Theistic evolution
From RationalWiki
Theistic evolution is a theological concept associated with some versions of Old Earth Creationism which involves partly accepting the scientific theory of evolution while attempting to reconcile religious beliefs with that theory and with science in general.
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[edit] Areas of acceptance
The approach taken is different from church to church and a wide range of views and nuances are included in the concept. However, the generally accepted idea is that of a deity-assisted abiogenesis followed by an indeterminate amount of time during which evolution took place.
Some form of theistic evolution is the accepted official position of the largest Christian denomination, the Roman Catholic Church (Pope John Paul II reconciled religion and science somewhat by declaring evolution is "more than a hypothesis" and "compatible with Christianity".), along with many non-fundamentalist Protestants and some liberal Muslims.
In the Genesis creation fable (1:24) we read, And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. So, with a bit of hand waving, the Bible could be reinterpreted to mean that God used the agency of the earth (natural selection) to "bring forth" living creatures rather than directly "creating" them. This leaves room for an attempted conciliation of a particular view of evolution and a somewhat modified form of biblical literalism.
[edit] Forms and interpretations
[edit] Theistic evolution and natural selection
In the most progressive interpretations of theistic evolution the "evolution" part is assumed to have been carried out wholly by natural selection and mutation. If this definition is accepted, it is basically an admission that science is incapable of detecting God's intervention in the evolution process, and it is very possible that it is driven solely by naturalistic causes (if divine and non-divine influence is indistinguishable, there is no need for a distinction). God's role in evolution would then be restricted to more subtle work, such as ensuring that some mutations are beneficial - although this may conflate with "guided evolution" as described below.
In this interpretation of theistic evolution, it is abiogenesis - the beginning of life - that is assisted by a deity, either wholly (i.e., God created the first life outright) or partially. As science has yet to put forward a conclusive case for how life began (there are many good theories and ideas, but nothing as strongly backed up as other theories) this leaves plenty of space for the intervention of a god without any conflict with current knowledge - although should science eventually find some conclusive data on the subject, this position will have to be revised. In this case, the name "theistic evolution" is probably a misnomer, as what is really being described is "theistic abiogenesis". However, other interpretations of theistic evolution give far more credit to higher powers in the role of biological and human development.
[edit] Theistic evolution and guided evolution
"Guided evolution" is an additional theistic view whereby God used evolution to create mankind.[1] Similar to so-called progressive creationism, this postulates that a series of explicit interventions and genetic modifications were made, all with the aim of producing human life. The scale of these interventions is not fully explained and varies; some may claim that a god will generate whole new organisms (making humans special and therefore separate from other animals that are wholly natural) while less extreme views may see a god prodding atoms in a gene sequence around (i.e., directly causing mutations), giving them a small, miraculous "helping hand" to be naturally selected and bring the next lifeform into existence.
A deistic interpretation would say that the universe was set up at the beginning so that higher life would form. Presumably in such a case it would be argued that a god would use its omniscience to predict the "ultimate" outcome of evolution, and set up the universe accordingly.
[edit] Theistic evolution and intelligent design
While its adherents are at pains to stress that theistic evolution is primarily a religious philosophy and not a scientific one, it is difficult to see how - in practical terms - this concept could avoid the many objections made to intelligent design. Indeed, there are many similarities, or specifically, one big similarity; that a god intervened in the creation and evolution of life. Followers maintain the difference lies in the fact that theistic evolution relies primarily on faith while ID claims to be concerned with attempting to find evidence - or at least interpret evidence the "right" way.
However, both intelligent design and theistic evolution are, despite the claims of ID supporters, religious ideas. Both would also need periodic or constant, unspecified, and supernatural interventions in order to function in reality.
[edit] Objections to theistic evolution
Theistic evolution is primarily a faith position, and most of its adherents have little interest in changing school books or cutting science funding. A distinction could be made that intelligent design is an attempt to bring science to agreement with creation, while theistic evolution is an attempt to bring the religious to agreement with modern science. However, there are some notable objections to the concept of a deity assisted evolution, not least the question of whether there are even gods to intervene in evolution.
Firstly there is the strange conflict of the natural and supernatural combined, something that is usually inexplicit. Therefore there should, potentially, be gaps where a natural methodology would be unable to explain observations. While ID advocates may hasten to point out that evolution is impossible, this is not the case as is backed up with numerous pieces of evidence. As a principle, natural selection is capable of doing everything that is observed on its own, without divine intervention; and if divine intervention is indistinguishable from naturalistic causes, then what is the point in invoking a God anyway?
Secondly, there is little evidence to support the idea of theistic evolution directly. There is only perceived weaknesses in naturalist theories, but this does not constitute positive evidence for theistic evolution. For believers, this is unlikely to be troublesome as a faith position does not rely on evidence - and for "evolutionists" it is also unlikely to be a problem as, by and large, theistic evolution isn't out to undermine the ability for science to explore the universe. As such, it is one practical application of the NOMA principle, with gods filling the gaps until science can conclusively say otherwise.
Whichever specific view of theistic evolution is taken, it is clear that most advocates would probably view mankind as the objective or final goal of the evolutionary process. This idea of goal-orientated evolution is something which is completely alien to the concept of unguided evolution by natural selection.
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
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