Theistic evolution that respects theism and evolution
(a critique offered in the spirit of friendship)
David Lahti
I find the question of whether theistic evolution is viable to be a simpler but more momentous question
than it appears. The reason for this takes three or four steps to explain. For starters, in asking whether
God is involved in the evolutionary process (which I take to be the thrust of the question), two other
questions are presupposed: does evolution explain the history of life including humans, and does God
exist. I am an evolutionary biologist and have become as convinced that evolution explains the history
of life, including humans, as I am that the earth revolves around the sun. As for the second presupposed
question, a deistic God or an impersonal force that we call “God” are not attractive to me for
philosophical, theological, and what might be called spiritual reasons. I am left with a theistic God, who
would, perhaps by definition, be involved in the history of life including that of humans. To me,
therefore, “Is theistic evolution viable?” reduces to “Does God exist?”. If the answer to the latter is yes,
then theistic evolution in a broad sense is necessarily viable—viable being an understatement. I can
conceive of no alternative besides spiritual alienation or obscurantist irrationality.
Having said this, I do not think that expositions of theistic evolution are generally very inspiring or
encouraging of a lasting rapprochement of science and religion. Although not fundamentally flawed in
their central stance, in my opinion they are frequently in need of substantial overhaul in three main
areas: the role of natural selection, the origin of life, and the nature of humanity. My main concern is
that theistic evolutionists commonly see one or more of these topics as opportunities to dig themselves
in, to establish a coarsely material connection between God and nature, when they have no good
scientific or theological reason to do so. Following is a position statement on just the first of these
issues, to illustrate the spirit that I suggest we take towards all three, in order to do the greatest justice
to the state of evolutionary biology, to the nature of life, and to a coherent concept of divine action. In
fact it is the spirit of the approach rather than the particulars of the position that I want most to
encourage. My main hope is for theists to realize that positions like this can be consistent with a robust
religion or spirituality, and a theistic concept of divine action in particular. I think it is vital that theists,
and especially theistic evolutionists, not view their theism as a reason to argue against such a position.
For virtually all widespread and functional traits, natural selection explains why they are widespread and
functional
We have discovered no other mechanism by which an aspect of an organism can become increasingly
advantageous to that organism and spread to become universal in a species, than natural selection.
Every other evolutionary mechanism produces changes in gene frequencies and sometimes trait
frequencies, but cannot except in rare and trivial cases produce trait functionality and fixity within a
species. Developmental mechanisms, likewise, including those directly induced by the environment, do
not yield trait functionality or fixity either, unless they represent the past action of natural selection.
Moreover, every widespread functional trait of nonhuman animals either has already been well
explained or appears remarkably well suited to explanations from natural selection, such that the status
of the field of trait evolution today is one of filling in gaps and finding trends in the activity of natural
selection, rather than of defending the explanatory power of that process.
Here is where I might be expected to tackle the contention that neutral evolution explains a lot of
evolutionary history (which is true, though nonetheless it explains virtually nothing about functional and
widespread traits within a species). Instead, I’ll skip to the more relevant suggestion that to take refuge
in a claim that something has come about by a mechanism other than natural selection will only be
important to theistic evolutionists if they have a very weak position on God’s activity in nature. The only
difference between natural selection and selectively neutral mechanisms is the role of the adaptive or
reproductive benefit a trait confers on an organism; the processes are equally naturalistic. To look for
God in selectively neutral processes while denigrating natural selection is akin to drawing lots or dunking
a suspected witch into the water; these behaviors give God a semblance of credit while grossly
presuming and restricting the nature and scope of divine action. A common result is a god that is mainly
in charge of certain kinds of natural processes (especially ones that do not seem immoral, or whose
explanations might currently elude us), whereas other natural processes are automatic and need no
divine explanation. The modern theistic evolutionist defending such an encapsulated god has allies only
among creationists. On the other hand, if one is open-minded as to the action of natural selection and
the productive interaction of adaptation and constraint in the evolution of all organismal traits, one will
be a much better scientist and a better theist as well. It is unscientific and theologically dangerous for us
to have a peculiar religious yearning for selective neutrality, chaos, naturalistic inexplicability and the
unknown. Instead, for the sake of our science, we should be free to seek answers and mechanisms
wherever they may be found. And, for the sake of our theology, we should recognize the possibility for
theistic relevance and divine activity in natural selection as much as in genetic drift or mutation or any
other mechanism, realizing that there is no distinction among these processes that indicates even the
merest shade of a greater or lesser role for God.
Prospectus
One assumption underlying the foregoing position is that any entity or process that can be framed in a
naturalistic way has a naturalistic explanation. In other words, the perspective that I defend is
committed to the intelligibility of nature and looks to science to understand the origin, history,
development, and operation of the universe and of life and living things. I think the best hope of theistic
evolutionists is to be so committed not only with respect to mechanisms of evolution such as natural
selection, but also with respect to the origin of life and to the origin and inherited psychology of
humans. Of course, there can also be theological or religious ways of framing entities or processes; and
theistic evolutionists, like any theists, should look to theology or religion to provide those sorts of
explanations. The theistic evolutionist can also look for connections between these two levels of
explanation that do justice to both. Moreover, a theistic evolutionist can accept miracles
(naturalistically inexplicable events that are temporary violations of the natural order) like those
described in the Bible. On the other hand, I believe that we have no theological, philosophical, or
scientific reason to believe that the history of life up to the advent of human religious sensibilities
involves miracles in this sense. Miracles in the history of life before the advent of humans would
indicate two disconnected sorts of divine creation. The first sort is the consistent and continuous
formation and maintenance of a natural order; and the second sort indicates an insufficiency in that
created order that necessitates exceptional divine action of a fundamentally different kind, a kind that
essentially involves the suspension of the first sort of divine action. Such a schizotheology of creation is
theologically weak; and, as it turns out, it undermines science because it posits inexplicable exceptions
to the rules we discover pertaining to the natural world. Even if we didn’t mind the view of God it
entails, we’d never know how many of such exceptions there are or where we should suspend science
to invoke them. I suggest that we instead formulate a theistic evolutionary position that respects the
full capacity and promise of science, while preserving coherent divine action throughout the history of
the universe and of life.