Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 17, 1994 TAG: 9409210046
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By ROBERT BENNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Reading his letter gave me the impression that thoughtful people are left with the choice of ``creation science'' on the one hand, and a rather cold naturalism on the other. I think there are other options that are, in fact, more persuasive.
Professor Munley takes on ``creation science,'' and makes some telling points. (One serious problem of ``creation science'' is that it concedes too much to the scientific world view by assuming the Bible is a book of science.)
Evolution, as a general way of looking at the development of the natural world, is a fairly settled theory that does, however, have a number of gaps in it. Without much sympathy for the source of their anxieties, Munley chastises creationists for filling those gaps with God's actions. He assumes science will sooner or later fill in those gaps, and that all the mystery will be expunged. Everything will have a natural, i.e., scientific, explanation.
However, what if the full nature of reality is not completely understandable according to the scientific method? It's an unwarranted leap of intellectual pride to claim that all things are amenable to our tools of scientific inquiry. (One might perhaps even call such a leap a ``leap of faith.'')
Most science philosophers have long given up the raw scientific positivism that reigned earlier in our century. Immanuel Kant, at the begining of the 19th century, argued compellingly that the ``thing in itself,'' ultimate reality, cannot be grasped by human categories of cause and effect, the primary categories used in the scientific method. He, therefore, argued that moral and aesthetic reason are as important ways of human knowing as the scientific. Kant even left room for revelation.
So perhaps a bit more humility before our mysterious, pluriform world is called for. For instance, the question of whether there is purpose in the process of evolution - which is a more interesting and weightier question than whether the Bible is talking literally about a seven-day creation - is certainly not settled among top-flight scientists. A large number fit theism with evolution; they contend there is unfolding purpose in development of the natural world.
For example, Owen Gingerich, professor of astronomy at Harvard, agrees with Fred Hoyle, another distinguished astrophysicist, that the amount of genetic information in the DNA in every cell of our bodies is so awesome that the probability of this happening by chance is akin to a 747 aircraft being assembled by a whirlwind in a junkyard. Indeed, the conversation is not ended, only beginning.
I, like Munley, am awed to be a part of the natural cosmos. Only I don't identify it with God, for it too is fallen and confused. Nature is wonderful, but also horrible. It's said that Darwin lost his faith on one of his trips to the Galapagos Islands when he saw thousands of birds swoop down to devour thousands of new-born turtles trying to make their way to the ocean. Nature certainly is fecund, but it's also coldly uncaring about the plenitude of life it generates. One could just as well, as Bertrand Russell did, call this process Moloch - a monster god - and refuse to worship it. Munley engages in another ``leap of faith'' in finding nature so worthy of worship.
So there may be purpose, but a purpose that's distorted and confused by the fallenness of the process of evolution itself. In such a situation, wrestled with by ancient Jews and Christians through their narratives of the creation and fall of the world, there are no simple answers. But Christians believe the most decisive way of knowing what's finally behind this whole process is through the revelation of God in history, through the history of Israel, and decisively through the revelation of Christ. Their confession of faith is that the power behind all is finally for us and not against us. That's the Judeo-Christian wager.
Fitting this confession with modern science is no easy matter. But other, more sympathetic stabs can be made at it than that made by Munley. Classic Christianity and modern science need not be so separated.
Robert Benne is a professor of religion at Roanoke College.
by CNB