A reader sent in a link to this video. It’s our old friends Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, the creationists that have names sounding suspiciously like adult entertainers. I’ve mentioned them before as making on the worst evolution videos I’ve ever seen. This clip’s much shorter, though just as bad.

While I do find them extremely funny, deep down they really sadden me. This level of scholarship aint what we’re called to as Christians. Any person on the street can say, “Ok Ray, what about the pineapple or coconut? Where’s their pull tab?” And they know this. It’s all a game of showmanship. They’re not concerned with actually making good arguments. At the end of the day, they’re concerned with making arguments they know will go over with their audience.

They also fail to understand the most basic aspects of science, namely that it does not attempt to proclaim the underlying meaning of everything. While one could try to explain that to them, I fear it would be every creationist’s worst nightmare.

My wife is a second grade teacher. The other day, she was teaching a cause and effect lesson to the little ones. You flip the light switch and what happens? They all grasped that example.

But why is there snow on the top of the mountain? They were baffled, and a hush fell over the class. Finally one little boy spoke up. “God put it there.” My wife responded with something along the lines of “That may be true, but we don’t study God in school” and then continued to explain cause (high elevation) and effect (snow doesn’t melt).

The little kid looked at her like she’d run over his puppy.

Amazing isn’t it? Here’s a second grader who deftly asks about a theology of nature. True, the phrase theology of nature won’t be in his vocabulary for many years to come, but he’s hit upon the subject nonetheless. And he’s quite unhappy that his answer — God did it — wasn’t accepted. I can only speculate that it’s an answer that’s worked very well for him in his prior experiences with adults.

I don’t know the little boy, his parents, or the family’s religious background. But it seems that the kid has already learned the false dichotomy. Either God put snow on the mountain, or He didn’t. Explain the snow by other means, and you’re attacking his belief system.

I find it sad but interesting because it seems to parallel the thinking of many adult Christians. They resist natural explanations for natural things because to them, it removes any room for God. (I’ve commented before on the irony that Creationists are in effect agreeing with atheists on this matter).

What would happen if we lived in a world where the little boy learned both at home and in his culture that the two beliefs do not have to be contradictory? That mountains, snow, and high elevation can yield their own secrets, but that one can, if one wishes, believe in a deeper underlying meaning to the world and people around us.

It seems to me that by the time our children added theology of nature to their vocabularies, they would be well on their way to having one.

Sorry folks. Things have been a little crazy lately. School started back up this week, and I’ve recently come across a plethora of web-related jobs. The will to post was sucked away.

The Personal

But I’m back today with some really exciting news. (Well, for us at least). My wife’s been trying to get a job as an elementary teacher. It hasn’t exactly been an easy road. Lots of candidates and few positions. Nonetheless, she terribly impressed some people in the school district last semester during her student teaching, and had a handful of interviews during the summer. Nuttin’ happened. So she took a job as a teacher’s aide. (They pay Chinese workers in an iPod factory more). As school started, it was just a matter of wait and see.

A few days ago, she learned that the school had two second graders too many. She had to wait a couple of days to make sure no one withdrew, and has now been offered the job. Much rejoicing has been had in our household, and partying into the late hours of the night1.

The Provocative

I’m boring you… It’s not that you don’t care, but you’ve got your own lives and jobs to worry about. So let’s talk about something controversial. Was this the “Hand of God“? It’s a question that I’ve had on my mind for years. How does God work? I don’t think there’s one answer, and so I’ll point out up front that undoubtedly many folks have different ideas on the subject. I’m not claiming to have the answer. Still, with my view perhaps in the minority, I think it fair to throw it out in the hopes that it might be more widely discussed.

Before asking if God gave my wife her job, let me share another story on how some claim to see God at work. We have some friends2, who shared a story about a couple on their honeymoon. They arrived at one of their hotels mid way through the week, only to discover that the place had gone out of business months earlier. Making matters worse, one of those ubiquitous conventions of some type or another was in town, and seemingly every place around was booked solid. Magically, a really nice place on the beach at a good price fell into their lap. “It was totally a God thing” my friend explained.

Really? A God thing?

It’s certainly not unusual for a Christian to hold this view. My experience is that in practice, the honeymoon example is getting far out on a thin limb. I imagine there are lots of Christian’s who would find that statement troubling. It’s akin to the God who got me a sweet parking space today at school. (And God, if you work that way, please forgive me and ignore what I say. I could really use that parking space at school. Getting one’s a nightmare!)

But while Christians gladly accept chance for trivial occurrences, we tend to invoke God for the big things. Like getting that first real job or meeting one’s spouse.

I do not. Largely because I find chance comforting. If God gets the honeymooner’s a hotel, why not do something for those in Asia when the Tsunami came ashore. Let’s not forget, there were a handful of honeymooners when it hit. Rhetorically I ask, “Does God love some honeymooner’s more than others?” Is God just if He intervenes in the world to make sure somebody gets a hotel room or a job, and then chooses to do nothing as massive catastrophes approach?

For what it’s worth, my view of God at work in this world goes something like this. Through his spirit, he has the power to transform lives. And I believe God is at work largely through the interactions of people, particularly (but not necessarily limited to) His people.

The Example

So here’s how I see my wife’s case. During her student teaching, she impressed a principle and an influential teacher. Those interactions — that she was known and liked — were what got her the job. (People, with free will, hired her). But as a matter of faith, I believe God can be very present and active in those interactions. (I say can be because I also believe we have the ability to shoot ourselves in the foot and close God out).

So when no job came, and she took the job as a teacher’s aide, God was still present. She had every opportunity to do wonderful things for others as an aide. At the last minute a real job came through. Her opportunities changed with the job, but remain nonetheless.

Do you see what I’m saying? For the believer, how do we say that God gave us this job? Could my wife not have served God as a teacher’s aide? As a secretary? It seems to me that in large part, she wants to be a teacher because she feels that her gifts lie in that area.

The Scripture

Certainly there’s scriptural precedence Christians viewing things that come their way as being the result of God. Right off my head I’m thinking of James 1:17:

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

I really don’t think you have to read it that way though. If you read the chapter for its context (always a good idea) it seems obvious enough that this statement is in stark contrast to the temptation of evil. Here’s a little more of the context from James 1:

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

The point is that a honeymooning couple is a good thing, regardless of whether they have some ups or downs with a hotel room on the trip. So is my wife’s new job as a teacher. You can read this passage as speaking to the root of good and evil — not that each and every specific “good thing” that happens is part of a predestined plan by God.

The Conclusion

I hope I’ve been gentle enough with this topic. I stated it at the beginning, and I’ll state it at the end. My view is not the only view, and frankly it’s a little more nuanced than I could convey, even in a lengthy post like this. But I do hope that Christians will be careful, and put a little more thought into the implications on how they attribute the good things in their life to a higher power.

Purchase at Amazon

Just before I came back from thesis work, I finished up Finding Darwin’s God, by Ken Miller. Miller is a biochemist at Brown University who’s coauthored the Prentice Hall biology textbook used by roughly a third of U.S. high school and college students. He’s also a tireless defender of science education and widely gives talks and interviews on the subject. For example, his testimony in the Kitzmiller v Dover trial on intelligent design last year was particularly devastating to the defense. As such, he’s one of the most prominent Christians in the field of biology.

Why do science?

Early in the book, Miller asks the question - Why do science and why trust it? How can we know that the methods we use to study the solar system, or more to the point of his book — the Earth’s past — are trustworthy?

He gives a very exciting example. In the early 1800’s, scientists noticed that the sun’s visible spectrum included a series of black bars or gaps at precise locations within the spectrum. These became known as Fraunhofer lines, after the German physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer.

Fraunhofer lines from a solar spectrum

Scientists soon discovered that the lines corresponded with the presence of certain chemical elements. So for example, a scientist in the lab could produce dark lines at a precise location (wavelength) within a visible spectrum for a given element — say sodium. Seeing that these same lines existed for the same location within the solar spectrum, scientists deduced that sodium must be present in the sun. (And to be more precise, for many elements it’s a series of lines, not just one).

Quickly, in the lab, element after element was found to correspond to specific Fraunhofer lines in the sun’s solar spectrum, and we amassed a list of what the sun’s made of, though no one’s ever been to the sun, and indeed, no one will be taking a sample anytime soon.

The only problem was that a pesky line was found at 587.5 nanometers (in the yellow region of the spectrum) that nobody could reproduce in the laboratory. Scientists realized that this line was caused by element not yet discovered on earth — an element they named helium (from the Greek word “helios” meaning “sun“).

And thus helium was discovered in the sun some 30 years before it was found on earth, though the sun is 93 million miles away. (And naturally once discovered on earth, Helium gives a Fraunhofer line at the expected location of 587.5 nanometers in a visible spectrum).

Miller’s hope, with examples such as these, are that people will see the justification for the assumptions of science — that the laws of nature are consistent and apply universally. That Fraunhofer line at 587.5 nanometers in the sun could be caused by solar elves having a barbeque instead of helium. But it just happens to have been observed on earth 30 years later with seemingly the same properties, just like the rest of the elements.

On Christian objections to evolution

Miller then begins to go through the various types of Christian objections to evolutionary theory. He groups them roughly into young earth creationism, old earth creationism, and intelligent design. He analyzes each and, not surprisingly, finds their arguments to have weak or no scientific basis. Miller spends some time discussing the biochemical objections to evolution (as put forth by Michael Behe), since Miller himself is a biochemist. Honestly this part can be a little tedious. If one is interested in these debates, the information is freely available through the internet, and for someone with a background in science, there’s a lot of familiar information to review. Refreshingly though, Miller’s treats these opponents with respect, recognizing that they share a Christian faith and that some of them (though perhaps not all) honestly represent their beliefs.

Besides looking at the science of creationism however, Miller examines the theological implications of these Christian worldviews. Here, my enjoyment of the book was immense, as I’ve come to many of the same conclusions on how I relate my understanding of science (and evolutionary biology in particular) to my Christian faith.

When it comes to being a Christian scientist, Miller argues for the most fundamental and obvious of understandings — that we can trust what we see in the natural world around us (like Fraunhofer lines). What this means is that light coming from distant stars in the universe is a trustworthy record of our universe’s past and bones in the ground amid layers of rock are a trustworthy record of the earth’s history. This is in opposition to young earth creationists like Henry Morris who have advocated merely an appearance of age. They admit that the evidence looks a certain way, but simply hold that God made it look that way at the moment of creation. The theological implications with this view of God are enormous, as Miller points out. This view makes God out to be a liar (Miller’s word is charlatan) where everything we see around us is at its core a fraud. As I’ve been saying, why not believe that the universe is 5 minutes old, and that our memories (like light from distant stars and bones in the ground) were given to us at the moment of creation.

Throughout the book when examining these objections to evolutionary biology, Miller points out a ripe irony — that some Christians feel as though they can find God by showing science’s failure to explain some area of the natural world. If science can’t explain it, then God must have done it! Essentially, this view seems to hold that God exists only in our ignorance. When we discover how something works scientifically, God is now removed from the equation. This is a game that atheists are happy to play. In effect, they agree wholeheartedly with these Christians. Science or God but not both. I have long been saying that as Christians, if we truly believe that God’s real, we have absolutely nothing to fear from science. Science can only illuminate our understandings, bringing us closer to God.

Thus the first two hundred pages establish that evolution is a powerful scientific theory with broad support across the various subdisciplines of biology and that the objections of from its critics are scientifically baseless and their worldviews ill-founded.

Scientists who object to religion

Miller does not limit his criticism solely to creationists however. He also spends some time discussing the more forceful pronouncements of atheism done in the name of evolutionary biology. Folks like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet. I think many readers will appreciate this discussion simply because Miller criticizes both sides for using God or science unfairly, as a weapon to beat their opponents rather than a search for the truth. Certainly Miller is not saying that the only outcome of being a scientist should be belief in God. (I agree with him — we’ll get into free will later.) Rather, he’s saying that those who’ve come to the conclusion that God does not exist cannot support that claim purely from science. Properly done, science really is neutral to the question of God’s existence.

Where evolution and God meet

So how is evolution consistent with God’s power? Miller argues for the idea of free will. Not only did God extend free will to humanity, but indeed he extended free will to all of creation. At the core, his argument is that we can only have a meaningful relationship with God if that relationship is truly our choice. I like this analogy, as we can apply it to our own relationships. If my wife had no other choice than to love me, her love really wouldn’t be worth much. It’s the fact that she gives her love freely, though at any moment she could choose to withdraw it, that makes my relationship with her so valuable.

In the same way, Miller argues that God does not manipulate his creation. Neither humans who can choose to reject him, nor his creation which in it’s freedom produces the beauty we see around us. Miller imagines God’s desire to have a relationship with his creation as the ultimate goal, not bipedal primates named Homo sapiens. That is to say what we looked like and when we arrived was not God’s ultimate concern. Now this is undoubtedly a hard pill to swallow for some Christians who believe that God had humanity in mind from the beginning. But I would encourage anyone to read the book, because whether you agree with Miller or not, his view is very thought provoking, and is certainly consistent with the idea of an active God working our lives.

Miller further supports the idea of free will by comparing it with naturalistic determinism. Speaking on the implications of quantum theory, he suggests that nature itself really is indeterminate. As anybody with an undergrad degree in science does, I understand what quantum theory is. It’s that unfathomably mathematical theory nobody understands which describes the really small. If it’s right, then it means that at nature’s core, things do not march along inevitably on a fixed path. It’s not simply that we need to learn more or take better measurements. But rather that we truly can’t know.

For me personally, one of the most comforting aspects of understanding God to work through natural laws (like evolution) is a new found view of suffering. The God who creates our genetic code, base by base, and then throws in horrible genetic diseases is a sadist. The God who interrupts the laws of nature when it suits him but doesn’t lift a finger to relieve the pain from an approaching Tsunami is a tyrant. The God who places free will of the utmost importance on the other hand, is a God that values the authenticity and freedom of all that he’s made. He values it so much, that he places it above the hardships that come along with it. This is Miller’s point, or perhaps more precisely, what I took from it.

While the book’s not likely to solve the split in American life between evolution and religion (a wedge that’s been driven deep for over a century), it does offer an alternative to the wretched and mutually exclusive dichotomy of science or God. For a lot of people it’s both, and it’s a wonderful view of the world indeed.

Update: After publishing this review, I realized I had left something out. You can find the last chapter of Finding Darwin’s God online. It will give you an idea of what the book is like, and is well worth a read. I originally read this material months before reading the book, and didn’t find it to diminish my enjoyment of the book in any way. I think you’ll agree.