Earlier this year, the blog Open Parachute posted an article entitled, "Theological mental gymnastics over evolution," which criticizes theists who believe that God actively guides evolution for "throwing the baby out" with the bath water. The author is a self-proclaimed non-theist who is concerned to protect the practice of science from theistic intrusions. In the article, he says that he doesn't have a problem with those believers who think that God somehow initiated the evolutionary process and then leaves it alone so that it carries on unguided. The author, however, does not approve of those theists who believe that God guides evolution. He insists that evolution is an unguided process. The Open Parachute posting echoes the sentiments of the biologist, Jerry A. Coyne, who has written (here), "...I vehemently oppose those evolutionists and accommodationists who won’t affirm that evolution is unguided and purposeless (in the sense of not being directed by a higher intelligence or teleological force). For to the best of our knowledge evolution, like all natural processes, is purposeless and unguided."The short answer to these sentiments that theists often rush to is that they are nothing more or less than the opinions of individuals who do not know that evolution is purposeless and unguided. Science, the argument goes, is not competent to judge such things. In fact, by its very nature it is purposely blind to meta-physical realities. When atheists assert the absence of God, they enter the realm of theology and make theological claims, and they can no more prove scientifically their anti-doctrines than we can prove our doctrines.
As far as it goes, our critique of their critique is correct. As far as it goes. But our atheistic friends raise a question that we should not dodge by jumping to our own counter-critique. They are correct in observing that evolution is, as best we can tell, a random process that does not seem to be guided or to have purpose. We should also pay attention to the danger of too easily imposing a theistic overlay onto natural processes, such as evolution. Science is a valuable tool for obtaining knowledge, and we have to respect its integrity as such.
Still, theists approach such questions relying on another set of "data," which is not scientific but compelling. For Christians, Jesus of Nazareth is the key data point, or perhaps it is better to say that the Incarnation is that key data point. Religious experiences, which have a biological component and so are a part of the "real" world of science, comprises a second data point, one we Christians share with people of other faiths (and, apparently, some who claim no faith). The almost mystical connection that we have with the natural world (and something we feel with particular clarity here in Lewis County) provides a third data point, perhaps linked to the second. And, then, the ongoing process of creation is itself still another data point. That a universe friendly to life on Earth even exists defies odds so incredible that on the face of it belief in an unguided and purposeless natural world seems more outlandish than belief that it the universe is in some way guided and built out of some purpose. The speculation of some atheists that there is an infinite number of universes (so, of course, at least one must have life) only makes the whole thing even more incredible—an infinite reality that has no purpose? The belief that evolution is purposeless and unguided is just a belief and one that has nothing to do with science as a set of disciplines devoted to study of the natural world. Evolution, indeed, actually seems to be headed in a direction, one in which non-life leapt into life and non-intelligence became intelligence and, quite possibly, we are standing on the verge of another leap from biological intelligence to cyber-intelligence. Over the course of evolution things are getting more complex. To no end? That could be, but given our other data points we Christians think that there is guided purpose to it all. Evolution seems to have direction because it does have direction, within that direction there lies purpose, and Beyond that purpose there lies guidance.
But, what kind of purpose? How is evolution "guided"? We need to walk beyond some of our traditional thinking and answers because our non-theist friends are correct when they state that evolution does work randomly and does not appear to be guided. They are correct that we can understand a great deal about the biology of evolution without recourse to metaphysical "speculations." How can evolution be both guided and not, both purposeful and not? Those are the questions we must face. (Actually, we have long faced them in such questions as the relationship between divine sovereignty and human free will).
