Saturday, April 2, 2011

How I agree and disagree with Biologos

Francis Collins and Karl Giberson have been carrying on a discussion that has been posted in parts at Biologos. In the Part V Collins has pointed out that Evangelical Christianity has veered off course by making the topic of evolution political and antithetical to Christianity. I agree with him. I see no major theological objections to Christians believing that neo-Darwinism or abiogenesis are true. It could be that God has created the universe so that eventually it would produce life and evolve without divine intervention.

Where I disagree with Collins is that he thinks that there can be no reasonable evidence that God has intervened in the universe to produce life or influence its evolution. For him, such evidence wouldn't be scientific and therefore should be ignored.

But Collins is adopting his own version of scientism that insists that only evidence that gives us scientific conclusions must be used to determine questions regarding God's relationship with natural history. And since science cannot determine anything for certain about the supernatural, then conclusions about God intervening in nature must be excluded.

The problem is, what if God has intervened in nature in order to create life or guide evolution? Then our scientific conclusions will be mistaken. And Collins allows for no way to correct those conclusions.

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