A long and fascinating piece in Sunday's Chicago Tribune Magazine ("The New Theology" by Jeremy Manier) explores some interesting results of the collision of faith and evolution in the lives of some famous people. The article prominently features Howard Van Till, a Calvin College emeritus and one of the reasons why Calvin is safe for evolutionary creationists like me. I think Howard's story is a sad one, partly because he seems to have abandoned Christianity, but mostly because his mistreatment is a scandalous disgrace to the Christian community of which I am now a part. Despite my discouragement at his rejection of Reformed Christianity, I consider him one of my heroes, and have already quoted at length from his work. He's the keynote speaker at this year's Grand Dialogue (annual science-faith conference here in Grand Rapids), and I am eager to hear from him anew.
Anyway, have a look at the article, and let me know what you think.
9 comments:
Superb article. I like Van Till. He wrote some excellent pieces for First Things back in the 1990s. It was also intriguing to read of Kenneth Miller's correspondence with the Amish carpenter.
Heck, even Richard Dawkins seems haunted by the metaphysical.
;)
So clearly Van Till has abandoned Calvinism but has he also abandoned belief in Jesus as the Son of God and His sacrificial work on the cross? If so I would be very sad indeed and to be honest, a little frightened.
Wheaton's Dr. John H. Walton (not an evolutionist) and CC's Howard Van Till were extremely influential in my conversion from YEC to Evolutionary Creationism. Thus, I am saddened to see one of my heroes abandon the concept of a personal God — especially a God who chose to interact with a species that attained to the "image of God," an interaction that included becoming a human Himself so that we might know how to bear His image to its fullest.
Pete, I don't know exactly what Howard believes, but I'm discouraged by what I hear. Not frightened so much, given my irrational reliance on God's grace. :-) Mike: amen, but let's not make this a funeral. People can abandon God, but I don't happen to believe that God has abandoned Howard. To Howard: may the Hound of Heaven dog you all your days. :-)
John: I noticed that too. I just can't help liking Dawkins. What a shame that he doesn't have anything to say about science anymore.
Stephan,
That's a good point about God's grace and something I have been coming more to hope on given the situation with some of my family. But I was actually thinking more on the lines of fear for myself; in that I have been afraid this journey might eventually lead me out of Christianity altogether. Having someone like Van Till leave the fold can only add to that fear. Indeed, I have been following a ever wider community among the EC blogosphere including Gordon, you guys, and a couple of others, and I was just wondering yesterday what it will mean to me if one of you renounces the faith. . . . so don't(!)
I also really like Richard Dawkins and have found his writing very engaging. I pray for him to come to faith in Jesus all the time, what a testimony to the world that would be.
Pete,
You're not alone, for I have had similar concerns about my own journey from time to time. But the Bible's unique character and message, combined with Jesus' unique place in history, cause me to re-recognize God's hand in my life, which I've seen at work time and time again.
Honestly, I'd rather have my faith than be without it, for I believe that the encounter I've had with Jesus (Son of God or not) has made me a better person, flawed though I am.
"I noticed that too. I just can't help liking Dawkins. What a shame that he doesn't have anything to say about science anymore."
Ha, well it took me until recently to get all the way through Ancestor's Tale. Perhaps soon we'll get another science book from Dawkins. I imagine it takes quite awhile to write a book that thick and well-researched. (The God Delusion, otoh, you could knock out on a long week-end).
If you haven't read Ancestor's Tale, do yourself a favor and pick it up... it's wonderful. And you'll have plenty of reading material, or something thick enough to prop up a couch!
Pete--
Me? Not walk away? It's not my promise to make. Romans 8:28-end. That's what I'm counting on.
Siamang--
Haven't read it, but I'll put it on the list. I hope we something worthy from Dawkins soon; in fact I'd love to see him enter the evo-devo wars. That's a perfect place for his voice, IMO.
Thanks for posting this Steve. It's a good and discouraging article at the same time, I think.
It's good in that it doesn't dismiss out of hand efforts to integrate evolutionary science and religion. I also liked Francis Collins' quote about working with theologians. That sounds hopeful.
It's discouraging about Van Till, of course. But even more, I think the artilce discouraging in that it confuses process theology with more orthodox efforts to understand evolution as a means by which God created. The article seems to imply that there really is no way to retain an orthodox view of God and believe in evolution.
Process theology sees nature as part of God, such that God "evolves" in a sense along with nature, or God "emerges" from nature. It seems to me quite clear that this concept of God has nothing to do with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or with Jesus the Logos who spoke the universe into existence. I think this is a way of deifying "evolution."
The article seems to lump people like Collins together with process thinkers such as Haught. Collins clearly is not a process thinker, nor are most of the evangelical / reformed TE / EC's I know. I wish the article had been more clear about the many evangelical / reformed / Roman Catholic thinkers who are trying to understand evolution within a more orthodox understanding of God.
I also thought the article was disappointing to the extent it seems to accept the theodicy argument against evolutionary creation by a sovereign God. True, if God used evolution as a means of creating, and God is omnipotent and sovereign, we have to understand God's goodness and love in creating to include what appears to us to be the suffering and waste of evolution. Not to minimize that problem, but it seems to me no more difficult from a TE / EC perspective than it is from an ID / OEC or even YEC perspective.
No matter what, God created a world in which He knew there would be enormous amounts of suffering and death -- a world that He was free not to create and that He is capable of erasing at any time. Even if all suffering and death of any kind first entered the creation at the Fall as in YEC theodicies, God still set up the initial conditions and let it all happen. Christians, Jews and Muslims have always wrestled with this problem, and there are varied ways to consider it, none of them totally satisfactory from our human perspective. But I think we cannot, cannot let this become a reason to deify evolution through process theology.
Pete, I hear what you're saying. I think there's a certain extent to which that concern is healthy (it can become an unhealthy worry, of course). Steve, I understand your response to Pete in the abstract, but I'm also a little troubled by it. Of course, in the abstract, no one can be so proud as to do anything more than live by faith one day at a time.
But in particular as regarding how the science of evolution relates to our Christian faith, I want to emphasize first principles first: Jesus is Lord, God is the author of all Truth, and God's written word is true in what God intends to reveal to us through it. With that committment made first as a matter of will, I feel more free to investigate evidences from the natural sciences concerning how God put the universe together. I may sometimes feel uncomfortable about how to relate those faith commitments to the scientific claims, but I can relax a bit and know that, unlike God, I'm just one fallible human being who will never know everything.
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