How Could God Create Through Evolution?: A Look at Theodicy, Part 2

July 26, 2010
Category: Guest Features

"Science and the Sacred" is pleased to feature essays from various guest voices in the science-and-religion dialogue. Today's entry was written by Bethany Sollereder. Bethany Sollereder has a Master's Degree in Christian Studies from Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. Her focus was on science and religion, and her thesis was entitled "Evolutionary Theodicy: Toward an Evangelical Perspective." She has been accepted into PhD studies at the University of Exeter and hopes to start in 2011. Bethany's first degree was in intercultural studies. Bethany's other great love is 19th century British history, so when she is not reading about science and religion, she can usually be found reading Victorian literature.

This blog is the second piece in a series by Bethany Sollereder. The first entry is found here.

Last week we looked at how our very good evolutionary world necessarily includes unpleasant realities like earthquakes and pain. This week, we are going to look at why God might have created a world through evolutionary processes. What is the advantage of a world where pain and death are necessities? What is gained by an evolutionary process that would not be present in an unchanging, static, ‘perfect’ world? Why did God not simply create heaven in the first place? These are questions of huge theological significance and are not going to be satisfactorily answered here. I do, however, hope to offer some starting points for discussion.

I began to look at these questions by researching Irenaeus’s theology of creation. Irenaeus of Lyons was a second-century Church Father, and one of the Church’s greatest theologians. One of the most intriguing parts about his theology is that he understood the creation as being made in immaturity. Most of us imagine the world of Genesis 1-2, or the original creation, as a perfect world, where everything is already completed, and where Adam and Eve were meant to live out their lives in a perfect existence. Apart from multiplying and filling the earth, there is not a lot of room for growth, either physically or spiritually, for humans or for creation because everything has already “arrived.” In a radical re-imagining of this story, Irenaeus pictures Adam and Eve in the garden as children––not perfect, but on a journey toward maturity and perfection. This is because perfection is not something you can give to an infant; it must be grown into. Irenaeus argues, “For as it certainly is in the power of a mother to give strong food to her infant, [but she does not do so], as the child is not yet able to receive more substantial nourishment; so also it was possible for God Himself to have made man perfect from the first, but man could not receive this [perfection] being as yet an infant.”¹ So, God does not force something on to humanity that it is not ready for. Perfection was not something that could be implanted; it had to be journeyed toward. And so Irenaeus gives us our first value of an evolving world: room for the growth and development of humans.

Now, let’s extend this argument to the wider cosmos. Just as humanity is not created in static perfection, the world around is not fully completed either. Colin Gunton, reflecting on Irenaeus, writes, “Creation is a project... It has somewhere to go.”² There is value in saying that creation has the freedom to grow, that it is an ongoing project. A world with freedom must have choice, and this is present in a world with a long evolutionary history. The cosmos, like humanity, is created very good, but it is not created in its final state. This giving of freedom (and perhaps even limited autonomy) to the creation is, I would argue, more consistent with the nature of divine love than a creation where everything is determined. God gives true freedom to humanity, leading to moral choice, and true freedom to creation, leading to evolutionary development. This is God’s act of love, and this is why God did not just make heaven in the first place.³ Freedom and growth are valuable, and God delights in them.

A third value given through evolution is the ability to move toward a goal. And that begs the question: “Where is evolution going?” I would argue that evolution was moving toward developing a community of beings which carries God’s image and amongst which God would be made incarnate. The Incarnation was not a contingency plan brought in when humanity sinned, but rather was one of the original purposes of creation. This concept is one of the great contributions of Irenaeus––creation was always headed for the Incarnation! Also, this creation was always part of the journey toward new life. God’s promise of a new creation is not a contingency plan either!⁴ The new (or, rather, renewed) creation, as described at the end of Revelation, was always part of the plan. I don’t think that any theodicy can say “this world is good” without also pointing forward to the time when there will be no pain, no death, and no tears, under some new and unimaginable reconstruction of the universe. Keep in mind that we do tend to imagine the new future as static in some ways. Many of the values that are achieved here (such as having children or freedom of moral choice) are not imagined to exist there in the same way. In no way does saying “this is a good world” undermine the Christian hope in the world to come. Actually, recognition that this life was always meant to be renewed can help our Christian walk. The spiritual growth coming from this world is seen most easily, perhaps, with the example of death.

In the present world, physical death is the most poignant reminder of our mortality. While we grasp at immortality through various means, we find it is always beyond our reach. The suffocating horror and fear that accompanies many of our encounters with death reminds us finally that we are not God. Yet it is in those moments of deepest agony that our need for the hope of resurrection is the strongest.

What do we do with death? In light of the new creation, death is a transition from this life to the new life. It is a leap of faith that God always intended, and one which God himself did not avoid. In the lives of saints and martyrs, we see a taste of what physical death was intended to be (I am speaking here of physical death without sin; our present experience of death is horridly marred by sin and the reality of spiritual death). We see how many of the martyrs approached death with peace, acceptance, and even joy––to lay down their lives and be called into the presence of God. I believe that this was the original intention of death. Death was to be a transition, a final giving up of oneself into the enfolding arms of God. Our bodies go to decompose and support new life, while our trust is placed in the promise of the resurrected life.

I want to be careful here. This does not mean that we should not grieve death. Even Jesus, when he was at the tomb of Lazarus, wept openly, even though he knew that he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. There can be a strange disconnect, where if we Christians say something is good or natural, we sometimes feel we should then be able to avoid a real emotional response to the situation, or that faith means not being broken by certain situations. This is not what I am advocating. Encountering death should make us weep, because the loss we experience is real. Christian hope makes us more human, not less––we should feel more deeply, not less. But we should also feel differently. We grieve, knowing that there is hope and life and renewal ahead. We know that physical death does not have the last word, because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We hear Paul’s triumphal cry “Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?…The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”⁵ Our path is not to avoid pain and death, but to walk through them, following our Lord and Savior in life, in death, and in resurrection life.

Speaking of Paul, I feel that I should acknowledge the big white elephant in the room. Someone will ask, “Doesn’t Paul say that death came through the Fall? How do you deal with the biblical texts where death is called the enemy of God?” This will be the topic of next week’s entry.

Notes

1. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson (Grand Rapids, MI: 1975), IV. xxxviii. 1.

2. Colin Gunton, The Triune Creator: A Historical and Systematic Study (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 56.

3. Here, I mean “heaven” in the sense of the new heavens and the new earth of the eschatological future, not the current dwelling place of God.

4. Read, for example, N. T. Wright’s book Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperOne, 2008).

5. 1 Corinthians 15:55-56.

Filed Under:

theodicy, evolution, problem of evil, death, suffering, pain, creation, God, loving God, physics, nature, theology

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Comments (63)
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NTD - #23465

July 26^th 2010

Wow. Thank you so much for these articles. I’m about to dive into Genesis once again, exploring what we’ve been told about creation from a new perspective.

God bless you for sharing your gift.
eddy - #23473

July 26^th 2010

A real evolutionary biologist is reading this and I guess at this moment is screaming, “what? evolution moving towards a goal”? this theologian lady wants to screw all and reinvent the wheel to something else that is literally an heresy to our beloved field”.

The rest of the article reads good and nice work Betty. Hope those real evolutionary biologists get it: I would argue that evolution was moving toward developing a community of beings which carries God’s image and amongst which God would be made incarnate.
Bethany Sollereder - #23484

July 26^th 2010

Eddy,
I do not claim to be an evolutionary biologist (not even a fake one!), or even a scientist. I dwell in the discipline of theology, through and through.
That being said, there are many real scientists who would not blink an eye at the idea of teleological evolution.
Right from the beginning of evolutionary theory, we have men like Asa Gray, the Harvard botanist, who thanked Darwin for “having brought back teleology to natural history.” (Darwiniana, 294). In contemporary times I would point to Simon Conway Morris, who argues in “Life’s Solution” that a creature very much like humans was inevitable. I don’t believe my claim goes anything beyond this.
Perhaps invoking teleology is a heresy in the realm of the new-atheists, but I don’t believe the pure science of biology can speak of (or prove) either the presence of teleology or its absence.
Argon - #23487

July 26^th 2010

eddy - #23473: A real evolutionary biologist is reading this and I guess at this moment is screaming, “what? evolution moving towards a goal”?

It kinda depends on what one means by ‘goal’ and whether it’s accessible to scientific inquiry or has additional context. For example: An apple fell off a tree and landed on Newton’s head. Why did it fall?

Answer 1) Apple stems weaken in prelude to dropping ripened fruit. The apple descends to Earth because of the mutual attractive force called gravity.

Answer 2) Because God wanted to inspire Newton toward understanding gravity.

Both could be correct but the former is a scientific explanation (proximate) while the latter adds additional metaphysical context (distal - and perhaps more subjective).
Mike Gene - #23504

July 26^th 2010

Hi Bethany,

I too am enjoying your series. But eddy is correct in noting that such a teleological interpretation of evolution is not allowed in science. As Douglas J. Futuyma’s college textbook Evolution teaches:

Thus the concepts of goals or purposes have no place in biology (or in any other of the natural sciences), except in studies of human behavior.

In fact, evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne recently wrote:

And, as I recall, it was the folks at the NCSE who agreed with the faithful in removing the word “unguided” from school standards on evolution. But, as all biologists know, evolution really is unguided. That’s one of its most important aspects!

If evolution was guided, science would say otherwise. That’s because science, by definition, must begin with the working assumption that teleology is not in play.
Mike Gene - #23505

July 26^th 2010

As one of the 20th century’s greatest scientists explained:

The cornerstone of the scientific method is the postulate that nature is objective. In other words, the systematic denial that “true” knowledge can be got at by interpreting phenomena in terms of final causes – that is to say, of “purpose.”……the postulate of objectivity is consubstantial with science; it has guided the whole of its prodigious development for three centuries. There is no way to be rid of it, even tentatively or in a limited area, without departing from the domain of science.

It would help if people stopped thinking of science as some Super-Duper Detector of All Truth and realize it is another form of human inquiry that, like all inquires, is a function of its agreed upon context and rules. In other words, if someone claims that Bethany’s interpretation of evolution is unscientific, the proper response is - so what?
David B - #23507

July 26^th 2010

You quote from 1 Corinthians 15, but how would you synthesize your theory and verse 26: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”?
Bethany Sollereder - #23513

July 26^th 2010

Mike,
You said “the teleological interpretation of evolution is not allowed in science.” This is precisely why these are theological, and not scientific, posts. I am not doing science, I am doing theology. I am not questioning any of the evolutionary data, I am simply invoking a teleology, which is in the realm of metaphysics, not of science.
David, that comes next week!
Tulse - #23523

July 26^th 2010

Bethany, you write: “perfection is not something you can give to an infant [...] Perfection was not something that could be implanted”. But surely that is yet again implying a lack of omnipotence, no? These are not even the standard problems of logic with omnipotence, as there seems to be absolutely no logical reason why a perfect and omnipotent creator could not create perfection. Arguing that humanity was not ready for perfection is simply question-begging—why couldn’t humanity have been created ready?
Andrew Vogel - #23527

July 26^th 2010

Thank you for writing these articles Bethany. They’re very interesting. I was also wondering if your thesis is published somewhere I could get my hands on it? Or if you have rights to email me a copy? I would love to read it in full if possible.
MyGoatyBeard - #23528

July 26^th 2010

Tulse - ‘why couldn’t humanity have been created ready?’. How about choice, freedom and growth? When I was a child I thought like a child, talked like a child, reasoned like a child. Now I’m a man I put childish ways behind me. I choose. I’m free. I’ll grow towards perfection.
Rich - #23534

July 26^th 2010

Mike Gene:

I’d agree with what you wrote, so far as it goes, but there is another point to be considered. Most of the famous scientists and interpreters of science, whether atheist or TE, who have written about the “methodological” limitations of science have implied that science can (in principle) give a description of nature that is complete, without reference to telic structures or processes *within* nature. What if this is not true? What if, for example, the neo-Darwinian account of nature (unadjusted by Genean front-loading), simply cannot account for macroevolutioanry phenomena? What if the only way to account for the phenomena should prove to be the introduction of some notion of self-organization of biological form, based on laws which appear to all the world to be anthropogenic in their orientation? Then surely even the science of nature would have to consider notions of purpose, not in the sense of the meaning of life, but in the sense of *telos* or end-directedness. If the job of science is to interpret “how nature works”, and if nature does in fact work telically, science should not shrink from affirming that, even if that offends Cartesians, Baconians, Darwinians, and the NCSE. Don’t cede too much.
Bethany Sollereder - #23547

July 26^th 2010

Andrew,
Send me an e-mail, and I’ll make sure you get a copy. Eventually, the thesis is supposed to be up on the Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN) but, until then, just contact me.
Tulse - #23548

July 26^th 2010

MyGoatyBeard writes: “How about choice, freedom and growth? When I was a child I thought like a child, talked like a child, reasoned like a child. Now I’m a man I put childish ways behind me. I choose. I’m free. I’ll grow towards perfection.”

By why grow toward perfection if perfection limits choice, freedom and growth. And if the creator is perfect, does that mean that the creator has no choice, freedom, or the ability to grow?
Argon - #23556

July 26^th 2010

Rich - #23534 “Most of the famous scientists and interpreters of science, whether atheist or TE, who have written about the “methodological” limitations of science have implied that science can (in principle) give a description of nature that is complete, without reference to telic structures or processes *within* nature.”

I don’t think that necessarily characterizes the TE position. First, the general agreement among TE’ers is that there is no description of nature that is complete ‘within’ nature. They would disagree with the implication of self-referential completeness, particularly since God is responsible for setting up and the moment-by-moment continuation of the universe. The methodological limitations of science do not imply that science can in principle explain everything; it’s a goal but not a certainty and TE’ers would propose that in the end, no natural explanation can be complete without God.
Kirk Jordan - #23557

July 26^th 2010

You wrote: A third value given through evolution is the ability to move toward a goal. And that begs the question: “Where is evolution going?” I would argue that evolution was moving toward developing a community of beings which carries God’s image and amongst which God would be made incarnate. The Incarnation was not a contingency plan brought in when humanity sinned, but rather was one of the original purposes of creation.

I would be interested in finding out if you hold to some other mechanism for evolution other than natural selection acting upon random variation. This standard reading of evolution seems (in the eyes of both Darwin and Dawkins) to preclude the possibility of a directed process. Do you propose some other mechanism?
RBH - #23558

July 26^th 2010

Tulse asked
And if the creator is perfect, does that mean that the creator has no choice, freedom, or the ability to grow?
As far as I can see that’s the case. In a system in which only one state can be perfect, perfection implies that there are no alternatives, and with no alternatives there are no choices to be made. With no freedom to choose between alternatives, no growth is possible. It is an inescapable point attractor, a state which once reached must be static.

So the answer to Einstein’s question (‘Did God have a choice in creating the universe?’) must be “no.” God has no choices.
merv - #23562

July 26^th 2010

RBH, imagine, if you will, your perfect meal (just one meal with its perfect apetizer, perfect side dishes, perfect main course, perfect desert—- shoot, even throw in a variety of things for each of these so as to qualify it as a “feast”. It is to be *perfect*, after all.

Now: imagine that you are served that meal. Then you are served it again. And again. And again. And again. And as perfect as it is, you begin to think maybe a bit of variety would be nice. But no—-only perfection allowed—- no choices—- an inescapable point attractor to which you are now locked in for perpetuity.

I propose that what started out seeming like heaven may begin to seem to you like the other place instead.

—Merv
Argon - #23566

July 26^th 2010

Merv, I think that would be a perfect meal in an imperfect place…
Thus it wouldn’t be the perfect condition.

I think the problem with discussions of this type is that descriptions and logic actually fail at the boundaries. What does it really mean to be ‘perfect’ or exist in ‘perfection’? I’d say that we don’t have a complete definition with which to cogently evaluate statements about ‘perfection’. Analogies seem to fail.

Hi Dr. Hoppe!
conrad - #23573

July 26^th 2010

Have you looked at astrobiology?
Possibly genes do not develop on this earth but arrive here on meteorites as did most of the earth’s water.

NASA has a lot of interest in it.
conrad - #23574

July 26^th 2010

Is there any reason to think Ireneaus knew what he was talking about?
conrad - #23581

July 26^th 2010

Can God make a rock too heavy for he himself to lift?

These are old canards that don’t lead to any real progress.

I personally like, “What is the difference between duck?”
Greg Myers - #23582

July 26^th 2010

Isn’t this premise a bit odd, if you think about it? To propose that God takes an inherently unpredictable, messy, chaotic, wasteful and cruel process, and calls it a plan? Unless god continually monitored and shaped the process along the way, there would be no telling what the end result would be. Compared with shaping someone from the dust, turning to a process that takes billions of years seems a bit much. Genesis gives us a cozy picture - small world, carved out of the waters, shaped into a habitat for man (even woman is a late addition, as man’s helper).

To discover that it is not that way at all - that the universe in unimaginably old, and incomprehensibly huge, and that we ended up here through a bizarre and unlike series of events - and then say that this process - evolution - is the Genesis story? I think not.

More likely? That we have evolved to see meaning and seek community. That morals and ethics are the result of many generations of selection and experience. Experience is encoded in religion because religions provide structure - protection and nourishment for our hand-won understanding of how to survive and even thrive.

Hang on to the morals and ethics, let the attempts at origins go.
merv - #23587

July 26^th 2010

From a non-Christian perspective, Greg, you can hang on to whatever you want and jettison whatever doesn’t please you at the moment. That’s all well and good for you.

But for Christians, we take an interest in our origins because the Bible tells us something about our origins—- something important; not something merely scientific, technical, or irrelevant, but something that is actually important. You can dismiss that as unlikely all you want, but until you understand that most Christians may be starting with an assumed body of givens significantly different than yours, you will probably be frustrated in this forum.

To understand our history is to begin to understand where we might be going. Given that we have the barest glimpses of either of those, we have plenty opportunity to learn about trust, hope, and faith along the way as well.

—Merv
James - #23590

July 26^th 2010

@ Tulse:

We shouldn’t think of omnipotence in terms of quantity, power or of specific tasks.
Rather we should think of omnipotence in terms of the “ability to actualize states of affairs.”

States of affairs: (a way something might be) EG: the state of affair that there being chairs in my room obtains. Or the state of affairs that we are in the lower story of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church (if we were having this discussion there). Or that there’s a piano here in front of me… etc-

To be omnipotent then, I think, means the ability to bring about any state of affairs which is logically possible for anyone in that situation to bring about. A person with that kind of power is omnipotent.

No one can actualize a state of affairs which consists of an all powerful being’s inability to lift a stone. That is impossible! So omnipotence would not require God to create a stone too heavy for Him to lift. That wouldn’t fall within the scope of omnipotence.

So I think this definition of omnipotence is adequate to capture the intuitive idea of being all powerful and yet it won’t commit you to saying that God can do these absurdities like worship another god, or make a stone too heavy or make a round square- things of that sort.
James - #23592

July 26^th 2010

@ Greg Myers:

We apprehend a realm of objective moral values in moral experience, and claims that these values are not objective and true based on socio-biological conditioning commits the genetic fallacy.

Any attempt to question the reliability of our moral faculties would be paralleled by the same kind of argument that would call into question our sensory faculties and would lead us to the absurd conclusion that physical objects are unreal.

Belief that it’s wrong to torture a child for fun would is a properly basic belief grounded in my moral experience of the world, much like the belief that I have a head and a body, and if you deny the rationality or the truth of those properly basic beliefs then you ought to think the physical objects of common sense are unreal! Because they’re exactly on a par with each other.

So if moral values are gradually discovered rather than invented, then our gradual fallible apprehension of them doesn’t do anything to undermine their objectivity.

Finally if God doesn’t exist, then objective moral values don’t exist
But objective moral values DO exist
Therefore, it follows that God exists.
Justin - #23596

July 26^th 2010

Greg Myers - #23582,

I liked where you were going primarily, but then you had to write “let the attempts at origins go”. How does anyone do that? You may be right that picking and choosing theologians that seem to enable accommodation to evolution may not be the right method, but no one who believes in the Creator God of the Bible is simply going to let those attempts go. Worship is directed not only at the Lord and putative Savior of the world, but also the Creator of it. Can’t stop doing it…

I also agree that theodicy is not being answered well (in this post and in most other places), but I’m not sure how soluble the problem is, since people have been attempting to solve it for forever. I don’t think that I can do any better at this point either. But the fact that we struggle so mightily with “the problem of evil” makes it impossible to me to simply stop searching for the best available answer to the problem.
Greg Myers - #23597

July 26^th 2010

James, I think I am with you until the end part there. The first premise of your syllogism is an unlikely assumption, not a fact.

I do not agree that your claim that God is the foundation for your moral sense provides any more objective certainty that my claims for the evolution of morals. This is in effect a private opinion that you cannot establish with any certainty. As for your claim that morals are therefore somewhat subjective, I would say that how morals are encoded into systems of belief and behavior are somewhat subjective, but as you note, there do seem to be some generally accepted principles that bind (even non-Christians) together. Common ancestry makes as good a candidate to explain this as some god-implanted moral compass.

I understand that you claim your moral sense is based on the objective reality of god, but that is not the same thing as establishing that god, in fact, exists, or for that matter, that god is the basis or foundation of some objective moral order. Again, as you admit that moral sensibilities vary from time and place, it seems at least as likely that this is a consensual and communal moral awareness as it is that these morals reflect god’s orders as it relates to morality.
Greg Myers - #23598

July 26^th 2010

In Paul’s time, slavery did not seem to be a moral issue; in Wesley’s time, women could not preach. “Love your neighbor” has meant a lot of different things to a lot of different Christians. Both racism and sexism linger on - not because we have not seen them as moral weaknesses - but because they continue to be embraced in family and culture. These ethical violations lapse as individuals become part of communities that do not discriminate based on race or sex - not because they have found a new way of reading their bible. With this new moral awareness, we do read the bible anew - ignoring the ethical lapses we used to embrace.

Practically, you could argue that communities dip into the moral and ethical traditions found in the bible (among other places) and find justification for how they believe and act. This is not different than I propose (and does, in fact, value the ethical and moral traditions found therein).

You offer a simplistic picture of ethics and morals - God has handed down the law, and we follow it or not. A simple survey of actual ethics and morals as practiced by people shows that it is much more complex, and that morals are much more closely tied to community than to divine revelation.
Greg Myers - #23599

July 26^th 2010

Justin, perhaps the “best available answer to the problem” is to take what we know about our origins seriously. When we have to start every exploration of ethics with being made in the image of God, and a proper understanding of the Fall (whatever that means), it is like being forced to turn the wrong way out of the gate - making it that much harder to get to our destination.

Created in god’s image, the Fall, God’s law - these are early attempts to explain things that perhaps we now have better, more accurate explanations for. Perhaps theodicy is an insoluble problem because the premise upon which it is built is false.

Just like the physical sciences, where we had to let go of inaccurate beliefs about the world before we could make progress, perhaps moral and ethical progress is also waiting for us to start asking the right questions, without being encumbered by the usual (prescribed) answers.
conrad - #23602

July 26^th 2010

When I hear guys saying they are going to “actualize” their “syllogism” I know I am in over my head.

[Or over the tops of my boots.]

Get back into science. This is supposed to be a SCIENCE / BIBLE correlation.

Wandering off into the netherworld just gets you lost.
Deb in BC - #23604

July 26^th 2010

I thought this was supposed to be a science/faith correlation?
Deb in BC - #23608

July 26^th 2010

Bethany: ...it was possible for God Himself to have made man perfect from the first, but man could not receive this [perfection] being as yet an infant.”1 So, God does not force something on to humanity that it is not ready for. Perfection was not something that could be implanted; it had to be journeyed toward. And so Irenaeus gives us our first value of an evolving world: room for the growth and development of humans.

If God chose man to be perfect he’d have been perfect; i.e. He’d have made him capable of receiving perfection, so I don’t think Irenaeus “man could not receive perfection” and “God does not force something onto humanity it’s not ready for” stands. If that had been his plan at creation, it would have been accomplished. Further, I don’t think Irenaeus’ concept of Adam and Eve, or of a literal Eden, stand.

Wouldn’t God’s plan of “room for growth and development,” as seen in the evolution of the cosmos and of life here, be evident in man’s evolution, in his development of self and God awareness, his conscience, of all men being aware of God’s existence, and of their sin (Romans 1-3)? Why Adam and Eve, or Eden?
James - #23616

July 26^th 2010

Justin:
The problem of Evil has been solved for like 40 years now (thank Alvin Plantinga!) And it’s even proof that God exists. My argument would go like this:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.
2. Evil exists.
3. Therefore, objective values exist.
4. Therefore, God exists.
And thus evil only calls into question God’s existence on a superficial level. On a deeper philosophical level evil actually demonstrates the existence of God because evil, as such, could not exist without God.

Conrad:
Sorry :-(

Greg Myers:
I’m sorry too, I may not have done the argument from morality justice in this short discussion.

You said that my first premise (if God doesn’t exist, then objective moral values don’t exist) is an unlikely assumption… Atheists have been saying this for years! They affirm that if there is no God then all morality is, is the product of socio-evolutionary heard mentality- Which you and I seem to agree upon. So you see on your view morals are subjective and the rapists or pedophile isn’t objectively doing anything wrong- why he’s just acting unsocial- the equivalent to the guy who wants to wear white socks with black pants.
conrad - #23617

July 26^th 2010

Deb, you know I think God had the awful decision of whether or not man. [his creation] should have free will.

BUT SINCE I PRIMARILY WANT TO GET BACK ON THE SCIENCE/BIBLE CORRELATION I WANT TO APOLOGIZE FOR THE THE DISTRACTING THOUGHT.
James - #23625

July 27^th 2010

Moral objectivity stands wholly apart from anyone who believes in them or not. Thankfully we were made to apprehend that realm (though we’re fallible). And that’s why it strongly points to the God who has written them in our hearts…

I never said that they were subjective as you claim I did, quite the opposite.

If the Nazi’s had won WW2 and converted everyone to believing that killing every Jew was morally the right thing to do, would that be objectively correct? I think not. So you must admit that there is a realm of objective morals…. I can talk more about this but we’re getting yelled at
Greg Myers - #23627

July 27^th 2010

James, I think you are jumping to conclusions. First of all, people do all sorts of morally questionable things while affirming a wide range of religious and non-religious beliefs. I don’t think that you can jump from morality being objective or subjective to how people behave - it is not at all clear that there is any correlation here.

You don’t get objective moral values is not established even if god exists. God’s own values could be subjective, or arbitrary, or could change over time (so genocide is OK for a while, then dis-allowed, then allowed again at the end of the world). Morality could be independent of god. My point is that the connection between god and morality is not established.

Evil cannot exist without god? Sorry, not demonstrated - nor do I think you can, unless you only mean that you define the word ‘evil’ as ‘the thing that god abhors,’ or some such thing.

I am not arguing that without god, all morality is subjective, I am suggesting that, even with god in the picture, morality is subjective - just look at all the ethical systems practiced by various religious folks. But saying something is subjective does not mean it is arbitrary - we just can’t pass off our subjectivity as the will of god.
James - #23628

July 27^th 2010

So I’ll end with this:
In order to give credit to God for His creation, a system that comes from very simple, elegant and basic ideas like natural selection and variations, like in the laws of physics and in chemistry and from these simple ideas for complexity to emerge.

Our universe is this profound world that emerged off of these simple and basic ideas. This is what evolution speaks to…. this way of creating truly points towards a creator as opposed to creating entities one at a time, what’s even more profound about this design is that it’s adaptive, if there’s environmental stress then the other variations survive more frequently.

You can’t point to one entity of creation and say that “this is the highest point that creation has reached” no, it’s always becoming better suited to it’s environment.
James - #23629

July 27^th 2010

For example the mandel brock set of fractals is immensly complex, but the true beauty of it is that it can be described by one shockingly simple equation: z n+1 (next z) z^2 n+1. Now if you were to say what is the more profound way to design this fractal set, either by painting the fractals all from scratch or by using the simple and elegant equation to create something of infinite complexity. I think every engineer would admit the using the simple perfect elegent idea would be more profound. It’s not just focussed on the particulars- it’s focused on the meta levels.
James - #23630

July 27^th 2010

@ Greg Myers. Here is my email address: visionp51@gmail.com

I would like to continue our discussion if you prefer. It seems we’re going too far off topic for this blog.
Edge - #23636

July 27^th 2010

Great series so far. With arguments like these I may very well find my faith again.
Dunemeister - #23645

July 27^th 2010

Several people have objected to the idea that God might have had to create A&E in innocence/imperfection on the grounds that an omnipotent God surely could have created them perfect—whatever that means. I have a couple of questions about that objection.

1. How do we know what it takes to create perfection? Can God create real perfection in humans (or whatever would be an image-bearer of God) instantly, or does it require honest-to-goodness maturation? How would we know if the latter half of that disjunction is false?

2. How do we know what omnipotence implies? Does omnipotence carry the obligation to actually use it, or does wisdom or other factors call for restraint?

In short, is it not possible that in order to achieve the perfection sought, God had to use processes of maturation—physical and ethical—to get there? How would we know that an omnipotent God could or should have done otherwise? Shouldn’t we rather marvel at what God has done rather than complain about what he could have done? Doesn’t the complaint presume rather much about our own understanding?
Justin - #23647

July 27^th 2010

James - #23616

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.

That’s not an apologetic anymore. Sorry. Plantinga has done some outstanding work, I agree. But this is no longer a given. BTW, I’m a Christian…
Mike Gene - #23649

July 27^th 2010

Hi Greg (#23582),

Isn’t this premise a bit odd, if you think about it? To propose that God takes an inherently unpredictable, messy, chaotic, wasteful and cruel process, and calls it a plan? Unless god continually monitored and shaped the process along the way, there would be no telling what the end result would be. Compared with shaping someone from the dust, turning to a process that takes billions of years seems a bit much. Genesis gives us a cozy picture - small world, carved out of the waters, shaped into a habitat for man (even woman is a late addition, as man’s helper).

When I think about it, I reach a different conclusion. Consider.
Mike Gene - #23650

July 27^th 2010

Genesis gives us a cozy picture - small world, carved out of the waters, shaped into a habitat for man (even woman is a late addition, as man’s helper).

If science had confirmed this view, I think I would have a serious doubt about God that could not be shaken. I could not help but wonder if “God” was really a super-intelligent alien who had created a little habitat to experiment and/or play with its pets. That is, there was no God, only an imposter like something from a Star Trek episode. This is because creation would not inspire a sense of awe and would seem to testify to a creator that was “small.” While this possibility always remains, I don’t take it seriously when pondering the size and age of the Universe. It boggles the mind and elicits a sense of awe that, in my mind, stamps out this possibility.

There is a difference between putting us in a box and putting us on an island.
Mike Gene - #23651

July 27^th 2010

To propose that God takes an inherently unpredictable, messy, chaotic, wasteful and cruel process, and calls it a plan?

The same exact complaint can be made if we substitute human history for natural history. Human history has been an inherently unpredictable, messy, chaotic, wasteful and cruel process, yet my existence is seamlessly tied to it. And like all Christians, I have no problem with viewing human history as part of a plan that is all leading to a specific destiny known by God.

What this all means is that evolution adds no additional problem to the mix. As far as arguments against God go, it is superfluous. Even if the “cozy picture” had explained the origin of the first man and woman, my own existence would still be tied to an inherently unpredictable, messy, chaotic, wasteful and cruel process that followed. So the “cozy picture” would not rescue us from your problem; it would just amplify that problem as explained in my above paragraph.
Mike Gene - #23652

July 27^th 2010

Unless god continually monitored and shaped the process along the way, there would be no telling what the end result would be.

For beings limited by space and time, this is true. But God is not constrained in this way. He has always known the end result, which is the very reason why this reality exists instead of an infinite number of possible realities that could have been created.
Mike Gene - #23655

July 27^th 2010

Oh, and one more thing - evolution is not as “unpredictable, messy, chaotic, wasteful and cruel” as many people think it is. But that’s another topic.
James - #23671

July 27^th 2010

Justin:

I might not be as current as you in philosophy (I’m just a geologist) but can you maybe cite someone? Or provide a link showing how premise one is no longer a given? Thanks-
James - #23673

July 27^th 2010

As far as my understanding goes-
You can either be realists or anti-realists about the existence of moral objectivity (or normativity).
Such projective accounts of moral normativity, of moral qualities and facts, offer one naturalistic explanation of the appearance of normativity… one that Mr. Greg Myers seems to adhere to.

A projective explanation thus avoids the need to posit God as the best explanation of the fact that moral normativity appears to exist.

But projectionism is false to our experience and gives rise to forms of moral skepticism that are corrosive of moral thought and action. We can’t rule on such issues here. (For a very clear form of moral projectionism see Mackie 1977)

So my contention is that people who do not accept premise one display such a high level of skepticism that they could hardly function if they held true to to that skepticism in their day to day lives.
Tulse - #23678

July 27^th 2010

Dunemeister writes: “Can God create real perfection in humans (or whatever would be an image-bearer of God) instantly”

If such a god is indeed omnipotent, the answer has to be yes. This is not a matter of logical impossibility, and thus must be within the capabilities of an omnipotent being.

“How do we know what omnipotence implies? Does omnipotence carry the obligation to actually use it, or does wisdom or other factors call for restraint?”

You’re absolutely correct that a being is not obligated to use their omnipotence, but that undercuts the original argument, which was that the only way humans COULD get to perfection was through historical processes, rather than being created that way. The arguments presented in the original post assumed that a creator COULDN’T simply start with perfect people. If you argue that a creator could, you now have to argue as to why such a being DIDN’T, which gets back to precisely the problem the original post was trying to solve.
Justin - #23680

July 27^th 2010

James,

You probably know a lot more about philosophy than I do, actually. All I’m saying is that, as far as I’m concerned, we can’t just take #1 as a fact. We have to show evidence to support it. I don’t see faith as a geometry proof that works if we state the first few steps correctly. I think the game has changed, at least with the scientists (of which, I am one). Perhaps the philosophical arguments works for non-scientists? I don’t know…
gingoro - #23684

July 27^th 2010

Tulse @23523

“But surely that is yet again implying a lack of omnipotence, no?”

It depends on the meaning of omnipotence. Omnipotence could simply mean the ability to do all that can be done, all that God decides to do, not necessary anything that a human could imagine. Where do you find the meaning of omnipotence you assume supported in scripture? I have trouble finding much support for omnipotence in scripture period except that God can bring forth creation from nothing, can intervene in nature and work miracles, in short He is much much more capable than mankind is.

Some human rulers are spoken of as being omnipotent by which we mean their power is not limited by courts or legislatures.
Dave W
Tulse - #23686

July 27^th 2010

gingoro writes: ” I have trouble finding much support for omnipotence in scripture period except that God can bring forth creation from nothing, can intervene in nature and work miracles, in short He is much much more capable than mankind is.”

If a creator is merely “much more capable than mankind”, then such a being is not really all that different from a super-powered alien. Are any beings who are more powerful than humans gods?

And if a creator is not omnipotent, then that means that there is some pre-existing limit on its power, and therefore it did not create everything. If one is to believe that the god of the Christian bible is indeed the creator of all things, it is necessary for such a being to be omnipotent, otherwise the creator did not create the limits that prevent its omnipotence.
Bernie Dehler - #23687

July 27^th 2010

James said:
“1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.”

Is that like saying:

1. If Garden Fairies don’t exist, then flowers don’t grow.

Because we know that flowers grow due to garden fairies.
James - #23696

July 27^th 2010

@ Bernie Dehler:

I don’t think premise 1 parallels your analogy given the fact that objective morals are valid and binding independent of human opinion. This obviously points to some type of transcendency with the best candidate being God (given that we know about the cosmological and teleological arguments- given the historicity of the risen Christ, all other arguments that support evidence for a creator God)

To consider your analogy would be to abandon science, because we know that flowers germinate, produce food through photosynthesis and grow-

To consider my premise however, we can explore what science tells us about the natural world, and deduce with what it can’t tell us… and how it only leaves room for a subjective moral code among humans… but wait! We seem to apprehend this realm of morals that are valid and binding independent of human opinion- where does this come from? What’s the simplest explanation? It’s obvious that science can only get us so far until we reach something that truly metaphysical…
merv - #23701

July 27^th 2010

Greg Myers - #23599 wrote: ” ... it is like being forced to turn the wrong way out of the gate - making it that much harder to get to our destination.”

Greg, you have pointed out that Christians have no more foundation for any objective reality than anybody else—- or conversely that such “foundation” as we do have for any morality is common to everybody and not dependent on God. —-all certainly true from the atheist’s perspective.

You also seem to suggest in your posts that past moral systems were inferior ... e.g. slavery, sexism, racism, etc. that we are beginning to progress beyond now ... indeed toward some destination. Here is (are) my question(s) for you: On what basis can you judge one culture’s morality as better than another’s? I’m not interested in what basis Christians allegedly DON’T have. I want to know what you DO have. You seem to claim an objective perch from which you can monitor what you call “progress”—- progress towards what, Greg? Can you tell us anything about the destination you have in mind above? Why should the morals of Greeks of thousands of years ago in their relationships between men and boys now be judged as inferior?

—Merv
conrad - #23712

July 27^th 2010

Well Merv ,....Slavery DID get worse in this country.
There is an old slave plantation in New Orleans called “the Laura” and they had slaves before they were a part of the USA.
The earlier slavery conditions were much milder.
No one died in slavery.
They were eventually set free with a savings account and usually moved into New Orleans at a certain age.
It was only after New Orleans became a part of the good old USA that slaves lost ALL RIGHTS!
merv - #23719

July 28^th 2010

I didn’t know that, Conrad, and sadly—it’s not too surprising.

Even more broadly, I’m suspicious of the general theme that moral systems (or our adherence to them) have progressed from worse to better. I think we do manage to give lip service to better systems today—- i.e. we decry genocide, racism, slavery, etc. & rightly so. But in actual practice there are many large parts of the world today, including here in the U.S. where conditions are pretty horrible, just as they were in many parts or times of the ancient world as well. Some of our tendency towards keeping up moral appearances is a luxury of the affluent. In parts of the world where survival takes on larger importance, slavery and sexual exploitation are still common trade. —and probably all the worse because of our pretension that they aren’t supposed to exist any more.

—Merv
Rob Berry - #23823

July 29^th 2010

1) What is perfection? I don’t think perfection can be described in scientific language, yet it may “exist”

2) Can perfection be reduced by an impact / interaction with imperfection? I think NO

3) Could humanity have even been created as “perfect” in the first place - if so (I muse) we would not be reading this. We would not be ... we.

I think I am arguing that ADAM (theological, nonsensical, or historical Adam, or even humanity in general terms) was not conceivably “perfect” at creation.

IMO, one may not move toward perfection. It would require a new creation, or a new self, a new vessel, etc…

On a lighter note: Plantiga’s 1st premise is not solely his work. As discussed, if that premise is false, you’d better be part of the warrior elk or risk being on the losing side of natural selection, in which case - your science, philosophy, and theology will only serve as a heat source for the harry guys left who populate our earth. Unfortunately, they will probably worship something and we’ll have to start from theological scratch.
Greg Myers - #23964

July 30^th 2010

It is fine, now that we understanding more about the natural world, to say that the world we live in is the “best” one for god to create, and that the one described in Genesis would have been problematic. However, the Genesis world is the one the bible SAYS god made. The early traditions that allowed for allegorical or metaphorical interpretations overlaid those on top of an acceptance of the historical nature of the narratives. Of course we can dismiss that early understanding as both wrong and a bad idea - but only because we now know better.

Of course, as Merv points out, “better” is a relative thing. Certainly there is no objective “better” in the bible - rather, there is a range of moral and ethical standards presented in the bible, only some of which we now embrace. One of the good things the Declaration of Independence did was to assert that we all have “unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is an assertion supported by no religious text - it is essentially a humanist credo, meant to lay down a foundational assumption to judge our national choices. From that perspective, things that limit our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are bad.
Eugene C. Campbell - #24487

August 4^th 2010

Beth wrote at the end of this Part II: Someone will ask,’‘Doesn’t Paul say that death came through the Fall? How do you deal with the biblical texts where death is called the enemy of God?”
From Genesis to Jesus, the Bible deals with two separate concepts of life and death: the spiritual and the physical. Adam and Eve died “in the same day” they ate the forbidden fruit, spiritually, in that they separated from God when they disobeyed him. Their physical bodies did not return to the dust until much later. Christ told a young man who had scheduled to attend a funeral, “Let the dead bury their dead,” meaning, let those spiritually dead people put the body into a grave, but you follow me for everlasting life.
Eugene C. Campbell - #24489

August 4^th 2010

Mike Gene - #23504: “...concepts of goals or purposes have no place in biology (or in any other of the natural sciences)”
I think you are aiming Futuyama’s point way off target here, for two reasons. One, Beth is not promoting the concept that God’s hand is, say, tweaking the genes—rather that the creation as a whole is purposed to fulfill his ideal. This would have been established, of course, before the Big Bang, so science has nothing to say about it now. Your quote from Jerry Coyne is thus also out of context for this.
The other point is that obviously a caterpillar has a purpose: to become a butterfly. But if, for example, an ecosystem is in any sense organic then the caterpillar has dual purposes: private for itself to mature and public to feed the birds. Protons and electrons exist for their own purpose but also to create atoms, which exist for themselves but also to form compounds. Plants exist in order to carry out plant functions, but also to make animals possible, animals to evolve human awareness and spiritual development, etc. The internet is an example of anti-entropic global and massive organization of information; could organization eventually permeate the universe in the sense fantasized by Isaac Asimov?
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How Could God Create Through Evolution?: A Look at Theodicy, Part 2

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