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Notes on: Evolutionary Creation 2

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In part 2 of her look at Denis O. Lamoureux’s book Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution, RJS of Jesus Creed discusses the three evolution-accepting views of Creation Lamoureux describes: evolutionary creation, deistic evolution, and dysteleological evolution. Briefly, these positions could be described as follows:

  1. dysteleological evolution – is formed from the roots dys (“lack of”) and teleology (“final cause or purpose”). This view holds that evolution is ultimately purposeless or “blind”. Proponents would include the New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins.
  2. deistic evolution – accepts that a supreme being exists in the sense of a final cause for the laws of nature but rejects interference or revelation of any kind from that being. Thus, there is no possible interference or supernatural activity in the evolution of the Universe and life.
  3. evolutionary creation – is Lamoureux’s position. Proponents hold that God is the creator and sustainer of the Universe but uses evolution as a tool. Evolution therefore has some sense of purpose and design.

You are probably more familiar with the term theistic evolution. That is a broader category or spectrum that would encompass views 3 and some of 2. Word placement is key here. Evolutionary creation seeks to emphasize that God uses evolution as his creative tool whereas theistic evolution gives a connotation of merely adding a veneer of theism over deistic or dysteleological evolution. Please read the original post by RJS for my details and discussion.

Okay, with all that said, let’s hone in on evolutionary creation and RJS’s questions: From your perspective what is the most significant issue for an evolutionary view of creation?

As I look at the evolutionary and non-evolutionary (i.e.Young-earth and Old-earth) views of creation, I think for me probably the most significant issue with the evolutionary view is the way that it effects the way we look at the Fall and the arc of human origins and early history. Evolutionary creation declares “very good” what many Christians throughout history have declared to be manifestations of evil. For instance, natural disasters, disease, and physical death are reinterpreted to be a part of “good”, instead of a radical departure from it. Evolutionary creation fails to give us a simple story of a single, human, source for what we think if as “bad”. Instead we get much more nuanced or mysterious stories of the origin of what went wrong and a much narrower idea of what evil is.

RJS’s answer to the question is really good (better than mine I think):

The most significant issues with evolutionary creation center on divine activity in origins – both the place for divine activity in general and the role for divine activity in human origins in particular.

Her final questions are: What do you see as the strengths and weakness of evolutionary creation? What distinctions and positions are possible?

An obvious strength to the evolutionary creation view is its scientific robustness and its careful consideration (as opposed to rejection) of the Bible. The weakness is, in my opinion, that it has to give up a lot in order to make that happen. It has to give up easy, bumper-sticker, answers to some important questions:

  • What does it mean for the Bible to be true?
  • What is the nature and extent of the Fall?
  • How doe we know when scientists are making philosophical, as opposed to scientific, assertions?
  • How does God interact with Creation? What about miracles?
  • How do I know that God is really there?

Instead, we get lots of discussion and dialog and “I don’t know, it’s kind of mysterious” but very few solid answers. It is a very difficult path to follow, it seems to me. On one hand it rejects the easy dismissal of all things religious and supernatural as found in the New Atheists, and on the other it rejects the “plain reading of the Bible” of fundamentalism.

I see a pretty large spectrum of thought in evolutionary creationist writings. One key area, as I’ve already mentioned earlier, is the nature of the Fall. One end of the spectrum affirms the historicity of Adam and Eve as an original human couple and the source of sin within humanity. The other end of the spectrum rejects any historicity to be found in at least Genesis 1-3 (and generally through at least Genesis 11) and considers it to be purely literary and mythic. This makes evolutionary creation potentially acceptable to large variety of theological groups, anywhere from Evangelicals to Liberals and Roman Catholics. The negative consequence of that is that it also can be a bit confusing and shifty ground for young people or people new to Christianity.

Notes on: Those who never hear the gospel

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David Opderbeck has written two blog posts (one and two) at Jesus Creed discussing the fate of those who never hear the Gospel by considering Catholic theologian Gavin D’Costa’s contribution to the subject in his book, Christianity and World Religions: Disputed Questions in the Theology of Religions.

David asks: An initial question:  can those of us who are Protestant learn anything from Catholic theology?  In particular, what can we learn from Catholic theological method in relation to hard questions?

One of the things that has struck me lately as I look more at the history of the Church is the obvious fact that it didn’t start at the Reformation. Even today though, there are some aspects of the way that Catholic scholars go about things that I think are useful. Catholics can tap into a long and deep theological tradition. Many American Evangelicals end up doing theology in vacuo, which can not only lead to shallow theology, but ironically also to heretical beliefs. Catholic scholarship also seem to have a history of deeply intellectual discussion of some of the hardest issues in Christianity. They might not always get it right, in my opinion, but it seems like I can always find some sort of statement from the Catholic church on pretty much any issue.

In the second post, David opens up the discussion on D’Costa’s consideration of what happens to those people who die having never heard the Gospel. D’Costa uses the doctrine of “Limbo of the Just” (based on 1 Peter 3:18-4:6) to work within the limitation of the doctrine of Extra Ecclesiam nulla salas – “There is no salvation outside the Church.” Interestingly, Extra Ecclesiam is not only relevant for Catholics, where the “Church” is the Roman Catholic church, but also for Protestants, where the “Church” is considered in the broader sense to be the “invisible” body of those who have faith in Christ. Read David’s post for more of the details.

David asks: Can we make use of a theological method in which traditions not explicitly mentioned in scripture inform our thinking?  Does that fact that the early Church Fathers wrestled with the problem of “good” or “just” pre-Christian people, and devised a solution, help in your wrestling with problems such as the fate of the unevangelized?  Are you surprised at how the first few generations of Christians interpreted 1 Peter 3-4?

I think extra-biblical traditions can be useful, but I generally try to keep three things in mind:

  1. Tradition is still just that, something that has been passed down to us, it is not Scripture.
  2. Traditions that are not explicitly taught in the Bible should at least not contradict accepted biblical teaching.
  3. Traditions that originate close to the Jesus and the Apostles should be especially considered.  Those who had reasonably certain access to apostolic and eye-witness knowledge outside the Bible are of great importance.

I find it at least comforting that those issues that I often wrestle with are ones that concerned people throughout Church history. It is helpful for me to be able to say “Okay, let’s look at what somebody who was only once or twice removed from the Apostles did with this issue?”. They’re obviously not infallible, but I think we have to take the early Church fathers and mothers seriously.

Being Protestant, my personal understanding of this sort of Limbo has always centered around the idea that the saints of the Old Testament had faith in the coming Christ. This faith brought them into salvation, but that since the Kingdom of God was not yet established, they waited until the consummation of their Limbo in the death and resurrection of Christ.

David describes a key to D’Costa’s proposal:

a participatory ontology in which temporal, situated human beings participate in the life of the eternal, cosmic Christ. This participatory ontology is one way in which D’Costa explains how the descent of Christ on Holy Saturday can be effective for unevangelized people living in the dispensation of the Church, after the Resurrection.

I think there may be something here, but the big question for me is, how? How does somebody participate in the life of the eternal, cosmic Christ when they have never heard of Him, or what He’s done, or what He’s going to do? It seems to me that any such participation must be necessarily superficial and so I wonder about its salvific effectiveness.

Notes on: Evolutionary Creation 1

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RJS over at Jesus Creed opened up a new series today discussing Dr. Denis O. Lamoureux’s book Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution. I’ve heard many recommendations for Lamoureux’s books (especially I Love Jesus & I Accept Evolution, a condensed version of Evolutionary Creation) from many Christians in the sciences. I haven’t read it yet, but it is on my ever-growing to-read list. In this first chapter, RJS summarizes some thoughts of Lamoureux and asks some questions about some “categories” that shape the way in which we see the world and the science & faith discussion.

What do the categories evolution, Darwinism, creation, and concordism bring to the discussion? What preconceptions color the discussion from your perspective?

Evolution is the center of so much consternation and controversy in American Evangelicalism that has become a litmus test of “true faith” in many circles. No “real” Christian would ever accept it, for it is antithetical to any biblical Christian worldview. The problem is, the people who actually study this stuff and are in a place to make evaluations of the evidence overwhelmingly support biological evolution. The numbers are something in the 95-99% range for scientists in general and even higher for biologists in particular. Coming from a Young-Earth Creationist background, that’s tremendously troubling. Beyond that, it shakes somebody like me to the core. See, I’m a scientist, I “do” science for a living. How am I supposed to seriously believe that science has gotten so much right, from distant planets to sub-atomic particles, and yet has gotten this large chunk of biology so terribly wrong? So that’s what evolution is for me, a consternation and confusion that pits the world of my youth against the world that trust.

Darwinism is, as RJS said in the original post, is a term that is rarely used in the scientific literature and I would further say it is the easiest way to spot an anti-evolutionist. Bottom line, don’t use it unless you’re specifically talking about Darwin’s particular theories and writings. Darwinism is not another word for Evolution.

Creation is where we meet the real fun part in the science & faith discussion. The Christian doctrine of creation is what binds us together. We are all Creationists at the heart of it, for we understand that God is the ultimate source the Universe, the creator and sustainer of all that is before us. Lamoureux outlines the doctrine of Creation as follows:

  1. The creation is radically distinct and different from the Creator.
  2. The creation is utterly dependent on the Creator.
  3. The creation was made out of nothing.
  4. The creation is temporal. (meaning it has a beginning and end, it is not eternal)
  5. The creation declares God’s glory.
  6. The creation is very good.

This is a wonderful beginning point to discuss our theology of Creation and origins. It binds Christians together without making scientific and philosophical assumptions that normally cut off discussion at the outset. RJS makes the point that this doctrine of Creation “is not confined by or challenged by scientific discovery.” This I see as a potential sticking point. I think most American Evangelicals are precisely looking for scientific discoveries that validate and justify their belief in God and Biblical inerrancy. A theology that is immune to scientific inquiry might be seen as a weakness, not a strength. This is something we need to address as it is a fundamental paradigm change in the way we view the Bible and God’s interaction with the world.

Concordism is sort of where the rubber meets the road in the debate between young-earth creationists, old-earth creationists, and evolutionary creationists (as Lamoureux terms them). Concordism is “the method of biblical interpretation that looks for correspondence between scripture and reality.” It is split by Lamoureux into three varieties (given by RJS):

  1. Theological Concordism “claims that there is an indispensable and  non-negotiable correspondence between the theological truths of the Bible and spiritual reality. The central purpose of Scripture is to reveal God, including His character, laws, and acts.“
  2. Historical Concordism “asserts that Scripture is a reliable record of a period in human history. First and foremost, the Bible offers a trustworthy account of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It is also a history of the nation of Israel and her interaction with neighboring countries and it documents the activities of the early Church.“
  3. Scientific Concordism “states that there is a correspondence between the Bible and the physical world. The most common form of this type of concordism aligns the Genesis creation accounts with modern science. …  All scientific concordists agree that since the Bible predates the birth of modern science, any correspondence between the scientific statements of Scripture and science today is proof for divine inspiration. Only an all-knowing Creator who transcends time could reveal future scientific discoveries to ancient biblical writers.“

What sets the Evolutionary Creationists apart is that they reject that scientific concordism is possible or necessary. They emphasize theological concordism’s centrality to orthodox Christianity while rejecting concordism that is unnecessary to the theological. Historical concordism is accepted by many only in so far as the theological purpose of the Bible necessitates (i.e. the historicity of the Resurrection). Another, more conservative, approach is to view historical concordism from the other direction of assuming historicity until shown otherwise (via archeology, etc.). I generally come at it from this later view. I tend to see the theological purposes of the Bible as fairly firmly rooted in the real history of Israel and the early Christian church.

RJS asks: Is the doctrine of creation as outlined by Lamoureux consistent with your understanding? Is something missing or unnecessary?

I really like Lamoureux’s doctrine of creation. I think it makes a really good starting place for Christians to talk to each other about Creation and Genesis. I think it is useful for people to start out by affirming their commonality, it helps diffuse some of the “us and them” attitude. I think there might be some quibbles on points 5 and 6 though, in relation to Creation being good and declaring God’s glory for people who have a strong view of the Fall and consequently see a big discontinuity in the way Creation is and the way Creation ought to be. This is similar to the atheist’s charge that there is much in the Universe that doesn’t seem good: disease, natural disasters, unethical behavior.

RJS asks: Is this distinction between types of concordism -  expectations for the correspondence between scripture and reality – useful? Do they further understanding, or lead to confusion?

I see some usefulness here in essentially saying that every statement in the Bible cannot be expected to have they same correspondence to reality. The problem I see is that it’s really all much messier than putting things in these three categories, especially when it comes to the relationship between the theological and historical. The Bible is deeply grounded in story and particularly in the story of God’s relationship with his people. While we can talk about theology being true, even when removed from the historical, I think we lose an awful lot of power and authority in Scripture if we expect no or little historical concordism. Maybe if we thought of concordism as a spectrum rather than “bins” it would help.