Why Not Theistic Evolution? Part 1: Clarifying Terms and Motivation

When Christians concede that the secular view of how we arrived here is correct, they give up an enormous amount of ground to a culture that denies God’s relevance to the world.

In my recent writing, I have argued that a Christian view of origins should incorporate scientific evidence by allowing for a long geological history. Many young-earth creationists may wonder why this doesn’t open the door to Neo-Darwinian evolution and universal common ancestry. On the other hand, many theistic evolutionists will also wonder why openness to science and an old earth does not lead me to their position.

I began to answer that in my last post, arguing that philosophical reasons alone tell against the merits of evolution as an explanation of the origins of life and species. I have also hinted at my acceptance of the research of Intelligent Design theorists, that there is scientific reason to question a naturalistic, chance-based evolutionary history.

However, some Intelligent Design theorists accept evolution in a fashion, but with a necessity of divine supervision or at least designing of initial conditions. For example, Michael Behe indicates in his latest book, Darwin Devolves, that he accepts common ancestry, without a chance-based mechanism. (I am not sure whether he means universal common ancestry or more limited common ancestry.) Michael Denton, an Intelligent Design theorist who is not to my knowledge a Christian, accepts a teleological evolutionary model where divine intervention is not necessary, but extensive divine design and setting of initial conditions was; his book arguing this is titled Nature’s Destiny. Therefore, arguments for design and teleology have not persuaded all who accept them to leave behind common ancestry and evolution.

But they have persuaded me. A suite of scientific arguments from Intelligent Design theorists and philosophical arguments from thinkers both contemporary and historical lead me to believe that the evolution of novel life-forms, leading to universal common ancestry, did not occur, not even as a divinely-guided process.

In brief, my reasons for not accepting theistic evolution are that 1) philosophy and science show that there are limits to evolutionary change, requiring aboriginal, created kinds, and 2) the primary reason for accepting evolution is methodological naturalism, which is not a constraint on the science of origins.

In this first post, I will clarify the terms of debate, especially “evolution” and “theistic evolution,” and discuss the motivation for this series of posts, which is in no way to alienate theistic evolutionists or accuse them of biblical unfaithfulness. In the following several posts, I will introduce the scientific and philosophical arguments that lead me away from evolution. In perhaps the final post, I will consider the question of methodological naturalism, why the science of origins does not require it, and why theists and teleologists have no other reason to accept evolution than deference to it.

The Terms of Discussion

Before diving into the scientific evidence, it is important to be clear what thesis we are talking about when we mention evolution or theistic evolution.

“Evolution” is, to my mind, shorthand for the summary claim that the entire biological diversity of life developed by a natural process, whereby all living things share a common ancestry. Ordinarily, this is taken to require no divine intervention and, indeed, to be explicable by chance and natural processes alone. The main theory of how this occurs is Neo-Darwinism, that evolution occurs by random mutation of the genome and natural selection based on the resulting variations in living things.

Theistic evolution is the view that belief in God is compatible with belief in evolution. Some theistic evolutionists hold that evolution occurred without the necessity of divine intervention or guidance, as even atheistic Neo-Darwinists believe, and hence, that chance and Neo-Darwinian mechanism are sufficient to explain biological diversity. Others believe the process was divinely guided, whether or not that guidance is visible to human observation. If he holds that the necessity of divine guidance and design is visible to human beings, a theistic evolutionist may also be an advocate of intelligent design.

Intelligent design is the scientific and philosophical claim that the origin and diversification of life required the planning and design of an intelligent mind. It is compatible with different theories of the identity and nature of this intelligence, including whether it was an immanent intelligence (like an alien life-form, as even Richard Dawkins once proposed) or a transcendent intelligence. It is also compatible with different theories of how living things came about, and hence, how that intelligent design was implemented, whether discontinuous creation or intelligently-designed evolutionary processes.

In this discussion, there is also an important distinction between macro- and micro-evolution. While there is no precise, agreed-upon line between them, micro-evolution includes the kind of variation within a kind of organism that has been observed and so is undeniable. It may even include what biologists call “speciation,” where a particular population of living thing separates from its ancestral population, with shared characteristics, and even ceases to be able to interbreed with the parent population. Macro-evolution involves the production of new body plans and the kind of creative evolution required by the thesis of universal common ancestry, that is, that evolution can occur at every level of biological taxa. My argument will involve locating the line between micro-evolution, which does occur, and macro-evolution, which, I will argue, does not, has not, and never will occur.

The Motivation for This Discussion

Last week, I sent out an invitation for questions and concerns about my discussion of theistic evolution. One reader raised an important missional concern for Christians in the sciences:

What's at stake in this evaluation?

My main bent has been to mitigate concerns around Christians having to have a specific orthodox view on "evolution" in order to avoid turning away earnest Christians in the sciences who aren't actually believing grave heresies.

This concern is entirely legitimate. The practice of science by Christians requires that they have the intellectual freedom to raise questions at the boundary of science and faith. And while particular communions have a right to take a stand at different points, an open intellectual discussion of these matters must be as wide as the current Christian discourse. Theistic evolutionists certainly have a place in that discourse, and those concerned for theological orthodoxy regarding creation must be careful that they do not lay heavy burdens upon scientists who are open to faith.

My interest is to engage in a discussion among Christians who take science seriously. And within that discourse, which includes everyone from theistic evolutionists to Intelligent Design theorists to scientifically-minded 6-day creationists, to argue for a particular conclusion from the scientific evidence.

At the same time, I do believe that theistic evolution is a significant misstep. In Western thought, the theory of evolution is a core element of our secular culture. While explicit atheism remains a minority view, it is a predominant view in academia and media. In particular, the idea that evolution is settled science makes belief in God superfluous or intellectually suspect. When Christians essentially concede that the secular view of how we arrived here is correct, they give up an enormous amount of argumentative ground to a culture that denies God’s relevance to the world.

If, as I will argue, the evolution of life across biological kinds is impossible, then the daily experience of biological life is direct evidence for the existence of God. Giving any appearance that natural processes alone could produce life is, if this argument is correct, to downplay the radical necessity of “the God hypothesis” to explain the most common features of the world.

In the following post, we will turn to the scientific evidence, beginning with Michael Denton’s argument, in Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, that biology bears a typological structure inconsistent, not only with gradual, chance-based Neo-Darwinian evolution, but even with divinely-guided macro-evolution.