Discuss!

This is an interesting question. I believe it is valuable for us to enquire and research as far as possible the way God has brought about the universe and life. This leads us to worship and awe. It enhances our faith. It is also simply fascinating.
For instance, we can study the way in which the initial particles created at the Big Bang, under the laws of physics, came to form hydrogen clouds, then stars, galaxies, and then planets, over billions of years. We can see how the basic building blocks of life were present on the early earth. We can see the body plans (phyla) of all animals, including our own, appearing suddenly in the Cambrian explosion 540 million years ago.
What we cannot do however is understand the entire way in which God works to bring this about. As theists we know he is doing this. Exactly how he is doing it is a mystery. “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made”. (John 1:3). We do not pretend to fathom how the Son of God made all things. So yes, there is great value in trying to understand, but with humility, realising that behind the natural processes is a God who is in control of all. (Job 38:4).
So, to answer the question: there is great value in ‘trying to understand the processes by which God achieved his creative purposes’, but we cannot ignore the fact that current evolutionary theory prohibits bringing God into the discussion. Darwinists, our biology textbooks, and many an atheist, claim to understand the way in which life has evolved by entirely natural processes. The theist however, by definition, must challenge this. We know as theists that it cannot be an entirely natural process. Otherwise we are deists. Natural in this sense means entirely physical with no supernatural aspect. If you then say that God is somehow only working in those natural processes, you are not understanding the definition of natural.
The question refers to God’s creative purpose. A foundation stone of Darwinism is the absolute absence of purpose. How do we square that? Not all of Darwinism is wrong (we will discuss) but if you introduce purpose you will be in serious trouble with the guardians of the theory.

All Christians should see all truth as God’s truth and enjoy pursuing it. This includes the processes by which God achieved his purposes in creating the physical universe. James Clerk Maxwell, an elder of the Kirk, was the greatest scientist Scotland produced. When the Cavendish laboratory, Cambridge, was built for his research he had inscribed on the door the Latin version of Psalm 111 verse 2, “Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who take delight in them.” He saw his scientific research as taking delight in the works of God. John Calvin wrote in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, “If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it should appear, unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God.” Those who believe in God have a vested interest in distinguishing between truth and falsehood, in exploring God’s creative works, in cutting g through superstition with regard to celestial bodies, in showing respect for the physical world and a whole host of other beliefs that are part of our Christian heritage and accepted even by those who deny the creed that made them so influential in our culture.
In searching for truth in the area of the origin of our universe we look at both the evidence of science and the evidence of God’s revealed word. Psalm 19 speaks of looking up to the heavens and looking into the Law of God. As creatures made in the image of God we have the capacity and the authority to search for truth in the physical creation. We are entitled to and encouraged to use the scientific method in pursuit of that truth. It should not surprise us that the early scientific revolution was greatly boosted by men of faith. From God’s verbal revelation we learn that God is the only eternal being and that the Son of God brought into existence and continues to uphold all that exists.

Alan and I share the same views on this, as can be seen from our answers.

I am with you, Antony, in your first two paragraphs. To tackle our differences over what you state or imply in the last two paragraphs I’ll explain what I understand by, nature, theism and evolution.
Nature was seen in the ancient world as an autonomous entity. Aristotle taught that the universe was eternal. The influence of his teaching lasted more than 1,000 years. Ancient pagan thinking saw celestial bodies as divine entities. Much of these ancient ideas are still alive today in new age thinking and its successors. In some Christian circles it is too easy to think of the natural world being something God created and then left to its own devices, intervening only from time to time. Those who look for evidence of God’s intervention in the natural order from time to time should ask themselves what God’s relationship is with the natural world when he is not intervening. Deists believe in “an entirely natural process”i.e. “entirely physical with no supernatural aspect”, and do not recognize even the possibility of divine intervention in the created world – no miracles, no incarnation, no gospel.
Theism insists on God as the creator of all things and also the sustainer of all things that exist. The natural order, so amenable to mathematical description, is a wonderful picture of the way God acts moment by moment in his creation. The laws of physics are in no way agents of change. They are descriptions of what happens in the physical world. For the theist they are descriptions of how God works to keep all in existence. This includes the Big Bang with all its amazing fine tuning as well as the intricacies of microbiology leading to theists responding in worship to this self-disclosure of the Creator in his creation. It also includes those moments when people pray and natural events occur in surprising ways to show that God answers prayer and is in control of nature. It provides a framework for understanding miracles that seem to contradict the laws of physics – the virgin birth, turning water into wine etc. If God is in control operating in a way that maintains an orderly functioning world, he can just as easily change his modus operandi for his own purposes. Most miracles in the Bible are attached to God’s unfolding of his redemptive purposes. They are not an afterthought, correcting some deficiency in the original creation.
Evolution, as an explanation of the unfolding of the biosphere over time, is no different from the theory of gravity or electromagnetism in this regard. It is God’s way of working as far as we can see it. Of course, we may misunderstand what we see and must be always ready to reform our views. Some scientists, such as Simon Conway Morris in Cambridge, are finding purpose in evolution and are not in threat of dismissal from their universities, nor even “in trouble with the guardians of the theory”. Denis Alexander’s book, “Is there Purpose in Evolution?”, is a mine of information on this topic. Life unfolds over long ages in accordance with the patterns that hold in the physical sciences. Not everyone would agree that “a foundation stone of Darwinism is the absolute absence of purpose.” Whether we see that purpose or not, in the evolution of life or in cosmology, has a lot to do with our basic ideological beliefs. A theist will see it, an atheist will not.

Many thanks Alan for your reply and for explaining your understanding of nature, theism and evolution. We are closer perhaps than you think.
One important point that I have made often before to correct a misunderstanding that you and others such as Denis Alexander have: ID does not imply that God is “intervening only from time to time” as an “afterthought”. When I look at the carburettor of my car, I see design (it is complex and specified for a purpose). I do not then assume the maker of the car used some entirely different method to construct the whole car. ID often looks at specific elements of life (such as the information in DNA) and concludes there is design. There is nothing inherently deistic about this.
As a theist you rightly proclaim the way God “acts moment by moment in his creation”. You write of God’s “self-disclosure” in his creation in the fine tuning of the universe and in microbiology. So, you apparently accept ID in the fine tuning and then also seem to accept evidence of God in microbiology. I ask for clarification here: what is it in microbiology that is evidence of God’s “self-disclosure”? In what way does this differ from evidence of design? On the one hand you accept scientific evidence of fine-tuning of the universe as strong evidence of design (just as Denis Alexander does) and on the other hand you presumably refute any scientific evidence of design in microbiology.
You write of times when we pray and God answers. Your way of putting this is that “natural events occur in surprising ways”. This is surely another way of describing miracle. God intervenes and things happen that would not have happened in a purely naturalistic universe. Money arrives for the missionary who was praying and it is the exact amount needed, though he never disclosed the need or the amount to anyone. We praise God for this because it is his supernatural intervention. What happens goes against all the laws of chance. It is not random. Darwinism, as you know, is based on random mutations. If, however God is constantly active in the formation of living things, then we will see things that have the hallmark of non-random input of information. This is what ID shows in fact when we look at the details of life. The information in DNA cannot have come about randomly. The software that runs my computer is information that is from an intelligence. The information in DNA in the simplest bacterium is of far greater complexity and volume than any computer. This is one of the key messages of ID, that information such as in DNA can only come about from a mind. I may spend some time in another post looking at what constitutes such evidence in the first cells.

Our early discussion has thrown up a number of crucially important points to highlight, some of which, are worth pursuing further.

a. Both contributors are agreed that there is great value in trying to understand as best we can, how God has created. There is no dispute that the scientific method is a major means of doing so.
There is also complete agreement that
“ We cannot understand the entire way in which God chose to bring this about”. (Antony)

b. There appeared to be a need to examine the concept ‘nature/natural’. Antony has stated that “ If you say God is only working in natural processes you are not understanding the definition of
‘natural’ “.
Alan counters by providing a theistic perspective on ‘the natural order’. It “ is a wonderful picture of the way God acts moment by moment in his creation”, he says.
Are they really disagreeing on this? Unlikely. Clearly they both accept that God is the creator. Exactly how he interacts with the natural world cannot be determined. They have both shown agreement on that too.

c. For Antony, nevertheless, Darwinism is a target. He writes that “Darwinism claims to understand the way in which life has evolved by entirely natural processes.” Setting aside the question of whether any Darwinists would sign up completely to the word ‘understand’, we can see what Antony is saying: there is a worldview, naturally citing evolution, that opposes accepting God had any role. This is a commonly held point of view. But is evolution really and always predicated on atheism? Or is it only atheist evolutionists who hold this view? Why, otherwise, can the Catholic Church accept evolution as compatible with its theology?
Antony adds “A foundation stone of Darwinism is the absolute absence of purpose.” That clearly is a point around which we need to frame a question for further debate.
There is an additional question to be raised around Antony’s view that evolution is incompatible with a sense of divine purpose. In fact Alan in his most recent post in this section quotes scientists who believe that a sense of purpose can be found at least in aspects of evolution.

d. Then there is the issue of what one means by ‘ design’. Denis Alexander advises distinguishing between Intelligent Design (initial capitals) and intelligent design. The former indicates a movement that often is hostile to evolution; the latter is not. Clearly will be helpful for us to pose a question to both contributors about how they understand this term. Antony believes it is inconsistent of Alan to conclude God’s involvement in the fine tuning of the universe but not so much in the molecular world. An additional question arising from this is ‘by what criteria design could be identified?’ Much controversy and important debate lies ahead for sure.
The above are promised for later but first, we move to our next question in the sequence in which we ask if believers should approach the subject of evolution with some scepticism?
Find out next how our contributors respond.
Ed.