Hello Friends,
There appear to be things involved in this conversation which are hidden from me. But let me give a try at bringing us back to the original topic without stepping on anyone's scientific or theologial toes.
“I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you say “there is no ‘progress’ or ‘improving’ in any absolute sense’.” – Rich Faussette
If I understand what Rich is suggesting, it is that there is no way to separate ‘evolution’ from the notion of progress, improvement, getting better, etc. He is certainly not alone in making this assumption.
“The idea of evolution gets some of its moral, social, even cosmic significance from its implication that the general motion in the world of living things, perhaps in the universe, is a progress from lower to higher forms.” – Mortimer J. Adler et al. in The Great Ideas (from the Great Books of the Western World series, 1952)
There may be some physiologists today, physicists, chemists, zoologists, and other natural scientists who identify their understanding of evolution *entirely without* any reference to ‘progress.’ Perhaps this is due to the turn to ‘neo-evolutionary’ ideas which reject the idea of ‘uni-linear progress,’ preferring either non-linear or multi-linear variants. In this sense, the (new) idea of ‘evolution’ they embrace could still be said (in their terms) to have ‘evolved’ into a more coherent, contemporary, up-to-date version of evolution, which now does not identify with progress almost at all. The ‘greater and greater complexity’ argument is, however, largely unaddressed.
“I certainly cannot invoke gravity as a moral imperative for me to drop heavy things off high places.” – David Campbell
At the same time, to imagine that evolution has *absolutely no consequences* for thinking about moral things and *no moral imperative* is, imo, wishful thinking. A person may, however, wish not to invoke evolution for moral purposes or even for evaluative purposes, if they so choose. In fact, I tend to agree with Keith Miller’s view that there is no such a thing as (an) evolution of ethics, to which George would likely reply 'folly'. Nevertheless, at the same time, many Christians have so appropriated evolutionary logic into their worldview that even their idea of God our Creator is *subject to* evolution. The NT is *better,* or *more* or *higher* than the OT, for example. It seems to me that persons with this type of argument or way of thinking simply ignore or forget the fact that the OT is written *later* in history than the NT, in order that they may adopt their theological understanding to the natural science cum natural philosophy of evolution.
“If evolution is making us more able to learn, then it is progress. This is not a moral judgment. It's the recognition that we progress from less learned to more learned, developmentally throughout our lives and evolutionarily as we evolve greater intelligence. / I don't know anyone who would NOT want to be smarter than they are. We intuitively know smarter is better.” – Rich Faussette
It seems the closer a person connects ‘evolution’ with ‘progress’ (as in a constellation of grammar), the more they assume a uni-linear idea of history. For me, phrases like ‘evolution is making’ are entirely off-base, since they attribute to a non-causal agent some type of causality (just as ‘natural selection’ is a rather tricky metaphor). And phrased in the passive voice, science is less effective. Evolutionarily also rhymes with merrily, merrily, but life is nevertheless more than a dream.
At one moment I got the feeling that Rich is leaning on an Orthodox interpretation, not only of (social) Darwinism, but also of the sophiology in figures like Vladimir Solovyov and Father Sergei Bulgakov. But that is probably a stretch of my imagination, rather than his. Wisdom is a gift from God, as Proverbs 1-4 and many other places in the Bible indicate, though the connection between learning and progress is not always clear. We can learn the wrong things too, after all. Maybe this is true is some ways of our faith in Evolution?
If one attempts to separate Darwin’s botany and biology (barnacles) *completely* from his worldview, from his theology, from his psychology, from his personal contribution to natural science, then they are partitioning science from a greater reality. Isaac Newton is then a more appropriate figure to showcase how science and theology can interact than Darwin. Newton once wrote in an unpublished paper, “God is known from his works.” Otoh, by the end of his life, Darwin would not speak publicly about religion.
Who then is the figure more apt to consider science and theology in fruitful coexistence?
G. Arago
p.s. Still no one has addressed the one question I posed in the OP: when is it wrong to oppose anti-evolution?
p.p.s. Only with the idea of food for thought do I submit the following, from a sociologist who depended heavily on evolutionary logic:
“Every time that we undertake to explain something human, taken at a given moment in history – be it a religious belief, a moral precept, a legal principle, an aesthetic style or an economic system – it is necessary to commence by going back to its most primitive and simple form, to try to account for the characteristics by which it was marked at that time, and then to show how it developed and became complicated little by little, and how it became that which it is at the moment in question. One readily understands the importance which the determination of the point of departure has for this series of progressive explanations, for all the others are attached to it.” – Emile Durkheim (The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, 1912)
p.p.p.s. I wrote this message before reading the last 5 posts on this thread, and it deserves highlighting both Rich's 'God favors the learned' or 'God favors the wise' statement, and also George's view that, to paraphrase, 'to make [one's] understanding of evolution the single principle in terms of which scripture is interpreted is precisely to force it into [one's] mold.' There is no *way* a view of evolution as a theory of everything can thus be maintained. In this sense, there must be some places where opposing anti-evolution is invalid.
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Received on Sat Jul 15 15:19:37 2006
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