Can Christians have their God and eat Him too? (Or, can athiests have their science and eat it too?)

This fascinating piece in the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574405030643556324.html has two well-known authors answer the question, "Where does evolution leave God?". The great thing about this piece is that the WSJ did not do what most mainstream media do in juxtaposing different views on God: get one example from a moderate scientist and one example from a fundamental Christian. Instead, Richard Dawkins portrays a dyed-in-the wool atheist viewpoint and Karen Armstrong gives the view of a more moderate Christian. Although one could argue for a more balanced view (two extremists or two moderates), I think the WSJ peice is the most balanced I've seen anywhere.

Armstrong's view is very close to some of the ideas that have been posted on The Red Cell blog. She makes the argument that prior to the 17th Century, most religious scholars and even practitioners approached God and church doctrine in more of a spiritual way. Thus, in line with the Greeks, there was a "mythos" and a "logos" and they were careful not to confuse the two. Thus, "logos" or logic would have you discover that the Earth rotated around the sun and act accordingly. This "logos" would never, however, address things like morality, spirituality, origins of life, creation subjects, God- etc. The assumption is that our logic is unfortunately bounded by our perspective: our place in the universe and our limitations. Of course this isn't testable, but that does not mean it does not exist. Armstrong argues that that is why we need both- because just to assume everything must be logical and proven to be contemplated is possibly a very bad assumption. She further makes the point that at some time after the 17th Century, believers started to take the Bible literally and apply its teachings to subjects wholly outside of its focus: provable scientific inquiry.

Taking Armstrong's points a bit further, this is why the "logos" and "mythos" separations make sense to me. I don't need to read the Bible literally and ignore the provable fact that the mustard seed is not the "smallest of all seeds." In the same vein, I don't have to ignore evidence that supports evolution (although I should keep an open mind to other testable hypothesies). If, indeed, God (or as Armstrong describes it: "God beyond God"), in all God's mysteriousness is not an entity that is observable or measurable by humans, it would be egotistical to think that we could explain how the universe was created in the truly Godly technical way it came into being using human language and a human interpretation (whether literal from a human standpoint or not) of the Bible.

Having said that, the same can be said of the athiest view, which is represented by Dawkins' writing. In his peice, Dawkins basically argues that God does not exist because evolution can explain how life began on Earth. Ignoring the fact that Evolution is still a theory and that it has not been proven (if it ever could) that all life on Earth followed an unmolested evolutionary trail from the first beginnings of the planet, and that even if evolution explained how life on Earth began it doesn't explain two other subjects: how the universe "began" (assuming it did "begin") and what our purpose here is (again, assuming we have one- which I do assume- otherwise all this debating is useless): I think it is likewise egotistical that athiests can rule out God simply because the entity is unprovable.

To expect that everything has to follow a "logos" or reason is to ignore the possibility that we humans are so limited in our faculties that we might not be able to ever detect other things "out there". That, of course, does not mean they are out there, or that athiests have to believe something else is out there just because Christians say there is- but I would argue they shouldn't discount the possibility out of hand. Most of the makeup of the Universe (that we can perceive) is actually not even detectable by humans (dark matter and dark energy). Only about 4% of the universe is directly observable.

The dominant theory about the universe holds that another 22% is so-called dark matter- which is indirectly observable by its effect on the observable parts. The rest- 74%- is not detectable at all right now and is referred to as "dark energy". I am not trying to say that God is the dark energy or something to that effect, but to simply point out that just because we cannot detect something hasn't forced scientists to discount it. On the contrary, although they only take into account what they think the universe is physically composed of, they do not discount unobservable phenomena.

Likewise, in my opinion, we should not discount possible unobservable phenomena that may lie on other "extra-universal" planes than we exist in and that do not fit into the "logos" realm (different ways in which to exist might not follow what we view as fitting within the realm of reason). Dawkins refers to these kinds of things as "magic", but surely- just as he points out- Medievel peoples would have considered 747s as magic as well, but that does not make them any less "real". To assume that as technology progresses, "God" digresses is to assume the opposite of what we have possibly experienced: that as technology progresses and we are able to observe and measure more, we either become closer to understanding the entity we know as "God"- OR, that the two are wholly separate subjects and it is not a zero sum game- as the entity known as "God" is outside of the "logos" part of our world.

In conclusion, the point that I think Dawkins misses is not that he is wrong- but that the human description of God might be wrong. In other words, just because literal translationists say that God must be a certain way does not mean they are right and just because athiests say evolution proves there is no God does not mean they are right either. I tend to believe that God is much more mysterious than any verse-quoting preacher can describe, as I also tend to believe that the universe is much more mysterious than any science-quoting athiest can describe. In the end, the two may be incompatible anyway- one describing the physical universe and the other describing the spiritual. The fascinating possibility that I am interested in is, if it exists, in what way are the two connected- and can we detect that?

1 problem with Evolution down, 1 to go

After a HS education and some college-level classes on biological evolution and then reading a book called Scientific Creationism (and 20+ years of religious education and thought) I found myself having two issues with evolution as I understood it:

1) on the macro level I tied it to The Big Bang and saw an inconsistency at some level with respect to the need for a "first cause" at some point. At some point I thought science had a problem with being consistent: the further one went back, the closer one got to a conclusion that a Creator of some kind was needed (who created the mass of stuff that "banged"?).

2) at the micro level I thought there were too many holes in the fossil record to back up evolution. I thought evolution theory held that over a long period of time through random mutations and natural selection new species would emerge. If that were true surely at least one species would have a fossilized record of most of the variations it went through to arrive at what they are today.

Since there was no such record that I could find for even one species- I thought the theory didn't jive.

Recently, however, from readings on Complexity theory and "Emergence" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_Equilibrium) I've come to the belief that the fossil record might not contradict a theory of evolution- and that the education I got on evolution (and the way Darwinian evolution is taught) was wrong. The basic idea is that life is not chaotic or random- there are rules that structure life and that we all have to follow (one could suppose physics is an attempt to "discover" these rules that govern the universe).

From that initial structure- certain changes in the environment (quite possibly NOT random- but seemingly to us on the micro level) lead to very quick change and whole species developing seemingly overnight. And that is followed by long periods of seemingly no change. So- the fossil record wouldn't show a thousand different variations in a species because there weren't a thousand variations.

The bottom line on these concepts is that we aren't here by accident- based on the initial conditions everything we see at the macro level is more or less pre-determined (although there are plenty of micro happenstance) based on the structure (rules) of the universe (think physics)-although "emergence" would probably state it is pre-determined, but only identified as such from hindsight (unless one is an all-knowing entity).

All of that leads me to believe that one of my problems with evolution has died a slow death. But- does that lead me further from the concept of God? My conclusion is "no"- and actually I even feel closer to a belief in a "Creator". I somehow get the feeling that the mechanics of God are way out of my league the more I learn- but I actually think my other "problem" with evolution- the one that deals with the eventuality of inconsistency- is actually GREATER as I accept the "new" evolutionary theories. When one follows the logic trail all the way back to the beginning of the universe it seems to me that there IS design, there IS structure, there IS a purpose- based on emergence theory and punctuated equilibrium.

Why? Because everything rests on initial conditions and thus the world isn't chaotic and filled with chance- based on those concepts. And there are rules and structure to life. All of that leads me logically towards something setting those initial conditions, establishing the structure and rules, and something that could possibly figure the macro patterns that will emerge light years from now (or from the beginning) i.e., an all-knowing entity. Of course we can't prove this, but I'd argue it goes both ways (we can't prove another way either). When you factor in the fact that only a very small percentage of the universe (4%) is even detectable (see dark matter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter) and only 22% of the rest is even indirectly detectable- it seems very likely that we may never be able to "prove" (or disprove) a Creator in this life and/or dimension.

In the end I may be framing the term evolution incorrectly. To me evolution cannot be separated with the initial conditions of the universe and what started it all (Big Bang or something else). I know they are two distinct theories, but in my overall concept of the universe it is difficult and seemingly inconsistent to separate them from the same underlying logic (that logic being either no "Designer" running things and having influence- or a Designer doing something either at the beginning or continuously (read: God). Indeed, both emergence and Complexity theories would hold that evolution at the micro biological level depends entirely on however the Universe started and the rules inherent within.

Can you have evolution and still have God? Or, more presciently: can you be consistent within the concepts of evolution as we understand them today and declare there is no God? I would argue that it would be difficult.