Science, Philosophy, Faith, and Creation:
Christian Perspectives on the Origins Debate

Originally presented as part of the Faculty Roundtable Forum
Belhaven College, Jackson, MS
October 23, 2003

Introduction
Dr. Daniel Fredericks
Senior Vice President and Provost

How do faith and science interact?  Is it sound practice to integrate faith and learning when it comes to the field of science?

All of us have a great stake in these important academic debates.  If our faith cannot inform science, then the foundation upon which Belhaven College–and most probably, your own thinking–rests is not sound.

In a recent Faculty Forum, Belhaven scholars explored three key arenas in which this great debate wages: theology, biology, and philosophy.  The outcome was hopeful, even upbeat.  The names of the scholars and their topics are as follows:

·        Dr. Guy Waters, Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies, outlines the key and most credible interpretations of the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2.

·        Dr. Rob Waltzer, Associate Professor of Biology, explains the scientific case for intelligent design as espoused by scientists such as himself who share a Christian worldview.

·        Dr. Wynn Kenyon, Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department and Division of Ministry and Human Services, deconstructs the logical framework of the evolutionary position and argues that this position may be beginning to crumble.

Deconstructing the Origins Debate

Dr. Wynn Kenyon
Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department and  Division of Ministry and Human Services    

Several years ago I was asked to speak to the Providence Presbyterian Church youth group in Clinton, Mississippi, on the subject of evolution.  I began with a challenge: “I challenge you to a race between your youth director Steve Scott and your fastest person.   The race will be held in the parking lot in just a few minutes.”  After building up interest in the race, I gave them the rules of the race: “You have to be over thirty-five to run in this race.”   Of course, with these rules, no one but Steve was eligible.   Steve wins, for there is only one runner in the race.

When we deconstruct the logic of the debate over evolution, we discover that the rules of the debate are such that there is only one runner in the race.  Evolution wins, not because of the abundance of scientific evidence, but because the rules only allow for evolution to run.  Hence, one argues, “We are here are we not?  And since there is no other explanation for how we got here, evolution must be true.”  In what follows, I will give the evidence for this claim.

Phillip Johnson, in his Darwin On Trial, turned his analytical skills to deconstructing the logic of the evolutionary debate:

As a legal scholar, one point that attracted my attention in the supreme court case was the way terms like "science" and "religion" are used to imply conclusions that judges and educators might be unwilling to state explicitly.  If we say that naturalistic evolution is science and supernatural creation is religion, the effect is not very different from saying that the former is true and the latter is fantasy.  When the doctrines of science are taught as fact, then whatever those doctrines exclude cannot be true.  By the use of labels, objections to naturalistic evolution can be dismissed without a fair hearing. [1]

Though Johnson’s thesis might sound outlandish, it is confirmed, he says, by a brief filed by the National Academy of Sciences.  This brief says that creation-science is not science because

it fails to display the most basic characteristic of science: reliance upon naturalistic explanations.  Instead, proponents of “creation-science” hold that the creation of the universe, the earth, living things, and man was accomplished though supernatural means inaccessible to human understanding. [2]

Notice what is happening here.  By the definition of “science,” creationists cannot give scientific evidence for their belief.  Anything that appeals to God (and it also seems intelligent design) is religion and not science.  We cannot say that we have scientific evidence for it.  So positive argumentation is ruled out.  But, negative criticism of evolution is also ruled out.  The brief goes on to say:

“Creation-science” is thus manifestly a device designed to dilute the persuasiveness of the theory of evolution.  The dualistic method of analysis and the negative argumentation employed to accomplish this is, moreover, antithetical to the scientific method. [3]

Johnson concludes that by definition the academy has made it impossible for Creation-scientists to argue for their position and to argue against evolution.  If there is only one runner in a race, and we know that someone won the race, we all know who must have won the race.  Thus, the Creation/Evolution debate is set up in such a manner that only evolution is a possible explanation for the way we got here—and we are here, so we must all know what the correct answer is.  However, as Johnson correctly points out, this is accomplished by definitions, not by scientific evidence.

Johnson is here referring to the fact/value dichotomy of our culture.  Science deals with facts, and its theories are testable by facts—it gives us objective knowledge.  Since there are facts, we can talk about scientific theories being true in an objective sense because a theory that agrees with the facts is true.  Religion, on the other hand, is subjective and private.  It does not deal with facts and, hence, cannot be true or even false in the objective, public sense.  We may say that a person is sincere or insincere in his faith, but “true” or “false” is not applicable.  What this does in practice is to give science a monopoly on objective truth.

Perhaps I should define certain terms: "objective truth" and "subjective opinion" on the one hand, and "public knowledge" and "private opinion" on the other hand.  Notice that I have set these terms up in two sets.  Some will object, saying that I  have prejudiced their position by refusing to call the subjective and the private “knowledge.”  By not labeling them "subjective knowledge" and "private knowledge," I imply that those with this dichotomy do not value the subjective as highly as the objective, when, in fact, they explicitly state that they value them both equally.   But whether we call the subjective and private knowledge or not, it is evident that they are not public truth.  Beliefs in the realm of the subjective and private, we are told, are not beliefs that are capable of agreeing with the known facts and, hence, capable of being shown to be true.  At best, one can say that his subjective and private beliefs are true for him, but he must not say that they are true for people in general. [4]

Given this understanding, Johnson’s point is as follows: saying that evolution is science and that creationism is religion makes one public and true for all and the other private and, at best, "true" for me.  I can believe it, but I must keep it private and out of the public realm.  Reality is divided into science and religion; the two are totally different and never the two shall meet.

When this dichotomous thinking occurs, it gives science a monopoly as the source of public truth.  Only scientific findings are true in a public sense.  Science alone can explain how we got here.  With this rule, one argues as follows:  “Since we are here, and since evolution, in one form or another, is the only possible explanation, we know that evolution is true.”  Here we have what seems to be a transcendental argument.  We are here, and the necessary condition for this is evolution, so evolution must be true.

What we have described in abstract, one can see in biology textbooks.  In Life On Earth, Wilson writes:

Each of these examples of micro evolution examined, involving shifts in the frequencies of small numbers of genes, could be multiplied a hundredfold from the reports in the scientific literature.  Biologists have been privileged to witness the beginnings of evolutionary change in many kinds of plants and animals and under a variety of situations, and they have used this opportunity to test the assumptions of population genetics that form the foundations of modern evolutionary theory.  The question that should be asked before we proceed to new ideas is whether more extensive evolutionary change, macro evolution, can be explained as an outcome of these micro evolutionary shifts.  Did birds really evolve from reptiles by the accumulation of gene substitutions of the kind illustrated by the raspberry eye-colored gene?

The answer is that it is entirely plausible, and no one has come up with a better explanation consistent with known biological facts. [5] (emphasis mine)

In another example,  Davis Solomon, in his book The World Of Biology, makes a similar logical move:

If micro evolution has been witnessed in a relatively short span of years, it is quite plausible that over millions of years many micro evolutionary changes have accumulated to produce evolution.  Further, where can one draw the line between micro evolution and macro evolution?  If a species can evolve, why not a whole genus, order, class, or phylum, given enough time? [6]

Both move from “this evolutionary view is possible” to “this view is actually true” because there are no other runners allowed in the race.

Johnson wants to break up this monopoly.  “God did it” and intelligent design theories should, he says, be considered as legitimate scientific theories:  “Why not consider the possibility that life is what it so evidently seems to be, the product of a creative intelligence?  Science would not come to an end….” [7]  The rules of the race need to be changed.  Chance does not explain the origin of life.  A scientist at the Arkansas trial testifies:

Some 2,000 or so enzymes are known to be crucial for life. . .  At a conservative estimate, say 15 sites per enzyme must be filled by particular amino acids for proper biological function….The probability of discovering this by random shuffling is one in 10^40,000—a number that exceeds by many powers of 10 the number of all atoms in the entire observable universe. [8]

Michael Denton writes of an encounter that highlighted the mathematical improbability of this:

The inability of unguided trial and error to reach anything but the most trivial of ends in almost every field of interest obviously raises doubts as to its validity in the biological realm.  Such doubts were raised by a number of mathematicians and engineers at an international symposium entitled “Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution,” a meeting which also included many leading evolutionary biologists.  The major argument presented was that Darwinian evolution by natural selection is merely a special case of the general procedure of problem solving by trial and error.  Unfortunately, as the mathematicians present at the symposium such as Schutzenberger and Professor Eden from MIT pointed out, trial and error is totally inadequate as a problem-solving technique without the guidance of specific algorithms, which has led to the consequent failure to stimulate Darwinian evolution by computer analogues. [9]

Phillip Johnson recounts another encounter between mathematicians and Darwinists:

Some mathematicians did try to make the calculations, and the result was a rather acrimonious confrontation between themselves and some of the leading Darwinists at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia in 1967.  The report of the exchange is fascinating, not just because of the substance of the mathematical challenge, but even more because of the logic of the Darwinist response.  For example, the mathematician D. S. Ulam argued that it was highly improbable that the eye could have evolved by accumulations of small mutations, because the number of mutations would have to be so large and the time available was not nearly long enough for them to appear.  Sir Peter Medawar and C. H. Waddington responded that Ulam was doing his science backward; the fact was that the eye had evolved and therefore the mathematical difficulties must be only apparent.   Ernst Mayr observed that Ulam’s calculations were based on assumptions that might be unfounded, and concluded: “Somehow or other by adjusting these figures we will come out all right. We are confronted by the fact that evolution has occurred.” [10] (emphasis mine)

Evolution is not a theory open to refutation, but a fact to be accounted for.  Again, I say, according to the evolutionists, there is only one runner allowed in the race. 

Stephan Jay Gould reviewed Johnson’s book in Scientific American.  He is baffled by what he believes to be oversight or slight of hand by Johnson.  Gould writes:

Science can work only with naturalistic explanations; it can neither affirm nor deny other types of actors (like God) in other spheres (the moral realm, for example).  Forget philosophy for the moment; the simple empirics of the past hundred years should suffice.  Darwin himself was agnostic (having lost his religious beliefs upon the tragic death of his favorite daughter), but the great American botanist, Asa Gray, who favored natural selection and wrote a book entitled Darwinian, was a devout Christian. [11]

Gould goes on to say:

Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid, or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with contemporary religious belief—and equally compatible with atheism, thus proving that the two great realms of nature’s factuality and the source of human morality do not strongly overlap. [12]

Gould’s primary criticisms are that Johnson neither understands the “purpose and logic of evolutionary argument” nor does he correctly weigh the values of the evolutionist.

Second, and more important for documenting Johnson’s inadequacy in his own realm of expertise, he performs abysmally in the lawyer’s domain of the art of argumentation.  To begin, he simply does not grasp (or chooses not to understand) the purpose and logic of evolutionary argument.  I have already illustrated his central conflation of Darwinism with hostility to religion.  I was particularly offended by his false and unkind accusation that scientists are being dishonest when they claim equal respect for science and religion: "Scientific naturalists do not see a contradiction, because they never meant that the realms of science and religion are of equal dignity and importance.  Science for them is the realm of objective knowledge; religion is a matter of subjective belief.  The two should not conflict because a rational person always prefers objective knowledge to subjective belief." [13] (emphasis mine)

Gould is especially irritated by this last claim on the part of Johnson, “The two should not conflict because a rational person always prefers objective knowledge to subjective belief.”  Gould responds to Johnson’s assertion as follows:

Speak for yourself, Attorney Johnson.  I regard the two as of equal dignity and limited contact.  "The two should not conflict" because science treats factual reality, while religion struggles with human morality.  I do not view moral argument as a whit less important than factual investigation. [14] (emphasis mine)

Gould’s response shows that Johnson really does understand the logic of evolutionary argument—it does rest upon the fact/value dichotomy.  Science is concerned with “factual investigation,” whereas religion “struggles with human morality.”  Notice that religion struggles; it does not solve or give objective answers.  Science is given a monopoly as the source of public truth.  There is only one runner in the race. 

Johnson also understands Gould’s position better than Gould does himself.  To document this I include several quotes from Gould’s book, Rocks of Ages.  The last quote in this list is of the greatest importance:

I do not see how science and religion can be unified, or even synthesized, under any common scheme of explanation or analysis; but I also do not understand why the two enterprises should experience any conflict.  Science tries to document the factual character of the natural world, and to develop theories that coordinate and explain these facts.  Religion, on the other hand, operates in the equally important, but utterly different, realm of human purposes, meanings, and values—subjects that the factual domain of science might illuminate but can never resolve.  Similarly, while scientists must operate with ethical principles, some specific to their practice, the validity of these principles can never be inferred from the factual discoveries of science. [15]

To summarize, with a tad of repetition, the net, or magisterium, of science covers the empirical realm:  what is the universe made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory).  The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value.  The two magisterial do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty).  To cite the old clichés, science gets the age of rocks, and religion the rocks of ages; science studies how the heavens go, religion how to go to heaven. [16]

Scientists with strong theological commitments have embraced NOA [Non-Overlapping Magisteria] in several styles—from the argument of "God as clock winder" generally followed by Newton's contemporaries, to the "bench-top materialism" of most religious scientists today (who hold that "deep" questions about ultimate meanings lie outside the realm of science and under the aegis of religious inquiry, while scientific methods, based on the statio-temporal invariance of natural law, apply to all potentially resolvable questions about facts of nature).  So long as religious beliefs do not dictate specific answers to empirical questions or foreclose the acceptance of documented facts, the most theologically devout scientists should have no trouble pursuing their day jobs with equal zeal. [17]

The first commandment for all versions of NMA might be summarized by stating:  "Thou shalt not mix the magisterial by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science."  In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat. (I know that some people use the word "miracle" in other senses that may not violate NMA–but I follow the classical definition here.)  NMA does impose this "limitation" on concepts of God, just as NMA places equally strong restrictions upon the imperialistic aims of many scientists (particularly in suppressing claims for possession of moral truth based on superior understanding of factual truth in any subject). [18]

But the spectacular growth and success of science has turned the tables for modern versions of syncretism.  Now the conclusions of science must be accepted a priori, and religious interpretations must be finessed and adjusted to match unimpeachable results from the magisterium of natural knowledge!  The Big Bang happened, and we must now find God at this tumultuous origin. [19]

Religion is subjective and must be. Now the conclusions of science must be accepted a priori, and religious interpretations must be “finessed and adjusted to match unimpeachable results from the magisterium of natural knowledge!”  It seems difficult to say that these are of equal value.   

Johnson  wants to open up science to “God did it” and intelligent design theories:  “Why not consider the possibility that life is what it so evidently seems to be, the product of a creative intelligence?  Science would not come to an end….” [20] Nancey Murphy, who teaches at Fuller Theological Seminary,  answers Johnson’s question:

The answer to Johnson’s question is that anyone who attributes the characteristics of living things to creative intelligence has by definition stepped into the arena of either metaphysics or theology.  Some might reply that the definition of science, then, needs to be changed.  And perhaps it would have been better if science had not taken this particular turn in its history.  Could the definition of science change again to admit theistic definitions of natural events?  There are a number of reasons for thinking this unlikely.  A practical reason is the fact that much of the funding for scientific research in this country comes from the federal government.  The mixing of science and religion would raise issues of the separation of church and state.

A second reason for thinking such a change unlikely is that many Christians in science, philosophy, and theology are still haunted by the idea of a “God of the gaps.”  Newton postulated divine intervention to adjust the orbits of the planets.  When Laplace provided better calculations, God was no longer needed.  Many Christians are wary of invoking divine intervention in any way in science, especially in biology, fearing that science will advance, providing the naturalistic explanations that will make God appear once again to have been an unnecessary hypothesis. [21]

The logic of evolutionary argumentation is again seen to be that by definition we exclude these other options.  Evolution wins because there is no other runner in the race.

The latest critical reviewer of Johnson’s book is Robert T. Pennock.  Like others, Pennock rejects Johnson’s work because he (Pennock) accepts the fact/value dichotomy and gives science a monopoly as the source of public truth:

This chapter examines some of the conflicting religious, political, and epistemic values that are at play in the creationism controversy.  In particular, it focuses on the distinction between the public nature of scientific knowledge and the inherently private nature of religious faith and questions the wisdom of setting them in opposition to one another in the schools. [22]

The second characteristic of the supernatural, which I have mentioned before and which follows directly from the first, is that it is inherently mysterious to us.  As natural beings, our knowledge all comes via natural laws and processes.  If we could apply natural knowledge to understand supernatural powers, then, by definition, they would not be supernatural.  The lawful regularities of our experience do not apply to the supernatural world.  If there are other sorts of supernatural "laws" that govern that world, they can be nothing like those that we understand.  Occult entities and powers are profoundly mysterious to us. [23]

As one can easily see, a particular view of reason and knowledge is foundational to these criticisms.  Science deals with facts and hence yields public truth.  Religion deals with values and hence lies outside the realm of facts.  Evolution is science and hence should be taught in public schools.  Creationism is religion and hence should remain in the realm of private opinion or taste.  To teach creationism is to impose one’s taste upon others.  It would be like teaching that all students should like chocolate ice cream and not like cherry ice cream.

But, this fact/value dichotomy is beginning to crumble.  We can see evidence of this collapse in a statement that Michael Ruse made before the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).  Ruse is a professor of philosophy at Florida State University and an expert in the area of the philosophy/history of science.  Ruse was one of the key witnesses for the plaintiff at the Arkansas evolution trial in 1981 where the court ruled against the teaching of creation in public schools.  In his statements before the AAAS, Ruse rejected the fact/value dichotomy as a way of thinking:

But I am coming here and saying, I think that philosophically…one should be sensitive to what I think history shows, namely, that evolution, just as much as religion—or at least, leave “just as much,” let me leave that phrase—evolution, akin to religion, involves making certain a priori or metaphysical assumptions, which at some level cannot be proven empirically. [24]

Ruse’s statement is of the greatest importance for the debate on origins because it acknowledges that the fact/value division between evolution-as-truth and creationism-as-religion is artificial.