Nothing to Be Afraid Of
Erik sent me an article the other day that follows a lively discussion we had here. The gist of the article discusses an interesting approach that the American Association for the Advancement of Science is taking in order to fight back against the Intelligent Design movement: appeal to churches to combat it.
This is a novel approach and one that is worthwhile. Regarding the ID movement, I have already made my opinions, and the reasons for those opinions, clear. This article is talking about something different.
About a year and a half ago, I wrote a piece (badly in need of editing), where I attempted to tackle the question of how the church could actually accomplish its mission more effectively by integrating an understanding of evolution into its own worldview.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: within 50 years the question of evolution will be a non-issue, even for American Christians. Any success that the Intelligent Design movement achieves will ultimately ensure its own irrelevance. It will seriously damage, yet again, the credibility of the church in the eyes of society at large. It’s the problem inherent in any top-down solution, especially when it’s the wrong one.
February 22nd, 2006 at 7:23 am
Amen.
Wait.
(Should I respond that way?)
I don’t think this issue will go away, even in–especially in–America. We have a heavy investment in the theory of evolution by natural selection. If it applies to the human world like it does to the rest of the plant/animal/monera/phytoplankton/other stuff we don’t care about kingdoms then we have two contradictory reactions to it:
(1) “I didn’t evolve from a monkey.”
(2) Why bother giving aid to the poor–they’re being “selected against.”
As Americans, we’ve been enthralled with both of these reactions since at least a decade BEFORE Darwin published Origin of the Species. It’s really only in countries where the church has actively, persistently resisted the state and the wealthy on matters of caring for the poor and mistreated that social versions of Darwinism haven’t really caught hold and–now over a century later–battles against the scientific version of natural selection have died down.
Russia, of course, is the greatest example of this. Germany and France are other ones.
February 22nd, 2006 at 7:34 am
Before I forget to do so again, here’s a link to the best single book done on the creation/evolution debate. Some of it is pretty technical. And it needs to be updated. And it’s pretty pricey. But still….
http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=564z64muDio.,RaCqKhl.SOQFr8_1295197094_2:2:2
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:32 am
Hm…that link didn\’t pan out, e. It just takes you to BookFinder, but no title is displayed.
-Matt
February 24th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
I likey.
p
February 25th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
dang it! type in Evolution and Creation. the editor is Fr. Ernan McMullin.
March 10th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
I personally have no problem with the concepts of either the theory Intelligent Design or Evolution as they are not mutually exclusive in my mind. Evolution does not and can not ever explain the true origin of life in and of itself.
I think it is quite clear that evolution explains quite nicely what we see in reality and appears to be quite a good model for understanding how life itself changes and continues despite impermanence.
However, how life was first formed, or how it has managed to survive and evolve beyond the most simple of building blocks, is one of those mysteries that very precious little evidence exists to explain it. One possible theory of many is Intelligent design. Unfortunately, without evidence to test it, studying about it amounts to little more than philosophy at best.
Here is some food for thought: If there is a God, and he is beyond description, beyond our possible understanding, and he is responsible for the laws we have discovered through science, what possible reason would such a God have for breaking his own laws? And if such a God where to break the laws of science that he has created, how could we really know it since our understanding of those laws is bound by them?