Reasons To Believe is an organization started by Dr. Hugh Ross, a Canadian astronomer, for the purpose of presenting scientific evidence that supports specifically Christian faith. They now have a whole team of scientists and other scholars (at least one philosopher) and quite an arsenal of books, articles and other resources for people who genuinely wonder how science and the Bible fit together.
A relatively recent (maybe 5 years or so?) development is the founding of local chapter groups. Their purpose is to periodically meet and review that type of information, for the benefit of both people who already understand and agree with it, and people who might be curious. RTB has also recently started certifying apologists who complete coursework probably equivalent to one or more college level classes.
There is a chapter in Fresno and Thursday night was their monthly meeting. I had been to a couple of previous ones on previous visits to Fresno. I also had the chance to hear Dr. Ross speak several years ago. Thursday night’s meeting was led by a local PhD type. His presentation was on Theistic Evolution and its potential to be a ‘slippery slope’ to Atheistic Evolution.
While I won’t review the whole event, a couple of things stuck out to me. First, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to properly label a particular viewpoint on origins. That’s probably always been the case, but that became more apparent to me than ever before when the discussion turned to “soft” Theistic Evolution v.s. “hard” Theistic Evolution. I’ll spare all the details save this one: the label tossed about for RTB’s position was something along the lines of Progressive Creation, meaning that creation progressed over time in an ordered fashion (for example, simple to complex) with regular divine intervention along the way.
Setting all of that aside, a couple of thoughts occurred to me. The first relates to Occam’s Razor, the second to the existence of evil and the debate between predestination and free will.
The presenter indicated that Occam’s Razor could be used to shave God off as unnecessary complexity when taking a hard Theistic Evolution position. I think a more accurate label would be Deistic Evolution and the idea is that God ‘designed’ the universe ahead of time, finely tuning it for a precise outcome (human life) but has let it operate entirely naturally since that time.
At first, I thought that was an odd application of Occam’s Razor, though on further reflection it does, indeed, make sense. What I didn’t understand as clearly was what was being presented as the starting position (Deistic Evolution). That position, indeed, is a short step from atheism.
On the other hand, it seems Occam’s Razor might be conveniently applied to origins in a way that leads to Christianity (along with ‘Progressive Creationism’ or some other suitable origin model). The one component that makes that a ‘best’ application is the existence of the Bible. While the jury might be out with respect to what origin model fits Occam’s Razor in the absence of the Bible, it becomes a bit more clear given its presence. A Biblical creation model does simply explain the scientific evidence, but the atheistic evolution model doesn’t have a simple explanation for the existence of the Bible and particularly its origin model. I’m sure much more could be said here, but that’s a good enough start to get the synapses firing.
The second thought related to the paradox of predestination and free will, along with the presence of evil. There was a discussion about that originating with an attendee who seemed to be struggling with it. One of the struggles might relate to misunderstanding the difference between foreknowledge and predestination (or ordination).
Another problem likely comes from something I’ve mentioned before which I think fits here again: an improper understanding of time. Yet again, we see a case where multiple time dimensions would give a workable solution to this paradox. If God created our (half) dimension of time within the one or more additional dimensions he exists in, the issue of foreknowledge becomes moot (obviously God would know the total contents of our entire time line).
As for the issue of ‘tinkering’ (ordination, intervention, etc.), one perspective would be that God’s tinkering with our universe at any point on the time line happens more simply within his ‘space’. From our perspective, things would appear sequential, but from God’s they wouldn’t. This, of course, raises some fascinating questions relating to multiple time lines. Maybe the most important of those questions is, if our time line (and everything associated with it… i.e. our universe) becomes ‘adjusted’ somehow, does/did any other version of it actually exist? Even if it did/does, obviously we would be unaware of it.
This concept has the potential of making our perception of the timing of intervention less relevant. A tweak in the laws of physics or original arrangement of matter (for example) would just occur at a different place in the ‘space’ of time God actively operates in. Whether that happened today or billions of years ago from our perspective would actually have little bearing on whether or not God was actively involved in our universe. Of course, if this is, in fact, the only dimension of time, that would change all that.
As for the part about free will and the existence of evil, the concerned person was not ready to accept the idea that God could have created evil. Indeed, I don’t think that’s the right way to look at it either. I probably didn’t explain these ideas quite right and I’m inclined, at this point, to simply summarize since this could get way too lengthy.
It does appear that God created man with the ability to make genuine choices, including the wrong ones. If that is, in fact the case, we should observe that wrong (evil) is at least a possibility in our universe and that God did, indeed, create it that way. Actual evil would require man (or other created beings with a will) to choose contrary to (again, summarizing) loving God and loving people. Given enough free wills, it’s reasonable to expect actual evil to exist and that’s exactly what we see.
The topic of evil might actually be quite a bit more complex than that, though, and this is really a first draft of these thoughts, so don’t get too excited about it all 😉 Of course, comments are always welcome…
V-