Nonoverlapping Magisteria
April 7th, 2008 | 8 Comments
Many thanks to Mike Beidler for directing me to this article by Dinesh D’Souza. This quote stands out:
The problem with evolution is not that it is unscientific but that it is routinely taught in textbooks and in the classroom in an atheist way. Textbooks frequently go beyond the scientific evidence to make metaphysical claims about how evolution renders the idea of a Creator superfluous. My book What’s So Great about Christianity? provides several examples of this…
Most Christians don’t care whether the eye evolved by natural selection or whether Darwin’s theories can account for macroevolution or only microevolution. What they care about is that evolution is being used to deny God as the creator. For those who are concerned about this atheism masquerading as science, there is a better way. Instead of trying to get unscientific ID theories included in the classroom, a better strategy would be to get the unscientific atheist propaganda out.
Now, I don’t know that the number of Christians who “don’t care” about the origins debate is so insignificant (at least in America). But my impression of Expelled as it is being paraded by Christians is that it declares open season on the pernicious religion called “Darwinism,” demonized with guilt by its association with evangelical atheists, and in this, D’Souza and I share a concern over casting aside science in favor of “unscientific ID theories.”
The main point of this quote, however, gets at the heart of my hesitation to come down for or against the film before seeing it. Inasmuch as materialists are overplaying their hands and claiming that naturalism is evidence against the supernatural, they should be chided and corrected just as any other apologists for ideologically driven inaccuracies (such as ID!) should. It is important for this to happen because allowing these guys to mischaracterize science bolsters the false impression that fuels the anti-evolution crowd’s fervor to draw and quarter poor Darwin. The denial of the innately spiritually agnostic nature of scientific inquiry is contradicted by such prominent unbelieving scientists as Stephen Jay Gould, who comments in his famous essay, “Nonoverlapping Magisteria“,
The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise—science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives. The attainment of wisdom in a full life requires extensive attention to both domains—for a great book tells us that the truth can make us free and that we will live in optimal harmony with our fellows when we learn to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly.
What Gould wants to express in this essay is some measure of disbelief that there is so much attention paid to the so-called “faith vs. science conflict”. Faith is not scientific; it is, by nature (and Heb 11.1) belief in the unseen, unobservable, and non-empirical. It is metaphysical – so why should anyone expect there to be any intractable conflicts with observations of the physical? Gould and Francis Collins, as well as an innumerable list of other atheists I have interacted with, all agree that in the field, a scientist’s position on any of the various scientific theories is not diagnostic for that person’s position on faith or their likelihood to have a personal faith. This may or may not be the case (I suspect it really isn’t so much) in liberal, activist academia.
It’s “atheism masquerading as science” that we Christians should be uneasy about, and we’re only marginalizing ourselves by burning the entire town where the materialist atheist lives in an attempt to ferret him out.
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April 7th, 2008
Tags: creationism, evolution, fundamentalism, intelligent design, Science
