But Is Evolution Science?

Review:
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones III
Middle District of Pennsylvania (Dec. 20, 2005)

 
    In 2005 Judge John E. Jones III of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania handed down his ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. It is regarded as the definitive court ruling on Intelligent Design.
    The case arose when the Dover Area School Board adopted a policy requiring teachers of 9^th grade biology to read to their students a brief disclaimer about the theory of evolution. The statement said that evolution was a theory and not a fact, that Intelligent Design is another explanation of the origin of life, and that a book was available in the school library if students wished to know more. The statement did not actually say that Intelligent Design was necessarily true or that evolution was false. Nevertheless, several irate parents sued the school district, alleging an unconstitutional intrusion of religion into a public school classroom. The judge reviewed the evidence and ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.
    [We should explain to our readers in the British Commonwealth that in the U.S. a "public school" is a school supported by tax dollars and controlled by the state. It is not an exclusive private school, as in England. Moreover, since the U.S. Constitution forbids an "establishment of religion," i.e., a state church, the content of public school education becomes a matter of controversy. How is it possible to provide an "education" that is secular, without becoming implicitly atheistic?]
    The judge reviewed the history of the Intelligent Design movement and concluded that "ID," as it is called for short, is essentially the same as creationism and is a form of religious belief. Since the U.S. Supreme Court had already ruled that creationism may not be taught in a public school classroom, Judge Jones ruled that neither may Intelligent Design.
    Judge Jones could have left the issue at that, but he did not. Instead, he wrote a 139 page opinion that explored all aspects of the issue, from the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas to the inner politics of the Dover school board.
    According to Judge Jones, the "seminal question" in the case was whether or not Intelligent Design is science. But what exactly is "science"? The judge cited a definition from the National Academy of Science: "In science, explanations are restricted to those that can be inferred from the confirmable data – the results obtained through observations and experiments that can be substantiated by other scientists. Anything that can be observed or measured is amenable to scientific investigation. Explanations that cannot be based upon empirical evidence are not part of science" (Kitzmiller, p. 66). The judge noted that since the scientific revolution of the 16^th and 17^th Centuries science has limited itself to naturalistic explanations of phenomena. "Since that time period, science has been a discipline in which testability, rather than any ecclesiastical authority or philosophical coherence, has been the measure of a scientific idea's worth. In deliberately omitting theological or 'ultimate' explanations for the existence or characteristics of the natural world, science does not consider issues of 'meaning' and 'purpose' in the world" (p. 65). He then concluded, quite correctly we think, that Intelligent Design does not meet that definition of science.
    What Judge Jones failed to mention, however, is that most of the great scientists of the 16^th and 17^th Centuries believed that nature has a rational structure precisely because it came from the hand of an intelligent Being. Virtually none of them thought that nature was the result of a process of natural evolution. In other words, almost all of them believed in some form of what we would call today "Intelligent Design," or what was know then as "natural theology." While they adhered rigorously to the empirical method, they did not claim that it could tell them the ultimate origin of things. As Sir Francis Bacon put it, "My first admonition (which was also my prayer) is that men confine the sense within the limits of duty in respect of things divine: for the sense is like the sun, which reveals the face of earth, but seals and shuts up the face of heaven" (The Great Instauration, preface).

Charles Darwin

    What Judge Jones also failed to notice is that Darwinism does not meet his definition of science, either. The plain fact of the matter is that evolution offers us an "ultimate explanation," but one that cannot be confirmed or tested by experiment. Moreover, Darwinism does in fact consider "issues of 'meaning' and 'purpose' in the world" – it is emphatic that there are none, at least none that inhere in nature. Why then is Darwinism so widely accepted among mainstream scientists? It is because it is philosophically coherent. In other words, Darwinism attempts to do the very thing that Judge Jones (and Francis Bacon) say that science should never do. And it is precisely here that evolution comes into conflict with religion.
    The common disability under which both theories labor is that an alleged prehistoric event cannot be subjected to direct observation and experiment. Neither theory is testable. Neither theory can be verified by means of the scientific method. And until a theory has been tested and validated through experiment it is still tentative: it may not be true at all.
    Why, then, is evolution considered "science"? It appears that Darwinists have suddenly change the definition of "science." Evolution is presumably science because it offers a completely naturalistic explanation for the origins of life's forms. Intelligent Design, by this reckoning, is obviously not science, because it leaves room for divine agency in nature. In other words, "science" is no longer just a method; it is a worldview.
    Because Christian theism is inherently religious, Judge Jones ruled that it has no place in the public school classroom. But does the First Amendment really require the public school system to indoctrinate our youth in a materialist philosophical system?

Thanksgiving Meditation - 2012

     Thanksgiving is one of those traditional holidays that have lost much of their original meaning over time.  Thanksgiving was, of course, originally intended as an occasion upon which to express gratitude to God for the blessings of the preceding year.  It is loosely based on the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles.  Although most Americans have long since ceased to devote the day to the actual giving of thanks, that does not lessen the fact that we have much for which to be thankful.  A moment of reflection is in order.
     Psalm 145 is a hymn of praise that extols the providential care of God over His creation.  "The Lord is good to all," the psalm proclaims, "And His tender mercies are over all His works" (v. 9: NKJV).  This providential care is of two sorts.  First, there is God's provision for the physical sustenance of all living creatures: "The eyes of all look expectantly to You, / And You give them their food in due season. / You open Your hand / And satisfy the desire of every living thing" (vv. 15,16).  Secondly, there are God's answers to the prayers of the devout: "The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, / To all who call upon Him in truth. / He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; / He also will hear their cry and save them" (vv. 18,19).
     At this point the modern skeptic is sure to protest.  Nature works by natural means; thus there is no trace of divine providence in nature.  To which we reply that we do not deny natural cause and effect.  But who designed and created nature in the first place?  In creating an entire ecosystem God graciously provided for the sustenance of life.  But the evolutionist says, it is the species that is adapted to the environment, and not the environment to the species.  To which we reply that life would not have been possible at all if God had not first created a suitable environment.
     Indeed, one of the strongest arguments for Intelligent Design is the "fine tuning" of the universe.  In order for life to be possible on earth a number of critical factors have to be in place.  The planet has to be the right distance from the son, so that temperatures fall within a certain range.  There must be the presence of water.  The planet must have an atmosphere with just the right amount of oxygen. Gravity and electromagnetic force must all fall within a certain range.  And then there is the sheer complexity of life itself, with each organism made up of several different coordinated systems.  In order for evolution to be true, it would require a constant stream of near-miraculous advances from lesser to more complex forms of life, something that we don't witness in real life.
     It all points back to an infinitely wise and all-powerful Creator.  But it tells us something else about God as well.  Why would the Creator have gone to such lengths to create an entire ecosystem that is so intricate and elaborate?  The psalmist gives us the answer: "The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, / Slow to anger and great in mercy. / The Lord is good to all, / And His tender mercies are over all His works" (vv. 8,9).  In other words, God genuinely cares about the creatures He has made.  We do not inhabit an impersonal and amoral universe.  Granted, we experience injury and disease, drought and pestilence, poverty and oppression, wars and natural disasters, and finally death.  But evil is ultimately the result of our sin and depravity.  The fault lies with us, not with God.  God is the Creator and Sustainer, and every good in life that we enjoy comes ultimately from Him.
     On this Day of Thanksgiving let us remember to "praise God from Whom all blessings flow."

Letter to a Unitarian Minister

The following is an extract from a letter we once sent to a Unitarian minister, whose sermon "Where Is Our Holy Text?" we happened to hear one Sunday morning. The minister was emphatic in denying that the Bible is a divinely inspired text, and cited a canon of several feminist authors as her own "holy text."

 

    "I appreciate the candor and frankness with which you expressed your opinions, but I do feel that they call for some sort of response. I was fortunate to have attended an evangelical seminary (Westminster, in Philadelphia), and to have been exposed to a body of conservative biblical scholarship that has examined liberal critical objections to the Bible and nevertheless found the Scriptures to be trustworthy. I was especially privileged to have taken courses under Leon Morris and Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, both of whom have written a number of very fine commentaries on various books of the New Testament. Personally, at the end of the day, I can see no reason to question the veracity and authority of the Bible.

    "I might also point out that the 'Sunday school faith' you described in your sermon was the faith of Athanasius and Augustine, of Thomas Aquinas and the Protestant Reformers, of Jonathan Edwards and the great Princeton theologians of the 19^th century. It is the historic faith of the Christian Church. It deserves to be treated with more respect than you gave it in your sermon.

    "I think that you probably approached the crux of the issue when you quoted a statement from the Humanist Manifesto of 1933 to the effect that 'All reality is self-creating.' If this statement were actually true, then you would be perfectly justified in your attempt to marginalize God. The statement, however, is palpable nonsense. If something does not yet exist, then by the very nature of the case it lacks the power to do anything. It can cause no effect, and it certainly cannot bring itself into existence. Or, to rephrase the question in more concrete biological terms, we might ask 'How did life begin'? Under a strict evolutionary scenario that excludes the possibility of 'Intelligent Design,' at some point what amounts to spontaneous generation must have occurred, which, as we know from scientific experiment, is impossible. This, then, brings us right back to the inescapable question of God. If, in fact, we have been created by a Supreme Being, then the Westminster Shorter Catechism is absolutely correct when it says that 'The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.'

    "I know that the Unitarian Universalist Association is proud of the freedom of thought that it seeks to foster within its fellowship. But at some point we as human beings have to deal with questions of ultimate truth. Is there a God? Does life have meaning and purpose? Is there really a difference between good and evil? Is there life after death? At death these issues will be inescapable, no matter how hard we tried to avoid them in life. And apart from some form of divine revelation we have no means of answering these questions, and we are left in profound ignorance of the matters most important to us. Given the attitude of Unitarians toward Scripture it is hard for me to see what can save you from the kind of abject nihilism typified by Friedrich Nietzsche. You profess to believe in a very idealistic set of social principles, but they are suspended in metaphysical thin air. The ever looming danger is that someday your ethics will catch up to your intellectual skepticism, and then you will have nothing left at all to offer society. That kind of moral skepticism is, in fact, the general trend in society today. . .

    "I will probably decline any further opportunities to participate in Unitarian church services. I have no desire to give human beings the place of honor that rightfully belongs to God alone. I noticed that your responsive reading last Sunday came from the writings of William Ellery Channing. William Ellery Channing did not give me life and health, the air I breathe or the bread I eat; much less did he die for my sins. I owe Channing nothing; I owe Christ everything. I shall worship Him Who deserves my praise and no one else. 'Therefore God has also highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father'(Phil. 2:9-11; NKJV)."

 

Sincerely,

Robert W. Wheeler

 

 

Secularism

    Is God still relevant? The general trend in Western thought for the past couple of centuries has been in the direction of growing secularism. The underlying assumption is that human reason alone is sufficient to arrive at truth, and that consequently any type of religious revelation is unnecessary. Thus we have attempted to exclude God from our thinking. We pretty much think and act as if God did not exist.

    In more recent times there has been an attempt to move away form the rationalism of modern scientific thinking, but this, unfortunately, has not resulted in a revival of religion. On the contrary, we seem to have become even more atheistic than ever, denying the existence of universal truths altogether. To this "Post-Modern" way of thinking there are no such things as moral absolutes.

    But what if God really exists? What becomes of our secular thinking then?

    The New Testament raises this question in a very pointed way in Romans chapter 1. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men . . ." (v. 18; NKJV). God is angry with us. Why? Because of our "ungodliness" and "unrighteousness." The Greek word translated "ungodliness" basically means "impiety," a lack of reverence or devotion to God. Or, to use a more modern term, it is frankly what goes by the name today of "secularism." "Unrighteousness" is the failure to live in accordance with God's law, especially as that failure involves the mistreatment of others. Thus we stand accused of crimes against both God and our fellow human beings. This is the reason that God is angry with us.

    "Ah," but the modern secularist replies, "there is no evidence that God exists! There is no reason to believe in His existence."

    The inspired apostle, however, continues his indictment. God is angry with men because they "suppress the truth in unrighteousness." He goes on to explain what he means. ". . . because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse" (vv. 19,20). We are surrounded by the evidence of God's goodness, wisdom and power. The sheer complexity of nature points to an intelligent Designer. (An evolutionist, of course, would deny this, but we have already dealt with the question of evolution in a previous blog post – cf. "Why Evolution Is False," Oct. 5, 2011).

    But what has our response been to all of this evidence? ". . . because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools . . . " (vv. 21,22). Here we see traced out for us the whole course of modern philosophy, talking itself into absurdities, and never arriving at a firm conclusion.

    And what is the judgment of God upon all of this? "Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen" (vv. 24,25). In other words, the moral disintegration of Western society is the direct result of our refusal to acknowledge God. Secularism has been our undoing.

    Sad to say, many Americans today choose to live as though God does not exist. They never visit a house of worship, engage in private prayer, or read the Bible. They never thank Him for His blessings towards them, and they never consider what His will might be when they make personal decisions. For all practical purposes we have become a godless society. How tragically mistaken we are! We are headed for the abyss, and yet we will not turn back and change our ways. What can become of us?

The Case for Moral Absolutes

The famous American philosopher John Dewey once said that "moral judgment and moral responsibility are the work wrought in us by the social environment . . . All morality is social" ("Morality Is Social," from Human Nature and Conduct). Nearly all secular philosophers would be more or less inclined to agree. And, indeed, for most people morality is basically social: it is the result of social conditioning. They are trained by their parents to behave a certain way, and as they grow older they become aware of certain demands imposed by society. But according to Dewey, this is all there is to morality. Morality is basically sociological.

But is this really all there is to it? Or is there something else – some eternal, unchanging standard of right and wrong that transcends the changing patterns of human culture? Dewey, and many other secular thinkers, would emphatically say "No"! But what they routinely overlook is the obvious, viz., God. If God exists, then doesn't His will count for something?

If God exists the whole secular philosophy of accepting life as it is, without making any value judgments, collapses. For if God exists, a Supreme Being Who is both infinite and personal, then everything He created has purpose and meaning, and everything that exists ought to conform to His will. Thus there is an "ought" as well as an "is."

And God obviously exists. We are surrounded by evidence of intelligent design. We live in a rationally ordered cosmos, and the rational structure of reality must ultimately have come from an intelligent being. We know through common sense and everyday experience the difference between intelligent design and random selection. If someone were to dump a boxful of bolts on a table they would land in no particular order – there is no discernable pattern. That is what is meant by "random." But if we count out the bolts in groups of ten, and then arrange the groups in ranks and files, that is intelligent design, and the design is readily evident. A human mind has obviously imposed order on the original chaos. The presence of rational order is the evidence of intelligent design.

Such rational order abounds in nature. Why does the human body have perfectly formed and functioning organs, connected in complex systems? Why is there so much symmetry in the body? How did we acquire intelligence? None of these things arise spontaneously from unformed and impersonal matter. Natural selection can explain how the unfit become extinct, but it cannot explain how the favored species came into existence. Nature is simply too complex to be the result of an impersonal biological process. The existence of a Creator is thus undeniable.

But how can we learn the content of morality? How can we know what the will of God is? The first part of the answer is that every human being is born with a conscience that gives him an intuitive knowledge of right and wrong. We instinctively recoil at atrocious crimes such as rape and murder. Soldiers are often traumatized when they are called upon to take human life in combat. Philosophers and psychologists have puzzled over this phenomenon. Dewey, as we have seen, tried to argue that it is purely the result of social conditioning. Others have maintained that it is a social instinct bred into the race. But the Bible says that even the pagans "show the work of the law written in their hearts" (Rom. 2:15 NKJV). The evidence is plain and simple: they accuse each other of wrongdoing and defend themselves in return. But why? It is because they have an innate sense of right and wrong.

Even the most skeptical philosophers themselves cannot entirely escape from this. If morality is essentially sociological and there is no transcendent standard of right and wrong, then how is it possible for anyone to pass judgment on an entire society? For it is society that determines the standard. If there was a social consensus in Nazi Germany that genocide was a desirable policy, then who is in a position to say that it was wrong? There is no room for individualism or non-conformity. Yet philosophers pass judgment on society all the time. Try as they might, even they cannot escape universal moral norms.

But conscience is not our only source of knowledge concerning morality. There is also direct revelation from God Himself. In Heb. 1:1,2 we are told, "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son . . ." In the distant past God communicated to men through inspired prophets – their writing are contained in the Old Testament (cf. II Tim. 3:16; I Pet. 1:10-12). The climax of divine revelation came, however, when God sent His own Son into the world. Jesus Christ was the prophet "par excellence," and His teachings, in particular the Sermon on the Mount, are the definitive statement of Christian morality.

Seen in this light morality is not a complicated philosophical problem; it is a simple matter of doing what God said. As human beings we are accountable to our Creator. In the end He will be our Judge. We do, in fact, live in a moral universe. Justice and human rights are grounded in God's eternal, immutable will. Any sane and rational person would not wish to have it any other way.