In the quest for the truth: Evolution and God
Whether the topic of the conversation is believing, believers or religion, sooner or later someone brings out the question of the relationship with your faith and science. If you believe in Jesus, do you believe in evolution? Why haven't science found your God? These questions need professional answers and Nuotta contacted Tapio Puolimatka who a professor of Education in the University of Jyväskylä and an expert in these issues.
Tapio Puolimatka, what is science?
- Science is systematical and empirical research the function of which is to find out the truth about the universe.
Does science close religion out of the world?
- More and more attention is paid to the fact that scientists are people that look at their research target with a certain preconception. Scientists have, knowingly or not, some conception of the origin of the universe, its fundamental order and basis of unity. While forming his opinion on these fundamental questions, a scientist must take a stand on whether God exists or not.
- A scientist perceives and conceptualizes facts through these basic assumptions. An atheist, an agnostic and a theist look at facts from different perspectives. The superiority of these different approaches can be estimated by examining their logic and power of explanation.
- Because the basic assumptions of the scientist influence from which point of view and through which basic beliefs the scientist looks at reality, are science and religion in a close interaction with each other.
Can we know about God?
- We believe that this table and this chair in front of us exist, because we see and feel them. However, we have no way to prove these sense perception are reliable without assuming that sense perceptions have liability.
- A faith to God can be a similar basic belief that is born through direct experience. The basis of the direct experience can be nature, the Word of God or the experience of life's fullness. In addition to this direct knowledge it is possible to create rational reasons for believing that God exists. One of these rational reasons can be for example that the fine-tuning of the universe is easier to understand through God's existence than through atheism.
The terms naturalism, Darwinism and theism come up often in media and conversations. What do they mean?
- Naturalism is a conception in which it is thought that everything can be explained based on natural factors. Often it naturalism involves faith to science according to which science is the only or the best way to gain information about reality.
- Theism again is believing that there is an omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good God, who has created the universe from nothing.
- Usually Darwinism is meant as the naturalist interpretation of the evolution theory. This means that evolution is taken as an undirected and aimless process. The evolution theory can be also understood through theism. Then evolution would work as a tool for God.
Does Christianity have anything to give to science today?
- Even today science works according to those basic assumptions that have been drawn from the Judeo-Christian heritage. The revolution of the modern experimental science happened in the16th and 17th centuries in a Christian Europe based on the basic beliefs of Christianity. To give an example, the beliefs that the universe is organized and relies on certain laws and that human's intellectual abilities like reason and observation give reliable information from the surrounding environment have originally risen from the Christian creationism.
- Based on naturalism we would have no ground to assume that nature is organized and to be analyzed with reason, because naturalism assumes that everything was born through random interaction of physical particles. In addition, in this view the trust to human's intellectual abilities like reason and observation cannot be validly justified, because according to naturalism human's senses have been developed as a consequence to natural selection. Natural selection, on the other hand, is not interested in the truth of beliefs, but only in behaviour.
- Christianity has historically offered a basis for self-criticism of science. To believe in the Fall of Man in Christianity had a crucially important effect on the development of the modern experimental scientific method in 16th and 17th centuries, as the professor Peter Harrison from the Oxford University has shown in his research.
Why then God is not good enough for the scientific man?
- The science world holds as many believers as the population in general. Although the dominant conception in our culture is that science leads to atheism, it is not however a conception based with intellectual argumentation but an illusion created by the modern mental world
Can evolution explain the Creation or do they exclude one another?
- A Christian believes that God has created the world and that He controls all physicals and biological processes. But a Christian can be open towards the method that God has used to create the world. Christians often disagree on this subject and it would be good to continue pondering this question in an open environment. The question of evolution is so wide that no-one is an expert on all levels of the issue. It is good to remember what God said to the self-assured Job: “ Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.” We need to have a certain amount of humility, when we investigate these things.
What would you like to say to a young Christian who contemplates what kind of approach to take towards evolution?
- The incredibly precise fine tuning of the universe offers a valid reason to believe that God is in control of all the biological and physical processes. But a Christian can be open to different ideas concerning the mechanisms that God uses to guide and control the world. A Christian respects the facts of nature and wants to give them credit because by researching the creation we can get to know the Creator.
- However, it is good to keep in mind that nowadays atheistic views and convictions are often presented in the name of science and with the authority of scientists. One example of this is the statement that the universe has no meaning. This statement is not scientific, but religious. In the statement there is an opinion about whether or not God exists and whether or not God has created the universe for a specific meaning. The statement will not turn into a scientific fact even though a scientist would give it.
- A Christian student can have an open mind to questions of science and faith. We do not have to have answers for everything and we do not have to believe everything that authorities tell us. Don't get stressed, our knowledge is always limited.
Text by Martti Pyykönen
Translation by Eeva-Maija Aaltonen