Conflicts ≠ CONFLICT: My last word on Cornelius Hunter’s Misunderstanding of the History of Science and Religion | The BioLogos Forum

Faith & Science Conversation
21

Hi @Eddie,

I find Dr. Hunter’s position a little confusing. I think he believes that the theory of evolution is not scientific but religious in nature. Or maybe theological: The conclusion that evolution occurred is based not on empirical evidence, but on the theological belief that God would not have continually created new life forms throughout natural history. Therefore, evolution must be true. At least, I think that’s what he thinks.

Now how is this related to the warfare thesis? I’m not really sure.

23

Eddie:

No, the Warfare Thesis does not say that. It says evolution is true, and a literal interpretation of Genesis is inappropriate. A common misconception is that evolutionists are anti religion, atheistic, etc. That is not true. Evolutionary thought has always been theistic (even today’s atheist evolutionists make the same theistic arguments).

24

Eddie:

Thank you for the comments, and good points, but there are a couple of things wrong there. It is not true that BioLogos “insists that the two origin beliefs – the religious and the scientific – are not in conflict.” It says that the traditional (literal) reading of Genesis is in conflict with “science,” and that an allegorical interpretation is what is required. It also says that spontaneous origins is a result of empirical scientific inquiry and results, and so that needs to be acknowledged and integrated into one’s beliefs about origins. This will lead to the proper harmony between religion and science. All of this is precisely the message of the Warfare Thesis. A little background may help here.

In antiquity the Epicureans believed in spontaneous origins. They argued that the gods would never have created this world (for example, because of the evils), and envisioned randomly swerving atoms as occasionally forming functional configurations, and such events accumulated to form the world. They argued that the stoics had wrong religious views. All of that anticipates today’s origins debate and the literature that we do have from them reads strikingly familiar. They even argued from the vastness of the universe, anticipating today’s “multiverse” argument that is used to account for the fact that evolution is so unlikely.

In modern times a wide variety of Christian thinkers made similar, but more elaborate theological arguments for why the world must have arisen strictly naturalistically. A variety of traditions arose with a fairly complex, interrelated history.I teach course on this which starts in antiquity and works through this history of thought, and how it interprets the empirical evidence. The upshot is that by the time Darwin comes along in the nineteenth century, these traditions were increasingly influential and accepted. Darwin’s work was thoroughly influenced by them and his book on the origins of species was theological throughout. He made dozens of religious arguments about why the species must have evolved. These were his strong arguments. From a scientific perspective, he was constantly on the defensive, trying to explain away problems. Nothing has changed since then. We have a lot more data, but the underlying metaphysics is the same.

Running parallel to this development of a strictly naturalistic account of origins, was a rewriting of the history of thought and how religion should interact with science. You can see early signs of it in Voltaire and Kant, but it really gets going in the nineteenth century with the flat earth myth, and then later more myths about how biblical views have at times conflicted with scientific truths. Of course, this “Warfare Thesis” was itself thoroughly metaphysical, as it was a product of those traditions I mentioned above. Evolution was never a scientific result and the Warfare Thesis’ accusations that evolution skepticism was driven by anti scientific, wrong-headed religion was a misdirection.

BioLogos is not saying anything new. It is right in the center of this tradition. Of course the Warfare Thesis has been seen to be a false history, so everyone says its wrong, but everyone keeps on doing it. You see it everywhere from the sciences to the media and the culture at large.

25

It is important to distinguish between Darwinian evolution as the current paradigm in the bio-sciences, and the ideologies that have been derived from Darwinian thinking. One useful method to make such a distinction is to clearly define terms in the discussion; additionally, it would be useful to remember that the foundation of Darwinian evolution as a paradigm, is semantic, summarised as variation and natural selection (with the unscientific random mechanism(s) thrown in for good measure). This as a scientific enterprise has been shown for many years to model some observations in nature, and also to fail in various models – this is especially so when attempts are made to quantify (or derive in specific scientific terms) natural selection as a scientific law. The discussions have been carried out for decades, and I am familiar with many arguments I heard in a unit on this area as a college student. I am unaware of any deep scientific argument against these general remarks. However religious groups have decide to either oppose any scientific outlooks that espouse Darwinian thinking, because of the ideologies that have been derived from it, or others have decided to somehow embrace it as a way God goes about doing things.

The acerbic debates are found in a socio/scientific domain mainly populated by atheists, and a socio/religious domain populated mainly by evangelical and fundamental denominations. This is mainly because Darwinian thinking has been used to support some atrocious policies carried out by politically powerful groups and nations. This is undisputed, although groups will blame others for the horrific outcomes resulting from such policies. I think this area will inevitably fit a “warfare mentality”. Nowadays this warfare is also waged with considerable vehemence by anti-theists against religion in general.

I suggest that we should delve into the scientific work to obtain a deeper appreciation of the Darwinian paradigm, and in this way may understand why it is the current paradigm in the bio-sciences. This may also help us understand why other scientific disciplines do not include Darwinian thinking in their theoretical frameworks; we may also see why much of the Darwinian thinking is fairly crude when contrasted with the complexities found in nature.

A positive outlook would be to try and encourage bio-scientists to strive for the next (and better) paradigm, and leave Darwin where he belongs – in the past. I cannot see how any orthodox Christian can conclude that Darwinian evolution would show how God goes about creating and sustaining the creation. Nor can I see why Christians would give such importance to Darwinian evolution as a scientific theory – natural sciences as a whole have much more to offer regarding the creation.

1 Like
26

“a rewriting of the history of thought and how religion should interact with science.” - Cornelius

The ‘tradition’ of attempting to ‘rewrite histories of thought’ has now extended to the Discovery Institute, its Fellows and the IDM. One could suggest that they (under a ‘little tent’) actually do have a coherent and comprehensive view of “how religion should interact with science.” But the leaders of the IDM insist on (capitalised) Intelligent Design Theory (IDT) as being ‘strictly scientific’. As such, they refuse to call it predominantly philosophical or even theological (or ‘religious’ as Judge Jones and many others have concluded).

Between BioLogos Foundation and Discovery Institute, the competition about which organisation is more ‘warfare thesis’ oriented is rather clear cut. The Discovery Institute is clearly the warfare model monger and sustainer. This is demonstrated most easily in the key points of IDist focus: naturalism, materialism and atheism and in the attitudinal ‘style’ of IDists, following Dembski’s calls for ‘revolution!’.

BioLogos otoh is specifically focussed on Protestant evangelicals in the USA who have sadly fallen (often by lack of higher education, according to social statistics) into YECist ideology. Consistent with this focus it has opened (non-revolutionary, Christ-centered ‘gracious’) dialogue with openly religious organisations such as Reasons to Believe and Answers in Genesis and in the Southern Baptist Voices series. At least BioLogos is openly and transparently demonstrating a ‘science and faith’ mission, even if that mission sometimes fails or misses the mark (as I too have objections to BioLogos, though nothing even in the same ballpark as what Cornelius & Eddie are asserting as IDists). The DI, however, appears to be simply too busy with ‘nuanced’ PR and marketing tricks to actually ‘come clean’ about how IDT is properly a ‘science, philosophy and theology/worldview’ topic, rather than being a ‘strictly scientific’ theory.

“BioLogos is not saying anything new.” - Cornelius

That may be true, although the neologism ‘BioLogos’ is itself quite new (Collins 2006). However, the BioLogos Foundation mission is indeed new (and refreshing - finally!) in the USA “to see the harmony between science and biblical faith” especially in outreach to YECists, trying to give them a way out of the (often fundamentalist) anti-science attitude of the older Protestant evangelistic generation. BioLogos is serving to heal a wound in USA culture that the DI still fails to even acknowledge by not making a ‘good science’ official statement about the age of the Earth.

As for this:

“the traditional (literal) reading of Genesis”

Just to keep the record clear: you’re not a ‘biblical literalist’ and/or a ‘young earther,’ are you @Cornelius_Hunter? You don’t believe the Earth is only a few thousands of years old, not millions of years, do you?

27

Notable also, is the Doctrinal Statement of Biola University, which presumably Dr. Hunter accepts:

“Therefore creation models which seek to harmonize science and the Bible should maintain at least the following: (a) God providentially directs His creation, (b) He specially intervened in at least the above-mentioned points in the creation process, and(c) God specially created Adam and Eve (Adam’s body from non-living material, and his spiritual nature immediately from God). Inadequate origin models hold that (a) God never directly intervened in creating nature and/or (b) humans share a common physical ancestry with earlier life forms.”

29

Eddie:

You’ll find no denial here about that. I’m sorry for not being more clear. I thought that was clear when I wrote “This will lead to the proper harmony between religion and science.” You can read my blog to see this in more detail. So to answer your question, no, I am not saying that BioLogos sees no ultimate harmony. This is precisely what the Warfare Thesis says.

When I refer to the “Warfare Thesis” I am referring to a particular historical trend, still with us today, regarding the interpretation of the interaction between religion and science. You won’t have much luck understanding it by looking up individual words in the dictionary.

32

Hi @Eddie,

I think I’m beginning to undestand what Dr. Hunter is driving at, in the comments section of his blog here:

33

Gregory:

No, I’m not a biblical literalist, I thought I made that clear.

34

“I’m not a biblical literalist” - Cornelius

Thanks for clarifying 1/2.

I asked:

“you’re not a ‘biblical literalist’ and/or a ‘young earther,’ are you @Cornelius_Hunter?”

Since you didn’t address the second part of the question, does that mean you are a ‘young earther’, that you affirm, accept, believe in and/or support a ‘young earth’, meaning a few 1000s, not millions of years ‘old’?

35

Gregory:

No, I am not a “young earther”.

36

Thanks for now answering 2/2. I’m not a ‘young earther’ either. :smile: :dragon:

I continue to think and believe based on evidence that Discovery Institute is more of a ‘warfare thesis’ institution than BioLogos. This was demonstrated to me while at the Discovery Institute’s summer program for students. But you are certainly welcome to persist believing otherwise, Cornelius, as long as you don’t go against Ted Davis’ historical ‘facts.’ :wink:

There is a solution presented in my first message in this thread re: ‘evolutionism’, ‘creationism’ and ideology. Be welcome to consider it.

37

Underlying this discussion is the idea of evolution being science. But I would like to take issue with this warfare thesis at a more basic level. When it is postulated that there is a faith/science warfare, we should know that using these terms in such a generic way, makes this postulation entirely false. In each of the issues, it is not a battle between faith and science. It is a battle between faith and very particular scientific conclusions. This is a very different thing. This should be noted, since the deception of using the generic instead of the particular leads to misunderstanding as well as a false argument.

To make a pertinent analogy, do we say there is a war between environmentalism and science? Do we say that those who are anti-GMO are anti science? We could legitimately say so if we use the same ground rules for the warfare thesis. Do we say that those who are anti-pesticides are anti-science? Are abortionists anti-science? Why not? I think they are, but usually only in very specific aspects. Yet they deny specific scientific realities, realities that are much less debatable than the evolution debate.

To distinguish between disagreement about conclusions, or about facts, and mere denial of science in general is very important. Otherwise it is difficult to distinguish between the argument and mere derogatory and inflammatory statements. Certainly I could argue then that environmentalists are generally anti-science, as has been argued by a former prominent Green Peace advocate who has now renounced Green Peace since his experience was that they simply ignored science in their quest for various “causes”.

We might argue that the population in general is anti-science simply because they do not base their purchasing decisions for food nor for autos or clothes or building materials on science, but on other precepts.

So I say that mainly those who postulate the faith/science warfare are falling into the trap of derrogation rather than good reasoning, and that for the rest of us, we ought not to fall into the same trap.

38

Fact vs faith is a very absurd war of objectivity against subjectivity. The response of such an accusation should be that both subjectivity and objectivity are valid, but each apply to different domains.

It is very clear subjectivity in general is the target of Jerry Coyne, and not some specific form of subjectivity like faith, because he also says free will is not real. These 2 always come together denial of free will and rejection of subjectivity.

The most clear example is with the nazi’s. They conceived of people as being racially predetermined, so that is denying free will, and they regarded the worth of people as fact, that is the rejection of subjectivity.

The reason these 2 ideas always come together is because subjectivity operates based on free will. So when free will is denied, subjectivity goes too, and the other way around. But usually the target is the rejection of subjectivity, and free will is then discarded as a consequence. It is very clear Jerry Coyne does not accept God, the soul, or love, are real, or whatever else, on a subjective basis. Clear that he ridicules subjectivity as an invalid way of reaching a conclusion about anything. And that is why he also comes to deny free will.

39

Thanks Bilbo. To summarize, Darwin’s book Origins had theological arguments running all through it. They are what established the fact of evolution. This was not surprising, because those theological arguments had been developed for a couple of centuries before Darwin by a range of Christian thinkers. Darwin merely applied them to the problem of the origin of species. I teach a class where we trace out these connections. The Warfare Thesis guys, however, took evolution to be a scientific theory, showing that the empirical evidence makes the spontaneous origins of the species compelling and undeniable. That, too, is not that surprising because the role of theology and metaphysics in evolutionary theory can be quite subtle. Students often don’t see it at first, but then when they get it the light turns on. None of this has changed today. Obviously we have a lot more data, but the underlying metaphysics is identical to Darwin’s, to the pre Darwin developments, and really all the way back to the Epicureans. Once you understand the metaphysics, it becomes quite obvious in today’s literature.

Nonetheless, the Warfare Thesis guys promoted evolution as a hard scientific finding, and then cast skeptics as religiously-driven fundamentalists, resisting obvious scientific progress because they were blinded by simplistic, outdated or naive interpretations of Scripture. This, even though from a scientific perspective the spontaneous origins of the species is no better than the perpetual motion machine. I don’t mean to say it is necessarily impossible–that is a high bar–but it is not indicated by science. But the Warfare Thesis guys said that, because evolution is a hard scientific finding, it needs to be accommodated by religious belief. In their “harmonization,” religion must accept spontaneous origins. So in their view, science would give us facts, and religion would give us faith and feelings. But what they viewed as “science” was really a much more complex system of evidences interpreted according to very dogmatic theological mandates. It could sound scientific with all the technical language and terminology, but the arguments and proofs explicitly entailed religious beliefs.

Nowadays everybody says the Warfare Thesis is wrong, but it keeps on being repeated. BioLogos, for example, says the Warfare Thesis is wrong, but they’re saying those things the Warfare Thesis guys have always said. So when I say that BioLogos promotes the Warfare Thesis, I don’t mean to say that BioLogos says “we think the Warfare Thesis is right.” Not at all. It is more complicated than that. The problem is that the Warfare Thesis persists, even though we say we disavow it. The actions don’t always line up with the words. I’d like to emphasize that my intention is to be constructive. I realize bringing up the term “Warfare Thesis” might raise hackles. My point, and hope, is to be helpful, not generate needless controversy.

1 Like
40

Can someone clarify what is meant in this discussion by “spontaneous origin of the species” and a “strictly naturalistic account of origins”?

Are you talking about common descent or abiogenesis?

I was under the impression that abiogenesis is not something that all TE/EC folks agree on and is technically not part of evolutionary theory.

41

Hi Christy:

Evolutionists insist that it is a fact, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the species “evolved.” It turns out that this term “evolved” can mean many different things. For example, it can involve natural selection, gradual change, and a common descent pattern. But it can also be the opposite. Depending on the particular data under analysis, evolutionary theory can say natural selection was not at work, that change was not gradual, that the data are not a consequence of common descent. Philosophers, such as Imre Lakatos, have long since pointed out that scientific theories can have a core theoretic, which is not forfeitable, and they can have surrounding sub hypotheses which are loosely generated by the core theoretic, but in fact need not be true. They are easily forfeitable.

So with evolution, most of the ideas that are typically taught in biology class, such as that evolution involves natural selection, gradual change, and a common descent pattern, are in fact sub hypotheses that are forfeitable. They are not at the heart of evolutionary theory.

So what is the core theoretic of evolutionary theory? It is that the species arose strictly by a combination of what appear to be chance events and naturalistic laws and processes. Or as Jacques Monod put it, Chance and Necessity. You may remember from your chemistry class that the scientific term for the evolution of a system from one state to another is “spontaneous”. In science, spontaneous does not mean fast, it merely means that the change occurs naturally, to a lower free energy state.

So the core theoretic of evolutionary theory is that the species arose spontaneously, from an earlier state where there were no species. From a scientific perspective, that would be highly unlikely, but evolutionists say it is a fact.

But evolutionary thinking is not at all restricted to the origin of species. It is a much broader system of thought that is not restricted to any one field. Evolutionary thought engages psychology, geology, abiogenesis (i.e., the origin of life), astronomy, cosmology, and so forth. Simply put, all of existence is thought to have arisen spontaneously. For instance, the famous physicist Steven Hawking has written about how the beginning of the universe—the Big Bang—was a spontaneous event. Evolutionists also talk about how natural laws themselves spontaneously arose.

So evolutionary thought is not restricted and really a program that seeks to provide a strictly naturalistic account of origins, in general. So while individual workers, and particular fields of discipline, may be concerned only with one specific aspect of evolutionary theory, evolutionary thought has no such restrictions.

And so, as you say, individual evolutionists do not always agree on how to view the big picture, across all these different disciplines. Some evolutionists, for example, say that the evolution of the species is a fact, but abiogenesis, or a spontaneous Big Bang, etc., are not necessarily facts. The one area that has pretty much 100% consensus on is the evolution of the species.

1 Like