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Shea M. Randall
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Evolution: a conceptual paradigm
Now that we have spent time discussing the role that a literary text like Genesis plays within our worldview, we can deal directly with the question of biological evolution. I think this is an extremely important topic and one that deserves careful discussion. This is so for several reasons. First, it offers us a rare opportunity to see the life that has existed on our planet from a 'bird's eye view.' That is, we are able to see how life on our planet lives, adapts, and sometimes goes extinct. This is both invaluable and insightful. Secondly, one cannot help but see this larger picture and be moved by it. It is elegant.
Having reflected on this for quite some time, I am more and more convinced that what often hinders us from understanding this concept is that we are woefully ignorant of the 'facts' that it is attempting to explain. Let me clarify. We often presuppose (especially someone from a religious persuasion) that the theory of evolution is an attempt to offer an explanation of life apart from reference to a creator. I sincerely believe that this is not the case. In fact when we are considering a notion like evolution we are not even asking the question of whether or not there is a creator. If there is, or is not a creator, is not what we are trying to address. Rather, we are trying to explain certain data that we find again and again when we investigate living things. From a religious persuasion we may say that we are attempting to address the means by which a creator forms new beings rather than the fact of whether or not he does. The question of how life itself arose is actually a question of something called abiogenesis.
The issue of how to make sense of certain data is precisely what a theory is. Within academic circles we say that a theory is a 'conceptual paradigm.' In other words, within any area of study we are presented with certain brute facts. This is the case in literature, sociology, biblical studies - virtually anything that we are attempting to understand. That data simply is. Perhaps a statement in Dickens, repeated Phrases in Paul's letters, key words in John's gospel. What then happens is that we come along and attempt to interpret that data that is there. We try to make sense of it, try to explain why it is there. We even do this in everyday life: why did a particular person say this or that, are they angry with me? Did I upset them somehow? Putting that data of their anger within the context of their words may help me make sense of it.
With anything in life, some theories are better than others. What makes a theory 'good'? Two things. First, a good theory should make the most sense of the data in a concise and simple way. The more simple the explanation is that best takes account of all the data the better it is. This is basically Ockham's razor. Namely, that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Secondly, a good theory is one that also has predictive power. This simply means that if a theory is correct we should expect to find such and such. If we actually do, then we know we are on to something.
Now does this mean that our conception will be perfect? No, of course not. There will always be a troubling passage in Dicken's here or there or even an anomaly that forces us to revise our conclusions. But as long as the vast amount of data is simply explained and predicted we know that we are on to something; that particular detail, however, may need revising or perfecting.
So to conclude, what then are the data that biologist and natural scientist are confronted with within the natural world? I'll make a short list and then show in my next posting how it is that biological evolution most simply explains these facts. A paradigm that attempts to argue that a creator individually makes each living thing one by one (again, by that means) simply compounds explanations and thus makes it needlessly complicated. In other words, it is way more complicated than it needs to be. So again, what are these facts/data? As follows:
Geographic distribution. All living beings are curiously distributed across the planet. Certain types of animals are indigenous only in certain locations. Marsupials within Australia. Lemurs only within Madagascar. Mammals within continental land masses. Secondly, animals near continents are typically closely related to animals on continental islands but no where else. Thirdly, on oceanic islands we find the curious fact that there is no native mammals, reptiles, amphibians or fresh water fish. Ever. Instead we find flowering trees, and a huge diversity of birds and an occasional smaller reptile like an Iguana or turtle. Why the stranged distribution? Why is there not one mammal on any oceanic island? Fourthly, when we find fossils, typically the current living species in an area is closely related to an animal near the same geographic place - but no where else.
Animal classification. Why are we able to classify animals into groups, subgroups, and smaller subgroups. Why are there 'familes' of animals like reptiles, amphibians, fish, mammals. Canines, cats, etc. And yet the animals within these familes often look very different from each other. So much so that we wouldn't even expect them to be related. How do we explain that a close relative of a dog is a seal, for example? Or that an animal like a dolphin or whale lives in the sea and yet has to hold its breath? That a whale swims in the same way that a dog runs. Weird.
Morphology. Why ado we find the same general layout within so many different species? For example something called homologuous structures falls within this category. The bones in the hand of a human is exactly the same as that of a bat, whale, dog, bird, etc. Why the same number of bones in the hand? Why does a dolphin have an ulna and a radius (typically used to turn your hand) when it has fins and doesn't need them? Why the exact same bones even? Embryology also falls within this category. Why do animals when they are maturing within their parent egg or womb develop such similar traits only to not use them? A tail or gill folds in a human fetus for example.
Rudimentary organs. All living things possess structures that they do not use. For example a Baleen whale has a pelvis (typically used for walking) that is no longer attached to its spine and simply embedded within tissue. It literally serves no purpose in its present anatomy. Whales and horses have teeth while newborn that never push through the gums and eventually fade so much so that in adults they can no longer be found. Boa constrictors have rudiments of a pelvis and hind legs while other snakes do not. Penguins and rheas are one example of birds that cannot fly.
This list can go on and on but I think this is a safer place to start.
Excursus: the war in Afghanistan, international politics, and fundamentalism
Tonight President Barrack Obama announced the United States' intention to increase troop levels by 30,000. At this point the U.S. and other Western nations have been embroiled in an arduous struggle with groups like Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and others. The clarion call for the majority of the western world was the attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11th, 2001. These are difficult and painful realities that all of us in one way or another are forced to presently deal with.
These current political realities, however, betray a cultural war that has been going on for at least five hundred years - perhaps even two millennia. This cultural war is a struggle of ideas and broad disagreement on how truth is discovered. It is a disagreement on what role reason plays in an individual's life and what place should things like religion and revelation play within society. Beginning with Greek rationalism in the sixth century BCE western civilization began to undergo a significant shift in its orientation to the natural world and to the intellect. Prior to this the Greeks conceptualized nature as the expression of various deities and as events in history as expressions of their various and capricious wills. This shifted, though, with the advent of philosophy in both the pre-Socratic and post-Socratic period. Democritus for example argued that all living things were composed of atoms (discreet instances of matter that could no longer be broken down) and that things like people, animals, and other organisms were merely the composite of these particles. Death was simply the dissolution of these particles and birth was their recombining in new forms. Socrates too, in his various dialogues, questioned the logic of divine worship, and of grounding morality in the will of a deity ('Eutrypho' is one example). He argued instead that these things could be discovered through reason; the careful and slow task of asking questions of one's self, and the physical world around us. Our knowledge would always be limited to some degree but we could at least know some things.
The chief antagonist to ancient philosophy was the nascent Christian church. Early Christians argued that God's revelation in Jesus had preeminence over human reason. Reason's role was important, but subservient to what God had made known to us through revelation. If reason posed serious questions to what had been revealed, than it must be misguided. An expression of mankind's desire to not submit to their creator. Anything that agreed with the Christian revelation was a pre-cursor to the Gospel. The early father's of the church like Irenaeus, Origen, Ambrose, Gregory of Nyssa and others argued for something known as 'appropriation.' Since Jesus was God's word, they argued, all that is found by human reason and agrees with the Gospel was actually an expression of God's revelation in pre-Christian cultures. In this sense, people like Socrates were viewed as 'Pre-Christian christians' and could thus be 'appropriated' by the Church. One example of this perspective is Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel in which biblical Hebrew prophets are alternated with Greek Oracles who also foretold the coming of Jesus. This perspective in which revelation has preeminence and reason a subservient role was consolidated in the West when Emperor Justinian ordered Plato's Academy closed in 529 AD and the study of philosophy apart from revelation was outlawed.
This was not to last forever, however. Beginning in the thirteenth century western Europe underwent a Renaissance in which classical Greek and Roman literature was rediscovered. Emphasis slowly began to shift and society again began to view reason differently. People began to re-read the works of Plato, and other philosophic treatises that had survived. The result was the emergence of nascent Science: studies in anatomy, medicine, and more. Emphasis began to be placed on learning the original languages in order to read texts in their original context. An emerging sense of history as 'other' began to appear. This eventually led to the Enlightenment of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Religion increasingly had a more and more marginalized role within western Europe. By the time the nineteenth century was coming to a close the inroads had gone so far that religious institutions began to react. The early twentieth century saw the creation of religious groups that insisted upon the 'fundamentals' of their religion. These groups increasingly saw themselves as in reaction to the dominant culture who had largely undercut religion's importance in every day life.
Now at the beginning of the twenty-first century this same war of ideas continues. The battles of the past century in the West has become the battle of the current century among Islamic communities. Muslims like Abul Ala Muwadudi, a Pakistani journalist and politician in the 1950's feared that Islam itself was under threat and about to disappear. The result was a united attack and mobilization against secular modernism throughout the 60's and 70's. A man by the name of Sayyid Qutb took this even further. He argued that not only the west but also Islamic society itself had become permeated with secularism and had to be purged. It was men like this who inspired Ossama Bin Laden and others to form the Islamic fundamentalist coalition against western nations like the U.S. They feel as though their very religion and way of life are at stake.
In the end only history will tell us how this will end and where it will all lead. What is clear, however, is that the issues we are facing are not simply geo-political or militaristic. They are ideological. What is needed is a broad cultural education. We need to learn our current place in history and we need bright people in our universities to write and educate. Again, no one knows where this will all lead but personally I think there is a 'Brave new world' ahead and this current issue is another expression of fundamentalism's reaction to religion's increased marginalization. The religious traditions that have nurtured us for the past 2500 years cannot remain as they have; they will need to evolve as they always have. Refusal to adapt is simply to court further marginalization. Religion must meet our needs and fears: ones now shaped by stem cell research, cloning, and genetic engineering. Again, only time will tell.
If this topic interests you, read the following to get started out: The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism by Karen Armstrong
What does all of this mean and why is it important?
The conversation that we have been engaging in during the last week is important for several reasons. First, it comes down to honesty. We began this discussion emphasizing that we want to enlarge our vision of life and grow as people. This means that we have to have humility and be willing to question our beliefs. We have to really want to know what is true regardless of our own attachments to specific ideas. This enlarging process can be seen in two ways. We can see it as a loss - something we hold dear is found to no longer be what we thought it was. We can also, however, see it as a gain. With the death of the old is the birth of the new. When something is found to not actually be the case what we have really let go of is a conception of the world that was never true to begin with. In the end, therefore, we have gained a new and accurate perception of the world.
In this instance what would cause one to remain open to a theory like evolution is learning that the text of Genesis is not attempting to give a scientific explanation of how life arose. Our discussion has been very brief and could certainly be elaborated on. We could pose questions to the creation account proper in 1.1-2.4. We could approach the text from a historical perspective, asking where it originated, what life it has had within its history, and more. All of this is important and very eye opening. Our main purpose, however, has been to increase our awareness to the way in which we approach a literary text like the Bible. We read it with a 'pair of glasses' so to speak, and often read our own glasses rather than the actual text.
When we begin to question our glasses, one thing immediately become apparent: the text of Genesis is not attempting to give a scientific explanation for how life arose. Instead it serves as a sociological function for the people of Israel. It also provides a theological perspective on Israel's God. Of course more questions arise once one says this: was Adam a historic person - did he actually live and die in history? If not, how does one explain other passages in the BIble? Could we say that the Bible does actually believe Adam lived but that now we know he didn't? These become a question on our views of inspiration and what kind of book the Bible is attempting to be. The main thing here is simply to show that these are not simple answers. Furthermore, the BIble itself points away from using it in a scientific sense.
What, then, is the 'fall'?
Continuing our discussion regarding the particular glasses we wear when reading a text like the Bible, we can now pose the question: what role does the story of Adam and Even play within the text of Genesis - if it doesn't attempt to portray a 'fall'?
To answer this we can approach it in several ways. We could look at it from a source critical approach - that is, we could ask where this story originally arose. Since this could become an arduous undertaking, we will examine a second approach - namely a literary one. That means that we will see how the story serves within the framework of the narrative within Genesis. This will give us a clue of how the original writer (or editor) understood it.
The story is set within a handful of contexts. The first begins in 1.1-11.32 and is known as the 'Primeval history,' This Primeval history is composed of numerous accounts ranging from the creation account of 1.1-2.4, the creation of Adam and Eve, the flood of Noah, and tower of Babel. All of these accounts have broad similarities with very similar accounts found in the broader cultures of the time. The epic of Gilgamesh is one example. Most scholars believe that these stories existed in an oral context before being finally written down during the Babylonian exile. Its literary purpose within the structure of Genesis is as a pre-history leading up the call of Israel's patriarch Abram/Abraham in 12.1-3. From this moment the narrative dramatically slows and begins to follow the progressive working of God in Israel's history. How he began Israel from the patriarchs, the Exodus, Davidic dynasty, and ultimately the exile to Babylon.
This leads to the next large framework that the account of 3.1-24 has to be understood in light of, and is known as the 'Primary history.' This Primary history (PH) stretches from Genesis 1.1-2 Kings 25.30. Scholars now believe this to be one large edited literary whole. Essentially the PH is Israel's account of where they came from, why they exist - and ultimately why they were led into Babylonian exile in 562 BCE. Our particular passage, therefore, serves as a 'book-end' to this account. It is a narrative theology that explains why Israel was called by God and what role they are too play. Israel was called because 'humanity' ('Adam' means humankind in Hebrew) broke their covenant with God and so were exiled from their own land of promise. What we will find therefore is particular details that resonate with Israel's own experience of disobedience and ultimate exile. It is a foreshadowing of sorts, with the details being written after the events of 562 BCE. Adam and Eve is told in light of what happened to Israel.
One may see it as Israel's attempt to understand what had happened to them - why were they uprooted from the land of promise? Why were they called in the first place? It serves a sociological function for a community trying to define their identity and make sense of their perplexing experience.
Our interpretive lenses: one example
One example of a presupposition that is deeply rooted in several Christian traditions is the notion of the 'fall' of mankind in Genesis 3.1-24. This notion is a complex of several ideas: mankind prior to the fall existed in a state of perfection ('edenic' perfection no less), subject to immortality, and a sinless human nature. Nature also was perfect - meaning that it was precisely how the Creator intended it. Things like death and decay did not yet exist prior to humankind's disobedience. Subsequently, however, these things were lost. Humankind inherited a 'sinful human nature,' became subject to death and decay, and brought the entire created order into a similar state. Nature is no longer how the Creator intended it to be; it is now in need of redemption. This is the theological foundation for the Christian theology of atonement. Jesus' death on the cross and resurrection is the answer to this predicament. Again, the specifics of this concept differ according to one's tradition, and how one defines the specifics of the fall will shape and influence one's theology of redemption. It is fascinating to do a historical study of these ideas and how they change over time. The Christian Church historically has had three broad 'theories of atonement': Christus victor, ransom theory, and now the most current (at least within Protestant circles) is know as 'penal substitutionary atonement.' What often hinders us from seeing the richness of the New Testament writers' own theology of Jesus' death is that we are limit-bound in presupposing the fall was a specific thing.
One significant historic 'interpretation' that has played a large role in shaping our views about the fall of humankind is from a man in the early 5th century. This man is named Augustine of Hippo and he is often called the father of Western theology. While reading Paul's letter to the Roman's in Latin rather than the original Greek, he came to understand the fall as bequeathing to us 'Original sin.' This was based off of a reading of Romans 5.12 that was mistranslated into Latin from the original koine Greek. Augustine on several occassions admitted the fact that he did not know how to read Greek (some passages in his Confessions is actually quite humorous in this regard). This notion became predominate in the Western church and set the tone of discussion in the later Protestant church in the fifteenth century. It is also the great-grandparent of the Evangelical notion of a 'sinful nature' (a phrase used to translate Paul's phrase 'flesh' in the NIV). Prior to this the broader Christian church believed in what has come to be called 'Original guilt.' The Eastern Orthodox churches to this day still preserve this original idea and it in fact was one of the contributing reasons for the Great schism of 1054. It is also why the Orthodox do not consider Augustine a saint but instead refer to him as 'Blessed Augustine.'
Biblical backgrounds: Our interpretive lenses
In my last post introducing the topic of biological evolution, Darwin's 'dangerous idea,' I mentioned that what is often a stumbling stone hindering one from listening to the topic is the particular presuppositions we have regarding the biblical account of creation.
Why do I say it like this? Why not say that it is the accounts of creation themselves that hinder us from hearing what it is that Darwin and the scientific community are attempting to say to us regarding how life has developed on our planet? Simply because the text of the Bible is subject to historical development and historic interpretation. From a Christian perspective one can interpret this as 'progressive revelation.' Texts like Genesis have had a literary life - existing first in an oral or written context, then being placed into a written context combined with other literary works, subsequently edited, read, interpreted, and then re-interpreted. Translation has also played a part. For example, how did a writer who first penned the account in the early sixth century BCE understand its meaning? How did Jews during the intertestamental period? How did early Christians like Paul, Origen, or Irenaeus?
Furthermore, when you and I approach the literary text of Genesis we are coming to it with a whole host of interpretive lenses that we have inherited from our particular religious communities, socio-economic background, family life and so on. Within each of these we have acquired a way of seeing, reading, and hearing these particular stories. A Roman Catholic reading differs slightly from an Eastern Orthodox one and Evangelical communities differ from each other. Each one has been shaped by the times and circumstances in which they have undergone. Regretfully, however, we are typically woefully ignorant of these presuppositions and often times read these notions into the text themselves.
This is regretful since it wrongs us in two ways. First, by prejudicing our perspectives and dispositions against an idea that goes against our perceived belief regarding what these text say. In other words: 'this is not that.' We believe that this new idea does not correspond with what we believe the text to say so we a priori reject it rather than questioning our beliefs. Secondly, this is a travesty since we also do not actually hear what these texts do in fact tell us. The biblical texts are, in my opinion, beautiful in both the profundity of their literary features and in their apparent simplicity in communicating complex ideas. They have survived millennia for a reason. If we want to learn from them and see that beauty we need to be willing to let our guards down, become aware of our interpretive lenses, and be willing to grow. In the end, I believe that we have nothing to loose and everything to gain.
