Saturday, December 17, 2005

Wayfaring Stranger's take on evolution

As with my previous posts on creationism and intelligent design, I don't pretend to be an expert on evolutionary theory, but I have philosophical points to make that I think are important.
First, evolution is perhaps the most popular product of the naturalistic worldview, which requires physical or observable explanations for how things work. That, in itself, can pose problems for the Christian believer since we are asked to have faith in an unseen God whose nature and methods we cannot comprehend, even if explained to us. Is not Abraham lauded in Romans 4 for believing God's promise, despite all the appearances to the contrary? Abraham certainly didn't have a physical or observable explanation when he believed God, he simply was "fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised." End of story.
I'm not saying Christians can't depend on physical and observable evidences when gaining knowledge, I'm just saying there is no way of knowing some things, and in those circumstances, it's especially important to have simple faith. So for the Christian, maybe it's not that evolution challenges the existence of God so much as the existence of an omnipotent God challenges evolution. After all, evolutionary theory presupposes that God would not simply create things supernaturally, or as Paul writes in Romans 4, "calls things that are not as though they were." But if there is an omnipotent God (and I believe there is as surely as I observe my own existence), then that obviates the question from which evolutionary theory arose.
Perhaps evolution is the crutch on which an increasingly unbelieving world has to rely? Since they cannot believe in an unseen God whose work is incomprehensible, they have constructed evolutionary theory out of necessity. Far from being a scientific theory open to investigation, evolution has become dogma for an unbelieving world.
In none of this have I said evolution is untrue. Evolution does have powerful evidences, but it also has difficulties that even experts acknowledge. Think about this: you weren't there in the Garden of Eden, nor did you see the first fish to breathe air through its gills. If anything, the creation-evolution debate should make people less dogmatic, since it's one thing no one really has down pat.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'd like to recommend a couple of books: Of Pandas and People, and Darwin's Black Box.