry is key, and that it's true, and that only fringe people think otherwise.

Questions from the audience — almost all for Giberson. He thinks that many of the characters and/or stories from the bible aren't real. He says that scripture is inspired, but not inerrant, and that each generation of believers makes the bible meaningful to them. West says that Jerry Coyne, well known evolutionary biologist and atheist, thinks the arguments put forth by Miller and Giberson are irrational, that they ruin both the science and the faith. West also adds that when reading criticisms of intelligent design, even by Francis Collins, it very much looks like the authors haven't even read what they're criticizing. One young man with a question (the last one) really was amazing, but I didn't write down all he said. It became very obvious from the young man's questions and Giberson's responses that Giberson did not at all have the same understanding of the bible and Jesus' work that Christians have.

[theodor]

Not being a scientist but believing the Bible being the truth I was confused by reading that even biblebelieving christians more and more become theistic evolutionists. In my opinion it is impossible to believe in core-evolutionism using death and natural selection as its most important keys for change.

Genesis 1:30 tells us : "To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food.” And it was so."
This means in my opinion that death (of animals) was not there before the fall!

During the reign of Jesus the Messiah this will be changed back I believe: "The cow and the bear will graze. Their young ones will lie down together. The lion will eat straw like the ox." Isaiah 11:7

Being evolutionist such a huge change in eating food is totally impossible especially because it is trully that that change will be reached in maybe just a couple of days/years. The bible doesnot say that much about changespeed!

There are much more reasons I could name but this might be enough for now!

[Gman]

I think that a Darwinist could be a Christian, I think perhaps the better question is does Darwinism best reflect God's creation or how it came to be created... Well, if you study Darwinism, it's central premise or philosophy relies on metaphysical or methodological naturalism, which is basically the belief that "nature is all that exists and assumes that observable events in nature are explained only by natural causes, and that supernatural causes are not possible." Any other hypothesis would be considered absurd or religious (a separation between church and state) and simply not based upon any facts because they are not natural facts... They involve a deity...

The problem here is that both beliefs, creationism and Darwinism, are both FAITH based.. And if one was truly able to dissect both viewpoints that is what they would find. Simply a belief system based on faith... No one truly knows 100% (via science) on how we got here, it's a mystery, a belief that one holds on to...

[theodor]

I agree with you that bothe darwinist and creationist have faith at the bottom of their thoughts. Of course I see like Darwinists do believe in micro-evolutionism, the possibility to change to adjust to new situations. In my opinion however it is a possibility God gave the animals in their genetics when creating them.

I fear many christian darwinists have not just seen the consequences of darwinism for reading the Bible. Maybe not so many christian darwinists really read the bible asking themselves if it conflicts with their fundamental faith about creation....

The question of animal food is a striking one and I hope some one will comment it...

[David Blacklock]

In answer to the question "can a Christian be a Darwinist?" several things come to mind. First, when you accept a label, such as Darwinist, you become accessible to pigeonholing by others into parts of the package others may want you in but you don't buy into. Assigning of intentions is not a good thing. Second, the accessibility of DNA studies is all the proof anyone should need that evolution has happened. Most of the information verifies the work that paleotologists have done, while some of it has resulted in adjustments. Paleotologists have grudgingly acquiesced to the changes, as is customary in science when new knowledge becomes mainstream. Thirdly, the practice of science should not be done while checking scripture references for scientific compliance. Nor should the scientist go to church without his faith hat. He should leave his lab manual at home.

Respectfully,

DB

[Cactus]

I think Jesus does mention "survival of the fittest" in a manner of speaking, I am in no way or shape using this to push theistic evolution or Darwinism.

The Parable of the talents Mathew 25:14-30

Okay, this sort of sounds like showing that those who are fittest in the world, end up doing better off. Of course that does not mean if you start with more you will make more. Where do we get the modern usage of the word "Talants" from, well perhaps this is where it comes from; You start with one talent(or a few) and learn/earn more.

So yes, you can believe in both ideas at once. But you have to accept that they are both just that, ideas. With these ideas we can only be up to a certain extent certain, there is NO 100%. Perhaps we should say 95% is the limit of our certainty.

Cheers.

[zoegirl]

I think with respect to the *philosophy* of DArwinism, ie th naturalistic model which demands their be no supernatural invovlement, Christianity cannot fit within this model. The scripture is clear that God is a God that is involved in HIs creation and maintains ans sustains it. I am not even sure we can hold to any clear idea of randomness, in the sense of non-involvement of GOd.

Whether or not one holds that God *works through* a process such as evolution, I would still disagree with the Original Post description of some theistic evolutionists that God did not know what would happen.

[cslewislover]

I don't think either of the debators felt that all theistic evolutionists were in the same camp, those that promote the idea of blind evolution. So yes, there are different beliefs amongst theistic evolutionists.

[cslewislover]

This is a nice (and short) related article.


Dialogue with Darwinists
Key themes to remember on the birthday of 'On the Origin of Species' | Marvin Olasky

Darwinists are celebrating this month the 150th anniversary of the publication of their hero's breakthrough book, On the Origin of Species. Christians who respond with ridicule of Darwin get nowhere—but understanding a few terms of the debate can help to start a dialogue.

(1) Let's start with the distinction between types of evolution. Back in 1859 everyone knew that changes could occur within a species; that's how we breed dogs. Darwin's theory was that a process analogous to artificial breeding also occurs in nature; he called that process natural selection, and he postulated that one species could change into another species. (To put it biblically, since God talks about "kinds" of creatures, one kind could become another kind.)

It's important to know the difference between change within kinds (microevolution) and change from one kind to another (macroevolution). Darwinists who argue for macroevolution often give microevolution examples to "prove" changes. The famous "proof" of moths changing colors as pollution darkened trees was actually a fake, but it could have happened—and that would prove nothing about Darwinism.

Bottom line: Critics of Darwin should not be anti-evolution. Microevolution clearly happens; we should always specify macroevolution.

(2) Let's emphasize how complicated DNA is: In the words of Bill Gates, "DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software we've ever created." So how did DNA come into being? In 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick discovered that DNA stores information in the form of a four-character digital code. Strings of precisely sequenced chemicals called nucleotide bases store and transmit the assembly instructions—the information—for building the crucial protein molecules and machines the cell needs to survive.

The chemical constituents in DNA function like letters in a written language or symbols in a computer code. In other words, DNA functions like a software program—and software comes from programmers who intelligently design it. Bottom line: The makeup of the DNA molecule provides strong grounds for inferring that intelligence played a role in the origin of DNA.

(3) What kind of a role? The Bible clearly says that God created and sustains the universe. Science has now shown that God's creation is more marvelous than Darwin suspected. With no knowledge of the world of nanotechnology within living cells, Darwinians until recent decades saw living cells as somewhat like Lego blocks. Now we know that cells have complex circuits, sliding clamps, energy-generating turbines, rotors, stators, O-rings, U-joints, and drive shafts.

Here's what is key: Each little engine depends on the coordinated function of many protein parts and doesn't work unless all the parts are present. Could all those innovations arise sequentially, or would they all have to happen at once? That's the "irreducible complexity" biochemist Michael Behe wrote of in Darwin's Black Box. Francis Collins in his Socrates in the City (see "Mission to Metropolis," Feb. 14, 2009) lecture pooh-poohed that notion, claiming that in the beginning God created the universe and programmed His creation so that everything would play out. It would be great for Collins and Intelligent Design theorists to debate—and perhaps find more in common than they think.

If "irreducible complexity" is proven, Darwinian materialism is dead. If it's not proven, materialists still have to find some way to account for the existence of human life and a universe congenial to it. They mutter about the role of chance mutations, but mutations are rarely advantageous, and it takes far greater faith to believe that you or I could arise by chance via millions of mutations than it does to believe in the Bible.

(4) Let's admit that the Darwinists are right about one thing: We're in a predicament. We don't ask to be born, but here we are. We normally don't want to die, but we do. Not knowing why we're here, we look for hope. Christians hope in God saving sinners, but evolutionists must have faith in other things unseen to be saved from a sense of meaninglessness.

Let's have compassion for Darwinists as they develop desperate theories positing the existence of an infinite number of universes. Many cloak themselves as objectively scientific, but that can't dodge even what secularists like novelist Kurt Vonnegut acknowledge: "My body and your body are miracles of design. Scientists are pretending they have the answer as to how we got this way when natural selection couldn't possibly have produced such machines."

If you have a question or comment for Marvin Olasky, send it to molasky@worldmag.com.

Copyright © 2009 WORLD Magazine
February 14, 2009, Vol. 24, No. 3

[Canuckster1127]

Darwinist and Christian are both words that have become so broadly interpretted and loaded with meaning as to have become almost meaningless and requiring much clarification.

Can a Christian be a Darwinist? I'd say scientifically yes and philosophically no and then have to move into a very detailed definition of both terms before either of those general observations would make sense.

[jlay]

My question is why?

So you are not a beleiver, why beleive in Darwinism? Because it is intellectually hip I suppose.

[David Blacklock]

Maybe because evidence strongly supports that evolution has and is happening.

DB

[Kurieuo]

Maybe because evidence strongly supports that evolution has and is happening.

DB

But to the unproved extent Atheists must believe is not as supported.

[David Blacklock]

Hi Kurieuo

Who said anything about atheists?

DB

[Kurieuo]

Hi Kurieuo

Who said anything about atheists?

DB

I did? Evolution is not really in question by anyone, but more extreme forms of evolution are.