Evolution

I am taking a big, big risk here. 

I am whispering a secret. I might not believe in evolution.

Immediately, someone will think or suggest that I am a Creationist. And they will lob that word in a perjorative sense like sticks-and-stones.

Which is an amazing thing, in itself -- that the term "Creation" can be thrown as a calumny.

At this point, I tend toward an old earth view, simply because I don't know why the hexamaeron requires any specific age. My personal sense of geology (not biological evolution) suggests aeons must have passed. This is not a scientific observation: it is more an aesthetic one.

That said, my aesthetic observation, too, does not admit any sort of trans-species development. My rather emotional feeling of beauty coheres quite nicely with God's Creation of life after certain "kinds."

I wonder now why I am hesitant at all to whisper my doubts about evolution. Is there a certain materialistic orthodox that I am betraying? Am I a modernist heretic? a post-modern heterodox?

When did the acceptance of evolution become so important to the modern Christian?

Why do even traditional Christians immediately hold their cultured noses when it is furtively suggested that evolution is more doctrine than real science?

Why has a historical reading of Genesis become so annoying, if not offensive? Is it even possible to belong to a respectable theological or academic society and still think of the Creation accounts as historical, as well as etiological?

The Fathers (Chrysostom, Basil, Ephraim, Ambrose et al.) seemed to read Genesis as being historically true: so must I apologize for them and amend them, so that their "more important" message pertaining to spirituality, mysticism and liturgics be more amenable to more sophisticated ears? Must I censor the offense of these primitive Creationists to make them more palatable to even Orthodox tastes?

I really do sympathize with Peter Bouteneff, who wrote three years ago* these hopeful words: "... the sacramental and liturgical life of the church does not depend on where one stands on this issue." That is, "this issue" refers to the historicity of Genesis.

But is this separation of sacrament and liturgy from historicity even possible? It seems to me that Bouteneff should really hope that the literal events of Eden, Adam and his Fall have nothing to do with the literal events of the Cross and the Resurrection. Again, the Fathers seemed to think otherwise: that the latter is predicated upon the former.

I fear that Bouteneff is making a gamble at long odds indeed. He is joined in this gamble by the majority of Christian academics. But it is a gamble made at the expense of simple faith (and good science, I might add), for the sake of quanitity and progress. Globalization does not permit any challenge to evolutionary dogma. Neither does materialism and consumerism, and the high finance that sucks off it. Industrialism has always profited from Darwin: colonialism and imperialism (i.e., the "romance" of industrialism) have always found his dogma quite inspirational.

I make no friends here, I know. On one hand, I take issue with all the religious partisans who defend evolution to the extreme, not hestitating to pull out the illegal rhetorical weapons of ad hominem and bathos. I am more than willing to suggest that evolution-preachers like Dawkins are simply non-scientific in the crux of their arguement. I tire of arguments against Intelligent Design, made in august ecclesial boardroom meetings, that are substantiated mainly by cheap and addled frustrations: on one occasion, an eminent ID scientist was dismissed with a ghastly "He's just a liar." I asked, "In what way is MB a 'liar'?" "Well, he just is."

I suppose that "liar," in this instance, was operationally defined as "someone who does not agree with me."

I am lectured repeatedly on the desire of evolutionists for creationists to make nice in their arguments. But it seems that the more modern, cultured friends of Darwin take carte blanche in their own huddled statements. I know. I've been in those huddles, and have heard.

No more huddles for me. And, I'm afraid, I won't be joining any other huddles.

I think that believing in the historicty of Genesis makes me a better environmentalist. I think that Eden, in a way, tends to appear around saints -- concomitant with their deification. 

I think, too, that being a Creationist makes it impossible for me to be a libertarian. As a quite "fundamentalist" Creationist, I don't think I can ever be a capitalist.

No -- never fear, good reader -- I cannot be a Marxist or communist either. But a capitalist, whose financial doctrine derives from Calvin, must militate against Orthodox creationism.

And frankly, capitalism has a lot more to gain from evolutionism.

My worries expel me from all huddles.

If you're weary of decadence and depravity, accept the historicity of Adam and Eve and their Fall. On the other hand, if you're tired of commercialism and consumerism and its blatant philistinism, then become a Creationist, and forge a true spiritual aesthetic sensibility.

If you like the lead of the "Green Patriarch" (i.e., His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew) as I do, and despair over the environmental rapine-for-profit that seems to be the psychosis of Wall Street, then you had better reject evolutionism as the scientific flop that it is, and take the historic Adam and the real Eden as your inspiration. The Sierra Club is better off with a literalized Genesis: Darwin is its natural enemy.

On the other hand, if you're against gay marriage and cannot stomach the identification of the LGBT agenda with the legitimate post-slavery civil rights struggle, then you'd better take literally (and historically) the words, "Let Us make man in Our own image."

But at the same time, you'll have to read "Fill the earth and subdue it" differently from James Watt, who took the Biblical word "dominion" as license to be a Viking -- i.e., raping and pillaging God's green earth.

You'll probably stand alone. No one is going to make many friends, who wonders out loud, as I am doing now:

"Is it possible that evolutionism has succeeded so well only because we have become lesser, unscientific and unspiritual men?"

Well now, that's enough risk for one day. My daughter's getting married in about a month; and, after all, the Nuptial Sacrament -- as do all sacraments -- is predicated upon a literal Creation, and look toward the Apocalypse of Transfiguration at the end.

With my daughters (and future-sons-in-law and future grandchildren) very much in mind, it seems I have a personal stake indeed.

 

 

*Peter C. Bouteneff, Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Academic, 2008). I like even better ("of course," on might snarkily sniff): Fr. Seraphim Rose, Genesis, Creation, and Early Man (Platina CA: St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, second edition 2011).

Comments

[mj]

Excellent post!

[FrGregACCA]

IMHO, both creation and (and some form of) evolution are true (and one need not deny an historical Adam and Eve in so holding). Biological life clearly exists on a continuum as evidenced, for example, that all forms of biological life, including humanity, share many genes. For more, see Francis Collins' "Language of God."

I also think that, in general, we must be very careful in relating biological and social phenomena.

[FrGregACCA]

Oh, and Axios! Many years!

[Fr. Jonathan Tobias]

The presence of shared genetic material does not indicate an evolutionary continuum. Rather, it can only show a similiar material source and environment. I share many, if not most, of atomic elements with the rock next door, but one would be hard pressed to infer from this coincidence a historic relationship -- without being mean-spirited, of course.

I am not sure what you mean about relating biological and social phenomena. Please advise.

"Only in Trinity are love and work, belief and thought, prayer and life, the same."

[Theron Mathis]

Amen! I have struggled with this at times, but also come back to creationism in some form. My default position is that if I am going to err, I would rather err toward too literal a reading of Genesis than the opposite. It creates less theological by-products.

I love it that some of the Fathers where stumped by not whether the days were literal 24 hr days, but why did God take 6 days, when He could have done so in less.

[anon]

It is difficult to understand how evolution is bad science, given that it is virtually the canonical example of how to apply scientific method and model. That's a different claim than holding that the model is "true" in the sense that many (most?) people seem to think.

In any case, speciation is an observable fact of life. In the case of genetic structure, you can literally see it in action - you can even statistically measure things like drift in the genetic code. You can't simply assert that away any more than, say, the fact of gravity.

[mj]

A belief in speciation doesn't negate the authors belief, unless one decides to assume the speciation is not Divinely driven and chooses to ignore the lack of missing links evidence. And "drifts" in the genetic code always seem to "drift" back. i.e. finch beaks longer in certain environmental situations, shorter in others, but nevertheless, no new information, no actual drift.

[Fr. Jonathan]

Well, "anon" (you capitalize like e. e. cummings), a few things:

First, Darwinistic evolution was never proposed as a scientifically observed phenomena. Darwin may have wished this, but it was then and has been only an inference drawn from a constricted population (a biased N.). It is hardly an exercise of scientific method at all: and your claim that it is a "canonical example" goes a long way to explain the materialistic philosophy of naturalism from which evolutionism really proceeds (as opposed to a strict objective observation of controlled conditions, and amenability to repeatable phenomena).

Second, if by "speciation" you mean "adaptation within species," the traditional and biblical case against evolutionism never denies this. But if you mean one species transforming into another, then this is the doctrinal statement of evolutionism that is patently religious (i.e., anti-Christian) and is liable to the charge of "poor science."

The fact of gravity as one of the four forces of physics is a scientifically observable phenomena that can be tested by objective measurement in a whole variety of measures (including the two twin satellites now orbiting the moon). It is remarkable that you attempt to equate observation of gravity with the hopeless wish to confirm evolutionism scientifically.

Finally, in every genetic mutation (which is the phenomena that evolutionists rather hoped would explain the presence of the variety of species), there is a loss of genetic information. That is a proven, re-observable fact that has caused serious and evolutionary (and real) scientists to despair. Of course, preachers like Dawkins pay no mind, but that is hardly a surprise.

You know, "anon", your penchant for anonymous web surfing is consistent with the usual behavioral pattern of evolutionists. On the public side, there is derision for small-minded creationists: on the other, in scientific conferences, there is substantial worry.

[James the Thickheaded]

I tire of all those things you do. I'm ornery enough to pose that maybe Creationism is the antidote, not because I think Genesis gives one wit about science, but because it's not science and doesn't care about it. I wonder that we don't make both sides into mistaken understandings because we've lost the phroenema and can't recover it in whole, and "in part" just won't do either.

Both the limits of Genesis and Science are found in their persons of their priesthoods and respective laymen. More, it is a cultural disaster that the two are separated rather than joined at the hip, but were there dialog between the two rather than disrespect, we might at least have greater utility from each. I've always looked at the partnership in Genesis between Man and God in the naming of creation - giving it's final form - as something important, and a Holy enterprise that describes each day, each moment, and what we each engage and succeed or fail in. Do we see our Triune God in His creation to an extent that we can discern His purpose and love, or only our own?

I'm far from certain that the intent of Genesis is documentation of history (other than of the spirit) and find it more a sense that through its account, we learn our own path of discovery of our world here and now - and how it is done right and how it is done wrong, and the costs. It is a living document, not frozen. Not suggesting it can be whatever "we" want to make it either.

Thanks for this! Better than coffee! And yet I will add this: I think whatever one makes of "gay" stuff, it is at our hazard no matter what we say. Less is more. Clearly hazards are part as much a part of the spiritual life the are a part of the game of golf. From golf, we know avoiding hazards is the way many "win", but so, too, is knowing how to get out of them. The latter is more commonly part of an experienced golfer's game (and I'm not a golfer). For all the rip, time and again, golfers seem to enjoy courses with more hardships rather than less.... these are the courses they come back to over and over for the challenge. Something in this I think and worth noting, and if our position on "gay" is too easy- no matter what "it" is, it's probably we've missed something.

[Fr. Jonathan]

Not sure, James, what you mean by your first sentence.

The limits of Genesis exceed the the persons of the priesthood, thank God, and offensively intrude upon the self-styled hegemony of naturalism (or materialism, or scientism) -- of which evolutionism functions as an ontological doctrine.

Please note that I differentiate "science" from "evolutionism." The former is a quite ascetical discipline that deliberately limits observation to controlled observable phenomena. The later is made up of inferences that are not objective, nor are they predicated upon material observations -- as they are impelled by some rather metaphysical prejudices (i.e., "I wish there to be no personal God," or more to my point, "I really, really hope that Genesis didn't really happen").

Isn't it odd that a Creationist scientist and an evolutionary scientist can observe natural phenomena, and similarly describe processes on scales that range from the sub-atomic to macro-logical ecosystems. The evolutionary scientist does not need Darwin to make an observation: he may suggest an evolutionary inference, but that will have more to do with a doctrinaire presupposition than with the scientific method.

I think too, James, that the hazards presented by modernity (like the gay issue) are made more difficult by faithfulness to Tradition. It is a far, far easier thing to "accommodate" the demands of contemporaneity.

It is far more difficult to stand against the tide. Which, God willing, I will continue to do here: against modernist attacks against traditional doctrine and morals ... and also against the civil religion adulterous affair with Wall Street, the Hamptons and the Right Wing. My position on "gay" is not easy at all.

[Eric John]

Dear Fr. Jonathan:

I have found that there is often a problem of terms - what is meant by "evolution" can gloss over everything from natural selection (something we can observe in laboratory experiments) to cosmological origins of the universe, and everything in between. Even if we confine ourselves to biological evolution, there is still a great deal of leap between natural selection and microevolution (even that not a precise term) and issues such as speciation or cladogenesis, for which there have been no fully satisfying theoretical mechanisms demonstrated that I know of since I was in school and read deeply on these subjects.

Thus, whether allopatric or parapatric or sympatric models, etc., etc., despite some interesting theories on how isolation of distinct genetic populations sufficient enough to create a speciation event may occur, none of this seems to me to be sufficient, even with long timelines, to show a mechanism for the amount of alleged speciation that we see extant. Whether we can hope to see the cladogenesis of a yeast or drosophilid, this still does not inexorably or sufficiently lead us to a clear succession of speciation events - so a great deal of inference is left.

Mostly I see debates about evolution get muddled in terms and thus one will be talking about selection (like the usefulness of an understanding of Quantitative Genetics to develop a new sheep breed or conserve an endangered species gene pool through careful breeding programs - these are demonstrable experiments) and another will be talking about how pre-biotic soup might have come together to form long chains of self-replicating nucleic acids, even beyond to the origins of the universe itself. These are VERY different discussions.

Genesis is not written in scientific terms. But whether forming man from the dust - creation, the earth - means man was an "apelike" creature that was given a new capacity when the spirit of Life was breathed into his nostrils - a single man and woman, a founder event, or whether man was created ex nihilo on the spot by the waters of Cuiviénen, matters not to me so much as that man was, by the breath of the Spirit, formed wholly into that image and likeness of God.

And, following that, that God became man of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit and was crucified and rose again.

These are articles of faith. If I am proved wrong at death, I shall be proved to be no more than a fool, at most, for there is nothing inherently evil in following Christ's commands, and many have lived and died in the world just fine without knowing that the earth is, in fact, round, or that the clouds of dust in the night sky is, in fact, our local galaxy.

[Fr. Jonathan]

I understand that Genesis was not written in scientific terms. I am afraid, however, that in its time it was.

The Fathers certainly understood Genesis as historical. They were also reticent about describing the dynamics of creation. Nevertheless, the Genesis account did (and continues to) provide constraints over scientific descriptions of Creation -- these constraints, among other things, prevent any sort of speculation that life rose out of inanimate material, or that the "named" species developed into each other.

The Fathers were not at all concerned that their statements might have intruded upon scientific boundaries. One of the rather horrid distortions that have messed up the tawdry "religion vs science" debate is the very fact of these untrue boundaries.

I fully agree that there is terminological confusion. But I think that the onus of clarification lies with those who must protect evolutionism from the intimidations of Creation doctrine. The burden of proof lies with those who need to clarify the argument for the evolutionistic demand that Creation rose up materialistically out of mere matter. This is what is expected and protected, rather fundamentalistically, by the present modernist combine. Terminological confusion is really not the sin of Creationists, but rather of their calumnizers.

Why do we accept the myth that matter self-organizes into life, then into increasingly complex forms of life?

Or better, why do we accept the cultural indiction that only this materialistic myth may be given public notice, under the rubric of "science," while any other sort of "myth" (even one so unassuming as ID) must not be mentioned?

I sympathize with your antepenultimate paragraph: you know I do, especially with references to the eastern sea under the stars ("Ea!"). I suggest to you, Eric, that any story really does rest on the truthfulness of its beginning myth. Inasmuch as there is no Middle-Earth without the Silmarillion, there is neither Parousia nor Church without the historicity of Genesis.

[melxiopp]

Why do we accept the myth that matter self-organizes into life, then into increasingly complex forms of life?

Cosmologists posit that the early universe had extremely low entropy and that time's arrow, so to speak, points in the direction of higher and higher entropy. However, that doesn't mean that things simply fall apart, it means that there is an overall breakdown in complexity and order - even if this happens via the development of highly ordered, complex things. For example, a star is highly ordered (low entropy) but the next result of that order is a lower of overall order via its nuclear processes, i.e., there's higher entropy and lower order after the life cycle of the star than there was before.

I thought that an interesting argument regarding the micro development of highly ordered things in a world tending toward greater entropy.

I think there's some pertinence to evolutionary and cosmological discussions.

[Fr. Jonathan]

I should mention here, melxiopp, that contrary to many (perhaps most) in the Creationist department, I am not of the "young earth" persuasion. I touched the walls of the outer rim of the Grand Canyon and the inner gorge on the South Kaibab and the Bright Angel trails, and "young earth" is itself a scientistic theory that makes no sense to my aesthetics.

It also doesn't make sense in astronomy either, when you have red shifts that indicate the passage of aeons travelled by a single speck of light.

The light is old, ancient and splintered. This is where I am willing to disagree with some of the Fathers. We live in an old, sick, but beautiful cosmos. True environmentalists ought to warm to Genesis for hope.

Nevertheless, your point about the reversal of entropy is well-taken. One wonders how this devolution from the Big Bang could have ever come about. Physicists like Niels Bohr wonder, but axegrinders on the biology side look the other way from cosmology and quantum mechanics. Those disciplines know a lot more, I think, about entropy than they let on.

[Eric John]

Dear Fr. Jonathan:

Just a few points/clarifications on my earlier post and then I'll leave off -

1. I agree with you absolutely that the onus is on those who must protect evolutionism from or over and against a Christian understanding of the Origin of the universe and of life and man to be more explicit in what is encompassed in the use of the word "evolution." But I think in any discussions one might have with such persons, or even with one another, it's fair to pin down what sort of "evolution" is being discussed. I hope it was understood that, despite the claims of "anon" above that "speciation is an observable fact of life," I do not think it observable, nor to do I think the models very satisfying to explain how it could have occurred.

2. I do not deny the truthfulness of the beginning myth - my comments about that were only meant to suggest that I am not sure I understand the (as you say) "dynamics of creation" when it comes to man, and therefore am reticent to worry too deeply about what it physically meant for God to "[form] man of the dust of the ground, and [breath] into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being" late in time, after he had "brought forth" all other living things and cast the innumerable stars in the heavens.

Being unlearned about such things, and such things being a mystery, I think it dangerous to try to delve into the mechanism or meaning of that phrase, except as it may have spiritual weight such that, but for God's grace, I would not be a body and soul, a being, made in the image and likeness. I would be dust.

All I meant was that I would not personally be scandalized to learn that at one moment there was a creature - a created living thing, with no free will as we understand man to possess, and no nous - and then God takes this creature, which came from the dust, and "breathes life" into him and Ea! Adam is create, a true human.

To borrow an analogy that I think you will understand - in the Silmarillion, Aule creates the dwarves - but they have no existence apart from Aule until Eru creates them living beings. Thus, whether they are creatures of a sort doesn't really mean they are created in the way men and elves are (perhaps a poor analogy).

3. [well, this is getting too long] I will mention that I think, however, there is great importance in the nature of man and woman, the origin of woman in the story, and something regarding wholeness that again is a great mystery, but seems essential to an understanding of our whole salvation history - the first Eve and the Second, and a restoration of wholeness of man in Christ.

With that - I'll shut up and not make more of fool of myself than I have. If anything I've said is shocking or heretical, please mark it down to (a) whispering secrets; and (b) probably not having read closely enough my Patron's writings on the Exact Exposition.

Thank you Father for an interesting article!

[Fr. Jonathan]

Thanks Eric, and never say (as my grandmother used to warn me) "shut up," especially to yourself. And it is impossible for you especially to make a fool of yourself.

My apologies for responding to a point you did not make. I share your reticence to speculate about the making of man. However, the Fathers are pretty consistent in understanding the Creation of man to be unified, and would probably not permit the possibility of a pre-nous existence of a human-type creature.

Nothing anyone has said here (so far) is shocking or even heretical, for we must be able to talk about these things, and practice thinking about and responding to the tumultuous and corrosive denunciatory rhetoric practiced in so many other intellectual quarters.

I like to image this little site something like Beorn's homestead, situated in Dante's green valley of the pre-occupied and late-penitents (of whom I am sure one at best). We're all friends -- indeed, compared with our monstrous enemy, every human being is a friend whether he knows it or not. The very worst of our human opposition is like the other side of a second-grade snowball fight compared to the least of the horrors on the bodiless other side.

Ask the Damascene to intercede for me, as I'm off to preceptorize my students in homiletics today.

[FrGregACCA]

Fr. Jonathan, regarding common genes (not just common genetic material), I would refer you to Dr. Francis Collins' "Language of God".

Regarding biology vs. sociology, I simply mean that "natural selection" may indeed be a concept whereby biological things evolve, but it is not good sociological principle: biological darwinism should not lead to social darwinism.

[David]

This isn't about evolution vs creation. It never has been. It is about what is history. What does it mean to record facts, what does it mean to assert something was true in a way we understand?

Radical empiricism is an insufficient tool. And the scientific method's inductive system cannot be given the empirical weight of deduction that it so desires. It is, always will be, speculative. Repeatability is a farce. We can only speculate that "sufficiently similar circumstances result in sufficiently similar outcomes." But there is no truth in saying more than that. Science is useful, it is not true in any meaningful sense of the word.

A first year philosophy student can rip this stuff to shreds without even sounding silly (as some philosophers will). I'm amazed at how the post-modern scientists have never bothered to apply post-modernism to science itself. It just gets a pass. How very "faithful" of them!

I always refer to the same thing in these contexts. St Barbara. We have a monastery nearby named for her. The icon was painted at the direction of a local doctor who while growing up in Greece was healed of a childhood illness at the appearance of St Barbara in a dream. That is, he told the nun what St Barbara looked like.

Now you can say, you don't believe the doctor, or the nun, or the Church, or any other thing... because "some people" say there is little evidence for St Barbara to have actually existed.

Maybe Adam was a person, maybe he was a metaphor, maybe he was both. But we have those among us, and there have always been such, that attest to the truth of it. When we speculate against them, what exactly are we saying?

I came to Orthodoxy with the understanding that my Protestant past was fundamentally about a disbelief in the religious experience of 2000 years of Christians. All of "them" were fools, deluded, confused, ignorant, superstitious, etc. A curious thing happened to me when I considered for even a moment that they might be telling the truth. Even the possibility that they were, became a moral requirement to form a meaningful relationship with these people, this Church of theirs.

This was the real surrender of the myth of autonomy. Not to the fathers, though of course they were wise; nor to the Apostles, though they were called; nor to my local bishop, though he is rightly burdened; nor to my father-confessor, though he is my guide. To the Church. To that living, breathing, loving, sustaining, bleeding, wonderful, testifying river of life watering the fields of humanity with living water.

You go and tell Mother Victoria that there was no such person as St Barbara and see how long you last. See if you can remain, in communion, in community, in union with each other.

All this evolution vs creation is a fools speculation. But Mother Victoria and those nuns are real and my relationship to them is...and so is St Barbara.

[Fr. Jonathan]

Thank you David for this point about history, and there the crux of the issue lies.

But let us be clear about who is drawing the lines, and distorting the issue into the frequently degenerate conflict that it has become. Time was when the Fathers, the clergy and the faithful maintained only simple, meek acceptance about the veracity of the stories told by the Church and articulated by Scripture and Tradition.

That time no longer exists. Now we languish in an age when every story and every proclamation is subjected to a skepticism that is predicated upon a materialistic philosophical bias. I have nothing against science per se: I have everything against a nihilistic metaphysic that camouflages itself as science.

In my protestant seminary days, it was vogue to claim, with scientific certainty, that King David never existed, and that most -- if not all -- of the OT stories of the Kingdom were lies fabricated by Jewish revisionist historians. In recent weeks and years, archaeology has made these once-cocksure skeptics at best a silly ass.

The Bible and Tradition should be liberated, in our culture and our minds, to tell stories and speak history with liberty. The "fools' speculation" you so rightly complain of is mostly the fault of evolutionists who are not scientific at all in their protestations against religion.

They had better watch. I am sure that one day, St. Barbara will meet them, and the embarrassment will be more poignant than any fashionable angst or ennui.

Thanks, David.

[James the Thickheaded]

Okay. Now referencing the Evolution material in Fr. Seraphim's "Life and Works" I think I get it. Originally, have to say I'm half wit enough to buy in on an almost counter-cultural whim. Heck with'em! But on Fr. Seraphim's account... now I get it. Decent, and defensible. Not saying you didn't explain it that way either... only that initial reactions are "What!?" and less sensitive than we should be perhaps. My thanks and apologies as well. I'm such a twit, huh? Should take up and "Twitter" to make it official? Sure.