Recent Catholic views on evolution

Several prominent Catholics have been in the news recently talking about evolution.

The Catholic News wrote:

The influential Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna has suggested that belief in evolution as accepted by science today may be incompatible with Catholic faith.

In the New York Times op-ed the Cardinal wrote:

Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.

Now at the beginning of the 21st century, faced with scientific claims like neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science, the Catholic Church will again defend human reason by proclaiming that the immanent design evident in nature is real. Scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of "chance and necessity" are not scientific at all, but, as John Paul put it, an abdication of human intelligence.

New York Times 7th July 2005

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, said that Catholics can believe in evolution - as long as it's understood to have been guided by God rather than chance.

Two prominent Catholic scientists Kenneth Miller, author of Finding Darwin's God and former Dominican Francis Ayala have now written to Pope Bededict XVI to ask him clarify the situation.


Perhaps unsurprisingly, some journalists have resuscitated the conflict model and trotted out the Galileo myth:

In closing, we should note that it is not just Darwin with which the church has difficulty. The church still can’t make up its mind about Galileo. Here is a quote from Benedict XVI when he was still just Cardinal Ratzinger and the head of the Inquisition: “At the time of Galileo the Church remained much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself. The process against Galileo was reasonable and just.” And the Sun goes around the Earth.

Thomas Riggans

Galileo, Darwin, and Hawking: chapter 1

In 31 pages we are taken on a whirlwind tour of cosmology and Scripture. The breathless tour takes in a brief history of cosmology from Aristotle to Newton, via Copernicus and Galileo, before looking at Genesis and hermeneutics and then going on to examine Augustine and Calvin’s take on Genesis. It concludes by looking at Galileo and Ballarmino’s approach to scripture. We are treated to broad brush strokes and inevitably some of the arguments are over simplified, nevertheless it is a well written and stimulating read.

He raises the important question: When we read Genesis should we read it metaphorically or literally? The issue of hermeneutics is unavoidable. Two interpretation of Genesis are considered the cosmological approach which takes Genesis at face value and the theological which takes the text to be revealed by God but reads it metaphorically.

Augustine’s view of creation is that God created everything in one instantaneous act; the six day structure is a topically ordered revelation to angels. Thus his view, according to Dowe, is theological. He summaries Augustine’s view as “... accept Scripture over against science, if that science has not been proved conclusively. But if the science has been proved, we must show that Scripture is not opposed to it by reading that Scripture metaphorically rather than literally.” This Dowe dubs the ‘relevance principle’. This approach raises the question, whose science? And when is science ever beyond doubt?

Dowe next turns to Calvin’s hermeneutics. Calvin’s approach is one of accommodation. For Calvin the scriptures are written in accommodation to the common people so that they may be understood by all; hence, we have a ‘deaf’ adder (Ps. 58:4). This approach Dowe calls the ‘neutrality principle’; Scripture is concerned with spirituality and salvation rather than cosmology. I like Calvin’s accommodation approach. This view of accommodation has been developed by Paul Seeley – I’ll blog on his approach another time. Though I don’t like the term ‘neutrality principle’, and Dowe’s description of it sounds rather dualistic.

Dowe writes:

Both [Calvin and Augustine] agree that Aristotelian cosmology is true and that scripture should not be taken literally as denying what is proven by Aristotelian cosmology. But Augustine maintains that the Bible can teach the learned about cosmology and metaphysics, whereas Calvin claims that the Bible does not teach us about cosmology. Calvin holds that the whole message of scripture is accessible to all people, a view that is not shared by Augustine. (p. 29)

1543 saw the beginning of a paradigm shift in cosmology – the year Copernicus’ On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres. Galileo’s Starry Messenger was published in 1610 it purported to show that the heavens are imperfect: the Aristotelian worldview was being challenged. In 1615 Galileo wrote to the Grand Duchess, in it Galileo adopts the ‘neutrality principle’. The ‘neutrality principle seems to fit Galileo more so than Calvin; see for example this quote.

Dowe concludes that Galileo had an assumption of unity between the God of scripture and the God of nature, this led him to a harmony view of properly proved science and correctly interpreted Scripture. The neutrality principle guarantees harmony as scripture is insulated from scientific advances; it holds to an independence model of science and religion. The relevance principle leads to an interactionist view. Dowe concludes:

On either approach – the interactionist, piecemeal relevance principle, or the independence/ global neutrality principle – harmony is ultimately guaranteed by the premise of unity. This premise was never questioned in the sixteenth century.

Twilight study guide update

The chapters on 'historicism' have now been added to my on-line study guide to In the Twilight of Western Thought by Dooyeweerd at the New Critique website.

Bombs in London

It appears that the bombings in London were the result of Islamic terrorism. My concern is that innocent Muslims will be scapegoated.

Arthur Jones has written a brilliant paper on Understanding Islamic Terrorism - Arthur knows his stuff, he has been a missionary in the Ismaic world and among Muslims in the UK. It is well worth checking out.

He concludes:

We will not destroy Islamic terrorism by destroying Islamic countries. For the world to be freed from Islamic terrorism it must be freed from false beliefs. For us, the call is to pray for our Muslim colleagues and neighbours, and to offer them unconditional friendship and hospitality. On the wider canvas the call is to radical mission and community, not to missiles and mayhem.

The world must also be freed from our culture’s false beliefs. For many Westerners it is also a time of confusion and disillusionment. They are repulsed by the naked greed and materialism of our Western societies and perplexed by the naturalism of Western science. They long for a secure place in the moral void. For us, the second call is to repentance and faith, and to the vibrant life of the community of Christ.

The bush of human knowledge

The diagram below, the bush of human knowledge, was devised by Arthur Jones and Richard Russell. It has appeared in Mark (Fields of God) Roques' first book Curriculum Unmasked and subsequently in Science in Faith edited by Arthur Jones on behalf of the Christian Schools' Trust.

The diagram shows how religion and philosophy relate to the special sciences, such as theology, physics, chemistry, history and so on.

The Bush of Human Knowledge (c) Arthur Jones and Richard Russell. Taken from Christian Schools' Trust Science Curriculum Working Group, Science in Faith, CST 1998.

Top 125 unanswered scientific questions

Science magazine as part of its 125th anniversary lists 125 unanswered questions.

The top 25 questions are:

• What Is the Universe Made Of?
• What is the Biological Basis of Consciousness?
• Why Do Humans Have So Few Genes?
• To What Extent Are Genetic Variation and Personal Health Linked?
• Can the Laws of Physics Be Unified?
• How Much Can Human Life Span Be Extended?
• What Controls Organ Regeneration?
• How Can a Skin Cell Become a Nerve Cell?
• How Does a Single Somatic Cell Become a Whole Plant?
• How Does Earth's Interior Work?
• Are We Alone in the Universe?
• How and Where Did Life on Earth Arise?
• What Determines Species Diversity?
• What Genetic Changes Made Us Uniquely Human?
• How Are Memories Stored and Retrieved?
• How Did Cooperative Behavior Evolve?
• How Will Big Pictures Emerge from a Sea of Biological Data?
• How Far Can We Push Chemical Self-Assembly?
• What Are the Limits of Conventional Computing?
• Can We Selectively Shut Off Immune Responses?
• Do Deeper Principles Underlie Quantum Uncertainty and Nonlocality?
• Is an Effective HIV Vaccine Feasible?
• How Hot Will the Greenhouse World Be?
• What Can Replace Cheap Oil -- and When?
• Will Malthus Continue to Be Wrong?

Science and religion quotes 7

I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree: "That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven. not how heaven goes."

Galileo, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany(1615)

Galileo, Darwin, and Hawking: Introduction

In his introduction (pp. 1-8) Dowe poses the question: Harmony or Conflict?

He identifies, largely following Barbour's well-known typology, four (or five?) ways that science and religion can relate: the two conflict models are naturalism ["nature is all there is"] -espoused by James Frazer in his Golden Bough, Hume, Thomas Huxley, Bertrand Russell, John Mackie and, Dowe claims, Stephen Hawking 'fits this camp' (p.3) - and religious science -exponents of this position would be Cardinal Bellarmino (a key figure in Galileo's trial) and the six-day creationist Henry Morris. The two harmony models are: independence (Wittgenstein) and interaction. Interactionists include Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, William Paley and Einstein. He also identifies a sub-division of the interaction category: dependence; in this model science and religion are not only compatible they are dependent upon one another.

This typology has the strength of being simple and straightforward, though I do wonder whether a category that contains Bacon, Newton, Paley and Einstein is rather too large to be of use.

Dowe then asks a pertinent question: 'How are we to decide which (if any) of these [relationships] is correct? ... What method can we use to determine a resolution to such controversies?'

In an attempt to answer this question he proposes to examine some case studies: primarily - and here the title is a dead give-away! - Galileo, Darwin and Stephen Hawking. The problem that I have with case studes is that they can tell us how science and religion have related, but can they tell us how science and religion should relate? Dowe seems aware of this problem and so it will be interesting to see how he proceeds.

He closes with this:

I will defend the view that religious belief as given in western traditions ... is neither incompatible with nor a hinderance to science: there is no philosophical conflict.
(p. 8)

Philosophy family tree

Josh Dever of University of Texas has compiled a philosophy family tree here. At present there are 700 individuals; it is available in a list format (40 page pdf) and a tree format (78 page pdf file).

Galileo, Darwin and Hawking

I have just bought Phil Dowe's new book Galileo, Darwin, and Hawking (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 2005). It looks very interesting, so I shall be blogging my way through it; probably at the rate of a chapter a week.

Phil Dowe is a philosophy lecturer at the University of Queensland and has also written Physical Causation as well as a number of philosophical papers, including this one on 'Chance and providence' Science & Christian Belief Vol. 9, No 1, April 1997, pp.3-20. Here he concludes:

So, should Christians be bothered by the Chance Worldview? Does chance refute providence? No. If chance exists then either it is caused by God (and that is allowed by Bell's Theorem) and this is no problem for providence and there is no conflict with science, or chance is not caused by God, in which case it is compatible with strong Calvinist providence providing it does not lead to meaningful consequences. Insofar as chance does lead to meaningful consequences, strong providence entails that God causes that chance.

I've been tagged...

... by Gideon Strauss. There is a book meme that is making the rounds: bloggers have to answer four questions:

(i) How many books do I own?
(ii) What's the latest book that I bought?
(iii) What's the last book I read?
(iv) What are the five books that mean the most to me?

Here goes:

(i) How many books do I own?

Well, I have recently had to get rid of about a 100 books to make room on my bookshelves - several shelves had two thicknesess of books on them. I probably own around 2-3000.

(ii) What's the latest book that I bought?

That would have been a secondhand edition of Faith and Rationality edited by Plantinga and Wolterstorff. I got it via the Internet from Gowan Books.

(iii) What's the last book I read?

That is a difficult question as I read several at the same time! Recent books I have finished reading are: Ian Rankin's Fleshmarket Close; Doyeweerd's In the Twilight of Western Thought (for about the third or fourth time); Brian McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy; and Tony Campolo's Speaking My Mind. I've almost finished Henning Mankell's Fifth Woman and Rodney Holder's God, The Multiverse and Everything; as well as dipping into the the Calvin Seerveld reader In the Field's of the Lord.

(iv) What are the five books that mean the most to me?

The first and most important would be the Bible - 'nuff said!

Others would include Brian Walsh and Richard Middelton's Transforming Vision and Al Wolter's Creation Regained. These two books helped me to escape from dualism and started me on the road to develop a Christian worldview.

Roy Clouser's Myth of Religious Neutrality has perhaps more than any other book helped to shape my thinking. It took me further along the road that Walsh, Middleton and Wolters started me. I can't speak highly enough of it.

Dooyeweerd's Twilight has also been influential - I'm still getting to grips with it; there is so much in it.

Thanks for the tag Gideon. I'll tag Paul Robinson, Macht, Regeneration and Maggi Dawn.

Anthroposophy, Waldorf and Camphill again

I have recently been getting a number of hits from Waldof-critics list. Dan Duggan kindly posted a comment noting my piece on the anthroposophical worldview.

The Waldorf Critics list is part of PLANS. PLANS describe themselves as:

People for Legal and Non-Sectarian Schools (PLANS) is a world-wide network of former Waldorf parents, teachers, students, administrators and trustees who come from a variety of backgrounds with a common goal: to educate the public about the reality behind Waldorf's facade of progressive, arts-based education. Waldorf is the most visible activity of Anthroposophy, an occultist sect founded by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925).

Together, we have performed exhaustive research on Waldorf schools and Anthroposophy, the esoteric, occult religion that both guides and inspires Waldorf teachers. PLANS affirms the right of all religious groups to practice and to teach their beliefs. But we expect those groups -- including Anthroposophy -- to tell the truth about their missionary efforts.

There are many resources posted there on Steiner and Waldorf education in particular.

Macht on technology

The Evangelical Outpost has an excellent 'expert witness' article by Macht - who blogs at Prosthesis - on Technology; he quotes from one of my favourite books on technology Responsible Technology. It's a great piece and well worth reading.

Love God with all your mind...

There is no dichotomy between thinking and doing! Thinking is doing

Pete Steen

If God had meant us to think, he'd have given us brains.

Paul Marshall

Become a statistic ...

... take the MIT blog survey

science and religion quotes 5 and 6

Mathematical truth ultimately depends on an irreducible set of assumptions, which are adopted without demonstration. But to qualify as true knowledge, the assumptions require a warrant for their assertion. There is no valid warrant for mathematical knowledge other than demonstration or proof. Therefore the assumptions are beliefs, not knowledge, and remain open to doubt.

Paul Ernest The Philosophy of Mathematics Education (Falmer, Basingstoke 1991) p. 14.

One would normally define a ‘religion’ as a system of ideas that contains statements that cannot be logically or observationally demonstrated. Rather, it rests either wholly or partially upon some articles of faith. Such a definition has the amusing consequence of including all the sciences and systems of thought that we know; Gödel's theorem not only demonstrates that mathematics is a religion, but shows that mathematics is the only religion that can prove itself to be one!

John Barrow The World Within the World (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988) p. 257.

Religion shapes science

It has often been argued that science and religion are independent and each should pursue their own domain. This is fallacious; consider the following:

1. We all have a worldview

2. A worldview is shaped by religious commitments

3. All human activity is shaped by worldviews

4. Science is a human activity

Therefore,

5. Science is shaped by worldviews that are religious commitments.

If this argument is valid then religion shapes science.

Mixing science and theology?

There is an interesting debate going on at Telic thoughts between Krauze, an intelligent design evolutionist and agnostic, and Lutheran George Murphy. In response to an article by Krauze on 'When mixing science and theology is OK', Murphy responds:

Actually my theology doesn’t rule out the possibility of science finding evidence of design or a designer. What it rules out is using the concept of God as an element of scientific explanation. When ID does that it is not a “result of science” but an importation of a theological concept into science.

But then, isn't Murphy's statement the importation of a theological statement - theology should not be imported into science - into science.

Read the debate - it's fascinating stuff.

Science and religion quotes no 4

Suppose we loosely define a religion as any discipline whose foundations rest on an element of faith, irrespective of any element of reason which may be present. Quantum mechanics for example would be a religion under this definition. But mathematics would hold the unique position of being the only branch of theology possessing a rigorous demonstration of the fact that it should be so classified.

F. De Sua cited in H. Eves Mathematical Circles (Boston: Prindle, Weber and Schmidt, 1969).