Evolutionary creation for children
I went to one of the local Christian bookstores today with my daughter to see if I could find her a nice book or two. She loves books and now she's approaching two, she's starting to get more out of them than just pointing at birds and saying "Beep-beep!" So I want her to learn some stuff about the Bible in a fun, entertaining way.
What struck me though about the selection was how many of the book were about creation. It's understandable, of course, since it's an evocative story. It's a colourful story featuring animals, trees, plants, etc. - all fun to look at. There's development in the story line which is both exciting and easy to understand.
But what I didn't like was how the books seemed to make a point out of creationism. I might be over-interpreting, but the books seem to be grooming children to become creationists when they are old enough to understand the conflict. That might not be the goal of the publisher. Maybe for some, maybe not for other. Who knows?
Looking through the books with my girl, I thought about how I wanted her to be introduced to creation. I obviously want her to be an evolutionist when she's old enough for those questions to become relevant, since I believe evolution is right, not creationism. She's not nearly old enough though. So for the time being, I think books based on the Bible, simply retelling the creation accounts as we have received them, will work. When the time comes, I'll explain to her that they are just stories, not something that actually happened.
I might balance the "creationist" books with some secular children's books on evolution. Dawkins is working on one, right?
What I think would be great would be to have a explicitly Christian children's book about evolutionary creation. I imagine it could go through the tree of life, step by step, with nice illustrations, repeating something like "God made it!" at every step. The final step could have a mirror, surrounded by trees, the animals we met earlier and Adam and Eve (and maybe a snake and an apple). Around it it would say, "And finally God made you! And he saw it was good!"
Any illustrators out there willing to collaborate on such a project? We could self-publish it on Lulu or something. Let me know!
Interruption, not intervention
One of the critiques against us scientifically responsible theists is that we're essentially deists. We are told off for believing in a watchmaker God, who puts together the elements of the universe, winds it up and lets it run on its own, only to intervene every once in a while with a miracle or two.
What this critique misses is the deep conception of divine action many of us theistic evolutionists have. To use terminology I feel a little bit apprehensive about, we conceive God's action as primarily on the micro-level, not macro-level. By macro-level, I refer to what people usually understand with divine action: Transforming dirt into human flesh, affixing severed ears, instantly changing meteorological phenomena, reassembling atoms in post-mortem reanimation. My impression is that many, if not most, of us accept the possibility and occurrence of such macro-level events, though we retain a sceptical attitude towards accounts of them.
The important part, and the part many do not understand, as I said, is that many of us see divine action as taking place primarily on the micro-level. By this I mean the granting reality itself its existence and integrity, and the on-going creating and sustaining of the cosmos. This is what God does primarily: Actively gives the cosmos its existence. It doesn't run on it own - that's impossible. It runs, because God wants and lets it run.
This is obviously not deism.
I could and probably should say more, but let me point you to a great blog delineating these concepts very nicely. Timothy Reeves of Quantum Non-Linearity distinguishes between the deist and Christian conceptions of God and his action in the world by drawing a distinction between divine action as "intervention" in the first, deistic instance, and "interruption" in the second, Christian instance. Really good and really helpful.
My concept of God is that of a God who “interrupts” the flow of normalcy rather than “intervenes”; that is, he interrupts or changes His mode of working, a working that in actual fact never ceases: “for in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). When we develop physical theories such as Gravitation or Quantum Mechanics, we do not picture such schemes as doing their work by “intervening” but rather see their action as relentless across all time and space. Likewise, if the ultimate underlying ontology of this universe is the Aseity of deity then I don’t expect that Deity to have the occasional role of the interventionist God, but instead to be a present tense continuous agent. As the sustainer of the cosmic order His role is relentless in time and space, interrupting the normal flow as and when He pleases.
Whence deism?
Deism, to just to get our concepts straight, is the belief that while God is the original creator, setting the universe in motion as it were, his relationship to his creation since then has been hands off. He doesn't get involved, neither providentially nor by revealing himself.
As a Christian evolutionist I've often been accused of being a deist. I understand this, because there's a perception that theistic evolutionists see evolution as materialistically as atheists, but reserve a place for God in establishing the initial conditions, those articulated in astrophysics, that gives rise to the process of evolution. This is very far from what I believe personally, but I know people who believe this and they can perceivably be called deists. Hence my calling myself a Christian evolutionist in distinction from theistic evolutionists.
But there's a problem. If deism is a term reserved for those that hold a certain belief about God's creative action, those that believe that God acted creatively in the past but not anymore - how then is a theistic evolutionist account of creation different than a creationist one? Because creationists believe that God created everything a couple of thousand years ago, but has rested from his creative work since. Creation followed by no creation. Both creationism and theistic evolutionism have this in common. Yet the deist label is thrown after the evolutionist, not the creationist.
Why is this? It cannot be because of the length of time with no creation. Surely it makes no difference if there has been no creation for 6,000 years or 14 billion.
This is how I make sense of deism-labelling: The deism label does not in fact describe someone with views about God's creative action. Rather, deism refers to someone's view on whether or not God is involved in human affairs. More precisely, deism refers to someone's view that God is not involved human affairs. Deism is not, you could say, about God's creative action, but his salvific action. Religious evolutionists (a blanket term that covers both Christian and theistic evolutionists, and any other kind) have a wide variety of views on whether or not God is involved in human affairs, so it's difficult to generalize. But among Evangelicals and more traditional Christians, I see no denial from any evolutionist of God's involvement in human affairs. We believe in Christ as God's self-revelation as a human being. We believe that this revelation took place in order to redeem humans. We believe that Jesus performed miracles. We believe in the resurrection. We believe in the forgiveness of sins. We believe in the Spirit illuminating the hearts of everyone. And so on.
So when creationists throw the deism label at evolutionists, they're making a category mistake. If the question about deism actually referred to creative action, creationists are more deists than Christian evolutionists, because we believe that God's creative action hasn't stopped, but is on-going. But that's not what it's about. It's about God's salvific action, his providential action. And while there might be disagreement on that, my impression is not that it correlates to views on creationism and evolutionism.
Pannenberg on Genesis and evolution
God always used creatures to bring about other things. Think of the function of the earth in the first part of Genesis. The earth is addressed by God to assist in His act of creation. First, the earth is addressed to bring about vegetation. So we may wonder, 'How can the earth, an inorganic reality, bring about an organic reality, vegetation, and then bring about the self organization of organisms from inorganic materials?' Yet, this is the Christian creation story.The second address of the earth is even bolder than that! God addresses the earth to bring about animals. And the text means higher animals. Such boldness does not really characterize even Darwin's theory of evolution. Darwin wouldn't have dreamed to have higher animals spring immediately from the earth, from inorganic matter. Darwin is much more moderate than that. In criticizing the doctrine of evolution, our creationist friends among Christian theologians should read their Bibles more closely.
Daily Tidbits 8/10/2009
One Nation, Under God (Good.is/Transparency)
America has always been a religious country. But a recent study finds that might be changing: The percent of the country who considers themselves atheist is rising rapidly. While they still make up a small minority in comparison to the major religions, the current trends indicate that we may not be one nation, under God, forever. Here is a look at what we believe.
Bill Nye The Science Guy Vs. Religion (SoulPancake)
If you grew up in the '90s, you probably remember watching Bill Nye the Science Guy. And if you're lucky, you may remember learning basic facts such as water is also known as H20; the earth has something called “gravity”; and the moon reflects the sun’s light. Of course, if you grew up in Waco, Texas, you may have missed that last one altogether. You were probably too busy reading your Bible.
How Richard Dawkins Communicates Evolution (Surprise, It's Not the Same Thing as Atheism) (Huffington Post)
Dawkins appears to be grappling with a communication problem. Linking together atheist advocacy and the defense of evolution, as he has done so prominently, poses a pretty big problem when you hit the US media with a new book on the latter. After writing a million-selling atheist "consciousness-raiser" and "come-out-of-the-closet" book, is it at all surprising that Dawkins now finds his evolution book being prominently linked to atheism in the media mind?
Banned from churches, sex offenders go to court (AP)
RALEIGH, N.C. – Convicted sex offender James Nichols said he was trying to better himself by going to church. But the police who arrested him explained: The church is off-limits because it has a daycare center.
Now Nichols is challenging North Carolina's sex-offender laws in a case that pits the constitutional right to religious freedom against the state's goal of protecting the public from child molesters.
[Cf: Church of Scotland addressing the problem]
A Faith Declaration for Health-Care Reform (God's Politics)
Over the course of the health-care debate, voices of faith have been raised about the moral values at stake beneath the policy discussions. As bills are finalized and moved through both chambers of Congress, now more than ever we need to remind ourselves of the values that move us to reform. From the Bill of Rights to the abolition of slavery, from women’s suffrage to the civil rights movement, those who have raised the question of values have often changed our country for the better. Change can be scary in uncertain times, but it always comes when a nation chooses hope over fear.
God is not the Creator, claims academic
Professor Ellen van Wolde, a respected Old Testament scholar and author, claims the first sentence of Genesis "in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth" is not a true translation of the Hebrew.
She claims she has carried out fresh textual analysis that suggests the writers of the great book never intended to suggest that God created the world -- and in fact the Earth was already there when he created humans and animals.
Quote of the day
The history of the universe is not the performance of a fixed score, written by God in eternity and inexorably performed by creatures, but it is a grand improvisation in which the Creator and creatures cooperate in the unfolding development of the grand fugue of creation.
- John Polkinghorne and Nicholas Beale, Questions of Truth: Fifty-one Responses to Questions About God, Science and Belief , page 15
Told you so!
So it appears that Creation, the Darwin biopic, just got a distributor in the States. Somewhat ironically, it's independent company Newmarket who also distributed The Passion of the Christ. I guess the film wasn't too controversial anyway - or maybe that's exactly what it was. Everyone knows that controversy sells tickets.
Does this reflect badly on the film? The reviews have been mostly positive, but not exuberantly so. It's a quiet film. Maybe there's some truth in the rather infantile comments from Uncommon Descent, a leading intelligent design blog.
Most likely, the film – which led off the Toronto International Film Festival – was rejected because it is a bore. No one here cares about Charles and Emma Darwin.
Maybe it is a little unexciting compared to, say, Die Hard 4. And maybe the producers feel that they need to drum up some controversy to fill seats in the cinema. Haven't seen the film yet, but I really don't think it's necessary. It'll never be a blockbuster, but in addition to being by all accounts a decent grown up drama, it has some built in controversy simply because of the fact that it's about Darwin. It'll do good and a little bit more, but that's it.
Creation ex materia in action
Creatio ex nihilo, creation out of nothing, is a pretty basic Christian doctrine. Traditionally, creatio ex nihilo has been seen as opposed to creatio ex materia, creation out of material. In the creation myths of Genesis, it is obvious, though, that both ex nihilo and ex materia co-exist, so to speak. God creates "in the beginning" (1:1) and then proceeds, forming the world out of the stuff that's already there, turning chaos into cosmos, disorder into order.
I say this as an introduction to the wonderful video above. It, in its own very cool way, illustrates what creatio ex materia looks like. Creator (!) of the video is Israeli DJ Kutiman, who spent two months trawling through YouTube looking for music he could splice together into a new musical whole that he called Thru You. The result is, in short, amazing - as is perfectly obvious.
It makes sense of course to emphasise the ex nihilo aspect God's creative action. But not at the expense of ex materia. It can be thought, reasonably I think, that the over-emphasis on ex nihilo is a result of theology being done in a pre-Darwinian world. Conversely, in a post-Darwinian world, we see that as important as ex nihilo is, ex materia is as important, if not even more so. God is continually creating the world through the evolutionary process first formulated by Darwin 150 years ago.
And Kutiman illustrates that aspect of God's creative action in this song - fittingly entitled "I'm New".
The Bible’s ancient science
A circumferential sea bordering a flat, circular, immovable earth, only protected from the waters by the firmament up above, somewhere where the sun travels. What's a scientifically literate and minded Christian to do with the Bible and its ancient science? Denis O. Lamoureux over at Science and the Sacred explains.
So what's the bottom line? Don't go to the Bible to find scientific facts; go to Scripture to meet Jesus. In the same way that the Lord personally meets each of us wherever we happen to be, the Holy Spirit came down to the level of the ancient biblical writers and employed their understanding of the physical world in order to communicate as effectively as possible life-changing spiritual truths. By using an ancient science in the Bible, God revealed the inerrant Message of Faith that He created the world, not how He created it.
I like Karl Giberson
In an immensely interesting blogalogue between Karl Giberson and Ken Ham, leading Christian evolutionists and creationists respectively, over at Beliefnet Giberson succinctly summarises why he's not a creationist like this:
To be a creationist requires distorting the ancient text of the Bible--God's revelation in Scripture--to camouflage the obvious references to an obsolete cosmology. And it requires distorting the data from science--God's revelation in nature--to camouflage the mountain of data supporting evolution. Why not accept the world at face value and let it speak for itself? And why not let the Bible be what it most clearly is--a collection of inspired texts from the ancient world, and not a textbook of modern science?
In embracing evolution my view of the natural world has been deeply enriched, for I have become a part of that world. I write these words from a home office looking out into a New England forest. The leaves have donned their autumn splendor and many are joining the birds in the air, in preparation for winter. Deer, wild turkey, raccoons, squirrels, and countless other species live in those woods, and occasionally come to visit and nibble on my landscape. How awesome to think that I share a history with these life forms and that, to varying degrees, I am related to them. I am humbled to think that God's creative work is of such grand coherence and scope that the universe is one gigantic narrative of creation. This seems far richer than my former creationist view that the universe is a collection of separately created things. And, to top it off, God created us with minds capable of unpacking the whole amazing story.
Why would any Christian find it hard to believe that evolution was God's way of creating?
I've read Giberson's Saving Darwin and found it quite a good introduction to the issues surrounding Christian faith and science. Recommended, if that's what you're looking for. What I like most about Giberson is the way his story mirrors my own. He too grew up in quite a fundamentalist environment where creationism was taken for granted. For him too going from creationism to evolution was quite painful. And he too works to counter creationism and promote the mutually fruitful integration of science and the faith - although he does it much, much better and to a much, much larger degree than I do, of course.
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Planned books:
- The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins
- The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins
Current books:
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Rowan’s Rule: The Biography of the Archbishop by Rupert Shortt
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The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet
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The Case for Religion by Keith Ward
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The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (Myths) by Philip Pullman
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The Word of God?: The Bible After Modern Scholarship by Keith Ward
Recent books:
- Satan in America: The Devil We Know by W. Scott Poole
- The Historicity of Nature: Essays of Science and Theology by Wolfhart Pannenberg
- Churched: One Kid’s Journey Toward God Despite a Holy Mess by Matthew Paul Turner
- Is God a Delusion?: A Reply to Religion’s Cultured Despisers by Eric Reitan
- Sum: Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman
