Evolution and Intelligent Design

I am one of those "religious" types who sees absolutely no conflict between the idea of evolution (if, in fact, this is the way things came about) and a belief in a Creator-God. Perhaps that comes from having been educated in the Roman Catholic tradition of Saint Augustine, Saint Augustine, the Jesuits, the Holy Cross fathers and other educational orders of nuns and priests. The Catholic educational traditional has a long, long history of challenging prevailing thought, asking probing questions and embracing the scientific method.

So, to me, this whole debate is a tempest is a teapot.

But be that as it may, everyone is caught up in the discussion now. That seems to me to be a good thing. Why not discuss things? Public consciousness and understanding can only benefit. And in any case, the debate focuses on the relationship between religious belief and science. And that is what motivated me to create this blog in the first place! So it's tailor-made for me to explore here.

As a start, this link from Tech Central Station interested me, precisely because the author, Lee Harris, seems to be coming from the same starting point that I am - i.e., that he sees no essential conflict between religious faith and a willingness to pursue the theory of evolution. And further, that he thinks the two sides ought to be able to "get along," as it were.

That may be ambitious and idealistic (a possibility he acknowledges). There are some on the "scientific" side of things for whom atheism is the absolute price of admission to their club. They want no commerce with those who believe in any sort of God, or have any religious faith. To them, I suppose, one must say that since they cannot prove that God doesn't exist, that principle has become, for them, an article of faith. And by their own standards, no one else can be compelled to believe this.

Similarly, there are those on the religious side of the debate who refuse to accept anything other than the precise wording of the King James version of the Bible - in other words, that God created everything in six 24-hour days, etc., etc., etc., and anyone who believes anything else is a heretic. They posit that the world is only a few tens of thousands of years old, not millions or tens of millions of years old, as scientific evidence seems to suggest.

I had a professor in law school who believed this. He told our class once that he believed the planet was only about 40,000 years old. I raised my hand. "What about carbon dating?" I asked. "Doesn't that seem to prove scientifically that the planet is much, much older than that?"

"God is omnipotent," my professor replied. "He could certainly create the planet to make it look as if it were that old."

I raised my hand again. "Yes, but why would He?" I asked in all sincerity. "I mean, it's not as if He were pressed for time, or anything."

My professor ended the discussion at that point with a comment to the effect that this was a matter of faith. (And this was perfectly appropriate, of course - the discussion had been tangential to the topic of the class that day, and I am sure he didn't plan to let us take up the entire class time on this point.)

The larger issue to me, as I have indicated here on other topics, is that if one believes God is the Creator, then anything that can be proven scientifically must be (again, to the believer) of divine origin. To me, that should translate to a fearlessness in pursuing theories like evolution, natural selection, etc. If it is false, that will come to light eventually. And if it is true, then what is to be feared about it?

I can - and will write more about this. I also hope to make reference to some good discussion of the issue in the recent press. For now, please read the article linked above. It's a long article, and an interesting one. Enjoy.