Creation and Chaos

Creation and Chaos

            The notion of God as a designer who controls every event in creation rules out the notion of evolution by natural selection; conversely the acceptance of evolution by natural selection rules out the possibility of belief in God the designer.  Religious thinkers who welcome the findings of evolution understand God differently from the theists and the atheists who think of God as a Designer. Theologian John Haught, for example, contends that the discoveries of Darwin open up the possibility of a richer notion of God than had ever been know before. Religious understanding, specifically the understanding of Christianity, does not portray God as an all-controlling designer, but as one who empties Himself to allow the world to be itself. As Haught sees it:

 God’s creative love constitutes the world as something ontologically distinct from God, and not as a simple extension of divine being. Consequently, the indeterminate natural occurrences that recent physics has uncovered at the most elementary levels of physical reality, the random events that biology finds at the level of life’s evolution, and the freedom that emerges with human existence are all features proper to any world that is permitted and even encouraged to be distinct from the creative love that underlies it.

In Christian belief and experience, God reveals Himself in the form of a poor man, of no political or economic consequence, who suffered death by execution on a cross. The trust in an incomprehensible God, in spite of unbearable sorrow also runs deep in the history of religious Jews from their early days of exile up through the Holocaust.  This notion, of course, has no appeal to those who do not accept it, but it shows that God as experienced in Christianity and Judaism bears no resemblance to the powerful but prissy god whom anti-evolutionists affirm, and atheists reject. God as experienced by religion is quite compatible with evolution by natural selection. As expressed by the renowned Jesuit paleontologist, Teilhard de Chardin (1881 – 1955) “Even to a mere biologist, the evolution of life resembles nothing so much as a way of the cross.”

            The key issue, as John Haught argues, is not whether the universe is the work of an Intelligent Designer, but whether the universe has purpose. The two questions are different although both sides often run them together as, “The world is either the product of Intelligent Design or it is pointless.” Advocates of Intelligent Design, invoke the complexity and beauty of design while atheists claim that the design is sporadic and explainable by randomness over vast periods. Haught’s rejection of design is similar to the argument of the atheists in that he contends that evolution does not look like the work of a designer. But Haught, rather than looking back for an original design, looks ahead to an evolving purpose. He further argues that the religions that sprang from Abraham consist primarily in hope for the future.

            The question of purposefulness in the universe cannot be answered by science. Scientists can and do express opinions on the issues of purpose, but in doing so they base their judgments on whatever factors cause a person to accept or reject faith in a purposeful universe. Haught compares the fatalism of some scientists to that of the Greek tragedies. Fate for the scientists as for the tragedians moves on with remorseless indifference to human aspirations and comes to a bad conclusion. Shakespeare’s Mac Beth expressed this powerfully on hearing of his wife’ death:

Life’s but a brief shadow; a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

Of course, the scientists who think of the universe as pointless may or may not feel their own life as tragic; they might be quite content with their “hour upon the stage.” But regardless of how scientists view life, their view is not part of their science. As Haught argues, science is not equipped to find the value of things. Such questions are metaphysical, and although metaphysics must be consistent with science, a metaphysics of promise is not less scientific than a metaphysics of despair.

            John Haught fully embraces the insights of science and especially those of Darwinian evolution. He contends that these scientific insights are not only compatible with the experience of biblical faith, but that they nourish a theology that is richer than pre-Darwinian religious thought. Scientists begin with the commitment to the belief that the world is to some extent intelligible and that truth is worth the hard work of science. These faith commitments of scientists do not prove anything about the ultimate nature of reality, but they are more compatible with a religious vision than with a materialistic one. Unlike the materialist interpretation of reality, the religious view sees the work of the scientist as part of a larger cosmic narrative characterized by a hopeful outcome.

             Haught shows the weakness of naïve theism as well as naïve atheism both of which find a world that grows from random events, as depicted by Darwin, incompatible with belief in God. These theists therefore argue that the events happen by design and the randomness is illusory; the atheists affirm the randomness and declare belief in a Creator to be the illusion. Haught grounds his view of creation in the religious insight that God’s love is self-emptying, which allows creation to develop on its own as something other than the Creator. As Haught writes:

An unrestrained display of infinite presence or “omnipotence” would leave no room for anything other than God, and so it would leave out any evolutionary self-transcendence on the part of the cosmos. It is a humble “retreat” on God’s part that allows the cosmos to stand on its own and then to evolve as a relatively autonomous reality distinct from its creative ground. In this sense, creation and its evolutionary unfolding would be less the consequence of an eternal divine “plan” than of a humble and loving “letting be.” 

The crucial meaning of Haught’s insights shows that a slowly evolving and chaotic universe does not necessarily lead to a materialist view of reality. Theists and atheist alike cannot get by with a simple choice of affirming or denying design.

            Haught’s process theology takes a different approach to the notion of God as designer. He maintains that the universe is allowed to grow as something independent of the Creator. He contrasts the understanding of God in process theology with the portrayal of god in naive theism and atheism:

A coercive deity---one that immature religiosity often wishes for and that our scientific skeptics invariably have in mind when they assert that Darwin has destroyed theism---would not allow for the otherness, autonomy, and self-coherence necessary for a world to be a world unto itself. 

A non-coercive creator allows not only human freedom, but also the pre-human spontaneity that allows for the formation of the universe and the evolution of life and of species. Haught concludes that God is the source not only of order, but also the instability and disorder that are necessary for novelty and for life itself.

While John Haught approaches the issue of evolution as a theologian with a deep understanding of science, Kenneth R. Miller approaches the same question as a cell biologist with a rich understanding of theology. In his book, Searching for Darwin’s God, Miller begins by demolishing the array of Creationists theories including Intelligent Design. These theories, while claiming the label of “scientific,” deny the validity of much well-established science, and they present a diminished notion of God. In chapters 3, 4 and 5, Miller shows that Creationists present God as: first, a charlatan who created the earth only ten thousand years ago, but through fakery, made it look older; second, as a magician who made living things appear out of thin air; and third, as a mechanic who tinkered together the intricacy of the living cell. Miller then demonstrates that the origin of life as well as of species can be accounted for by the scientific study based on Darwinian natural selection.   

            The conflict that still endures between some religious thinkers and some scientists

stems partly from the notion that religion can answer questions better left to science, for example, questions on the origin of life and origin of species. But the controversy is fueled by many evolutionists who contend that evolution makes mechanistic materialism triumphant to the point that any religious or spiritual ideas are superfluous and irrational. Those evolutionists hold in common with the creationists the premise that evolution and religion are mutually exclusive.