Theistic Evolution, Essay Example

How did life come to exist on planet Earth?  Inquiring minds want to know, and have indeed always wanted to now.  Questions about the origin of life are important not only to scientists, but are central factors in defining and directing human philosophy, culture, religion, and society.  If the absolute truth about the origin of life was known with unquestionable certainty, the entire human race could be thrown into chaos.  If this sounds like an exaggeration, consider the following scenarios.

What if God appeared in physical form simultaneously to every person on earth and said “I created the universe and everything in it and then left my work to develop naturally.”  Or what if one of Erich von Danken’s extraterrestrial travelers returned to earth and showed everyone absolute proof that all life on the planet was “planted” here and that what we refer to as “God” was really an ET?  Finally, what if there was a way to prove beyond any doubt that there is no God, and everything around us just evolved from a big bang?

Each of these theories has followers and one might imagine the scientific, social and religious chaos that would ensue if any one were to be actually proven true.  This proposition serves to illustrate that the question about the origin of life is not just a scientific or academic quandary, but a debate that has deep human implications.

Creation verses Evolution

Notwithstanding a visit from ET, there are basically two fundamental theories as to the origin of life.  In its purist form, the Christian theory of creation asserts that God “created the heavens and the earth” and over a period of six days, all living and non-living things.  (It should be noted that while Christian creationism is the most predominant creation-theory basis in the Unites States -and the basis upon which this paper is written – there are a multitude of non-Christian creation theories as well.)

The purist form of evolution theory contends that everything that exists evolved naturally over long periods of time and without divine or intelligent intervention.  Again, these definitions reflect the purest versions of each theory, but the two are not always discussed in such absolute terms nor are they necessarily mutually exclusive.  There are indeed some creationists who (based on Biblical genealogies) believe that the world was created 6000 years ago.  There are some scientists who summarily discount any theory involving God or any other intelligent designer.

In between the black and white extremes of these opposing positions is a gradient band of gray.  People in this band subscribe to a theory known as Theistic Evolution.  To be in this band, a creationist must at least agree that species do evolve naturally without divine intervention.  An evolutionist must at least agree that a Higher Power exists and could have started the ball of life rolling.  A person’s position along this gradient band depends on the level of influence he or she supposes God to have had in the evolutionary process.

Theistic Evolution – Weaknesses

To a scientist, the most significant weakness of the theistic evolution theory is the fact that it presupposes the existence of God.  Scientists tend to get cranky about accepting anecdotal assumptions that have not been teased by scientific methodology.  It would be difficult to prove the existence of God using a purely scientific method.  One cannot conduct repeatable experiments to validate the hypothesis that God exists.

There have been numerous papers and reports written in attempts to “prove” the existence of God.  Most of them however rely of experiential factors that cannot be quantified or logic scaffolds that assert; “There must be a God because…”  Neither of these models is based on the method commonly considered by scientists to be reliable in proving the truth of a hypothesis.  The bottom line is; if the existence of God cannot be proven, then God does not exist, and if God does not exist then life had to originate through a natural process.

There are a few secondary arguments made by some detractors of theistic evolution.  The first involves the timeframe articulated in Genesis.  The Bible describes God as having created the world in six days.  “Days” are measured by the rotation of the earth around the sun which was not created until the fourth day, thus the entire creation story is fundamentally flawed.

Another common argument against the biblical story of creation is that it was written in a poetic style that used language commonly used in mythology.  Some also point out that there are two early manuscripts of Genesis in which the order of the creation of man and animals differs.  In her article about the subject, Hubner (2010) quotes Adrian deLange’s recent book as describing the Genesis creation story as “an imaginative narrative dealing with a cosmically significant act of God.”

DeLange’s contention that the creation story was written with theological rather than historical intentions is shared by many.  It is not uncommon throughout human history that when a people do not understand a situation or event, they often attribute it to an act of God.  Saying that God created life is simply an easy was to explain away a question that does not have a easy answer.

Theistic Evolution – Strengths

While there are a number of biblical literalists who believe that the Earth was created (pretty much as is) 6000 years ago, scientific evidence and critical thinking have led many creationists to understand and embrace the principles of evolution and natural selection.  Most Christian apologists have no problem with the “6 day” creation issue.  If taken literally, there were obviously no actual 24-hour days until the fourth day of creation.  In his article, Stambaugh (2010) explains the meaning of the Hebrew word yom as literally denoting a “period of time” although the typical connotation in colloquial use is “day.”  Even in contemporary English, there are multiple definitions of many words – including day.  For example, when referring to a period of time in the past, one might say; “in that day…”  The 6-day argument is therefore a poor one.

The other minor argument made against Christian creation theory is the variation the two recorded accounts of which was created first – man or animals, and the fact that the creation story is in general, short and poetic in nature.  This too is a red herring.  The discrepancy in manuscripts is a matter of no consequence.  Neither is the brevity or style important.  If God had actually detailed the entire process of creation, the world could not hold the books that described it.  These are all minor issues.

At the center of the argument for theistic evolution is logic and common sense.  This is where the term “intelligent design” comes from.  While there is perpetual debate about the subject, it is almost intuitively obvious that the complexity, interdependence, and relational synergy of individual life forms and the ecosystems they inhabit had to have been designed with intent.

There are also laws of physics to consider.  The first law of thermodynamics insists that all energy remains constant even though it may change form.  If there was nothing before the “big bang” then where did the energy for the bang come from?  The second law of thermodynamics involves entropy – the tendency of all things to disorder rather than to order.  Fred Hoyle described the issue thus: “A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing-747, dismembered and in disarray.  A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard.  What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there?” (Korthof, 1999).  A self-proclaimed atheist, Hoyle also calculated the probability of the spontaneous evolution of all the proteins and amino acids necessary for life to be 10⁴⁰⁰⁰⁰.

The 747 analogy brought a great deal of criticism from some within the scientific community, but notwithstanding complex theories of quantum physics, the analogy does make sense.  Hoyle insisted that while he might not personally believe in a particular God, it was statistically impossible that all the diverse life on earth could have evolved without some kind of intelligent design.

Evolutionary scientists discount the existence of God as being mythical and lacking in evidence. Despite this insistence on fact over theory, scientific theories of the origin of the universe are highly speculative.  Here is the “scientific” story.

About 13 billion years ago, the “big bang” occurred when high density energy and matter began heating and cooling until it eventually experienced a phase shift and broke apart to form the ever-expanding universe we know today.  Prior to that event there was no time, thus the bang was the beginning of everything.  How the mass came to be is unclear, and no one knows why it was heating and cooling.

One of the chunks that broke off ended up being Earth which after cooling down developed huge bodies of water (unlike most other chunks).  The water and the cooled rocks got together and made little amino acids and proteins that eventually got together and made cells with complex strands of DNA in them.  The cells reproduced and eventually the DNA changed enough over the years to produce plants, animals, birds, insects, and of course people.  It took a long time of “trial and error” and millions of years of evolution to eventually produce complex ecosystems where everything supported everything else – but it finally happened.

One might question any scientist to differentiate between the mythology of God and the unsubstantiated story of spontaneous evolution told above.  Both theories are impossible to prove, and both require certain leaps of “faith” to be held as credible.  From a statistical perspective, intelligent design makes more sense.

The biggest problem facing evolutionary scientists is the existence of a Higher Power in general.  Again, the issue is that the existence of God cannot be proven through scientific methods.  This refusal to accept the probability that God exists is puzzling in light of the number of other scientific hypothesis commonly accepted as being true based on probability.

One theory that is emerging in popularity is the “string theory.”  This theory (sometimes called the Theory of Everything) suggests that everything is made up of tiny strings that give unique properties to matter and energy by changing in shape and oscillation frequency.  No one has ever actually seen one of these strings.  A string cannot be measured or quantified.  Many scientists believe in this theory because evidence suggests the probability of this theory being true.

There are also numerous theories regarding the origin of the universe and life on earth that depend on quantum physics to explain certain phenomenon.  At this point in time, the principles of quantum physics are fairly well defined, but not entirely understood – or provable.  Certain components of quantum theory are generally accepted to be viable based on observations that support the probability of these components existing.

Theistic evolutionists would argue that the probability of Divine intervention in creating diverse life on earth is no less worthy of consideration than string theory or quantum physics.  For now, the debate continues.  One thing is for sure.  If we every truly find out the truth –it will be a game-changer.

References

(Hubmer J 2010420 Critique of deLange’s “genesis Mythology”)Hubner, J. (2010, April 20). Critique of deLange’s “genesis Mythology”. Retrieved from http://www.realapologetics.org/blog/2010/04/20/critique-of-delanges-genesis-mythology-2/

(Korthof G 1999 Fred Hoyle’s Boing story in the evolution-creation literature)Korthof, G. (1999). Fred Hoyle’s Boing story in the evolution-creation literature. Retrieved from http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho46a.htm

(Stambaugh J 2010 meaning of “day” in Genisis)Stambaugh, J. (2010). The meaning of “day” in Genisis. Retrieved from http://www.icr.org/article/meaning-day-genesis/