Whatever else Texas may have going for it, teaching religion in science class is inexcusable, whether or not it’s dressed in the deceptive language of intelligent design.  My (very) conservative Catholic grandma believes that evolution and faith are compatible.  Plenty of people do.  That’s because they are compatible.  The evolution vs. creation debate is less about that issue than it is about cultural dominance in general. It’s just one battleground chosen in the ongoing culture wars.

Needless to say, you should just go read it:

When the overwhelming scientific consensus points to evolutionary biology as the explanation for life, Christians have two choices.  They can say that this is consistent with their religion (God created everything including the field of evolutionary biology); or they can attempt to subvert the overwhelming consensus to fit their own narrative. Conservative institutions like, say, the Catholic Church have chosen the former over the latter.

From “Roger Ebert, Ben Stein, and the culture wars”.

Charles Darwin, whose idea of the sacred also came from an English private school, witnessed religion at its most primordial when he went to Australia in 1836. He found it horrifying: “nearly naked figures, viewed by the light of blazing fires, all moving in hideous harmony…”

Whatever Darwin’s personal sensibilities, Mr Wade is convinced that a Darwinian approach offers the key to understanding religion. In other words, he sides with those who think man’s propensity for religion has some adaptive function. According to this view, faith would not have persisted over thousands of generations if it had not helped the human race to survive. Among evolutionary biologists, this idea is contested. Critics of religion, like Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, suggest that faith is a useless (or worse) by-product of other human characteristics.

To illustrate this point, Wheaton College is currently holding its 2008 Science Symposium, entitled “String Theory and the Multiverse: Philosophical and Theological Implications.” Yesterday I attended lectures by Dr. Gerald Cleaver, a theoretical physicist, and Dr. Don Page, who studied under and lived with Stephen Hawking. The lectures covered the basics of string theory/M-theory and how it relates to the idea of the multiverse. Then they addressed the ideas of the multiverse as related to the Christian faith, using such concepts as Anselm’s Ontological Argument to consider its implications.

As I see it, the difficulties between Christianity (or religion more generally) and science arise from three areas:

1. Anti-theistic or anti-Christian attacks by non-Christian scientists.
2. The concept of the “God of the gaps.”
3. The problem of theological/Biblical integration.

Anti-Christian Attacks

The first of these, anti-Christian attacks by non-Christian scientists, is of less importance. While such attacks do happen (Dawkins is a perfect example), they are not of particular concern for several reasons:

• Faith lies outside of the realm of science and thus is not subject to scientific testing. (More on this later.)
• Such attacks exhibit a gross misunderstanding of Christianity.
• There is nothing to be done about them.

“The God of the Gaps”

The second of these areas is far more problematic. The idea of the “God of the gaps” has plagued scientific and religious thinkers since ancient times. The most notable example is, of course, Galileo, who was denounced by the Roman Catholic Church for proclaiming a heliocentric view of the solar system. The Church did not like this because it removed the Earth and humanity, God’s creations, from the center. (Ironically, the trailer for Expelled says that religious ideas about creation would have been accepted in Galileo’s day. In Galileo’s day, however, it was the religious establishment that was opposing scientific ideas.)

There are several problems with the idea of the “God of the gaps.” First, it means that God is diminished each time a new scientific theory is confirmed. Suddenly God is no longer in charge of putting the Earth at the center of the universe or God is no longer required to create us as humans specifically. When God’s power is linked to human understanding, we fail to understand God’s power.

Second, it places Christianity in the awkward position of having to argue against good science. Take evolution as an example. Within the scientific community there is virtually complete consensus on the theory of evolution, though not on the actual origins of life. If you want more information, read Science, Evolution, and Creationism, published by the National Academy of Sciences. Yet Christians, especially within America, are consistently fighting the idea because they do not wish to see God diminished again. This leads to two things:

1. It makes Christians look stupid because they have to argue against good science.
2. It makes non-Christians, and especially scientists, upset with Christians. (In fact, the book by NAS mentioned above is somewhat impressive in that it goes out of its way to make the point that religion and evolution are not mutually exclusive and that it is not arguing against Christianity.)

Finally, the idea of “the God of the gaps” displays a lack of faith in the power of God. Why is there any reason that God should be required to hold together the “gaps” in the universe or scientific knowledge, rather than to create laws and mechanisms like he did for everything else? It seems more likely that we simply haven’t discovered the laws or mechanisms yet, the discovery of which is the realm of science. To assume God is bound by our knowledge of the universe is somewhat hubristic.

Theological Integration

The final problem is that of theological/Biblical integration. Here Christians are demanding more out of science than it can provide because they misunderstand the role of science.

Before I go any farther, let me say that I find skepticism of science because of the Bible to be a valid reason for not agreeing with scientific findings. In the case of our creation, the Bible clearly does not say anything about evolution. For myself, I have managed to get past the literal creation stories, no matter how at the moment, to accept scientific findings. I cannot, however, fault another Christian who does not, for they are reading the Word of God. In this, there are two things to remember:

1. For Christians who do not accept science, there is no call to go around proclaiming that all science is therefore wrong. We may not agree, but that does not discredit the whole scientific process.
2. For Christians who do accept science, it is slightly far fetched to go reading scientific theories on to the Bible, as if evidence of every idea can be found within it.

After that detour, let us continue with the concept of theological integration. The first point here is that science and faith are different realms. The goal of science is to investigate the world around us, not to prove faith. In fact, by the very definition of faith, it cannot be proved. Demanding that science prove (or disprove) God will not get anyone anywhere. Other arguments about the existence of God, whether moral, philosophical, or logical, will get us much farther than science.

The second thing to be said under theological or Biblical integration is that science need not necessarily provide a deep connection to our understanding of Christianity. When scientists speak of Christianity and science, they speak of the beauty of God’s creation and the call to seek truth. This should be enough for us. We don’t demand that other occupations, whether carpentry or banking, provide explicit integration with the Bible, so why science? In fact, Dorothy Sayers gets it right in the chapter “Why Work?” in her book Creed or Chaos when she reminds us that it does not matter if the work is explicitly Christian. What matters is that we do the work well. When it comes to science, then, let us not seek to push Christianity through it, but rather to engage in good science that we may cast a good light on Christianity.

To Conclude

The science vs. Christianity debate is not something that we should be engaging in. There is no reason why science should be set up as an enemy of the Church. Indeed, it is as much our fault that science has come to be seen opposite Christianity as it is the fault of scientists. Instead of placing the two in opposition, Christians should seek to further science in an effort to understand the universe (or multiverse) in which God has created us.