Modern evolutionary biology, or “Darwinism,” may be proposed as a defeater for Christianity. The stronger, but less informed, version of the argument states that belief in the Christian God was justified by the necessity of a First Cause to bring about life on earth, but such belief can be discarded now that a superior explanation is in hand. (The strangely pre-Copernican overtones of this account may or may not yield to an appeal to modern cosmology and its requirement of a transcendent Causer.) The weaker, but more reasonable, form states that Darwinism provides a robust naturalistic account of the origin and diversification of life on earth, thereby reducing the likelihood of Christianity with its appeal to a miracle-working God acting detectably in time and space as outlined by its scientifically embarrassing Scriptures.

The account of modern evolutionary biology is that all life on earth originated from a universal common ancestor between three and four billion years ago, and has diversified in the intervening period to produce the millions of species known today.¹ This diversification takes place through random genetic mutations, which are normally deleterious, but occasionally result in innovative phenotypes that provide an organism with some kind of competitive advantage in its ecological niche. Advantaged organisms are more likely to survive, and therefore are more likely to pass on their newly invented genes to their progeny. In this manner, random improvements are retained over time, and weaknesses and inefficiencies are rejected. Repeated a step at a time over billions of years, this process is thought to generate human beings from the first living prokaryotes.²

Christians are not in widespread agreement about what, precisely, is required of their doctrine of creation. Some embrace evolutionary biology as a process under the Providential direction of God, and others hold to a 144-hour creation week only several thousand years in the past. A stable evangelical middle ground seems to require a transcendent God who is intentionally and purposively involved in the creation of the cosmos, the planet, and the life-forms found here, culminating in the special creation of a literal first couple who were set apart from the rest of the creation as vice-regents over it. This proposal is incompatible with the evolutionary scenario.

The scientific claims and counter-claims of the debate are essential to its resolution, but not primarily so. Darwin has not first and foremost defeated Moses as the most successful chronicler of the salient events of creation; rather, epistemological and metaphysical commitments have shifted such that the account of Darwin is accepted, and no account like that given in Genesis could possibly be admissible in respectable courts of elite opinion. Darwinism’s putatively superior account of origins is advantaged only within the context of metaphysical (or perhaps just methodological) naturalism, the belief that only natural states of affairs exist (or that only natural causes may be inferred). Naturalism triumphed first, and Darwin has only rushed in to fill the void. Given naturalism, Darwin will reign undefeated. Absent naturalism, the debate becomes more interesting.

The charge is commonly made against the Christian apologist that her denial of Darwinian evolution is an obscurantist attempt to prop up reactionary religious claims. This is normally accompanied by a mythical retelling of the seventeenth century Galilean controversy in which Galileo becomes a ruthlessly persecuted, agenda-less, honest inquirer dedicated to gaining new scientific knowledge whatever the cost to religious faith, human institutions, or personal freedom. The allegedly oppressive and belligerent history of religion in general–and Christianity in particular–is also put forth to the apologist’s detriment. However, the accusation of obscurantism is unhelpful at best and hypocritical at worst, since entrenched metaphysical naturalism in the sciences now prevents the consideration of alternative proposals altogether.³ It is not we who are reactionary.

The Intelligent Design (ID) movement seeks to provide an alternative by critiquing the account of evolutionary biology and offering an objective means by which to infer design by an intelligent agent. Negatively, it posits that some biological systems are irreducibly complex, or composed of many parts, all of which must be present for the system to function, but for which no credible evolutionary pathway can be conceived.⁴ Positively, it proposes the criterion of complex specified information (CSI), an objectively discernable state of affairs in which a single teleologically privileged state is actualized from among many possibilities. CSI allows us to discern the actions of an intelligent designer from the combined actions of chance and the laws of nature.⁵ These two lynchpins of the program are themselves highly controversial, but the debate between Darwinism and ID is not animated primarily by the search for clever co-option pathways in evolution or ruminations on Kolmogorov complexity and its implications for the validity of CSI.⁶ The issue at hand is whether supernatural causes can be invoked to explain natural phenomena, and whether such explanations can be admitted to the public square.

The apologist is advised to remember the philosophical issue at the heart of the debate. While bickering scientists are not a surprise to any regular viewer of PBS’ Nova, the ire raised by the claims of the ID movement betray the profound human import of the issues under consideration. The scientific establishment seems to fear that the heavy hand of theocracy–oppressed women, systematically persecuted homosexuals, and heresy trials in the public courts–will follow close on the heels of ID being taught in public schools. The wise apologist should therefore balance his approach to include some treatment of the relevant scientific issues, a rigorous philosophical critique of naturalism, and his most authentic assurances that we do not seek to gain political domination over our unbelieving fellows. ID needs intellectual freedom, not despotism, in order for it to be tested. Given that chance, we can hope to see it prosper in the coming decades.

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¹Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth (New York: Copernicus Books, paperback edition, 2004), 57.
²Ibid, 107-112.
³William Dembski, Unapologetic Apologetics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 238-244.
⁴ Ibid, 252-254.
⁵Ibid, 244-251.
⁶Dembski, The Design Revolution (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 83.

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• Posted by Tim on Monday, December 20, 2004 at 8:02:35 am PST
• Category: Theology
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