We Need More of This!

BioLogos has begun a series of posts, Southern Baptist Voices, exploring various objections to evolutionary creation as God’s method of creation. The series features posts by several Southern Baptist scholars and responses by scholars and scientists affiliated with BioLogos who favor the view of evolutionary creation. The comments are closed until all posts in a series are live, and then are closely monitored, censored for tone but not for position.

The first three conversations are now complete with another four or more anticipated over the next several months. The approach taken in these conversations is one that is much needed and probably far overdue.  Whatever your view, I recommend a careful look at all of these posts.

In the first conversation Dr. Kenneth Keathley of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest North Carolina outlined six concerns with evolutionary creation (part I and part II) while Kathryn Applegate, Deborah Haarsma, and Darrel Falk provided a response to these concerns (response I and response II).

The six concerns raised by Dr. Keathley are common concerns. Most of them have come up repeatedly in conversation here. Certainly they are concerns that require response. These concerns are paraphrased as follows:

1. Theological method – it appears that science controls the agenda. Why should theology take second place to science?

2. A faithful interpretation of Genesis has only so much elasticity.

3. Salvation history clearly contains discrete and recognizable acts of God. The incarnation and resurrection are two of the most prominent, but not the only such events. Why should we not anticipate such discontinuities in natural history as well?  How and why do we separate one from the other?

4. Adam and Eve – a common concern for sure.

5. The perennial problem of evil.

6. The nature and authority of scripture.

Some of these issues will be the focus of more directed contributions to this series, others are only touched on lightly.

Are there other concerns you would add to Dr. Keathley’s list?

What issues would you like to see us discuss in greater depth?

Uncertainty, Openness, and the Action of God

Part two of the new book God and the Cosmos: Divine Activity in Space, Time and History by Harry Lee Poe and Jimmy H. Davis asks questions about the way God interacts with the world. They begin with a brief discussion of the features of modern cosmology – the physics and chemistry behind the emergence of the earth on which we find ourselves. Chapters 5: Cosmology and the Emergence of Everything, 6: God, Uncertainty, and Openness, and 7: God and Life provide very nice lay-level overviews of key concepts in physics, chemistry, and evolutionary biology. Today I will concentrate on the Chemistry and Physics in Chapters 5 and 6, leaving biology for a future post.

Poe and Davis emphasize two key features in our scientific view of the cosmos. First, there is a direction to time. The universe is not stationary or cyclical, but directional. The big bang, an expanding universe, the second law of thermodynamics (entropy or “disorder” will increase), and the progressive complexity of accessible structures all point to a direction, and potentially to a purpose, in the universe.  The fine-tuning of the universe for life is a remarkable feature that has been commented on by many. This does not prove the existence of God, but is consistent with a personal God involved in his creation, and given a belief in God, it does provide insight into the nature of God.

The second feature emphasized by Poe and Davis is the openness of creation. We do not live in a clockwork universe where given knowledge of the initial conditions and the laws of nature the future, exclusive of miraculous divine intervention, is uniquely determined. Intrinsic quantum uncertainty leaves an ontological openness in God’s creation. Chaos – arising from the exquisite sensitivity of nonlinear systems to initial conditions – also leaves an ontological openness in God’s creation. They pose the following questions:

Is nature hermetically sealed with God on the outside?

Or is nature open to activity by God without having to invoke miracles?

And perhaps we can express this a little differently:

Does God intervene in the world or interact with the world?

Do We Have an Extrovert Ideal?

Tuesday morning Scot linked an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education Screening Out Introverts by William Pannapacker. The article is a comment on a new book by Susan Cain Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. From the publisher’s description:

Taking the reader on a journey from Dale Carnegie’s birthplace to Harvard Business School, from a Tony Robbins seminar to an evangelical megachurch, Susan Cain charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal in the twentieth century and explores its far-reaching effects. … She questions the dominant values of American business culture, where forced collaboration can stand in the way of innovation, and where the leadership potential of introverts is often overlooked.

The megachurch Cain refers to in her book is Saddleback, founded and led by Rick Warren. Ch. 2 The Myth of Charismatic Leadership begins with a discussion of Tony Robbins followed by a section on The Harvard Business School and the pros and cons of quick, assertive, charismatic leadership vs quiet methodical decision making. In the last section of the chapter Cain recounts a visit to Saddleback accompanied by Adam McHugh author of Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture.

Since services are just about to start, there is little time to chat. … We head to the main Worship Center where Pastor Warren is about to preach.

… I can’t help but think of Tony Robbins’s “Unleash the Power Within” seminar. Did Tony base his program on megachurches like Saddleback, I wonder, or is it the other way around?

“Good morning, everybody!” beams Skip, who then urges us to greet those seated near us.(p. 67-68)

The megachurch culture, worship form, and values sets up an extroverted atmosphere. Leaders must be extroverts, there is little place for contemplation, conversation (not small talk – real conversation), and deep thinking. Everything is smiles and pleasantries and generalities with a vague avoidance of anything that may get too familiar. It is something like a cross between a trip to Disney World and your local shopping mall.

Is extroversion a virtue or merely a personality trait?

Should extroversion be a trait we value in church leadership?

Providential Evolution

The current issue of Books and Culture contains a review of The Language of Science and Faith by Karl Giberson and Francis S. Collins provided by Alvin Plantinga, the John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University Notre Dame. I worked through this book a bit over a year ago (March 2011) and you can find links to the posts in the Science and Faith Archive on the side bar (this one is easy to find as it is the first book on the page). The book by Giberson and Collins is an excellent book – one I would recommend to anyone who is beginning to think through the issues raised by science.

Plantinga’s review is something of a mixed bag, some excellent points mixed in with some not so useful comments and observations, the kinds of comments and misunderstandings I wish we could move beyond. You can (and should) read Plantinga’s review itself, available here. An excellent reflection on Plantinga’s review by David Opderbeck is also worth reading.

Plantinga meanders through a number of different issues that are raised by the intersection of evolutionary biology and the Christian faith. In rather annoying fashion he emphasizes “Darwinism” and separates it from evolution, he doesn’t appear to have read what Giberson and Collins actually wrote at places, rambles off on tangents (like the vitriolic nature of some of the internet world), and throws some asides I would not expect from a scholar of Plantinga’s reputation. As an example of the latter, he notes that many will think Giberson and Collins “a bit unduly sanguine about science” … well yes, that is true, “many” generic persons probably will; but Plantinga appears to endorse that thought and gives little reflection to the fact that Collins is both an expert on evolution and a Christian, while he is a Christian and a philosopher, but quite clearly not an expert on evolution. And then there is the ever annoying “An important feature of science is that it keeps changing in the face of new evidence; this very virtue, however, makes it a bit dicey to invest total confidence in its current deliverances.” While the statement is true in a fashion, it is not true in any way that has bearing on the intersection of science and Christian faith.

Beyond the God of the Gaps

Part One of the new book by Harry Lee Poe and Jimmy H. Davis God and the Cosmos: Divine Activity in Space, Time and History asks questions about the way humans have conceived of God and the way this impacts ideas about God’s action in the world. The last two chapters in Part One Poe and Davis consider with process theology and God of the Gaps thinking.  These chapters delve more deeply into the question that frames this portion of the book – what kind of God interacts with the world – and how does he interact.

Process theology and intelligent design are two different ways of wrestling with the idea of God in the context of the materialism and naturalism that has captured Western thinking. These assumptions of materialism and naturalism are, it seems to me, in the air we breath and the water we drink. They are simply the unreflective, unexamined starting point for much of Western intellectual engagement, both in the academy and in the broader culture. Poe and Davis explore the positives and negatives of process theology and then move on to God-of-the-gaps arguments and finally to the way to get beyond these philosophical arguments to a more robust theological view.

Process theology allows natural theology to take a cue from evolutionary theory with all of being, including creation and the nature of God, evolving in time. There are rather unChristian, deistic, philosophical forms of process theology that invoke, perhaps, a spiritual nature to life, but have no room for a personal God of the sort revealed in scripture, or for a God who acts in his creation.  This is interesting, but need not really concern us in the search for ways to think as Christians about the interaction between God and his creation.

Is process theology a valid option to think about the role of God in the world?

How far can this take us? That is when does it cease to become a Christian view?

The Death of Poetry?

I was recently sent a copy of the new book by Harry Lee Poe and Jimmy H. Davis God and the Cosmos: Divine Activity in Space, Time and History. Harry Lee Poe (Ph.D., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the Charles Colson Professor of Faith and Culture at Union University in Jackson TN, Jimmy H. Davis (Ph.D. University of Illinois) is University Professor of Chemistry at Union University.

In God and the Cosmos Poe and Davis explore the interaction of God with his creation. There are two parts to their approach. Part One explores ideas about the kind of God who interacts with the world and the ways humans have considered this across cultures, religions, and time. Part Two turns this around and asks about the kind of world that allows God to interact.

Part One: What kind of God interacts with the world?

This section of the book does not address this question directly – but rather asks questions about the way humans have conceived of God and the way this impacts ideas concerning God’s action in the world. Poe and Davis begin with a survey of the way that God or divinity is understood in major world religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam. This is an interesting survey – although the discussion of Judaism makes such a break with Christianity that it left me scratching my head at times.

How do we think about God?

How does this affect the way we think about God’s interaction with the world?

Evolution is a Lousy Story

There is an interesting post by Tom Bartlett, Is Evolution a Lousy Story?, on the blog at The Chronicle of Higher Education. Bartlett notes that more than half of Americans doubt that evolution describes the origin of species and he considers the role that story may play in this. The post builds off of a proposal by Dan McAdams, a psychologist at Northwestern, and the thesis of his 2005 book The Redemptive Self:

McAdams’s research focus is narrative psychology—specifically, the development of a “life-story model of human identity.” As he writes in his book The Redemptive Self, “People create stories to make sense of their lives.” When you think about it, we tell stories to make sense of pretty much everything. The problem is that evolution doesn’t fit neatly into the narrative box. As McAdams puts it: “You can’t really feel anything for this character—natural selection.”

And a bit later in the article:

Jonathan Gottschall thinks McAdams might be onto something. … “If evolution is a story, it is a story without agency,” he writes in an e-mail. “It lacks the universal grammar of storytelling.” Stories are about a character finding a solution to a problem. Evolution has problems and solutions but no character. As a result, according to Gottschall, “it doesn’t connect as well—especially at the emotional level.”

Gottschall is author of a recent book The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. You can find a teaser for his book at The Huffington Post.

Bartlett’s post contains a number of insights worth some consideration – and don’t miss the link to “one Christian Web site.” He is on to something worth some serious thought. The truth of evolutionary biology does not depend on the story that can be told, but we also must not underestimate the power of story.

Is evolution a lousy story?

What makes the traditional Christian creation narrative better?