First of all, the famous paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and historian of science Steven J. Gould has stated that scientists cannot comment on religious matters.1 In other words, they are from a totally different field and they are supposed to work for answering different questions. Specifically, science is for answering how questions while religion is for why questions. As long as they both focus on that, in a not fundamental or dogmatic perspective, they can coexist in harmony. Moreover, it is not religion’s job to justify the scientific evidence or to seek how this world came to existence. There are experts for that. It should, however, give explanations about why we humans try to become those experts to understand the universe, why we behave altruistically and so forth. To the same extent, evolutionary theory cannot explain everything. It is a scientific theory that deals with how it is possible for this universe to exist and how the life on earth is progressing. Therefore, it cannot teach us morality and ethical way of living.
However, the conflict seems to be present due to the fact that they both involve the explanation of the creation. On the one hand, Christianity has the book of Genesis that talks about a creator who designed everything and on the other hand, Darwinism suggests that natural selection drives the evolution of life. If one takes the Genesis literally, then they cannot reconcile religion with science. Nevertheless, if we take it metaphorically, we see that there is a sequence in the life events, the same one that evolution supports. Thus, evolution and Christianity can be compatible. As a matter of fact, ever after St. Augustine, the Bible is to be interpreted allegorically.[†]
So if we distinguish the fields of action, there is no actual conflict between religion and science. Of note, it was the English physician Erasmus Darwin that first combined religion and the evolutionary theory as the capacity to improve ourselves .* If someone is able to understand evolution, this can either strengthen or weaken their belief in God. However, it is not the evolutionary theory itself that is dangerous but the philosophical materialism.[‡] This is the attempt to describe everything according to random variation which supports that only matter exists.
Richard Dawkins states that this distinction in the different types of questions is a cliché[§] and that why questions may not even deserve an answer. He continues with arguing that there is a conflict and it has to do with the ultimate design against gradual evolution. To support this, he quotes the geneticist Jerry Coyne : ‘The real war is between rationalism and superstition. Science is but one form of rationalism, while religion is the most common form of superstition’.[**]
In this regard, there is a difference in the methodology that makes Christianity and evolution incompatible, as well as their evaluation of aspects such as mind and matter, soul, consciousness, morality and physical evil. To begin with, Christians use the holy bible as their guidance to discover the truth. All the evidence is based on superstition, personal experience and whatever is written by martyrs, saints and people of the church. On the other hand, the theory of evolution concerns proofs and evidence from several scientific fields like biology, embryology, geology, paleontology, physics, chemistry and mathematics, all of which have been proven and are always subjected to testing and criticism.
To continue with mind and matter, evolution supporters have a more materialistic point of view, while Christians not. For example Daniel Dennet, as well as Thomas Huxley in the past, claim that there is only matter. The psychiatrist Oliver Sacks, is of the view that there is also mind but it is derived from the brain. He characteristically says: ‘We see not only with our eyes but also with our brain’[††]. This however, is subjected to natural and gradual evolution and therefore it is against Christian theology.
Similarly, consciousness and soul are for the biologists more or less connected with the brain, and thus with matter. To this extent, mind and brain coevolved and maybe ‘consciousness just happened’[‡‡], without being a result of evolution . This means that one generation might have it, while the previous one not. Can Christianity accept it? For Christians, the soul is something immortal which is possessed by all the living organisms and the humans especially are the only ones who have the intellectual soul.
Taking the above into account, neither science nor religion can give a clear description of mind, consciousness and soul. As a matter of fact, they approach these concepts from a different perspective. This doesn’t mean necessarily that the one contradicts the other. As a scientist, one cannot observe them under a microscope or with a naked eye. We know however that they exist. How? A materialist would answer via our brain while an ideologist via our soul. Maybe we can experience/approach science with our brain and religion or faith with our soul. As the Metropolitan Mesogaias and Lavreotikis Fr. Nicolas Hadjinikolaou has said: ‘God is not an argument, proof or discovery. God is a revelation! Science will deal with something very old, very great, very beautiful. It cannot deal with the infinite, the flawless, the perfect. Christianity touches the soul, and through the soul we can reach whatever we cannot reach with the brain. Science can be resembled as a racing car: the most you can reach is 320 km/h. Christianity looks like a rocket. In the first case, if you exceed the speed limit, you die, in the second case, you fly!’[§§] As a general observation, science with its methodology, cannot prove the existence of God; it cannot either prove his non-existence.
Consequently, evolutionary theory can be regarded as science whereas, Christianity as an ideology. Beyond doubt, a central figure of Christianity is Jesus, who was a great teacher. He teaches love and how people should behave in order to live peacefully in harmony. Darwin never destroyed that. His theory teaches something different. So, the question whether a modern biologist that believes in Darwinism can also be a Christian may have a positive answer, provided that bible is not taken literally. Does the same answer apply to the question if a Christian can believe both in bible and in evolutionary theory? The problem here is apparent and arisen by the creationists.
To be more specific, creationists cannot accept Darwinism on the grounds that their fundamentalist faith says that the world has a creator who designed everything that surrounds us for a purpose. For them all the great complexity can be explained by an intelligent designer. On the contrary, according to Darwin the creation is driven by natural selection. In Mchael’s Ruse point of view this theologian argument is vulnerable because of the discontinuity.2 Darwin has overcome that, by explaining that almost every stage of each (biological) process seems to have been derived from a past one, which had evolved from another function. Dawkins provides also the additional argument of accumulation of improvements: ‘Natural selection is a cumulative one-way street to improvement. It needs some luck to get started… Design is ultimately not cumulative and it therefore raises bigger questions than it answers’.[***] For instance, if God made such a complexity, then he should be even more complex himself. 3
To this point Ruse is questioning why the designer (God) doesn’t prevent mistakes in these processes. Since he is responsible for the complexity, he can design everything perfectly. The Christians’ answer is that no matter if God intervenes to the processes or not he is always there. They argue that the creation happened once but it is now rather progressive. St. Augustine supported that God exists outside time, so he first created everything, outside time, and then everything progresses into time. Interestingly, as Ruse also says, ‘this is not evolution’[†††].
Of note, there is a point that the theory of evolution reconciles with Christianity. It has to do with the progress of life, which goes from the simplest to the more complex. The human is on top of all and both concepts agree on that.[‡‡‡] However, is this process somehow restricted or does it have unlimited possible pathways? Since not only the body traits get improved but also the mental ones, there is a continuous progress, but is God behind it or the pressure from natural selection?
Here also comes the predicament about evil, especially the physical one. If it is true that there is God behind everything, then how does he allow the existence of evil in our world? As mentioned above, St. Augustine supported that God exists outside time hence beyond change. He cannot alter the physical laws that he created. Interestingly, Richard Dawkins implies that if we try to predict how the universe would be if we take for granted that there is no God, then the universe would have the same characteristics as we know it. This does not really contradict St. Augustine’s statement. Furthermore, the Christian geneticist Francisco Ayala seems to reconciled evolution with Christianity in the terms that natural selection gives answers to the above dilemma. Specifically he argues that ‘natural selection can explain the ruthlessness of nature’4
Nevertheless, it seems that the existence of evil is vital for sustaining Christianity due to the fact that the original sin is central part of it. Christians carry this sin, as they are descendants from Adam and Eve, and they expect a savior. Paul in Romans 5:12 mentions: ‘Through one man (Adam), sin entered into the world, and death through sin. By the transgression of one, the many died. By the transgression of one, death reigned’. So Christians waited for Christ’s resurrection to free them from the original sin, and nowadays they wait for his second coming (parousia). On the contrary, Darwinism comes to change this, because it almost proves polygenism. Especially after the discovery of the Beijing man by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and others, it became clear that humans did not simply come from only one couple. They might indeed have one common ancestor but the different races of man, arose separately and independently in different regions. This almost cancels the original sin and thus generates the fear to the Christian church is that it can potentially weaken people’s faith but again only if we take the bible literally.
Furthermore, for the Darwinians, evil and to the same extent altruism, emerged from the pressure from the past. The reason they have been developed was to give advantage in the battle for survival. Apparently, this is against the Christians’ view which supports the notion of the Good Samaritan. To this extent Christianity holds the belief that altruism was given to humans by God. The everpresent God decides for everything but humans can decide between right and wrong. Besides, Darwinism suggests that in spite of genetic determinism, we can still learn to be good in the society. Even though altruism seems to be incompatible with natural selection, we can accept or reject it. Does it have any implications about free will?
Meanwhile, we face internal conflicts when we are about to take a decision. Occasionally, we act completely differently than we think. In these cases, brain seems to be separate and distinct from mind and soul. Maybe then Michael Ruse is right when he says that ‘what the Christians describe, the Darwinians have explained’[§§§] .
To sum up it is very difficult to answer the question whether a compromise between belief in evolution and faith in God can be made. Despite the great advances in science in the last centuries there is still a considerable high percentage of people with a strong faith in God, with surprisingly a lot of biologists among them. They also retain their faith in spite of the cruelty that is apparent in our world. An absolute Darwinian may wonder where reason and logic is. However, if someone is an absolute Darwinian, how can they explain our eager to learn where we come from and other life inquiries when the only thing that matters is reproduction and survival? Does this yearning provide us with a relevant advantage? We are of course yet unable to answer these questions. Could it be that we are not evolved enough to answer them, to conceive how the universe was created? Could it be that we are not evolved enough to conceive that the idea that all could have started by chance is plausible or aren’t we evolved enough to experience God? If God realization is a forward step, then religion could be a method to approach it, no matter if it is Christianity, Judaism, Islam or whatever. They all agree however, that it is not in the humankind to know everything.
All in all, Christianity and evolutionary theory seem to be the two sides of the same coin. Although scientists like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet believe that they are totally incompatible and others like Steven Gould argue that they should walk in parallel there is a third party who tried to reconcile them. In particular, I mention the ‘BioLogos foundation’ established by F. Collins in 2007, to explore, promote and celebrate the integration of science and Christian faith.[****] In conclusion, up to now, neither evolution can rule out God nor the opposite can happen, because no side has enough and clear evidence to be proved right or wrong. In this respect, they can both stay focused on their own particular field and since they do not intervene to each other, they can be adopted by someone who is both Christian and modern biologist.
1 S. J. Gould, Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, 1999, Ballantine books
2 M. Ruse, Belief in God in a Darwinian age, The Cambridge Companion to Darwin. Edited by J. Hodge and G. Radick, 2003, Cambridge University Press
3 R. Dawkins, The God delusion, 2006, London, Bantam Press
4 S. Lehrman, The Christian Man's Evolution: How Darwinism and Faith Can Coexist, 2008, Scientific America. Found on http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-christian-mans-evolution (consulted on 4-11-12)
E. Darwin, Zoonomia; or the laws of organic life, 1794, Part I. London, J. Johnson
M. Ruse, Belief in God in a Darwinian age, The Cambridge Companion to Darwin, 2003
R. Dawkins, The God delusion, 2006, London, Bantam Press
S. Lehrman, The Christian Man's Evolution: How Darwinism and Faith Can Coexist, 2008, Scientific America.
S. J. Gould, Ever since Darwin. Reflections in natural history, 1991, London, Penguin books
S. J. Gould, Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, 1999, Ballantine books
S. J. Gould, The evolution of life on the earth, 1994, Scientific American. Found on http://evolution.binghamton.edu/evos/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Gould_Evolution-of-Life.pdf (consulted 4-11-12)
Νικόλαος Μητροπολίτης Μεσογαίας και Λαυρεωτικής Άγιον Όρος – το υψηλότερο σημείο της Γης, 2000, Εκδόσεις Καστανιώτη
http://www.ted.com/talks/oliver_sacks_what_hallucination_reveals_about_our_minds.html
[†] St. Augustine, The literal interpretation of Genesis, 5th century AD
* Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia; or the laws of organic life, 1794, Part I. London, J. Johnson
[‡] S. J. Gould, Ever since Darwin. Reflections in natural history, 1991, London, Penguin books, Ch. 2, p. 24
[§] R. Dawkins, The God delusion, 2006, London, Bantam Press, ch. 2, p. 80
[**] R. Dawkins, The God delusion, 2006, London, Bantam Press, ch. 2, p. 92
[††] http://www.ted.com/talks/oliver_sacks_what_hallucination_reveals_about_our_minds.html
[‡‡] S. J. Gould, The evolution of life on the earth, 1994, Scientific American
[§§] Translated in English from the Greek text : Νικόλαος Μητροπολίτης Μεσογαίας και Λαυρεωτικής Άγιον Όρος – το υψηλότερο σημείο της Γης, 2000, Εκδόσεις Καστανιώτη
[***] R. Dawkins, The God delusion, 2006, London, Bantam Press, ch.4, p. 169
[†††] M. Ruse, Belief in God in a Darwinian age, The Cambridge Companion to Darwin, 2003 p. 338
[‡‡‡] ‘With humankind as its highest point and apparently inevitable product, Darwinian evolution seems not merely something compatible with Christianity, but positively supportive.’ - M. Ruse, Belief in God in a Darwinian age, The Cambridge Companion to Darwin, 2003 p. 338
[§§§] M. Ruse, Belief in God in a Darwinian age, The Cambridge Companion to Darwin, 2003 p. 349
[****] http://biologos.org/
