A Bit of a Sermon

Evolution vs. Intelligent Design. As everyone knows, a big topic in Kansas these days. And a discussion on a friend’s blog recently. I thought about adding my comment to the fray, but my take needs more room than a comment should so you get to read it here. You’ve got the two sides, of course, who are at the ends of the spectrum and do most of the arguing. But the thing neither side acknowledges is that there is a spectrum, that most people (the ones who don’t bother fighting about it) tend to be somewhere in the middle on the issue. Which leads to the question, “Why the ‘vs.’?” Does the whole debate have to be framed in either-or terms? Couldn’t evolution be the design that the intelligent God has used? What’s wrong with using both science and faith to understand the world? That’s where I think most people tend to come down on this issue. The evolutionists are happy to say that science is only our imperfect understanding of things and all Intelligent Design claims to require is that we acknowledge that someone is guiding the process, so it seems perfectly reasonable to marry the two.

The problem with this, of course, is that there is more to Intelligent Design than its proponents claim. They aren’t just after acknowledgment of an Intelligent Designer, but a very specific design story based on a literal reading of the bible. A literal reading of the bible as interpreted by contemporary, U.S, Christian fundamentalists. And that’s the thing—someone from North Africa of 1000 years ago could have set out on the same task, to use a literal interpretation of the bible to describe the natural history of the world, but would have come up with a completely different narrative. He or she wouldn’t have had to work dinosaur fossils or the American continents or a solar system centered around the sun or hundreds of other things into the equation because his or her understanding of the world would have been different. There would have been different cultural concerns. The entire question may not have mattered. That’s because we are context-specific creatures and our understanding of ourselves and the world around us is shaped by our experiences.

And that’s the problem with trying to read the bible literally. Not only are we as readers context-based, but so were the writers. The bible is God’s Word (capital W), the Truth (capital T) that has been passed on to us, but it has been filtered through men and women who had to do their best in their limited, context-specific capacities to understand the truth (small t) of it and capture it in their words (small w). God is infinite, a concept that we can describe but can’t really get our minds around. It’s the same with God’s Truth. I like the metaphor of a prism refracting light. The whole, pure light enters the prism and what emerges is a rainbow of the different pieces of that light. That’s what we are capable of getting with our finite minds. We might get the blue and know that it is truth, but it is only a part of the greater Truth of the complete light. Our human-ness limits us, makes us incapable of seeing/understanding the light before it hits the prism, so all we can know are the bits that come out on the other side. There is nothing wrong with what we understand—it is a part of God’s Word and contains some of the Truth—but it is limited and incomplete. That is the best we can ever hope to do. All of the writers of the bible were limited in the same way. They had/have something real and true to tell us, but it is but a part of the whole. They did their best to point toward the whole, but it is filtered through their context—their understanding of the world, the audience they were writing for, their immediate purposes, the limitations of language, etc. Romans was written by Paul. It was a letter to people he knew in which he tried to address their particular needs at their particular time and place. We can get something useful from reading this letter, but we can get at the bigger message behind it better if we understand who Paul was and what he was talking about (and what he wasn’t) in their specific circumstances. It’s the same with every book and passage in the bible. That’s why it can seem like the bible contradicts itself, because each piece should only be understood in light of the overarching message of the whole. What does this mean in light of the two creation stories—and there are two, not just the one—in Genesis? It’s not the exact details of the myth(s) that are essential, but the point that God is responsible for creation and no one else. If God has accomplished that through evolution, fine, but the thing to remember is that God is behind it.

So what does all that mean in terms of forcing the idea of Intelligent Design into the schools? I think it’s silly and the only true purpose for doing so can be evangelism. Let the scientists teach your children their best understanding of the world using science and you can explain to your children how God is responsible for it. If you understand things as I do, then there’s no problem. But even if you do insist upon a literal understanding of the bible, you can still teach that to your children at home. They may be bothered by the dissonance of the two not agreeing, but you show very little faith in your children, your influence on them, and the Truth of God if you think they will pick the scientific explanation over yours. But they are still learning what you want them to, even if it’s only happening at home and at church instead of at school. No, the only reason to force it into the schools is to force it on other people’s children, and that offends me. So I will have fun mocking you with the Flying Spaghetti Monster since I doubt you are inclined to listen to my true beliefs.