ID vs. Evolution: A Tie for Last Place, Part III

Last week I described three incompatible notions of the ID/evolution debate that various people have. If you think that evolution means “evolutionary development,” then you think that ID is challenging the “old earth” hypothesis. This, of course, is usually because this type of ID-supporter takes Genesis literally. Some people, like the leaders of ID, do not wish to challenge evolutionary development, but merely Darwin’s version of the evolutionary story. And finally, sometimes the ID movement is about opposing the atheistic conclusions of evolution.

So which, if any, of these three versions of evolution threaten mono-theism? Or I could ask more straightforwardly: do we have to believe in any version of Intelligent Design, merely because we are Christians? Over the next few weeks, I want to argue that Christians, even the most staunch, Bible-beating ones, should not feel threatened by the first two versions of evolution, but only the third. As I mentioned, Christian hostility to the notion of “evolutionary development” is caused by the belief that the first few chapters of Genesis are literal.

This doctrine of taking the entire Bible “literally” is the most shameful of all conservative Christian doctrines, if for no other reason than that there is no clear doctrine of ‘literal.’ If you hold this doctrine up to a microscope, you actually find the conservatives saying this: “We take the whole Bible literally, except for when we don’t.” Here are some examples of things that the conservatives (hopefully) don’t believe are literal: in John 3:3, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again. Nicodemus, being an overly-conservative Rabbi, says “Oh, that’s silly. You can’t crawl back into your mother’s womb.” Jesus must have been laughing (or crying) when he informed Nicodemus that this was a spiritual truth, not a literal truth. And hopefully when Paul discusses becoming a “new man,” he doesn’t mean that literally he will shed his skin and crawl into some different skin.

And my favorite of all, after people had decided to build the Tower of Babel: “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower…And the Lord said…”Come, let us go down there and confuse their language…” (Gen 11:5-7). A literal reading of this passage would be very strange. God was literally sitting in the sky, and literally did not have a good view of things on earth with his literal eyes from where he was literally sitting and when God literally saw the Tower he was literally surprised at this development and literally formulated a strategy to ruin the Tower. And the more Bible you read, it starts to become apparent that God rarely speaks literally when communicating anything of importance to us.

So it comes down to this. It appears that much of the Bible is metaphorical (despite what the conservatives may or may not think), and it appears that much of the Bible is literal. Now the question is about the first three chapters of Genesis. Does it fall in the literal category, or in the metaphorical category? Next week I want to introduce some textual evidence that the Creation story was indeed intended as a metaphor all along.

ID vs. Evolution: A Tie For Last Place, Part II

The most insidious problem with the debate between intelligent design and evolution is that “intelligent design” means different things to different people, as does “evolution.” To some people, the word “evolution” is short for “evolutionary development,” and so when intelligent design challenges evolution, it is challenging the notion that species A descended from species B over millions of years, and so on. Many ID advocates and opponents alike believe that this is the debate. As evidence of this, I hear evolutionists say things like, “But the fossil record indicates that species A is 56,000,000 years old…” This, however, is not what the two main proponents of the ID movement – Michael Behe and William Dembski – believe. I went to hear both of them speak, and they both started their lectures by saying, “I believe that all life descended from a one-celled organism over billions of years…” So it is both true and false that intelligent design is challenging the very notion of evolutionary development.

Second, “evolution” also means “Darwinian evolution” to some people. This is evident when the debate starts being directed toward natural selection, or another of Darwin’s doctrines. Third, some people, both atheists and theists, think that “evolution” is the doctrine that the world evolved by a series of accidents, and that any intentionality or purpose had nothing to do with our universe. Indeed, many of the top evolutionists believe this. Richard Dawkins and Gary Marcus, for instance, both believe that the scientific theory of evolution supports atheism.

So what is intelligent design, and what it evolution? Well, they are three things at once. Sometimes, evolution is the doctrine that the world evolved in a slow process over long periods of time; sometimes, it is specifically used as Darwin’s version of this doctrine (they are many besides his!), and sometimes it is an essentially atheistic account of the universe. Because both evolution and its ID are three things at once, the debate between them is hopelessly confused. It would be like if my word for a baseball bat was “house,” and your word for baseball bat was “car.” We could stand there for hours looking at a baseball bat arguing about whether it was a house or a car. It doesn’t matter how long we argue! The only two things that will happen as a result of our “debate” are 1) we will get angry at each other at a personal level, and 2) we will get further away from resolving our dispute. This silly picture is an accurate analogy of what is happening with the ID/evolution debate.

ID vs. Evolution: A Tie for Last Place, Part I

It appears that the Intelligent Design movement has already had its 15 minutes of fame in the media, but the effects of the debate linger and continue to make people from both sides angry and frustrated. I am fascinated by this debate for several reasons, but most of all because both sides think that people on the other side must be complete morons. I really can’t think of another debate with this much hostility and sarcasm. The closest analog would be the abortion debate, but in that case, both sides think the other side is immoral. Here, both sides accuse the other of plain stupidity.

I think that this debate was a total waste of everyone’s time, and accomplished nothing. As indicated by the title of my new series, I characterize neither side as a winner: instead, they tie for last. By that I mean that if you started out believing in intelligent design when this debate began, you still do – and now you are even more angry at the evolutionists! And if you started out believing in evolution, you still do – and now you think that ID people are completely ridiculous! Now that is what I call a useless debate – nothing was accomplished except filling the world with more anger.

So where did this debate go wrong? Could it have been productive? And just what is a Christian, Jew, or Muslim supposed to believe? Are we obligated to be ID adherents, simply because we believe God is responsible for this universe? What about all those evolutionists who are Christians – are they being inconsistent? Does an evolutionary account of the world challenge religion?

I am optimistic that after we wade through some of the misunderstandings together, we can come up with some worthwhile thoughts, and answer some of these questions. This will be my theme for the next several blogs.