The following is my continuing look at an article written Dr. John Byl of Trinity Western University in Langley, BC (Canada) intended to demonstrate that the modern scientific theory of biological evolution has been falsified in many (and in some cases important) ways.
Is evolution falsified by excluding God (naturalistic)?
(Technically this wasn't one of Dr. Byl's arguments. He simply took it for granted that evolution is naturalistic and went on to make an argument about its explanatory shortcomings. However, I wanted to isolate and address this naturalistic presumption because, if it were true, that would fatally undercut the theory in my opinion.)
The theory of evolution was proposed as "a naturalistic explanation of how the diversity of life came to be," Dr. Byl said. As I have come to understand things, this is a misleading statement at best and it has to do with that ambiguous term, "naturalistic." What is it supposed to mean here? Dr. Byl does not make that clear so I must draw from what I have studied previously. According to most sources, from young-earth creationists to Christian philosophers, to say that evolution is "naturalistic" is to imply that it excludes or "rules out any supernatural activity of God in the origin and development of life and of humans," [2] which is consistent with the usage described in the Oxford English Dictionary. However, it must be acknowledged and understood that science, including evolutionary science, "presupposes methodological naturalism but not philosophical naturalism, and the two should not be confused" (emphasis mine). [3]
The scientific theory of evolution is a natural explanation but it is not a naturalistic one. It describes natural processes but that does not somehow magically rule God out. Christians are supposed to understand that the order and function of creation are sustained and governed by God through ordinary providence (i.e., second causes). Jesus Christ, "through whom also [God] created the world [...] upholds the universe by the word of his power" (Heb. 1:2–3). "All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (Col. 1:15–17). "For from him and through him and to him are all things" (Rom. 11:36). [4] This presupposes the nearness and activity of God. As Daniel Macleod put it, "All the second causes owe their potency to [God], and the whole system is effective only because of his indwelling power." [5] So again, as I said, speaking of natural processes—even describing them in exquisite detail—does not somehow rule God out. Indeed it cannot, for this is his world. [6] (Atheists like Richard Dawkins or Jerry Coyne describe evolution in naturalistic terms, but then they're atheists so of course they do. And yet, according to the apostle Paul, they know better.)
Does the theory exclude or rule out God? No. As a strictly scientific theory, it is religiously neutral; God is neither excluded nor included. Is meteorology atheistic for not invoking God in its account of weather? Is biochemistry atheistic because it doesn't include God in descriptions of molecular structures? When someone asks me how a computer works, is my explanation atheistic if it doesn't involve theological language? These questions are rhetorical because the answer is most obvious: "Of course not." This is a point elegantly made by Denis Alexander who understood that the absence of specific references to God in an explanation does not render it suddenly naturalistic. "Naturalism," he points out, "is the philosophy that there is no God in the first place, so only an atheist can provide a truly naturalistic explanation for anything." [7]
As a matter of fact, neither evolution nor science is naturalistic (and yet both evolutionism and scientism are). They neither include nor exclude the "special or supernatural activity of God." They ignore it—and that's a good thing. Here I will return to Alexander and let him explain why:
There is a tradition in modern science not to use "God" as an explanation in scientific discourse. This tradition was nurtured by the early founders of the Royal Society partly in an attempt to let the natural philosophers (as scientists were then called) get on with their job without becoming embroiled in the religious disputes of the time, but also in recognition that the universe is, in any case, all the work of a wise Creator—so using God as an explanation for bits of it didn't really make much sense, given that God was in charge of all of it. [8]
Copernicus and Galileo are famous illustrations of when science becomes "embroiled" in theological disputes of the time, constituting a part of that historical, valuable lesson that we learned. Also, there is an element of delicious irony in the fact that creationists point to life's intricate complexity as evidence of God's workmanship or design when the scientists who discovered this complexity did so by setting aside the question of God and forcing themselves to pursue strictly natural explanations. Their scientific discoveries should be repugnant to creationists and rejected by them, not embraced and used by them—if they were to be consistent, that is.
At any rate, the limited competence of science does not extend to spiritual questions about the nature or activity of God. The degree to which creation is sustained and governed by God through ordinary providence is a theological question outside the purview of science. It is not as if we have "purely natural processes" for most things while invoking God is required for some other things (e.g., origin of life), for God is the creator and sustainer of the whole show, which means there is no such thing as "purely natural processes." That notion should be unintelligible to Christians. Honestly, we are not deists, so it would really do us a lot of good to stop sounding like deists.
Is evolution falsified by unanswered questions?
But even as a natural explanation of our planet's biodiversity, "there still remain huge gaps" in the theory, Dr. Byl said, and he lists 12 examples, such as: the existence of some species whose biogeographical distribution has not been explained by evolution; the complete lack of support for evolution from the fossil record; the inadequacy of natural selection to explain the spreading of certain traits within populations; the failure of molecular biology to map out a cladistic "tree of life"—and so on. (It is Dr. Byl who vouches for the accuracy of these claims. I reserve some serious doubts about a few of them.)
It is not clear how this is supposed to falsify evolution. What Dr. Byl has actually done is provide a vivid illustration of how science works. There are questions—a nearly unlimited number of questions ranging from trivial to substantial—and science is in the business of exploring them, with good science being done when every new thing we learn uncovers a host of new puzzles. Essentially, science is unending. This is not how theories are proven false, it's how they are proven fruitful—by uncovering ever more areas for further research and understanding. Science does not promise the final, complete, and absolute truth. In its naïve form it progressively approximates truth, but in its ideal form what it offers is the promise of endless questions with the potential for proving us wrong at any moment about something we thought we knew. Honestly, scientists will tell you that this is what gets them out of bed in the morning.
For example, let's assume for the sake of argument that there really are some species whose biogeographical distribution has not been explained by evolution. I have a hunch that's probably true. The thing is, that cannot count as a demerit or a strike against evolution because that's precisely the very nature of good science. Honestly, something lacking a cogent explanation commends itself as a question ripe for fresh hypotheses, for research and study. It doesn't indicate the poverty of a theory but it's fruitfulness because it's still generating things to investigate. Moreover, leaving something unexplained does not mean that evolution is false. That does not follow. It's not as if we are to consider theories as false unless and until they can explain every last conceivable thing.
The more difficult the question, the better. Let's see if we can figure out how those species came to live where they do and their relatedness to other species. We can study their life cycle, their behaviors, their genome, their habitat and more, proposing hypotheses and testing them. (Interestingly, there is currently an effort to map the genomes of all 1.8 million known species on the planet, something like the Human Genome Project but for all life on Earth.) As Dr. Byl showed, questions remain about the evolution of sex, of consciousness, of ethics, questions about convergent evolution, or the role and importance of natural selection, and so much more. Rather than counting against evolution, this is simply the nature of good science. So many genuinely challenging questions, curiosities, puzzles, and with more being added all the time.
I get it. Listen, sometimes we experience genuine existential angst about things, such as our identity, our security, our purpose, the meaning of our lives and what have you. On these issues we need and look for clear, immutable answers, something solid that our fleeting lives can grip firmly. But notice that these are spiritual questions answered by the grace and peace of God's covenant promises and purposes secured for us by the shed blood of Christ who is our eternal hope, the author and finisher of our faith. These are categorically different from scientific questions.
The way I see it, science is about grasping the sublime value of unanswered questions and of getting things wrong, all of which can lead to advances in learning, understanding, and knowledge. In my home we emphasize and underscore the value of asking questions. Be curious, imaginative, and filled with wonder. Learn how to form clear and relevant questions and how to develop possible answers (i.e., hypotheses), and then rigorously test them. But also see the great value in getting it wrong, because the potential to learn something new just opened up to you, which is awesome. Incomplete answers leave questions to be addressed, and wrong answers open up new avenues to investigate. We were wrong about atoms being the most basic particle in creation. Then we thought it was protons but, actually, there are more basic things still. And it now seems that we were wrong about quarks. Maybe we'll be wrong about spinons, orbitons, and holons. Being wrong has contributed enormous volumes of knowledge and understanding.
It's just good science.
(Part 3 is forthcoming, where we look at evolution's failed predictions and Cornelius G. Hunter's list.)
John M. Bauer
@JohnMBauer1
Approx. 1,800 words
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Footnotes:
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[1] John Byl, "Is Evolution Unfalsified?" Bylogos (blog), August 28, 2015 (accessed December 24, 2018).
[2] "Report of the Creation Study Committee," Studies and Actions of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, 27th General Assembly (PCA Historical Center – Archives and Manuscript Repository for the Continuing Presbyterian Church, 1999). The Committee defined evolution as "naturalistic" because they did not understand the statement they had referenced from the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT).
[3] J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 358. This point of view has been variously described as "philosophical naturalism," "ontological naturalism," and "metaphysical naturalism," but they all refer to the same atheistic perspective. Also, for an informative, compelling, and balanced discussion on methodological naturalism being the basis of science, read Jim Stump's contribution on pages 106–111 in Kenneth Keathley, J. B. Stump, and Joe Aguirre, eds., Old-Earth or Evolutionary Creation: Discussing Origins with Reasons to Believe and BioLogos (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2017).
[4] Here is a good place to mention the ancient footings secured by Irenaeus and eloquently developed by Karl Barth and other christological supralapsarians, for whom the incarnation and atonement are the purpose of creation from the beginning. See for example Edwin van Driel, Incarnation Anyway: Arguments for Supralapsarian Christology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
[5] Donald Macleod, Behold Your God (Tain: Christian Focus, 1990) 50. As cited in the "Report of the Creation Study Committee."
[6] Ruling God out requires more explicit language. According to the PCA Creation Study Committee, an earlier version of the NABT statement had included the term "unsupervised." That would rule God out. However, it would also be unscientific, which is probably why it was removed.
[7] Denis R. Alexander, Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? (Oxford, UK: Monarch, 2008), 185–186.
[8] Ibid., 183–184. Emphasis mine.
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