Evolution, the Universe, and Divine Influence

There are two groups of people who place great emphasis in design -- those who insist on Intelligent Design (and conservative creationists) and Evolutionary Materialists.  The latter group, led by Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, have basically equated a theological interpretation of the universe with a William Paley-like Design option, find it wanting and then reject any other possibility of divine influence or involvement in the universe.  John H. Haught is a Roman Catholic theologian with Process inclinations who offers a different perspective in his book Making Sense of Evolution.  I'm nearing the end of the book, just a few more pages, but before writing a full review I wanted to give notice to Haught's understanding of divine influence, one that he derives in large part from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the late Jesuit Geologist/Theologian. 

Haught notes that Teilhard has been both neglected and ignored both by theologians and by scientists, but that he believes is a mistake.  The problem, he suggests, with Teilhard is that while he distinguished in his own mind between his science and his theology, it wasn't always clearly demarcated in his writings. 

The point I'd like to bring out is the possibility of divine influence in the universe as Haught understands it.  He writes:

As long as the universe is thought of in a strictly materialist manner, it will appear impermeable to divine influence.  But the character of the universe is such that it has never been utterly mindless and spiritless at any time.  So at least in Christian terms, it is always open to the creative movement of the Holy Spirit.  (p. 145).  

What Teilhard does is suggest that the development of the "sphere of the mind" or noosphere is not only part of the evolutionary process, but that it has always been present, so that the universe/nature has never been completely mindless.  This fact allows room for the possibility of divine influence. 

Haught writes:

Divine action in the world may be hard to understand as long as nature is taken to be essentially mindless, but it turns out that the very idea of mindless (or spiritless) matter is a logical illusion, stemming from science's inability to "see" the interior side that comes out into the light of day most explicitly in the evolution of human consciousness and the noosphere.  It is the interior vein of "consciousness" running throughout cosmic history, and especially in the dramatic depths of life, that allows the Spirit of God to penetrate the natural world, luring it toward more intense modes of being.  This interior side of nature, a strain invisible to science, also allows for the incarnate and now-risen Christ to gather the entire universe, physically and not just metaphorically, into his eucharistic body.  (p. 145). 

Our problem in envisioning divine action is that we continue to have this idea of God the engineer building a machine.  This is the vision given birth by Newton and Paley, but evolutionary science has undermined Paley's vision.  But, that does not mean that there is not another layer, one that science can't see, that allows for God to bring the universe into God's future, one that is pregnant with promise and hope.

Ultimate Explanations of Design

Yesterday, I raised the possibility of seeing creation as a drama -- something that John Haught suggests.  Haught is a Catholic theologian who has a good grasp of the relationship of science and theology.  He suggests in his book Making Sense of Evolution that Charles Darwin's  Origin of the Species raises three subtexts with theological implications -- design, diversity, and descent.  He adds into that conversation other elements, the key being drama.  For a moment, however, I need to go back to the question of design.  One of the things that Haught suggests is that both the Evolutionary Naturalists and the Creationist/ID folks are arguing on the same plane -- dealing with the question of design.  Both sides seem to have the same definition of design -- that is, if God is the designer then everything should work perfectly (whatever that means).  Haught believes that if what requires is that divine design means "without flaws," then the theological proposal falls flat.  But, there are other ways of looking at this issue.  

What is important to note about Darwin is that he started his explorations with William Paley ideas of design in mind, ideas he came to reject as unworkable in practice, but there is no evidence that Darwin rejected the idea of a divine hand -- he just didn't know how it might work, which is the way it should be, at least from a scientific perspective.

The problem we face today is that there are some in the religious community that wish to answer scientific questions with religious answers.  At the same time, there are those, like Dawkins, who want to answer theological questions with science.  Haught suggests that when evolutionists want to use evolution as "an alternative to traditional theological understanding, they are not yet doing pure science." (Making Sense of Evolution, p. 17).  Evolution isn't an alternative to a theological explanation, it is a different kind of explanation all together.  He writes:

Even if they reject classic theological answers to the question of design, as they almost invariably do, they are still imprisoned by a kind of concern that is more theological than scientific.  The evidence for this confusion emerges clearly whenever evolutionists insist that it is natural selection rather than divine action that provides the ultimate explanation of design.  If they would stick to arguing that natural selection is an alternative to other proposed scientific explanations of design, biologists would remain outside the theological circle. (pp. 17-18).

Unfortunately they don't stick with scientific explanatioins -- they want to offer theological answers with natural selection serving as a theological answer.  And, as Haught notes, this simply doesn't work, because these are two different kinds of answers.  Thus, as Haught notes, even in their rejection of theology, the "evolutionary naturalists" such as Dawkins and Dennett end up talking theology, because they seem to want to offer an "ultimate" explanation that is found only in biology. 

So, the question I'd like to raise is this -- can we have a conversation in which both theology and science participate without one or the other trying to have the last word?

The True Drama of Creation in Evolution

The New Atheists such as Dawkins and Coyne have much in common with their Creationist and Intelligent Design foes.  Both sides are in agreement that if God is the designer, things should work out with great perfection -- there should be no loop holes or meandering of life.  Evolutionary Materialists suggest that there simply is no sign of design in the world as we know it -- just a series of accidents.  Intelligent Design folks ignore the details and point to the grand scale of design and say see there is God's hand.  Both sides envision a God, if such a God exists, to be more engineer than artist.

John Haught, whose book Making Sense of Evolution:  Darwin, God, and the Drama of Life, seeks to offer a theology of evolution that can serve as an alternative to understandings of creation that are rigidly fixated on design, suggests that if theology wishes to engage evolution it must move beyond debates over design and instead look at the drama that is life.  Indeed, Haught suggests that the world envisioned by design fixated folks, whether atheist or theist, offers little sense of hope or beauty.  Consider for a moment this comment on questions of design, drama, and direction:

Nature's dramatic depth, not its ephemeral organic arrangements, is the proper focus of a theology of evolution.  However, evolutionary atheists, who have a habit of presenting themselves as experts on what an acceptable theology should look like, remain firm in their quest for perfect design as the only acceptable signal of cosmic purpose of God's existence.  Along with their creationist and ID opponents, they are prepared to accept only a theology in which an omnipotent magician flashes improbable arrangements of organic molecules and complex systems.  They will be satisfied only with a deity who leaves spectacular, scientifically accessible "evidence" of engineering competence.  If God exists, they insist, design would be impeccable and life's direction inerrant.  However, they never consider what this perfectionist dream would imply if it were ever actualized.  It scarcely occurs to them that their idealized divine conjurer would produce only artifacts suitable for a display, not a drama featuring the struggle of life and the transformation of the entire universe into more interesting, if dangerous, modes of existence.  (Haught, Making Sense of Evolution, p. 75).

Haught suggests that when it comes to the relationship of evolution and theology, we must let science be science and theology be theology, recognizing that there are layers of explanation available, differing perspectives that see the same evidence from differing vantage points.  What theology is able to do, if it's open to the possibility, is to see meaning in the drama that is life.  But as to the point made in this quote, if we're intent on focusing all of our attention on design, we end up with a world without adventure or hope.  Is this what we're looking for?