Undeception

Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution by Denis O. Lamoureux

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have long maintained that we cannot hope for a broad acceptance of evolution among evangelicals until the heavy theological questions are acknowledged and a plausible approach to the theological quandaries evolution creates are sketched out — followed by rather than in reaction to an explanation of the science behind it. This is what Denis Lamoureux aspires to do in Evolutionary Creation.

This book bears the name of Lamoureux’s recommended term for exclusively non-interventionist “theistic evolution”. In discussing scientific strengths of evolutionary theory, I especially appreciated how Lamoureux supplements a respectable treatment of genetic evidence for common descent by lending his unique perspective as a dentist to present the considerable paleontological evidence from analysis of teeth and jawbones. His critique of special creationism and intelligent design was clinical and admirably civil, but fervent nonetheless.

Lamoureux spends considerable space presenting a view of the Bible’s authority that doesn’t take its scientific or even all of its historical claims as accurate. In his memorable terminology, he rejects scientific and historical concordism, the beliefs that an authoritative Bible demands full agreement between the authors’ understanding and scientific/historical reality on those matters. This is a good and necessary start, and I found his candor about theological problems and uncertainties commendable. Yet ultimately I found rather weak his basic assumption that a “message of faith”, a divinely guaranteed spiritual message, lay embedded within every passage; I found that he offered no compelling rationale for discarding scientific or historical concordism while retaining what appears to be merely nuanced theological concordism.

One more significant component of the book is its detailed account of Lamoureux’s “evolution” of thought on these matters, beginning with creationism, followed by evolution acceptance and atheism, then back to creationism, and finally to acceptance of evolution. One should not underestimate the potential of testimony for creating empathy and so attracting outsiders.

Due to this book’s impressive attempt at being a comprehensive volume giving at least an overview of all areas touched by “evolutionary creation”, it is not for the casual reader. For someone who wants to delve deep into the theological and scientific issues swirling around the debate, it seems a great introduction, almost textbook-like (indeed, I can see it being used in Christian college environments). Evolutionary Creation will serve as a useful introduction for those wanting a thorough discussion of all these matters.

(Please note: this book review first appeared at Goodreads. I’m just getting into that site and noticed that I could post my review as a blog post; hence this.)

Mike Beidler pointed me to an article entitled “The Bible as Human Literature” that culminates in the provocative question, “If Jesus is really raised from the dead, what do we lose if we consider the Bible as only human literature?” This is something I’ve been asking for quite a while, but I’ve not read any version of these thoughts written quite so well as in Alex McManus’s outstanding post. Please read it! Encountering writing that good and thinking that clear is exactly why I’ve tapered off on my own production on this blog of late.
I’d like to make some comments about this little excerpt.

God did not write the Bible.

Humans wrote the Bible.

Thus the Bible is not God’s written word if by that we mean that God wrote it.

The Bible is human literature and humans are the authors. Just to be clear, the Bible is not co-authored by God and humans either. The Bible is only (by which I mean that the Bible is not divine) human literature.

I tentatively made similar claims in my longwinded (and somewhat outdated) series on bibliology and hermeneutics. But more and more, I’ve decided that McManus’s comment about “only human” literature is in the right direction. At least in the sense that McManus presents it: as I have said before, the divine is the subject of the Bible, not the substance, so the degree to which it accurately represents the divine depends on how theologically accurate it is. There is, without doubt, absolute truth contained in the Bible. The question comes in about whether that truth is revealed as the intent of the passages in which it is contained or whether it is almost incidental, much in the way that a good photographer finds good subjects not because sunrises, laughing children, etc. are posing for him, but because he knows where to look and is prepared to take the shots when the opportunity arises.

I’ve been reading Evolutionary Creation by Denis Lamoureux, the fullest treatment of a Christian approach to evolution that I am aware of (I highly recommend it). Lamoureux’s central contention in the early chapters is that the Bible, and particularly the OT, was never intended to mirror the details of historical and scientific reality perfectly (what he helpfully refers to as “historical” and “scientific concord”), but were accommodations of ancient history and science to the original audience for a greater purpose. Here again, this is something I argued for in the above mentioned series. Crucially, he insists that the Bible was intended to be theologically concordant. For Lamoureux, Scripture was intended to reveal certain infallible truths, which he calls “Messages of Faith”, and that they are merely wrapped in ancient science and history so that they would be understood by their original audience. And once more, I argued this as well. But even when I stated these propositions, something didn’t sit well with me: one of my greatest expectations in reading Evolutionary Creation (EC) was to gain a better understanding of how to go about finding those divine revelations and separate them from the errant notions the Hebrews had even about God and His ways.

Instead, the problem became even more stark when I read EC. The fact is, sometimes what might otherwise appear as a divinely inspired message is noted to be incorrect, or incomplete at best (e.g. the three theodicies mentioned in EC: Genesis 3, Job, and Jesus, all of which Lamoureux counts as incomplete). Even worse, it’s next to impossible to tell which theological belief on the part of the writers is correct (revealed) and which is a product of their cultural ignorance (un-revealed, but inherited from earlier misconceptions). Most confusingly, Lamoureux argues (as I have) that both an inaccurate theological picture being taught and a new, revealed theological truth may occur within the same passage! For all we know, the “Message of Faith” in Romans 5.12ff might well have been (as it has appeared to believers throughout Church history) that Christ’s work was necessitated because of an historical Fall, except that this understanding has now been debunked by science. How many other things do we currently believe are Messages of Faith that simply haven’t had enough light shed on them? And what good is saying that God hid an infallible message in there somewhere when it’s impossible to verify which is accurate and which is not? It appears that, while rejecting historical/scientific concord, Lamoureux is engaging in some special pleading for theological concord, especially given that he himself debunks some theology contained in Scripture. It seems that he’s saying, “Everything that is true in the Bible is true, and nothing that isn’t,” in a way palatable to folks clinging to the old “inerrant and infallible” standard we were taught to uphold.

It is attractive to think that lurking behind most every passage is a “Message of Faith” divinely deposited for us, but here I think even the good old audience relevance principle precludes us as direct recipients of those messages. So in the end, calling the Bible the “incarnational Word of God” is no more helpful than simply saying, as McManus puts its, that “the Bible exists because God encountered people — encountered not in the Bible but out here in the real world — and some of these people lived to tell about it,” and that sometimes their insights are dead on. But sometimes, not so much.

This thinking is fledgling, but I’m finding it useful for understanding what I have gathered. If it sounds too extreme, keep in mind that I am still holding this tentatively enough to be talked out of it! I can’t think of a better way of posing it than McManus did: “What exactly do we lose if we consider the Bible to be exactly what it is, only human literature?” And in all candor, I’m not particularly interested in the standard evangelical appeal to consequence, “Well, this must be false because otherwise we don’t know what’s crap and what’s divine.” Apart from that, what are your thoughts?

Dr. Francis Collins is a remarkable man. He was the director of the phenomenally successful Human Genome Project that mapped the entire human genome years ahead of schedule. He’s a devout evangelical Christian who enjoys leading worship and writing songs that express the deep faith he acquired long after his acceptance of evolutionary theory.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Collins’s book The Language of God: a Scientist Presents Evidence for Faith, which is a testimony/autobiography as well as a discussion of reasons why he believes faith and science are complementary rather than at odds. I thought, though, that his evidence for evolution (directed at Christians skeptical of it) was much better than his evidence for faith (directed at atheists skeptical of it). This evidence relied on the moral argument and to a lesser extent, the fine-tuning argument. Really quick summary of the moral argument: certain core aspects of human morality seem universal and do not seem to be adequately accounted for by a materialistic world and an ancestry based in the amoral animal kingdom. Really quick summary of the fine-tuning argument: the probabilities that 1) a universe like ours, 2) a planet as habitable as ours is, and 3) life on this planet would all have originated naturally seem by current understanding to be astronomical. Collins has more good sense than to pass either of those arguments off as proof of a deity with an intention for humanity (still less as proof of the Christian God), but he uses them as his book’s subtitle suggests: evidence for faith.

As nice as it would be to be able to use those arguments, as yet I’m personally not comfortable with these sorts of “pointers to God”. Notice my italicized phrase in the last paragraph. If history is any indicator (and we keep looking), “the moral law” will turn out to have a much more natural explanation, and Christians who have been telling people that its supernatural origin is evidence for faith will have some egg on their face. No, evidence that the universe’s development is not so remarkable (for instance) would not alone undermine anyone’s faith. And Collins makes sure to say that his faith is more personal and relational than merely rational; in fact, I would say he is attempting more to explain why he can be intellectually satisfied as a believer than to hold up these things as evidences in and of themselves. Still, I can’t help wishing people would stop expecting to see supernatural peeking through the natural, as it were.

In other words, one can understand the physical world completely well in naturalistic, even materialistic terms. But trying to find God in the gaps of our current understanding of how (even in the question “how likely”) is bound to be an ever dwindling prospect as our understanding grows. If there is any place for God, we will find it in the search for meaning behind a gap-free understanding of the physical how’s of the universe. By my reckoning, Christianity’s still got the best description of meaning, one that functions on a practical level in giving believers a mission to love in a hyper-human way. As I have said before, I think Christianity was intended to be a vital phase in the evolution of humanity toward which the “moral law”, social consciousness, etc. was already pointing.

Now Dr. Collins has a wonderful new website discussing evolution that is oriented toward evangelicals. The organization behind the site is the BioLogos Foundation, named after a term he coined which he prefers over “theistic evolution” (I wonder what he thinks of “evolutionary creation“). In his words, “It’s a word that I made up, which means basically ‘life, by God speaking it into being.’ Bios is the Greek word for life, and Logos is from John 1:1: ‘in the beginning was the Word (Logos).’ “

Ok, as a substitute for “theistic evolution”, it sounds a bit corny (“I’m a BioLogician!”), if you ask me. But as a site and name for a foundation, it’s fine. And the site is wonderful.

The primary focus of the site right now is a souped-up FAQ answering evangelicals’ burning questions about evolution and how it jibes with Christian theology. Most of them are very good from what I’ve seen, but the question that is relevant to this post, “Question 13: What is a God-of-the-Gaps argument? Are fine-tuning and morality just new examples of this?“, is slightly troubling for the reasons described below. Here’s an excerpt talking about the “Fine-Tuning” argument:

One might argue that science could potentially explain the origins of these delicately balanced features, but there are two important things to keep in mind. First, it is very unlikely that a scientific theory could explain away the improbabilities of our Universe without raising other improbabilities. Second, an argument for fine-tuning is unlike a God-of-the-gaps argument in that it is not intended to prove God’s existence. While it is true that the fine-tuning of the Universe adds credence to belief in a creator, such recent scientific findings could hardly be called upon as the basis or justification of the long history of theistic belief. While the fine-tuning of the Universe does indeed lead many people to consider the possibility of God’s existence, the fact that science cannot disprove God’s existence assures us that it also cannot prove it. Instead, fine-tuning can be understood as a feature of the universe that is accordant with belief in a creator. A deeper scientific explanation of these features — albeit highly unlikely — would not ruin its usefulness as a pointer to God. [footnote omitted]

I don’t share Collins’s confidence that a forthcoming “deeper scientific explanation” is so improbable. Well, at least what we know so far is “accordant with belief in a creator”. But really: how many completely false ideas and inaccurate observations are “accordant with belief in a creator”? I find myself wondering how useful such a pointer is, any more than telling someone wanting to locate Draco to “look up at the sky when it’s nighttime”. I do understand his point: try not to look too delusional to atheists. This is a concern I share. But using as one of your primary evidences for your faith’s rationality statistics that have already shown some movement away from mind-blowing and toward simply scientifically interesting appears desperate (which is not much better than delusional).

Regarding the “Moral Law”, the site says:

The moral law also offers evidence that the world has evolved in a way that is consistent with the belief in a good and loving God. This remains true whether science eventually finds an account or explanation for morality. Even if a purely natural account of moral development could be found, the simple fact that morality has evolved is something that would be expected in a world created by a just and loving God.

I’ll admit, these apparent “pointers to God” are interesting, and I get what he’s saying; unless/until they are explained by a better understanding of the natural universe, the Moral Law and Fine-Tuning observations may well bolster pre-existing personal belief. The problem is that this talk is sure to be seized upon by Christians looking for another argument against the allegedly atheistic scientific establishment. This crowd will, despite Collins’s explicit rejection of this usage, take both of these as great apologetic tools or, worse, actual evidence against a universe governed proximately by non-supernatural laws, the type of universe that Collins and other “BioLogicians” such as myself believe in. There will doubtless be plenty of evolution-skeptics wandering around the site, not buying a word of it until they come to the Moral Law/Fine-Tuning stuff, whereupon they’ll tell themselves, “Well, at least my time wasn’t totally wasted: even an evolutionist can’t deny that this is dynamite evidence!” Used as purported evidence for the inadequacy of science to explain the processes responsible for the physical universe, these pointers will end up every bit as much God-of-the-gaps as Intelligent Design is.

So tell me, what do you think of the arguments as presented on the BioLogos webpage? Also be sure to let me know what you think of the site in general!

Mike Beidler over at The Creation of an Evolutionist has a post up with a link to an overall excellent interview with the brilliant Denis Lamoureux, author of Evolutionary Creation, conducted by CanadianChristianity.com. Check it out!

On a side note (and I do think that this is just a side note), Lamoureux has spearheaded an effort to change the term theistic evolution (TE) to evolutionary creation (EC). At the same time, he ardently rejects scientific concordism, which assumes agreement between the science reflected in the Bible and the reality as God knows it; the scientific conceptions of the authors of Scripture that bleed through the pages (e.g., the firmament, the fixed earth, the heart as the organ of thought) were never the intended message and so were not under providential review. He maintains that the science and even some of what is nowadays considered (in violation of cultural/literary context) to be historical accounts were merely culturally relevant vehicles for the “Message of Faith”, the spiritual truth that is the subject of the Bible and the manifestation of inspiration (this is theological concordism). I am on board with this. However, in my oh-so-justifiably-humble opinion, trying to change the name of our belief in both evolution and Christianity is helping folks strain at a gnat while insisting that they swallow the camel of what amounts to the rejection of inerrancy that I just described.

I have a feeling Lamoureux would say that he’s not asking for a change in terminology for P.R. purposes, but because he believes that the noun “evolution” in theistic evolution puts the emphasis on evolution and that EC emphasizes “creation”. However, this doesn’t seem to be a particularly cogent argument, since “evolution” is itself a “creation” of God and no more subject to undue exaltation than anything else created.

Because the popular conception of “creationism” is understandably one of pseudoscience, Lamoureux’s effort to name the movement “evolutionary creation” has the potential to be a turn-off label among the seeking unbelievers, with only a minimal gain of sympathy from believers due to the term’s inability to hide the controversial theology underlying a rejection of Genesis 1-11 as literal history. In the comments of Mike’s post, you can see what so far seems to be a one-sided conversation putting in my two cents on this issue.

For what it’s worth, as I mention in passing on the post, I’m not much of a fan of “theistic evolution”, either. Call me a “Christian evolutionist”, or a “non-concordist”, or something else. But I readily admit I could be wrong. Feel free to weigh in, either here or on Mike’s post.

And by all means, read the interview!

Consider divine action in the origin of the world to be like the strokes of a cue stick in a game of billiards. Label the balls into three groups using the words “heavens,” “earth,” and “living organisms,” and let the 8-ball represent humans. The young earth creationist depicts the Creator making single shot after single shot with no miscue until all the balls are off the table. No doubt, that is remarkable. A progressive creationist sees the opening stroke that breaks the balls as the Big Bang. All of the balls labeled “heavens” and “earth” are sunk by this initial shot. Then God sinks those that signify living organisms and humans individually. That is even more impressive.

Evolutionary creationists claim that the God-of-the-individual-shots (or “gaps”) fails to reveal fully the power and foresight of the Creator. According to their view of origins, the breaking stroke is so finely tuned that not only are all the balls sunk, but they drop in order, beginning with those labeled “heavens,” then “earth,” followed by “living organisms,” and finally the 8-ball, the most important ball in billiards, representing humans. And to complete the analogy, the Lord pulls this last ball out of the pocket and holds it in His hands to depict His personal involvement with men and women. Is not such a God infinitely more talented than that of the anti-evolutionists? Is His eternal power and divine nature not best illustrated in the last example?

from Evolutionary Creation, by Denis O. Lamoureux (pp. 94-95)