An entry on Evolution News and Views criticizing a lecture by Francis Collins caught my eye. I’ve previously offered some of my own criticism of Collins’ new book. However, the ENV criticism, I think, was unfair, and reflects a serious theological problem with some “strong” ID arguments.
On the ENV site, Logan Gage argues that Darwinism is fundamentally incompatible with theism, because Darwinian evolution is “unguided and unplanned”:
If Darwinian evolution–by definition–is “unguided” and “unplanned,” then Collins’s view seems logically incoherent. How can a process be both “guided” and “unguided” (or “planned” and “unplanned”) at the same time? Either evolution is “unguided” as the Darwinists contend, or it is guided in some way—which means that the Darwinian view of evolution must be false.
For the notion that Darwinian evolution is “unguided” and “unplanned,” Logan cites a letter sent to the Kansas State Board of Education by some Nobel laureates, which states that “evolution is “the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.” Logan argues that Collins’ “theistic evolution” position is incompatible with the popular view of Darwinism identified in the Nobel letter.
Logan’s criticism is unfair because, to the extent the Nobel laureates meant “unguided” and “unplanned” in a metaphysical sense, their position is not a scientific view about evolution, nor is it what someone like Collins means by “evolution.”
Whether God guided and planned evolution (if and to the extend evolution happened, a question I’m not addressing here) is a metaphysical question that is not addressed by evolutionary science. When evolutionary science speaks of planning, guidance and randomness, it means that the natural processes involved suggest no statistical correlation with any influences external to those natural processes. Even within that context, evolution is not “random” in the sense that anything at all can and does happen — evolution happens within a framework of deeper natural laws, including the laws of genetics and inheritance. As some evolutionary theorists, such a Simon Conway Morris (a Christian) observe, the operation of these laws can give rise to remarkable regularities, including the convergence of different pathways on a relatively small number of sensory organs and body plans.
I would agree with Logan, then, that if the Nobel laureates were using “unguided” and “unplanned” in a metaphysical sense, they were stepping far beyond the bounds of evolutionary science, and were suggesting something that is utterly incompatible with theism. It isn’t clear to me whether that was the sense intended. It certainly is not the sense in which someone like Francis Collins uses terms like “random” in relation to evolution.
If “random,” “unguided” and “unplanned” with regard to evolution are understood simply to mean “uncorellated with any external causes,” I don’t see how this is inconsistent with a theistic understanding of creation. As I sit here in New York typing this today, it is raining lightly outside. Meteorologists can explain this weather pattern fully in naturalistic terms. It is an “unguided,” “unplanned,” and “random” pattern, in the sense that there is no way to correlate the pattern with any external causes. It is of course an orderly pattern, based on deeper natural laws, which makes it explainable and to some extent predictable. But it can be explained solely through the apparently unguided process of natural laws.
I say “apparently unguided” because, as a Christian, I don’t believe for a moment that this weather pattern is “random” or “unguided” in a metaphysical sense. I believe in a God who is sovereign over all creation, upon whom all creation depends, and in whom all creation is held together. God didn’t merely wind up the processes that led to the rain in New York today and let them go off randomly on their own — He is above and in and through them completely as sovereign creator and sustainer. The fact that I can’t directly perceive or correlate God’s will and action in this regard with the rain I observe doesn’t mean God is elided or elidable.
In fact, this is exactly what I expect within the rich framework of the Christian doctrine of creation. I don’t expect God ordinarily to manifest Himself in miraculous ways that contradict the deep natural laws He established and sustains. Indeed, the very orderliness and normality of the everyday working of creation is one of the principal reasons I can make reliable observations and rational judgments, and is a central expression of God’s wisdom and beauty.
Given that I think and feel this way about the rain in New York, why should I think or feel differently about the natural processes through which living organisms change over time? There is no theological reason to think God should act or manifest Himself differently with respect to living organisms in relation to natural laws than He does with respect to processes such as the weather. In fact, there are very good reasons to suspect He would not make such a distinction — the reasons of orderliness and beauty mentioned above.
Does this mean I settle the issue in favor of theistic evolution? No. There are, I think, hermeneutical questions about how to understand the language in Genesis 1 and 2 concerning God’s creation of the animals and of human beings. Does the phrase “after their kinds” require separate creation and a fixity of species? Does creation of Adam from the “dust of the earth” and creation of Eve from Adam’s “rib” require a separate, special creation of human beings? These are reasonable questions. There are also, I believe, reasonable questions about whether Darwinism completely succeeds scientifically on its own merits. There is very convincing genetic and fossil evidence, in my opinion, for gradual organismal change over time and the relatedness of different species. The mechanisms posited for such change — such as natural selection and genetic drift — however, often seem like hand waving to me. But I think it’s important to be clear about the issues, and the broad theological issue of God sovereignly directing creation is not one of them.