NATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS CURRICULUM SUPPORT
Religious, Moral and
Philosophical Studies
Christianity: Belief and Science
[INTERMEDIATE 2;
HIGHER]
Tommy Hughes
The Scottish Qualifications Authority regularly reviews
the arrangements for National Qualifications. Users of
all NQ support materials, whether published by LT
Scotland or others, are reminded that it is their
responsibility to check that the support materials
correspond to the requirements of the current
arrangements.
Acknowledgement
Learning and Teaching Scotland gratefully acknowledge this contribution to the National
Qualifications support programme for RMPS.
© Learning and Teaching Scotland 2006
This resource may be reproduced in whole or in part for educational purposes by educational
establishments in Scotland provided that no profit accrues at any stage.
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Contents
Introduction
Note for teachers
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Area 1: Sources of human understanding
Christian revelation
Scientific enquiry
Christianity, science and the origins of human life
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Area 2: What is the origin of the universe?
Christianity and the origins of the universe: a creator God
Science and the origins of the universe: the Big Bang Theory
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Area 3: Is there compatibility between Christian belief and scientific theory? 26
Area 4: Christianity and science: the origins of human life
Christian approaches to the origins of human life
Science and the theory of evolution
Christian responses to the theory of evolution
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INTRODUCTION
Introduction
All Christians believe that God created our world and all that is in it. Human
beings are the highest expression of God’s creation because they are made in
God’s image and likeness. The book of Genesis bears witness t o this fact in
its opening chapters as it describes the six days of creation, the creation of
Adam and Eve by God, and their subsequent fall from grace.
This view was widely accepted until the rise of modern science, which began
to question this accepted world-view. Was the world created in six days as
the Bible says? Did God create human beings from the dust of the earth?
Scientific investigation seemed to suggest that this was not the case and, as
science developed its investigative methods, more and mo re doubt was cast
on the Bible’s reliability to give answers to the origins of the world and
human beings. As a result of this, many people came to believe that it was
impossible to reconcile science and its methods with belief in a creator God.
But this was not the only problem. Some Biblical scholars began to apply the
methods of scientific investigation to their study of the Bible with the result
that they began to discover more about the nature of the texts that they had
been studying. Texts that had previously been understood as giving a literal
account of an incident or event were explained in a different way as a result
of this study. While this was welcome news to some Christians who found the
challenge of science undermining their faith in a creato r God, other
Christians felt that this was an attack on the very foundations of their belief
in God and how the world they inhabited had come into being.
The purpose of these study notes is to allow you to make sense of the debate
surrounding all of these issues and enable you to begin to articulate an
intelligent response having weighed up the evidence in a systematic manner.
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INTRODUCTION
Note for teachers
The PowerPoint presentations that accompany these notes are provided so
that teachers can present students with two key areas of understanding.
The first PowerPoint covers the rise of cosmology. It allows teachers to
explain to students how the view of the cosmos accepted by Christians came
about. It traces its origins from the early Greek philosophers through
Aristotle and St Augustine to St Thomas Aquinas.
The second PowerPoint will allow teachers to present students with an
overview of how the accepted Christian view of the cosmos came to be
challenged through scientific research. It traces developments from
Copernicus and Galileo to Isaac Newton.
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Area 1: Sources of human understanding
By the end of this section you should be able to:
 describe the nature and importance of revelation in the Christian Tradition
 describe the methods of scientific enquiry
 describe answers to specific questions about human origins which arise
from Christian revelation and scientific enquiry.
Christian revelation
To understand the significance of the concept of revelation for Christians, it
is important to know what revelation actually is. Revelation comes from the
Latin word revelare, which means ‘to remove the veil’. In the first instance
revelation has been understood to mean that there are certain facts or
information that can be communicated about God and expressed in sentences.
This is the propositional understanding of revelation, in which individuals
give their assent to certain ‘truths’ about who God is and what his will is.
Revelation and cosmology
Contemporary theologians tend to view revelation in a more ‘perso nal’
manner. God does not so much reveal facts about himself, but actually
discloses who he is in himself. Revelation is about God making a gift of his
own being to us: his self-revelation. This is more in tune with the actual
meaning of the word. In this sense, revelation has a cosmological dimension,
God’s self-revelation is actually tied up with the mystery of creation.
Creation is not just something that happened once upon a time and is then
static from that moment on, but is an ongoing process in which God is
communicating his own life to the world.
When considering the developments in modern science this seems to make
sense for Christians. Our universe is the product of a process, which began
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millions of years ago and has slowly evolved to its pres ent state. Over a
period of some 20 million years, matter has struggled to become alive, and
life to become conscious. This raises a very fundamental question for many
people. Does life in the universe have a purpose or is it aimlessly drifting
onwards to nothingness? In response to this, many Christians believe that the
only answer to this is that life must have a meaning and purpose, and that this
is ultimately guided by a caring designer who reveals himself through this
whole process. In this sense, Christians would say that they discern in the
evolution of our universe a design or a call to the world to go beyond what it
is now. The book of Genesis bears witness to this in its opening sentences
when it tells us that God called the world into being. For t hese Christians
then, creation actually communicates a promise, a promise which is in reality
God’s revelation of himself, guaranteeing hope of fulfilment. This hope for a
future fulfilment has been passed down from generation to generation in the
history of Israel and reaches a climax in the life, death and resurrection of
Jesus of Nazareth. From this perspective, revelation is the full unfolding of
the universe as St Paul exclaims in his letter to the Christians in Rome:
All of creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his children. For
we know that up to the present time all of creation groans with pain, like the
pain of childbirth.
(Romans 8:19, 22)
Revelation and history
In the light of all that has been said above, it is important to understand that
Christians believe that revelation also has a historical context. In other words
revelation takes place at a given time, in a given place, to a given people. So,
as well as believing in a universal revelation, Christians believe that God h as
revealed himself in the story of the people of Israel. What this means is that
in the lives of significant individuals and events in the history of Israel –
Abraham, Moses, the delivery from slavery in Egypt, king David, the
Prophets and others – God was revealing himself in a particular way to save
humankind from sinfulness. For Christians, this reaches its climax in the life
death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth in whom they have the
forgiveness of their sins and restored to their rightful relati onship with God.
In the first instance these events were handed on by word of mouth so that
their importance could be preserved for future generations. However, they
were consigned to writing at various times and places, and were eventually
gathered together into what we now know as the Bible. Christians believe the
Bible is the word of God but they can mean different things when they say
this.
Some Christians believe that the Bible is literally God’s word. These
Christians believe that what is written in the Bible has to be taken literally as
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an exact record of what happened. So, for example, in relation to the story of
Jonah being swallowed by a great sea monster, they would accept that this
was exactly what happened. These Christians are sometimes c alled
fundamentalist or literalist.
Other Christians understand the Bible to be the word of God in a different
way. They would say that the Bible contains the message that God wants to
communicate to them for their salvation. This approach avoids the tem ptation
to make the Bible answer problems that the Biblical authors could never have
thought of. Why do these Christians take this view? They are influenced by
what is called ‘Biblical criticism’. This is an unfortunate term because in the
English language the word ‘criticism’ is seen as something negative, but this
is not what is meant. The word ‘criticism’ has its roots in Greek and actually
means ‘to judge’ in the sense of evaluate. What this means, then, is that
scholars take a particular book of the Bible and embark on a careful analysis
of it, and this can take various forms. One form approaches the Bible as
literature and looks at the way in which the author has composed the text, the
techniques they have used, how they are using their characters if t hey are
telling a story. When speaking of Biblical criticism most people refer to what
is known as historical criticism. This involves seeking knowledge about the
author’s background, the problems he was facing, the people he was writing
for and their particular situation at that time. This also involves a judgement
about the type of writing the author is dealing with: is it history, poetry, law?
So this approach to the Bible tries to get to the heart of what the author was
really trying to say to those for whom he was writing. This does not mean
that God is not involved in the process of inspiring the Bible, but what it does
recognise is the importance of the context in which the limited human
knowledge of the author was at work.
It is hardly surprising therefore that some Christians have adopted a literalist
or fundamentalist approach to the Bible. With the advent of Biblical
criticism, particularly historical criticism, some Christians perceived a
mounting threat to their faith. They sensed in these new a pproaches to the
Bible an attempt to obscure God’s word and the divine inspiration of the
Bible. In response to this, around 1910, two wealthy Southern Californians
sponsored a series of pamphlets designed to defend the fundamentals of the
Christian religion, for example the miracles of Jesus, the resurrection, the
divinity of Jesus and an anti-Darwinian view of creation. The aim was to
show that Christian doctrine could be proved directly from the Bible, and that
maintaining the literal meaning of the text alone could do this.
No matter what particular position Christians take on the understanding and
interpretation of the Bible, they agree on one thing: the Bible gives them
guidance for their lives and understanding of the world in which they live.
They are able to evaluate trends in society, scientific developments, etc., by
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reflecting on what the Bible has to say. Obviously, there are some
developments that the Biblical authors could not have envisaged, such as in vitro fertilisation, scientific theories on the development of the universe, or
the development of atomic energy. Christians can have problems trying to
reconcile their faith with these developments, and this is where some
Christians would look to what is called Tradition to guide them. This is the
case for Catholic Christians, who understand that the word of God is
embodied in Scripture and Tradition. Tradition is not habits, customs or
practices, but is rather the belief that, before the Bible came into existence,
the Apostles had already received from Jesus what was essential for Christian
faith. They, in turn, were able to hand it on to others so that the Church had
authority to teach on matters that were not committed to writing in the Bible.
The New Testament itself attests to this when it states that not all the things
that Jesus said and did are recorded. So, on certain questions that are not
explicitly treated in the Bible, Catholic Christians can look to the Church to
guide them and teach them on the correct answer to these questions.
Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
What does the Latin word revelare mean?
What is the ‘propositional’ understanding of revelation?
In what way do contemporary theologians understand God’s self revelation to be tied up with the mystery of creation?
How would Christians respond to the question of whether or not the
universe and life have a purpose?
What does it mean for Christians to say that revelation has a historical
context?
How is this linked to the history of Israel?
Explain in detail how Christians understand the Bible to b e the word of
God.
What is the significance of ‘Biblical criticism’ for some Christians in
understanding the Bible?
Why do some Christians reject this approach to the Bible?
What approach to the Bible would Christians have in common?
What is the significance of ‘Tradition’ for Catholic Christians?
Extended-answer question
1.
To what extent do Christians agree that revelation is an important
source of human understanding?
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Scientific enquiry
The word ‘science’ comes from the Latin word scientia, which means
knowledge. Science is about gaining knowledge about ourselves and the
world we live in. This means that there are obviously different types of
knowledge: the study of how the human body works is called biology or
physiology; the study of how various sounds are put into compositions is
called music; the study of the use of colours, shapes and composition is
called art; the study of numbers and formulae is called mathematics; and the
study of the existence of God is called theology. These are all forms of
knowledge (and there are many others also) and so they are sciences in their
own right. However, today we are more inclined to view biology, chemistry,
physics and maths as science because we believe that science is about
observation, analysis and experimentation. Why is this?
Believe it or not, the first scientists were actually religious people! They were
usually philosophers and theologians who, marvelling at the wonders of the
world they lived in, sought explanations for how the work of the creator God
actually functioned. As time passed, however, this common purpose and
vision became fragmented so that by the sixteenth century there was a
separation of religion and science. Up until this time, our understanding of
the world was informed by observation and mathematical calculations based
on the fact that the earth was the centre of the universe. Science basically
fitted in with the Christian view of the universe as expounded through the
Bible and by theologians, using the physics and philosophy of Plato an d
Aristotle. The reality of the universe was explained in religious terms with a
specifically geocentric (earth-centred) view of the universe being taught as
supported in the book of Genesis. God made the world and everything that
moved therein was caused to do so by him.
Strangely enough, the first person to challenge this geocentric view of the
universe was a Catholic priest named Nicolaus Copernicus! He was employed
by the Church to produce a new calendar and, as a good astronomer, he set
about gathering evidence from his observation of the stars to be able to do
this. He noticed that there was no change in the position of the stars when
they were viewed from two different places on earth and so he calculated that
the stars must be further away from the earth than the sun. He published his
findings in his work De Revolutionibus Orbium in which he claimed that the
sun was the centre of the universe and that the earth went round the sun, as
did the other planets, in perfect circular orbits, once per year. T his was a
highly significant discovery because it challenged the geocentric view of the
universe held by the Church (informed by the philosophy of Aristotle) with a
heliocentric view of the universe based on mathematical calculations and
observations. This suggested that the view held by the Church was wrong.
This opened the way for others to develop the approach of Copernicus,
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especially in the thinking of a man called Galilei Galileo, which resulted in
conflict between Church and science.
The key to understanding Galileo’s ideas is based on the importance he gave
to reason and observation in reaching his conclusions. Galileo came to the
conclusion that the world was not the centre of the universe and reasserted
the Copernican view that we inhabit a heliocentric universe. He believed that
what occurred in the universe was based on mathematical laws and he came
to these conclusions by making his observations via a telescope! Rather than
support the view that the heavenly bodies were perfect, on the basis of his
observations of sunspots, the moons of Jupiter and the fact that Venus had
phases, he maintained that they changed. His main work was the Dialogue
Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632), which led to the general
acceptance of Copernicus’ theories but brought him into conflict with the
Catholic Church. Galileo was not anti-Christian, but his theories were
considered to challenge what had been revealed by God in the Bible, and,
because the Christian world-view of the time was a synthesis of theology and
the philosophy of Aristotle, Galileo seemed to be challenging the whole
system on which the Church’s world-view was based. He was inevitably put
on trial as a heretic and was found guilty, forced to recant, and his works
were banned.
Galileo believed that in discovering more about the universe we actually
discover more about God, and that science and the Bible were complementary
to each other. However, by showing that we could gain knowledge about the
world by observation and mathematical calculat ions, his theories paved the
way for understanding the universe without reference to God. Scientists no
longer needed to appeal to theology, the Church or the Bible as final arbiters
on the way the world worked because they could determine this for
themselves. This marked a massive shift in how humanity eventually came to
understand its place in the world. If science can provide the answers to the
great questions concerning the origins of the universe, then religion only has
any use in supplying the answer to questions that science hasn’t managed to
answer yet, but probably will do in the future. This gave rise to the view of
religion as belief in a ‘God of the gaps’. God was the answer to the gaps in
human knowledge.
The inevitable development from Galileo’s thought was the advent of modern
science. This was based on the belief that the world was indeed orderly and
intelligible, that knowledge could be acquired through measuring, testing
observing, and that the authority of religion in this sphere of enquir y no
longer held sway. The prime movers in this direction were probably Francis
Bacon and Isaac Newton, who believed that knowledge started with
observation of the world and, on the basis of this, the human mind could work
out the laws of nature – this is known as empiricism.
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This empirical approach led to specific approaches to gaining knowledge.
These are known as deduction and induction.
Deduction is really all about knowing the rules. Take a game of chess. If you
don’t know how to play chess then its is difficult just to pick up a piece and
play a game. If you know the rules of the game, however, and you know how
each piece moves, then you can deduce what moves are likely to be made by
someone playing the game. Deduction is fine, as long as you know w hat the
rules of the game are and (this is very important) understand the assumptions
that a given deduction is based on. Let’s go back to Galileo to illustrate the
point we want to make here. If you work on the assumption that the planets
are perfect and that they travel around the earth in a circle because that is the
perfect shape, then you will make certain deductions about the planets based
on this assumption. This is fine, until Galileo turns up and suggests that the
planets do not actually travel around the earth in circles. He challenges the
assumption based on his own observations and shows that the previous
deductions were inaccurate!
Science uses the inductive method of enquiry by gathering as much evidence
as possible, ensuring its relevance, and drawing conclusions from it in the
form of what are called hypotheses. What is a hypothesis? It’s quite simple:
hypothesis comes from the Greek word hypotithenai which means to propose,
suppose, or literally: put under. This means that a hypothesis is an
assumption that is put under an argument to support it, or a suggested
explanation for a group of facts or phenomena, accepted either as a basis for
further testing or as likely to be true. As a result of a given hypothesis,
scientists would logically expect other results to follow from an experiment.
If this proves to be the case then the hypothesis would be taken as verified, or
it would be modified according to the results of the experiment, if this was
necessary. On the basis of this, a scientist would then argue for a theory
which will predict what will happen if a series of events are put in place. This
is how scientists work out scientific laws. This does not mean laws in the
sense of those composed and imposed by a government, which seek to limit
actions that would be detrimental to our country. Rather it means the
description of how things behave given certain circumstances.
Now, while this seems to provide a cast-iron guarantee of certainty, this is by
no means the case. What induction provides i s a high degree of probability
that, given x and y, z will naturally follow. But this is not necessarily the case
because it is entirely possible that an additional piece of information will
nullify the hypothesis.
All of this led to a philosophical understanding of science, which has been
influential on the exercise of scientific enquiry and investigation to this day.
This particular school of philosophy is called logical positivism. This view
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was advanced by a group of philosophers who came together a round 1922 and
were known as the Vienna Circle. Scientists came to their conclusions based
on observations, testing, measuring over a sustained period of time. In
philosophy, their methodology is called empiricism because it is based on
what is learned from experience. Logical positivism was actually logical
empiricism because it held that the only knowledge worthy of the name was
based on what was empirically verifiable. In relation to the origins of the
world, logical positivism would reject any notion of a creator God because
God is not something that is empirically verifiable – we cannot prove God’s
existence by observation, measurement or testing. Therefore, not only does
God not exist, but the concept of God is entirely meaningless since it is not
verifiable! This is a view that many, though not all, scientists take today, as
well as many ordinary people who believe that science has provided all the
answers to questions concerning the origins of the world and human life. The
problem with this view, however, is that it falls prey to its own premise of
verification (testability). It cannot be verified that a statement is only
meaningful if it can be verified! But more of this later on.
What must be noted here is that, in relation to scientific enquiry as a source
of knowledge, the importance of testing, observing, measuring and verifying
is of the utmost importance and seems to enter into a conflict with what is
claimed by religious language. It seems to be the case then that it is a matter
of choosing a religious explanation of the world and risking being accused of
living in the dark ages, or choosing a scientific approach to explaining the
world and being accused of rejecting belief in God. Is this the case? Well, we
shall see as we progress through the remainder of this unit.
Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
What is the origin of the word ‘science’?
What professions did the first scientists work in?
How did they explain the existence of the universe?
Who was the first person to challenge the accepted geocentric view of
the universe?
What led him to this conclusion?
What name is given to this view of the universe?
What is the key to understanding Galileo’s views of the universe?
What were the consequences of Galileo’s conclusions?
What did Galileo’s views pave the way for?
What do you understand the term ‘God of the gaps’ to mean?
What is empiricism and how does it relate to scientific enquiry?
Explain the deductive method of enquiry and what its weakness is.
Explain the inductive method of enquiry and what its weakness is.
What is logical positivism?
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15.
16.
Why would logical positivism reject the idea of a creator God?
What dilemma does this approach to science seem to throw up?
Extended-answer questions
1.
2.
3.
To what extent do the discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo mark and
end of the accepted religious view of the universe?
‘The inductive method of enquiry provides a cast -iron guarantee that
science provides exact answers to questions.’
To what extent would you agree with this statement?
Discuss the significance of the impact of logical positivism on the
contemporary approach to science and understanding the origins of the
universe.
Christianity, science and the origins of human life
For many people in Britain today, Christianity no longer plays an influential
part in their lives, and many of the questions they ask about the meaning of
life in this world are answered by science. Nevertheless, there are still a
significant number of people for whom Christianity is the foundation of their
lives and for whom Christianity provides the answers to the deepest questions
about the meaning of this world and life beyond death.
Significantly, there are many Christians who feel that scientific enquiry is
compatible with their Christian faith and poses no challenges for them. For
other Christians, however, science is seen as a threat to what they believe,
because it seems to question what the Bible says.
In relation to the origins of human life, the first group of Christians would
accept that God made human beings in his own image and likenes s, just as the
Bible says. They would also accept that, based on the most recent scientific
enquiry, the creation of human beings probably did not happen exactly as the
Bible describes it. In adopting this approach, they approach the story of
creation in the book of Genesis as symbolic rather than literal. They accept
the Biblical truth that God is the creator of human life, but that He creates it
according to the scheme of evolution so that in time his plan for human life
unfolds through this dynamic.
Other Christians (sometimes called ‘Creationists’, ‘Literalists’ or
‘Fundamentalists’) find this approach unacceptable and see evolution as a
theory which undermines what God has revealed through the Bible. This
approach is based upon the belief that the Bibl e alone reveals God’s will and
God’s law, and so anything of human invention (contemporary science) that
would deny what has been revealed by God cannot be accepted as providing
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accurate knowledge of how humans came into existence. For these Christians,
what Genesis describes in relation to the origins of the world and human life
is exactly what happened, because they want to maintain the fact of human
life being directly created by God.
For other people today, religion has nothing useful to say about th e origins of
human life. As far as they are concerned, the Bible is nothing other than an
archaic, outmoded way of looking at the world and human life and has been
superseded by science, which gives concrete answers to the questions
concerning the origins of human life.
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WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE?
Area 2: What is the origin of the universe?
By the end of this section you should be able to:
 explain interpretations of specific answers to the question of the origin of
the universe which suggest a conflict between Christian beli ef and
scientific theory
 explain interpretations of these answers which suggest that Christian belief
and scientific theory are compatible
 explain the reasons for differences between these interpretations.
In the last section we briefly touched upon some answers that Christians
would give to questions on the origins of human life and why others would
reject those approaches in favour of a scientific explanation of human origins.
What we will do in this section is progress to a deeper analysis and
evaluation of these approaches to determine whether or not some
compatibility can be established between a Christian understanding of the
origins of the universe and human life and that of scientific enquiry.
Christianity and the origins of the universe: a creat or God
(You will need to have read Genesis 1 before reading this section.)
You will remember from the first section of this publication how Christians
approach the Bible in differing ways. Some Christians, while accepting that
the Bible is the word of God, will nevertheless explore the Bible using the
methods of contemporary Biblical criticism to understand the precise nature
of the writing they are dealing with. Others accept the Bible as the word of
God exactly as it is without question and believe that the methods of Biblical
criticism are an unworthy way to approach what God has revealed. You must
keep this in mind when reading what follows.
Why do Christians take such differing approaches to the story of creation? It
all stems from the text of Genesis itself! Look closely at the text: looking at
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WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE?
day four, we see that at this point God puts lights in the sky to divide day
from night, which are the sun, the moon and the stars. Now how can this
happen on the fourth day if there have already been three days? Surely to
have a ‘day’ you would need to have the sun and the moon from the
beginning, to mark when the sun rises and a new day begins, and when the
sun sets and the day ends? What is this thing that God puts in the sky to
divide the waters above the earth from those below? Why is there water
above the earth? On the sixth day God creates every type of living creature,
so this must mean that evolution is nonsense since God has already created
every creature that there could be! If this all happened at the beginning then
nobody could have been there to witness it, so where did all these details
come from?
These are very valid questions and they inevitably point us to the nature of
the text that we are dealing with. Is it a text that must be taken litera lly or is
it possible to understand the text in another way while at the same time
preserving the truths that it communicates? Well another close look at
Genesis will begin to help us answer this.
If you take up your Bible again and turn to Genesis 2:5 –25, you will find
another account of creation which is distinctly different from that of chapter
one and yet communicates the same message, i.e. that God is the creator of
the universe. Why are there two accounts of creation? Well the answer to that
question brings us to why some Christians don’t accept a literal explanation
of the book of Genesis and look to Biblical criticism to help them understand
the text and its message.
The first thing that must be understood is how the Bible came into existence.
The Bible was not compiled as one big book. Throughout time, the people of
Israel reflected on their faith in the God of Abraham, the one God. They did
this in a variety of ways, through story, song, law, wise sayings and history.
These were originally handed on by word of mouth (oral tradition) before
being consigned to writing at a later date. When these were consigned to
writing, the influence of the person writing the text would be brought to bear
on the traditions he was working with. Scholars believe that the texts we are
dealing with are based on a response of the people of Israel to the culture and
religion of Mesopotamia and Canaan. During their time in these lands, the
people of Israel were exposed to beliefs that were incompatible with their
faith in one God, because this culture believed in many gods and explained
the origins of the world and human beings in relation to these gods. The great
Mesopotamian account of creation is called the Enuma Elish and in this
account the chaos at the beginning of creation is personified in a male god,
Apsu, and a female god, Tiamat. These two are the source of all human
beings, having first given life to gods who subsequently rebel against their
parents. In this conflict, Apsu is slain and Tiamat is revealed as the d ragon of
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chaos. She gives birth to a host of demons who attack her offspring, who in
turn seek protection from other gods. The god Marduk defends them, slays
Tiamat and uses the carcass to form the universe. In this world the disc of the
earth rests on the seas. Over this spans the sky with the stars, and above this
is the place where the rain is contained. Above all this Marduk builds his
heavenly palace. Man is created by mixing the blood of a slain god, an ally of
Tiamat, with clay in order to carry on the worship of the gods. In this story
chaos is the orginator of all that is and is subsequently overcome by the
creator god, Tiamat.
It is in response to this that the people of Israel formed their own account of
creation, which corresponds to their belief in the one God who revealed
himself to Abraham and who entered into a covenant with His people. In
Genesis the sole creator is the one God, not chaos. God is in control of all
things, and all that is comes to be by his command, not the fighting of
demons and gods, nor the carcass of a dead god. Man is made in the image of
God and is brought to life by the very breath of God, not by the blood of a
slain god. Man is called to communion with God from the very beginning and
not, as in Enuma Elish, to slavishly indulge gods. The God of Israel is the one
God who alone is the sustainer of the universe and all that is.
For this reason, many Christians feel able to look at the Biblical account of
creation and see it for what they believe it actually is: a symbol ic account of
God’s creation, communicating very important truths about the purpose and
meaning of creation. They do not believe that they have to accept this as a
blow-by-blow account of what actually took place, but are rather more able to
articulate their faith in God’s creation of the universe with what science has
to say about the emergence of the world we live in. This is not to deny what
is revealed in the Bible about creation, but is rather a means of understanding
the origins and context in which the writing of Genesis occurred so that it can
speak to them in their own context. For these Christians then, science does
not undermine faith but rather enhances faith so that it does not, in the end,
matter if there was a ‘Big Bang’ that started the unive rse. These Christians
believe that God could have created the Big Bang and that this is the manner
in which He began the process of creation. The working out of that process
leads them to see His presence in the world:
The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of
many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the
age and dimension of the cosmos, the development of life forms and the
appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admi ration
for the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the
understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers.
(The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 283)
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Other Christians cannot accept this view at all. Some of them are known as
Fundamentalists or Literalists, and others as Creationists although they would
prefer the term ‘creation science’ to ‘creationism’. They cannot accept the
Big Bang Theory because it seems to undermine their belief that God has
created all that there is and that the Bible bears witness to this. Accepting the
Big Bang Theory would mean denying that God is the creator and preserver
of the universe. Relying solely on science to provide us with accurate
knowledge of how the world came to be is insufficient because it depends
purely on observation and is prone to missing the bigger picture. Why do they
think this? Well, they see the problem arising with Isaac Newton who laid the
foundation for understanding the world as a machine and God as a
watchmaker who winds the world up and lets it go on it own way. On this
basis there was no longer any need to admit of divine intervention in
sustaining the world and that any divine intervention would take place
through cause-and-effect relationships. With God reduced to this level of
intervention, all science has to do is provide the reason for these cause -andeffect relationships and God is gradually surplus to requirements. Humans
can explain the source, meaning and purpose of the universe themselves! So,
for these Christians, the Bible is the sole guide for what to believe concerning
the creation of the world.
If you look with the eyes of faith you see God in nature, both in creation and
in preservation. But if you look only with the eye of reason and of cause and
effect you may not see Him. This is why the Creationist can see God while the
man who does not look on the phenomena of nature with the same faith does
not see him there.
(John W. Klotz, Creationist Viewpoints, in A Symposium on Creation, Vol.1,
Baker Book House 1968, pp. 34–52)
For Creationists therefore, the world cannot be the result of a random
explosion known as the Big Bang. On the basis of the Bible, they will argue
that God created the world in six days, but that these ‘days’ are actually a
longer period of time than 24 hours. The world itself is too complex to be
anything other than the result of a prime mover who has instilled his creative
purpose in the whole of creation. Take, for example, the properties of water.
The amount of water on the earth’s surface, estimated to be enough to form a
layer over a mile deep spread evenly over the earth’s surface, tends to prevent
sudden increases and decreases in temperature, as for example between day
and night. A rock, for instance, is very hot d uring the day and very cold
during the night. The change in temperature of water, by comparison, is
insignificant. The presence of large quantities of water in the great lakes and
the oceans is responsible for the fact that that coastal cities are not as w arm
in the summer or as cold in the winter as inland areas: they have natural air
conditioning. The Creationist Christian would argue that this is no accident
but is the design of a creator God.
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Both of these groups of Christians, despite their differing approaches to the
question of the origins of the world, accept one thing and that is that God is
the creator of the universe. How does God create the universe? This has been
explained in a variety of ways throughout the centuries and one of the most
significant of these is the Cosmological Argument, which was developed by
St Thomas Aquinas in his Five Ways.
The Cosmological Argument is actually more than one argument. It is a series
of related arguments that attempt to point to the existence of a creator God by
relating to a first cause. They do this by looking at the fact of the world’s
existence, and arguing from the experience of the world’s existence to the
existence of God. This type of argument is called a posteriori argument
because it uses as its starting point a given experience – the existence of the
world.
The First Way: the argument from motion (cause and effect)
This argument takes as its starting point the fact of motion. Why? Well, there
are many things in the world that are in motion: cars , trains, human beings,
birds, etc. If something is moving then it must have been moved by
something. If you follow this series of motions backwards you will eventually
come to the first mover, the one who started it all off. To see the reasoning
behind this, imagine you were watching a game of snooker on television and
you saw the black ball disappear into a pocket. You ask someone how the
black ball managed to drop into the pocket and they reply ‘It just did!’. You
would not accept that for an answer. Surely the black ball must have been
moved by something? Well the answer is ‘yes’. It was a pink ball that moved
the black ball into the pocket. But what caused the pink ball to move the
black ball? Well, the pink ball was struck by a red ball, which moved th e pink
ball towards the black ball, which was hit and sent into the pocket. Now this
backwards series can go on and on until we get to the cue ball which actually
hit the first of the ten remaining red balls on the table. So we have arrived at
the answer? Well, no. What moved the cue ball? Well, the cue moved the cue
ball and (yes, you’ve guessed it) the player moved the cue!
For St Thomas, this chain cannot go on into infinity in relation the movement
of the world, so there must have been a Prime Mover, someone who set the
whole process in motion. And this is what St Thomas argues is what people
would call God. God is the unmoved mover.
It is important to note what St Thomas means when he actually speaks of
motion. When he uses the word ‘motion’ he does not only mean things that
actually move, but also a change in size or a change in the state of something,
in other words moving from potentiality to actuality. Take, for example, a
piece of wood that we want to light to make a fire. Before it is lit, it is
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potentially hot. What makes it become hot is something that is actually hot
(fire). When it is actually hot, then the wood has the potential to become cold
again. What makes the wood actually hot, or for that matter cold, is
something that acts on it from outside and changes it. When the wood is on
fire and becomes hot then its state has changed; it has moved from its
previous (not hot) to its present state (hot).
The Second Way: the argument from efficient causes
St Thomas’ Second Way is based on what is called the First Cause Argument.
The argument proceeds in this manner: Everything that exists has a cause and
this cause in turn has a cause, and so on and so forth. Now this series of
causes must either go on into infinity, or have a starting point in a first cause.
St Thomas rejects the idea of this series going on into infinity and so he
posits that there must be a first cause and this is what people would call God.
Why does he argue this? Well, it is simple: I know that I exist and that I am
writing these notes for you. If I am writing these notes for you then I must be
the cause of these notes. The notes could not be their own cause because that
would mean that the notes were already in existence before they were written
down! This is, of course, logically impossible! Equally, the fact that I exist
and am writing these notes presupposes that I am not the reason for my own
existence and that I depend for my existence on a cause outside of myself. It
is for this reason that St Thomas argues that there must at some point be a
first cause, which is the reason for all the other causes in the world. St
Thomas argument can be broken down in this way:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.
In the world there are efficient causes.
Nothing can be the efficient cause of itself because it would be t he
cause of its own existence.
Efficient causes cannot go on infinitely because the first cause causes
the next, and so on, to an ultimate cause.
If you take away the cause you take away the effect.
If you take away the first cause among efficient causes t here can be no
other causes in the world, neither intermediate nor ultimate causes,
and this is plainly false.
Therefore, it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which
everyone gives the name God.
The Third Way: the argument from possibility and contingency
St Thomas’ Third Way is based on arguing from the contingency of things in
the world. Contingency means something has a dependency for its existence
because it need not have existed in the first place, or could have been other
than it actually is. Again this is based on observing things in the world.
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When we look at things in the world we know that, even although they exist
at this present moment, there was a time when they either did not exist or
existed differently from the way in which they do now. Things are brought
into existence and then they go out of existence. This is particularly true of
human life, and therefore human life is contingent; its existence depends on a
whole series of other factors. In other words, everything in the world points
beyond itself to something else. This is where St Thomas makes his critical
move in the argument. He argues that, if all beings were contingent, then at
some point there would have been nothing in existence since all things
depend on something outside of themselves for the their existence because at
some time they did not exist. However, since there are things that actually do
exist, there must be something that is not contingent (a necessary being) to be
the causal agency for the things that are contingent, and this is what we call
God. St Thomas’ argument can be simplified as follows:
I. Some contingent beings exist.
II. Therefore, if these contingent beings exist, the necessary being which
causes these to exist must exist.
Some criticisms of St Thomas’ Three Ways
The argument from motion
Some people today argue that St Thomas Aquinas’ argument is no longer
valid because he is thinking within a cosmology that is different from ours.
Scientific discoveries have helped advance our understanding of th e world we
live in so that we now know that two cold things being rubbed together will
actually provide heat. It has also been observed that human beings and
animals move themselves!
The argument from efficient causes
If you begin with the premise that nothing can cause itself, then surely it must
follow that God is also caused? Moreover, why can we not assume that the
world has no cause and that it simply exists? This was picked up by David
Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, when he argued that
even if the universe did have a beginning it does not necessarily follow from
this that anything caused it to come into existence.
The argument from possibility and contingency
Some people would argue that the world is not contingent but is actually
necessary. They argue that objects may come into existence and then perish,
but the matter from which they are made is eternal and carries on necessarily.
The world therefore could not not exist. There are really no ultimate
questions about a creator God therefore, but only questions about matter.
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How Christians respond to these criticisms will be covered in a later section.
Science and the origins of the universe: the Big Bang Theory
Not all scientists reject the idea of a creator God; however, many o f them do
because they feel that science has put an end to the view of the universe that
was put forward by the Church based on the Bible. These scientists believe
that the idea of a creator God is a device that was developed to fill the gaps in
human knowledge, and now that science has given the real answers to the
origins of the universe, there is no need to use God as this kind of device. So
what do these scientists put in the place of a creator God?
These scientists use the Big Bang Theory to show that there is no creator God.
However, it must be pointed out from the very beginning that scientists who
do accept a creator God can also use the Big Bang Theory to point to the
existence of a creator God.
The Big Bang Theory begins from the observation of t he universe as it is at
the moment, and on the basis of these observations, calculates what happened
at the beginning of the universe. Scientists now agree that there was an actual
beginning to the universe because it is an observable fact that the galaxie s are
moving apart. Those further away from us are moving away faster than those
closest to us and, on the basis of this fact, scientists argue that at one time all
the galaxies were actually closer together and that they are now moving apart
in different directions. Scientists can therefore tell how far away a galaxy is
from us based on the speed by which it is moving away from us. What they
also discovered was that the spectrum of light changes if a body is moving
away at a high speed in space and, detecting that some distant galaxies
seemed to give off a red light, they concluded that the universe is expanding
in all directions.
This brings us to the key point. If the universe is expanding in all directions,
then what caused this process of expansion to take place? This is where the
Big Bang Theory comes in: between 10 billion and 20 billion years ago there
was an enormous explosion of energy which set the process of expansion in
motion; this is called a space–time singularity by scientists. This is very
important because it is the point at which space and time are created
simultaneously. As a result of this huge explosion, matter in the form of hot
gas spread out over enormous distances. As it began to cool down, it
condensed to form stars and galaxies that now make up the universe. This
process eventually developed the capacities for human life to evolve on the
planet that we now inhabit.
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To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural
designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin
of the designer. You have to say something like ‘God was always there’, and
if you allow yourself that kind of lazy way out, you might just as well just say
‘DNA was always there’, or ‘Life was always there’, and be d one with it.
(Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, Penguin 1990, p. 173)
Questions
The Book of Genesis
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
In your own words, give a brief account of the creation of the world as
reported in Genesis chapter 1.
What are some of the problems with reading t he text of Genesis 1
literally?
What would you say is the significance of finding another creation
account in Genesis 2:5–25?
Explain what the oral tradition is.
Give a brief outline of the context in which the creation accounts in the
book of Genesis were formed.
How would Christians who accept Biblical criticism explain the
significance of the creation account(s) in Genesis?
How does this help them demonstrate that science does not undermine
their faith in a creator God?
Why would some Christians find it impossible to accept the Big Bang
Theory?
Why is the contribution of Sir Isaac Newton important for
understanding the position of these Christians?
Why is important for these Christians to look with the ‘eyes of faith’ at
the world we live in?
The Cosmological Argument
The First Way
1.
What is the name of the saint who made the most significant
contribution to the development of the Cosmological Argument?
2.
What is the Cosmological Argument?
3.
What is the starting point for St Thomas’ First Way?
4.
Why does he start at this point?
5.
Why can the chain of movement not go on into infinity?
6.
What does St Thomas mean when he use the word ‘motion’?
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7.
8.
The
1.
2.
3.
4.
The
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Give an example of what he means by this.
Give a simple explanation of a criticism of the First Way.
Second Way
What is the name given to St Thomas’ Second Way?
What does it mean to say that something has an efficient (first) cause?
Why is it logically impossible for something to be the efficient cause of
itself?
Give a simple explanation of a criticism of the Second Way.
Third Way
What name is given to the Third Way of St Thomas?
What does contingency mean?
Why does St Thomas argue that if all beings are contingent then there
must have been a time when nothing existed?
What is the significance of the non-contingent necessary being?
Give a simple explanation of a criticism of the Third Way.
The Big Bang Theory
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Why do some scientists deny the existence of a creator God?
From what does the theory of the Big Bang begin?
Why do scientists agree that there was an actual begin ning to the
universe?
How can scientists tell how far a galaxy is away from us?
What significance does the spectrum of light play in this?
What is the Big Bang?
What is the significance of a space–time singularity?
How did the planet that we now inhabit de velop from the initial
enormous explosion?
Extended-answer questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
To what extent does Biblical criticism provide Christians with the
means of providing a coherent and scientifically compatible account of
the story of creation?
How successful is St Thomas Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument in
pointing to the existence of a creator God?
To what extent do you think that the Big Bang Theory dispenses with
the idea of a creator God?
How critical is it for Christians to be able to challenge the idea that the
universe was created purely by chance?
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COMPATABILITY BETWEEN CHRISTIAN BELIEF AND SCIENTIFIC THEORY?
Area 3: Is there compatibility between Christian
belief and scientific theory?
By the end of this section you should be able to:
 explain perceived strengths and weaknesses of interpretations that suggest
that Christian belief and scientific theory are compatible
 assess the implications of these interpretations for human understanding of
the purposes and goals of life
 give reasons to support the assessment you have made.
Despite all that has been said earlier, many Christians believe that their faith
and scientific theory can go together. They believe that, rather than
disproving the existence of God, science actually points to His existence and
that both Christian belief and science shed light on the same truth s. Let’s
revisit the Big Bang Theory to see how they go about this.
If we look at these pages we know that we can actually trace their origin back
to the Big Bang. They are on paper, and the paper came from a tree, and the
tree grew from seeds from another tree and the whole species of the tree came
from an even simpler plant, which in turn evolved from even simpler plant
life, right back to the beginning of life on earth. We know that life was
caused by a complex arrangements of chemicals which, in turn, can be traced
all the way back to the initial explosion of energy about 10 billion –20 billion
years ago. At this point we run out of causes in the universe.
This does not exhaust the questions for some Christians. They believe we can
still ask why the universe exists and why it is the way that it is. The universe
is contingent and this has been shown by scientific developments in modern
times that allow us to describe the behaviour of the universe as a whole. Not
only do the things in the universe obey the laws of science, the universe itself
obeys them! This means that the Big Bang must point beyond itself to a cause
because if the universe obeys the laws of science then the cause of the
universe cannot be part of the universe itself but must be outside of the
universe. This would seems to suggest for these Christians that there is
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indeed a creator God who sets the whole process of the origins of the cosmos
in motion through the Big Bang.
My conclusion then, is that the physical universe is not compelled to exist as
it is; it could have been otherwise. In that case we are returned to the
problem of why it is as it is… We have no choice but to seek an explanation in
something beyond our outside physical world – in something metaphysical –
because, as we have seen, a contingent physical universe cannot contain
within itself an explanation for itself.
(Paul Davies, The Mind of God: Science and the Search for Ultimate
Meaning, Penguin 1992, pp. 170–1)
This seems to take us back to St Thomas Aquinas, and so it does, but these
Christians are trying to produce a synthesis between what St Thomas had
argued about the need for a first cause and what science says about the Big
Bang. In response to the argument put forward by some scientists that we do
not need a first cause if the chain of causality is infinitely long, these
Christians would respond that because a chain is infinitely long it does not
mean that it has to exist. If the chain does not have to exist, then it needs a
reason for its existence. Moreover, because science has revealed that the
world is not infinitely old, then infinite chains must be ruled out as logically
impossible. Therefore, as far as these Christians are concerned, God is not
someone dreamt up by humans to fill in the gaps in their knowled ge. Rather,
God is necessary if we are to make sense of the existence of the universe at
all!
These Christians also take another very interesting approach to demonstrating
compatibility between Christian faith in a creator God and the Big Bang.
They do this by arguing for a Unity Law, which is based on the scientific fact
of the existence of harmony and order in the universe. When Sir Isaac
Newton ‘discovered’ gravity, what he actually did was discover the
universality of gravitation. The force that makes the apple fall to the earth is
the same force that makes the moon stay in orbit around the earth and makes
the earth orbit the sun. Gravity, therefore, is not just something on the earth,
but is found throughout the universe. Scientists have now discovered that this
same gravity is responsible for the formation of the stars and the formation of
the universe as a whole from the time of the Big Bang onwards.
Scientists have now shown, through investigations in physics, that all the
fundamental laws in the universe are actually aspects of two laws – quantum
mechanics and general relativity. This points to the very real possibility that
there will be a Grand Unified Theory that is the foundation of all the
variations that exist in the universe, which these Chr istians would call a
‘Unity Law’. This would clearly demonstrate that the whole physical universe
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COMPATABILITY BETWEEN CHRISTIAN BELIEF AND SCIENTIFIC THEORY?
is not just the accidental development of the Big Bang, but is rather an
ordered unity because it obeys a single law of unity:
Thus science is discovering a single law or principle behind or above the
material universe, a law which brings about everything that exists and
everything that happens in the universe. This is of the greatest importance,
because this discovery is remarkably similar in many ways to t he idea of God.
God the creator is a unity, who causes everything that exists and everything
that happens in the universe. This is really strong evidence that science is
rediscovering God…
However, there is a crucial difference between the Unity -Law and God
himself. No law of science can exist by itself. The laws of science are
properties of matter; they just describe how matter behaves. So the laws only
exist where matter exists. Consequently, the laws of science cannot explain
how matter comes into existence…
The only answer is that where there is a law there must be a lawgiver. The
law itself cannot be the cause of the universe. God is the lawgiver, the First
Cause. The Unity-Law is the expression of the wisdom of God. It shows us
that God’s creation manifests his supreme intelligence.
(David Barrett and Stephen Dingley (eds), Can we be sure God exists?
Faith-Keyway Publications, p. 9 at www.faith.org.uk)
For these Christians, science does not put an end to belie f in a creator God.
Rather the complexity of the universe, as revealed through scientific
investigation, points to the existence of God. The Bible, in its own way,
teaches that God is the creator of all that is, and so reveals the purpose of
creation.
Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
28
Why do some Christians think that the Big Bang does not pose a threat
to their faith?
Very briefly, and in your own words, explain how can these pages be
traced back to the Big Bang.
Why does this process not exhaust the questions that can be aske d?
Why do some Christians argue that the Big Bang actually points to the
existence of God?
Explain in your own words the argument that Paul Davies puts forward
in defence of a creator God.
In what way do some Christians argue that it is not possible to ha ve a
chain of infinite events?
What is meant by the Unity Law?
Why is the discovery of gravity by Sir Isaac Newton significant for
some Christians?
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9.
10.
How does the fact of a Unity Law open up the possibility of a creator
God?
Why do the laws of science fail to explain why matter comes into
existence?
Extended-answer questions
1.
2.
3.
To what extent do you consider it significant that the universe itself
obeys the laws of science?
If the universe is completely self contained, with no singularities or
boundaries, and completely described by a unified theory, that has
profound implications for the role of God as Creator.
(Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time, Bantam 1995, p. 174)
To what extent would some Christians agree with Stephen Hawking and
how would they develop this point to argue for the existence of a
creator God?
How far would you agree with the position that science now points to
the existence of God?
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CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE: THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN LIFE
Area 4: Christianity and science: the origins of
human life
By the end of this section you should be able to:
 explain how Christians explain the origins of human life from the Bible
 explain how Christians try to explain the origins of human life by using
reason
 understand how some scientists explain the origins of human life through
the theory of evolution
 explain why these scientists believe the theory of evolution removes the
need for a creator God
 understand and explain why some Christians reject the theory of evolution
as a threat to their faith
 understand why other Christians see the theory of evolution as pointing to
the existence of a creator God.
Christian approaches to the origins of human life
Rather than repeat what was said above about how Christians approach the
book of Genesis when trying to understand what the Bible has to say abou t
the origins of human life, it will be sufficient at this point if you refresh your
memory by looking again at earlier sections of this publication and also
reread Genesis chapters 1 and 2 on the creation of the first human beings.
All Christians agree that the book of Genesis reveals fundamental truths
about the creation of the first human beings. However, they do not agree on
how the stories of the creation of the first human beings should be
interpreted. Some Christians (Creationists, for example) beli eve that the Bible
describes exactly what happened in the creation of the first human beings and
so they support a literal interpretation of what the book of Genesis says. For
them, this is how we must understand the origins of human life, and any
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attempt to explain the origins of human life in another way is considered to
be a direct challenge to what God has revealed.
As we saw earlier, other Christians do not take this literal approach to the
text. Relying on the methods of Biblical criticism, they un derstand the text to
be symbolic in nature but, nonetheless, to be the word of God concerning the
origins of human life. So how would they explain the significance of the text?
Once again, it is important to be aware of the context in which the accounts
of the creation of human life originate. When looking at these stories,
Biblical criticism points to the fact that the name given to the man ‘Adam’ is
not actually a proper name. In fact it is more accurately translated as ‘earth
being/creature’, and the word ‘Eve’ actually means ‘the mother of all’. The
key point of the stories of the creation of the first humans is richly symbolic.
Human beings are not made just to continue the cult of the gods (as in Enuma
Elish) but are actually made in the image of God and share in his divine life
through his breathing his spirit into them. Humans are not merely material
beings but are made of body and soul in order to enjoy life with God. Human
beings are made male and female so that they can cooperate with God in
bringing new life into existence, and they are to be stewards of the earth. This
is a brief summary of the key beliefs that can be taken from the Biblical
accounts in Genesis. In essence, these Christians see the accounts in Genesis
as telling us something that is profoundly true about us, about who we are,
why we experience life the way we do, and what our destiny is. For them, to
get caught up in questions about being formed from clay or a rib, or whether
or not Adam and Eve had belly buttons, is to miss the p oint! What Genesis
does, using symbolic and figurative language, is describe what happened at
the beginning of time when no eyewitness account would have been possible.
William Paley’s Teleological Argument
You will know about Paley’s Teleological Argume nt from your class, so this
section is intended to remind you of its key points and some of the problems
associated with it.
Paley’s argument is essentially an argument from design. His argument is
also analogical in that it is based on analogy between a watch and the world.
An argument from analogy moves from the known to the unknown and uses
the following formula ‘just as… so too ...’ Paley uses the watch to
demonstrate a design, or purpose, in the world. Just as the watch has been
made for an intelligent purpose and has clearly been designed, so too the
earth has a designer because it is clear from the way the world works that it
must be the product of a designer. Paley argues this from the scientific
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knowledge of the time concerning the rotation of th e planets etc., and
believes that his argument would still stand even if you had never seen a
watch before, or could not work out how some of the parts operated. You
would know by the very nature of a watch that there must be a designer, and
the same applies to the world we live in.
David Hume’s critique of the Teleological Argument
Hume’s critiques of the Teleological Argument actually existed before Paley
developed his own version of the argument. Hume’s position was set out in
his work Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), 23 years before
Paley, which gives some indication of the lack of attention paid to
philosophical arguments at the time! So how did he deal with the Teleological
Argument?
We will deal with the main points that Hume makes wit hout going into his
argument in great depth.
First of all, Hume does not explicitly deny that the argument works. What he
essentially does is demonstrate the fact that, from his perspective, the
argument produces what can only be considered a very limited God. The fact
that the world has so many imperfections (tidal waves, earthquakes, diseases,
etc.) would seem to point to what he calls an ‘infant deity’, rather than a
superior designer. Rather, all of this seems to point to a malevolent God.
Moreover, he argues further that it can take many people to design and build
something that is sophisticated in its operation. Why should we not also
conclude that there are many gods?
Hume goes on to argue that it is indeed possible to argue that the universe
was created by chance. He admits that there is design in the world, but he
questions whether or not this actually implies the existence of a designer. Can
we make the leap from admitting order in the world to a design of the world?
It is entirely plausible that the world arose by chance. What Hume actually
argues is that it is possible that the finite number of particles that the world is
made up from could, after going through every possible combination,
constitute a stable order which will naturally be realised in the world and
provide the order we now experience. Order, therefore, has nothing to do with
God.
In essence, what Hume does is attack the validity of the analogy that is used
in the argument from design, and this is where many consider Paley to fall
victim to Hume. Basically, what Hume argues is that the analogy is not close
enough to really have any value whatsoever, and the result of this is that
Hume claims that we should suspend judgement on the existence, or
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otherwise, of God because there is insufficient evidence to prove his
existence. This opens the way to the theory of evolution!
Science and the theory of evolution
In this section we will look at the theory of natural selection, proposed by
Charles Darwin in his work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection (1859). First of all we must be clear about what we mean when we
say ‘natural selection’. This is the way in which evolution takes place. The
characteristics of a particular species that help it survive are passed on
through the genes to the next generation of the species, and so on, until all
members of the species have those characteristics. If members of the species
have characteristics that don’t allow them to survive, then these
characteristics die with them. In this way a species evolves and changes so
that, in this process of natural selection, a species develops all the
characteristics necessary to survive in an ever -changing environment. This
gives rise to the idea of the survival of the fittest.
What happens in the process of evolution is that primitive forms of life give
way to more sophisticated forms of life so that plant and animal life today
can be traced back to what might be called a common origin. This means that
one species can be traced to another species, although that species might be
different from it. Human beings can therefore be traced back in this process
of linking to a type of ‘ape’ species, which in turn developed from some form
of mammal and so on, to the most basic form of life at the beginning o f life
itself.
What Darwin’s book did was provide an alternative to the argument from
design, or at least it appeared that way. His book offered a way of looking at
the world without any reference to God and seemed to present the world in a
purely materialistic way. Life on earth is just the product of matter evolving
into ever higher forms, and so human beings, rather than being a special
creation of God, appear to be a product of a materialistic evolution through
the process of natural selection. The implications of this for Christian belief
are obvious.
Darwin came to the conclusion that random variations which gave an
advantage to a plant or animal in relation to survival resulted in the survival
of the fittest species. He tried to illustrate this in a n imaginary way by using
the example of wolves being able to maintain the ability to catch their prey,
when they were struggling to find food. He argued that it would be the fittest
wolves who would be able to survive because they would be in a better
position to catch their prey, rather than the weaker ones who would die. He
even appealed to greyhound racing, pointing out that the way a breeder could,
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through a process of selection, develop a faster greyhound is very similar to
what naturally occurs in nature.
A contemporary supporter of Darwin’s position is Richard Dawkins. In his
book The Blind Watchmaker he dismisses any notion of their being a creator
God and believes that anyone who argues for the existence of a God who
creates human life is basing their belief on what he calls ‘Arguments from
personal incredulity’. By this he means that because a person cannot think of
any other explanation for the existence of the world they simply opt for belief
in God. For Dawkins, the order in the world is not d ue to God, but rather is
due to a blind, unconscious and automatic process.
Dawkins also argues that humans have a selfish gene and that we are
inherently selfish because that is the way in which we have developed to
survive through natural selection. We act the way we do because we are
effectively robots/machines programmed to preserve our gene pool and
transfer it to the next generation.
Dawkins would reject any claims that the book of Genesis says anything of
value about the origins of human life. Daw kins rejects the existence of an
immortal soul in human beings, but he still accepts that there is human
dignity. This comes from the way in which an individual’s genetic code is
passed on to future generations so that we have now reached the point where
we can actually try to discover the meaning of life. This, for Dawkins, is the
most marvellous aspect of human development, that humans can reflect on the
fact that they are in the universe! How Christians have responded to what
Darwin and Dawkins have said will be covered in the next section.
Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
34
In what basic way would Christians disagree about the interpretation of
the creation of human life in the book of Genesis?
Give a brief explanation of how Christians who use Biblical criticism
would explain the creation of human life in the book of Genesis.
Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons? Does it matter?
What does it mean to say that Paley’s argument is analogical?
How does Paley demonstrate his analogy between the watch and the
world?
In what book did Hume set out his critique of the argument from
design?
Why does Hume believe that the argument from design essentially
points to a very limited God?
Why does Hume believe that the world could have been created by
chance?
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9.
10.
11.
12.
What is the problem with Paley’s argument from analogy in the light of
Hume’s critique?
In your own words explain what is meant by ‘natural selection’.
Briefly explain the process of evolution in your own words.
Why do Darwin’s findings seem to deny the existence of a creator God?
Extended-answer questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
To what extent do Christians agree on the significance of the creation of
human life as recounted in the book of Genesis?
How successful is William Paley’s version of the argument from
design?
How far do you consider Hume’s critique of the argument from design
to be successful?
To what extent do you agree with Dawkins that humans are essentially
selfish machines programmed by natural selection?
Christian responses to the theory of evolution
The origins of human life: a Creationist response
As we saw earlier, Creationists take a particularly unique approach to the
question of how human life appeared on earth. They approach the account of
creation in Genesis as a literal account of what happened, and so they firmly
reject the theory of evolution.
In six days I, the Lord, made the earth, the sky, the sea, and everything in
them, but on the seventh day I rested. That is why I, the Lord, blessed the
Sabbath and made it holy.
(Exodus 20:11)
For Creationists, creation is a miracle, but it is not a miracle for God, who is
the master of all things. Creationists believe that the Bible can be used to
track back to when God first created the world 6,000 years ago. In this
respect, the ‘six days’ that Genesis (and Exodus) speaks of are considere d to
be ages, so that the first spiritual man (Adam) would be created in the span of
the sixth age and the animals and fish etc. in the fifth age. They claim that
there is no fossil evidence to demonstrate that man existed more than 6,000
years ago and that there is evidence from Jewish, pagan and worldwide tribal
traditions that there was a worldwide flood around 6009. Much of this is
based on the work of the Anglican Archbishop James Usher (1581–1656),
who attempted to calculate the age of the world by ad ding the ages of the 21
generations of the Old Testament together. In this respect, Usher proposed a
date for the creation of the world as 4004 BC with its potential duration being
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6,000 years – 2,000 years after the birth of Christ. This compares with
contemporary scientific theories that the world is approximately 4.54 billion
years old!
Looking at the accounts of the creation of the first human beings, Creationists
believe that God created Adam and Eve as adults, so that the Bible, and only
the Bible, is seen as the source of truth concerning the origins of human life.
The creation of the first humans took place exactly as described in the book
of Genesis and in no other way.
Any recourse to fossil evidence for the evolution of life from lower forms i s
rejected on the basis that before fossils appear in rock there is no record of
life of any kind. Instead, Creationists claim that fossils explode into existence
suddenly, pointing to the existence of a Creator at work. Creationists reject
any argument that suggests that DNA is the key to understanding the origins
and evolution of human life. They reject the idea that DNA contains the
secret of life. But because of the complex nature of DNA (if you were to
place the 10 trillion strands of DNA found in the human body end to end they
would span the solar system), Creationists claim that DNA must be the direct
work of a divine designer and not an accident of the upward spiral of the
process of evolution.
What must be made absolutely clear is that Creationists are not fools. They
have clearly researched their positions very carefully and link them with what
the Bible says. They are anxious to preserve faith in the fact that God created
human beings and see the theory of evolution as undermining what revelation
has to say on the matter. Since the Bible is the sole rule of faith and is the
word of God, science has nothing to contribute to the discussion.
We know that many reptile and mammal skeletons look almost the same
structurally, even though the rest of each creature is extremely different. Of
course! They were designed, not randomly evolved in some mystical
evolutionary sequence. Our designer may have ‘mixed and matched’ parts
when He was designing. The human eye is closely related to the octopus eye.
Human milk is closest to that of donkeys. The human skeleton may be close to
that of some primates – but so many of our other biological parts are not!
Evolution is a myth and underneath the covers it is actually a spiritual
deception.
(http://www.creationism.org/topbar/mutations.htm)
The origins of human life: an alternative Christian response
Other Christians, especially those who look to Biblical criticism to explain
the nature of the stories of creation, cannot accept the position of the
Creationists. They see the Creationist position as problematic because it is
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based on a literalist approach to the Biblical texts and therefore completely
misunderstands their nature. For these Christians, th e theory of evolution
does not necessarily contradict the belief that God created human beings.
These Christians consider the argument put forward by the Creationist
website above as bringing religious belief into disrepute and playing into the
hands of people like Dawkins who deny the existence of God. This picture of
God is considered immature and is contradicted by great Christian teachers
such as St Augustine who did not interpret the Bible literally:
For as mothers are pregnant with unborn offspring , so the world itself is
pregnant with the causes of unborn beings.
(St Augustine, De Trinitate 111.9.16)
These Christians do not reject theory of evolution. Rather, they reject what
they call Darwinism – the theory that natural selection by survival of t he
fittest is the mechanism by which evolution takes place. They reject this
because even the simplest life forms are so complex that they cannot be
explained by merely suggesting they are the result of blind chance. Whatever
the process is, these Christians accept that DNA has shown the profound link
between all living creatures but that the differing genetic codes drive the
developments of these creatures. It is precisely this insight that alarms
Creationists because they see in it a tendency towards clai ming that the
evolution of human beings is merely blind chance. So how do other
Christians reconcile faith in God’s creation of human beings with an
acceptance of scientific theories about human development? In other words,
what makes man unique?
One of the first things that can be said about human beings is that they are
radically different from animals. Unlike animals, humans are able to move
beyond the confines of their environment and instead are able to develop their
own environment. Human beings are not determined by the laws that govern
matter, we control and manipulate nature to such an extent that we are
marked out as being a radically different creature from any other on the face
of the earth (sometimes with remarkable, and other times with devast ating,
effects). What is it that makes us so radically different?
Humans share characteristics that are similar to animals. We reproduce, we
defend out territories, we have the need to eat and the need for shelter etc.
But we have characteristics that take us beyond the animals, such as our
capacity to appreciate beauty, to be creative in dance, music and song, and to
think and know that we are thinking! The very fact that we can think about
the whole process of creation and develop scientific theories to explain this is
itself an indication of the special nature of human beings.
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These Christians believe that this is due to the fact that human beings are not
purely material beings as scientists like Dawkins would have us believe. All
the feelings we have are not just the effect of millions of brain cells
interacting but are actually due to the fact that we have a soul. Why do they
believe this? They believe this because physical processes, no matter how
many of them are present in the body (or in this cas e the brain), will always
be physical processes, and human consciousness has moved beyond the
merely physical processes of the body.
In animals, the brain controls their instinct. The brain is part of the material
universe and it must be tuned to the cycl es of nature to do its job in animals,
and this happens from the things in its environment. As the evolutionary
process moves on from simple life forms to ever more complex ones, the size
of the brain increases and the area of the cortex (grey matter) enla rges to
facilitate ever more complex behaviour. In actual fact, the human brain is
three times bigger than the brain that would have been predicted for a primate
of our build. For some Christians then, something unique has happened in the
origins of human life that was not present in the evolutionary process until
that point.
If everything in the universe, especially the brain, is under the control and
direction of the laws that govern nature, then it should not be possible to
break out of that control. Nature cannot break its own laws without disastrous
effects! So how do we account for this transformation in the human brain?
For these Christians, the evolution of the universe is not part of a random
process of blind chance. As we saw earlier, the Unity La w shows that there
must be a creator God. God therefore brings evolution to the point where it is
possible for human life to emerge. This is known as the Anthropic Principle.
As basic life forms evolve into ever more complex forms, accompanied by a
significant enlargement of the brain, God puts in place the means by which
the brain can move beyond control by the environment through the human
soul. This soul gives humans the power of self -control and the conscious
power to think, choose and act. It is at thi s moment in the evolutionary
process that man emerges, body and soul in one being.
The miracle of man is that the material mutation, which is born within nature
to be this new form with this super power of energy in the brain, is by its very
nature as physical directed to the order of the spiritual – to the soul, made in
the likeness of God, and which only God can give … The two principles of
being that make man, the material body and the soul, must be mutually made
for each other. The physical ‘formula’ which is the brain of man was ordered
in the beginning as the unique and peak achievement of that Unity -Law which
framed the universe in the moment of the Big Bang … Thus in its very
physical reality man’s body calls for, and is intelligible only in relatio nship
to, that personal soul which God alone can create. God must give this soul
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within the womb at the very ‘moment of man’, under the very Law of His own
wisdom in creating. In this way man is at once a product of the evolution of
the material creation and also a special creation through the soul.
(Edward Holloway, Perspectives in Theology, Vol. 1, Christ the Sacrament of
Creation, pp. 10–11, The Rediscovery of God, Family Publications 2005)
For these Christians, therefore, there is absolutely no contr adiction in
believing that God created human life using the mechanism of evolution.
They rely on a synthesis between revelation and science that brings about a
complementarity rather than an opposition between the two. In this respect,
what science demonstrates is the clear purpose that God had in mind for
creation from the very beginning, that God created the world, with all its
propose and intelligible order, so that he could create man and share his life
with him. The book of Genesis and science both con firm the truth of this!
Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
What is the foundation of the Creationist position on the origins of
human life?
In what way do Creationists explain the ‘days’ of creation?
How old do they think the world is?
In what way would Creationists explain the creation of Adam and Eve?
What problems would Creationists have with an appeal to fossils as
evidence of evolution?
Why do Creationists reject DNA as proof of evolution?
Why do Creationists reject Darwin’s theory of evolution?
Why do other Christians reject the Creationist position?
In what way are human beings considered to be different from animals?
Some Christians reject the materialist view of human beings held by
Dawkins. Why?
As lower life forms evolve into higher life forms, what happens to their
brains?
Why do some Christians see this transformation of the brain as
significant?
Explain in your own words what the Anthropic Principle is.
Why do some Christians believe that there is no contradiction between
what is revealed in the Bible about the origins of human life and the
theory of evolution?
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Extended-answer questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
40
To what extent would you agree with Creationists that the theory of
evolution does not explain the origins of human life?
To what extent does Biblical criticism contribute to provi ding a
synthesis between belief and science concerning the origins of human
life?
To what extent have Christians effectively refuted the scientific
materialism of Richard Dawkins in relation to our understanding of the
human person?
How effective is the Anthropic Principle as a means of providing a
synthesis between Christian revelation and science?
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