God and Evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, December 24, 2009, 11:04 (5258 days ago)

David has quoted a comment from a website, which fits his own world view (see under Science and Grants, 22 December at 16.36): "God has created this incredible universe with elegant mechanisms, Evolution being one of them. I am constantly astonished that Creationists attempt to diminish this with arguments for crude, ham-handed 'direct creation', rather than the truly elegant mechanisms for which God has provided more than ample evidence. They should be marveling at its beauty and working diligently to understand its subtle mechanisms. Instead, they waste everybody's time by perverting discourse in an attempt to promote their own (dangerously arrogant) assumptions about the meaning of the Bible.
God speaks to all of us in many different ways. With all due respect, I think that you should listen to him more carefully."-The following are just a few thoughts engendered by the above. -As far as the "elegance" of the mechanisms is concerned, I don't think many atheists, agnostics or Creationists would disagree. But even though I'm not a Creationist, I'm surprised by the description of direct creation as "crude" and "ham-handed". The universe and everything in it would be just as elegant and beautiful, whether a Creationist God, an evolutionist God, or godless Nature brought it and them into being. -The writer says Creationism demonstrates "a fundamental ignorance of Evolution". I agree, but interestingly this is also an argument frequently advanced by fundamentalist atheists against anyone who doubts the ability of chance to create the original mechanism. Evolution itself is a multiple theory, some aspects of which are accepted by most of us (e.g. all life descended from one or a few forms, advantageous characteristics are preserved by natural selection), while other aspects remain controversial (e.g. innovation, causes of sudden bursts of activity). The theory does not tell us anything at all about the origin of life and of the mechanisms leading to evolution, and attribution of this origin to God or to chance is purely a matter of faith. -The author says "God speaks to us all in many different ways", so how does he know that he is receiving the correct message, or that he is listening "more carefully" than people who disagree with him? -If I believed in a designer, I would share David's view that evolution was "coded into DNA from the beginning", but I would have no difficulty interpreting "punctuated" elements of the equilibrium either as part of the original programme or as God deciding sometimes to conduct experiments. A tweak here, a twiddle there, and the bits and pieces can produce new organs, new species...That would involve a degree of "direct creation" ... as presumably the original mechanisms and the fine-tuned universe did. If evolution really is the result of design, I don't think it would in fact make much difference to me whether it was all pre-programmed from the start, or programmed along with a bit of divine experimentation (God learning as he went along). It would be interesting to know, though, David, whether as a believer you favour the God-knew-it-all-from-the-beginning theory, or the concept of a God who is himself continuously learning and developing.