Which would be more impressive: taking a pool ball and placing it, by hand, in a pocket, or sinking all fifteen balls with one shot? (This is not a trick question; go with the obvious answer.)
You do not honor the giver of a gift by loudly proclaiming your refusal for all time to use what was given. You do not display your loyalty, patriotism and virtue by pledging that you will be stupid. If Osama bin-Laden tells you that today is November twenty-seventh, it is not a blow for freedom and the good guys to say no, no, it's Wombatzember eleventy-zilliard. It's just ridiculous flailing.
A lot of my students are young Earth creationists. That's fine; at that age, I was a Republican. People outgrow ideas as they sag and buckle under the weight of information and life experience. (I'm not a Democrat, just in case you drew that conclusion.) But outgrowing young Earth creationism is pretty urgent, as clinging to that belief doesn't accomplish anything they think they're accomplishing.
To begin with, it doesn't make a danged lick of sense. I won't try to lay out the case for natural selection, because it isn't my field and I would have to shave off nuances and mangle details all over the place. But I've studied it a good deal and struggled through explanations from colleagues of mine who know what they're talking about, and I don't have any residual doubts.
But what's more, acknowledging natural selection doesn't negate faith in God. It is true that it offers an account of how life could have come about on Earth without a Creator (although it doesn't entail that conclusion), but that's entirely consistent with God's character. God does not hold us hostage. The door into God's presence is not locked from the inside. People whose character moves them to flee from Him will find that He's left space for them to live with that choice. If, every single day, fiery letters arose in the sky with the sun that said "I exist. And hurry up and get saved, won't you?" then the matter would be settled: only terribly insane people could reject God. (Well, possibly also people who were both blind and skeptical.) But that's simply not the way things are. Chaïm Perelman talks about the difference between demonstration and persuasion, and the Greeks distinguished ἐπιστήμη, true and certain knowledge, from φρόνησις, practical reasoning. In each case, the former refers to matters about which there is not room for reasonable disagreement, while the latter consists of that which could be otherwise. God leaves His existence in this world in the realm of things which could be otherwise, because if He didn't, the entire concept of "faith" would be nonsensical.
Last, we are intelligent and capable of reasoning because God gave us those gifts. We were made in His image, and beasts were not. We were made capable of reasoning in complex, abstract and subtle ways that separate us from His other living inventions. When we stubbornly insist on mutilating reason in order to show our loyalty to Him, we don't glorify Him at all. Instead, we trample on His gifts. God does not require of us that we believe anything that is not true. When we find that a matter is complex, why should that surprise us? The world is complex, as is its Creator. When we grab at slogans or brutally simplify matters in order to silence people who question, or even deny, God's glory, we duplicate their errors; but in our case it's worse, because we do it in His name.
The more we know about how natural selection has shaped life on Earth, the more wonderful it is. God set in motion a pattern of forces, operations and dynamics that brought about all of it, like a pool player setting up the universe's most breathtaking trick shot. And before any of us came to be, as products of that miracle, He knew us. And understanding that is in no way a rejection of faith: furthest thing from it.
Though I'm sure no one will ever come back to read this....
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to say that as a YEC I have never denied natural selection, nor do I no any serious YEC who does (serious meaning having done research into the subject rather then just denying anything that seems anti-christian). In fact natural selection and evolution is one of the cornerstones of the YEC argument, and YEC in fact think that natural selection and evolution works much faster than mainstream evolutionests believe. Saying that YEC is unreasonable and should be outgrown because natural selection is easily provable is like saying Catholicism is unreasonable and should be outgrown because if you throw up after taking the Eucherist you'll find it hasn't turned into actual flesh. That is to say it shows a large ignorance of what YEC actually believe.
Hey, I came back. Do I count?
ReplyDeleteI elided together a couple of distinct claims because YEC wasn't the focus of the post, but just an illustration supporting a larger point.
There are several distinct stances that claim the "YEC" label, so saying "the YEC argument" is misleading (and "any serious YEC" is just the "no true Scotsman" non-falsifiability move in fresh language).
But, to come to your point, my belief, having studied the matter in some depth several times over the years for debate research, is that the few shared claims constitutive of YEC are based on very opportunistic, overdetermined and silly misreadings of data, and a determination to turn the scientific method on its head. I respect and like you, Mark, but I think you adhere to a belief that is not within the realm of reason, and I think you're intelligent enough that if you approach some of the data-backed refutations with an open mind, you'll turn loose of it. Probably not instantly, because people do entangle worldview elements with their identity, but eventually. I certainly did.