Comparing and contrasting Christian belief to others

For the last two meetings of the theology reading group we discussed I believe. Help my unbelief!: Christian beliefs for a religiously pluralistic and secular world by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen

It is a 400+ page summary of the author's five-volume systematic theology series called Constructive Christian Theology for the Church in the Pluralistic World.

The book is an ambitious and admirable project. The author not only discusses all the main topics in systematic theology but also attempts to bring each topic into dialogue with science (representing the secular world) and the major religions: Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

I am in two minds as to how much the project has succeeded. I am glad Karkkainen tried. I learnt a lot about other religions. The compare and contrast approach was done in a respectful and honest way. I think there are two problematic extremes I have noticed in comparisons of religions. One is to force similarities that actually aren't there and to ignore or minimise real differences. The opposite extreme is to deny any similarities and demonise the religion of the "other". The author avoids both extremes.

I don't know enough about other religions to know if the author's descriptions were reasonable and accurate. I did learn a lot and found them helpful. It is interesting how in Judaism there is little emphasis on heaven and eternal life. How should that affect how Christians read the Old Testament? The discussion highlighted for me how certain Christian beliefs are distinctive, such as salvation by grace and the affirmation of the goodness of God's creation. I found it ironic that Buddhism and Hinduism are dominant in communal cultures but are highly individualistic in terms of their views of "salvation" and religious life.

I found Karkkainen's engagement with science somewhat disappointing. References on scientific topics were often popular websites such as space.com. Sometimes details were garbled, such as his description of quantum entanglement (page 90). He only mentioned a few authors on this topic, and some of the references were quite old. More recent authors such as Alister McGrath, Tom McLeish, Francis Collins, Denis Alexander, Peter Harrison, Alvin Plantinga, and Rodney Holder were not mentioned.

On theology, Karkkainen models "generous orthodoxy" in the sense of affirming central orthodox Christian beliefs while graciously acknowledging differences in how those beliefs are to be interpreted and lived out. He references authors from a range of traditions, convictions, and perspectives. Although he is Lutheran, he is comfortable criticising Martin Luther!

I looked through the index and counted page references to different theologians: Jurgen Moltmann (25), Augustine (23), Aquinas (15), Barth (14), Luther (14), and Pannenberg (7). I found this interesting, but I'm not sure what to conclude from it.

A critical review of John Lennox's God's Undertaker

Recently I was asked to review John Lennox's book, God's Undertaker: Has Science buried God?
I chose not to because there is already a helpful detailed review by Denis Alexander, former director of the Faraday Institute, published in Science and Christian Belief. He is much better qualified than I to discuss biology. I reproduce the review below.

I agree with the criticisms. I would not recommend the book, particularly because there are much better books available. Some I recommend at the bottom.

 I wish I could give an equally warm recommendation for God’s Undertaker by John Lennox, but this is unfortunately more problematic. This is very much a book in two halves. In the first 75 pages, the author gives a generally good overview of the limitations of science and the fact that science itself is unable to address the really big questions of life, such as why something exists rather than nothing, and why science itself is possible. Lennox points out that science itself was nurtured within a Christian world-view and there is nothing intrinsically ‘naturalistic’ about science, suggesting that the term ‘methodological naturalism’ is unhelpful as a way of describing the scientific enterprise, for all scientific descriptions for the theist are, by definition, descriptions of what God has done and continues to do. The author’s critique of reductionism, presentation of the inherent intelligibility of the universe and discussion of the anthropic principle are well presented, amply illustrated with useful quotes, and contribute to a strong first half of the book. 

It is once the author moves from the physical to the biological sciences in the second half (58% to be precise) of the book that things start to go seriously downhill. Lennox begins to build up a picture of ‘atheistic evolution’ as a purely ‘naturalistic process’ and it soon becomes apparent that it is Darwinism which is the main target. The term ‘Intelligent Design’ (ID) is introduced without definition, so it is only as the chapters progress that it becomes clear that the author is using the language of ID in the same way as its US proponents, such as Dembski and Behe. As with these writers, Lennox exaggerates the alignment of the biological theory of evolution with naturalistic philosophy (two very different things), in order to highlight Darwinism as a target for religious attack. The author’s own advice given earlier in the book, to see the whole created order as reflecting God’s design, is somehow lost in this second section, where the possibility that God might choose to bring about biological diversity through the process of evolution, as maintained by those holding to both mainstream science and theology, is oddly ignored. 

Many of the traditional creationist and ID red herrings litter this second section. ‘It can be highly dangerous to think outside the evolutionary box’ (97). Really? I can think of no better guarantee for someone’s future career in the biological sciences than to publish a solid peer- reviewed paper that challenges a cur- rently held theory: it is every scientist’s dream scenario. But to publicise one’s doubts about a well-established theory in any branch of science without the solid backing of good papers in reputable journals is of course dangerous for one’s career, and rightly so, for criticism without evidence or justification is always a risky path to pursue in academia. 

Unfortunately Chapter 7, ‘The nature and scope of evolution’, presents a smorgasbord of misrepresentations and straightforward errors, too long to list here. The peppered moth story has been up-dated by Michael Majerus (2007) and its evolution remains a good exemplar of natural selection in action. The idea of natural selection is not a ‘tautology’, nor is it in the same class as ‘Freudian psychology and astrology’ (102); it is a theory with real explanatory power. Natural selection is not about the ‘strong’ and the ‘weak’ (103), but about reproductive fitness, which is not the same. The terms ‘microevolution’ and ‘macroevolution’ are not being ‘increasingly used’ (106); if anything the reverse is the case as the advent of genomics is leading to their decline with the realisation that some species are virtually indistinguishable morphologically but are genetically very distinct (like the worms C. elegans and C. briggsae, which have 800 unique protein- encoding genes each out of their complement of 20,000, and last shared a common ancestor about 100m years ago). Yet the author cites in support of his points on micro/macroevolution rather ancient literature, one (long discredited) citation even dating back to 1942. (107). The fossil data are misrepresented and the ‘model sequences’ of speciation found in the fossil record are far more impressive than the author seems aware: in particular, the evolution of the tetrapods from fish, the evolution of mammals, the evolution of the whale (a mammal that returned to the sea from land via Pakicetus, Ambulocetus and the fossil whale Basilosaurus which retains a complete mammalian hind limb), the evolution of elephants and horses, the evolution of turtles and many other examples besides. Nor in this volume do we hear of speciation in plants by polyploidy; the chromosomal inversions that have led to speciation in insects such as mosquitoes; ring speciation events (as in the Herring Gull and Californian salamanders); nor anything of the remarkable cichlid speciation of the African great lakes. The author even questions common descent, when the inheritance of ‘fossil’ genetic sequences in our genomes in the form of pseudogenes, retroviral insertions and transposons, together demonstrate our own common ancestry with the apes beyond any reasonable doubt. 

The last few chapters of God’s Undertaker are devoted to a discussion of the origin of life and of information. The author is only too aware of the dangers of the ‘god-of-the-gaps’ type of argument, but believes the origin of information to be a ‘gap in principle’ in contrast to a ‘gap in knowledge’. It is not clear why this should be the case. The mathematical arguments presented here in an attempt to demonstrate that the origin of biochemical information is ‘impossible in principle’ are deeply flawed because they are based, like so many of Dembski’s arguments, on the premise that proteins or long stretches of DNA self-assemble by a purely chance process. But no one believes that, so the arguments represent tilting at windmills, the assumption being that the stages leading to living matter occurred incrementally; it is pre- cisely how those incremental changes were preserved and reproduced that rep- resents one of the fascinating research challenges of the origin of life field. Indeed, there have been some remark- able advances in the field over the past decade, though there is no doubt at all there is a huge current gap in our scien- tific knowledge at this juncture. Does that matter theologically? It would seem odd if some theological conclusion hinged upon our current scientific ignorance about something. The author suggests that ‘design’ is the answer, but the answer seems vacuous in explaining any- thing or in generating a research pro- gramme. Perhaps this century, perhaps the next, the knowledge gap will slowly close, and surely Christians should see that ‘closing’ as part of our glad worship to the God who is the author of the whole created order, not as a threat to a poorly founded argument for God’s existence. 

The antipathy to Darwinism that is still displayed by some Christians, even by some academics like the present author, whose book appears to present some form of episodic creationism, is truly puzzling. For as Francisco Ayala points out, there is a great irony in the observation that supporters of ID and creationism agree with writers such as Richard Dawkins that evolution equates with atheistic materialism. It would surely be much more fruitful for people of faith to baptise the evolutionary account of origins into the biblical doctrine of creation, which is, after all, what Christians have been doing since 1859.

A critical review of Lennox's more recent book, Seven Days that Divide the World is here.

So what books would I recommend?
I list some here, in order of increasing level of sophistication.

User's Guide to Science and Belief by Michael Poole

Unnatural enemies: an introduction to science and Christianity by Kirsten Birkett

The Language of God by Francis Collins

Creation or Evolution: do we have to choose? by Denis Alexander

The Science of God by Alister McGrath

Historical origins of the science-religion "conflict thesis"

Last night I attended a really nice public lecture by Professor Peter Harrison  "Has science made religion obsolete?"  This was part of Research Week at the University of Queensland where I work.

I will just mention a few highlights. 

First, Peter briefly reviewed the wide range of conflicting views about religion held by different scientists including Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Francis Collins, Simon Conway Morris, and Stephen Jay Gould. This shows science has not made religion obsolete.

Key historical interactions between science and Christianity were discussed, including Galileo and Darwin. Contrary to popular perceptions, the conflict between Galileo and the Roman Catholic church was really just about science. Darwin was well received in many Christian circles.

So where did the idea of conflict come from? It was largely promoted in two books from the late 19th century. The first book was by Andrew Dickson White, the first President of Cornell University. Wikipedia states:

History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896), whose primary contention was the conflict thesis. Initially less popular than John William Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874), White's book became an extremely influential text on the relationship between religion and science. In this book, White argued that "the great majority of the early fathers of the Church, and especially Lactantius, had sought to crush it beneath the utterances attributed to Isaiah, David, and St. Paul"^[33] White's conflict thesis has, however, been discredited by contemporary historians of science.^[34][35][36] The warfare depiction nevertheless remains a popular view among the general public.^[37]

What led to this approach to history, with its emphasis on "progress", which meant religion being supplanted by "science"?
The birth of social sciences.

Auguste Comte was the founder of sociology. He believed there was a continual progression and advancement or social evolution from the theological to the metaphysical to the scientific.
James George Frazer was the founder of anthropology.
He believed in a progression from magic to religion to science.
In this context White and Draper's books fit neatly into this new world view. The problem is they are don't accurately represent the actual historical interaction between science and Christianity. Rather they distort history to fit the progressive framework required by social scientists.

Does science have all the answers?

Sam Harris, the atheist author, has an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Science is in the Details, arguing that Francis Collins is not a suitable choice to head the National Institute for Health in the U.S. because of Collins' Christian beliefs. I recommend reading the full article and wikipedia page on Harris. But, the essence of his argument seems to be that Collins has written “science offers no answers to the most pressing questions of human existence” and Harris concludes:

Must we really entrust the future of biomedical research in the United States to a man who sincerely believes that a scientific understanding of human nature is impossible?

Science has many answers but it does not have all the answers. Having someone head NIH who acknowledges this seems like a good thing to me. Particularly, when that person has already successfully led the largest research project that NIH ever embarked upon.

A new job for Francis Collins

The New York Times reports President Obama has nominated Francis Collins to be the next director of the National Institutes for Health. Collins was formerly the director of the Human Genome Project and recently founded the Biologos Foundation.

The NIH distributes $30-billion a year in federal money, making it the single largest source of funding for scientific research in the USA.

A test of faith to be launched at The Royal Society

The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at Cambridge will launch a new video Test of Faith (the trailer can be viewed here) at The Royal Society London next monday July 13th. The launch will feature a talk by one of the contributors to the documentary Professor Sir John Polkinghorne FRS. Other contributors include Francis Collins, Alister McGrath, and Sir John Houghton.

Scientists who are Christians; Christians who are scientists

In 1991, R.J. Berry, a Professor of Genetics at University College London edited a nice book, Real scientists, real faith. Each chapter was written by a British scientist and contained their personal Christian testimony and some discussion of how the they see the relationship between their scientific and Christ lives. Of the 16 authors several were FRS and three were knighted for service to science.

I was pleased to see in the latest newsletter of Christians in Science that a new edition has just been published. Real Scientists, Real Faith: 17 Leading Scientists Reveal the Harmony Between Their Science and Their Faith

A classic book

I am giving brief book reviews for the bookstall at the church I am a member of. I wish to encourage people to read (and give away) various classic Christian books since I think they are often better than the latest new release bookstores are promoting. This morning I reviewed Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis. It is based on radio lectures Lewis gave during World War II. The content is pretty timeless. I first read it about 25 years ago and recently began re-reading it with my teenage daughter.

The first chapter, contains a very elegant argument (observation) which he summarises as:

First, …human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it.
Second, … they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.

This is the argument that Francis Collins found so compelling, and led to him to re-assess his atheism. I also think this more persuasive and significant than arguments in the realm of natural theology. This is because attempted justifications for the Gospel from natural theology are disconnected from the nature of humanity and our need of redemption.

Leading scientist launches new faith and science initiative

Francis Collins was director of the Human Genome Project and author of a wonderful book, The Language of God: A Scientist presents evidence for belief. I heartily recommend it. The mere existence of the book demolishes two myths: you can't be a Christian and a leading scientist, and people are only Christians because they were brought up that way. Collins was an atheist as an adult but became a Christian following reading C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. In 2006, Time magazine had a cover story, featuring a debate between Collins and Richard Dawkins.

Collins has just launched a new web-based project, the BioLogos Foundation, with the mission:
Faith and science both lead us to truth about God and creation. The web site is worth checking out. It includes a blog, Science and the Sacred. There is an interview with Collins about this project on the Christianity Today website.