Creation, Evolution, and Faith, Part 3: The Problem With Integration

In Part 1, I looked at models for understanding the interaction of science and religion. In Part 2, I argued that there's not a debate between science and religion, because there's no reason why the two should be considered to be in conflict at all. If you haven't checked those out yet, I'd recommend giving them a quick read before you continue.

Here in Part 3, I'll look at the possibility of the "integration" of science and religion. Integration puts the data of science and the data of faith in a harmonious one-to-one relationship. Because there's only one set of data, science and religion ultimately fit one another hand in glove. Phenomena like evolution might turn out to be revelation of God's "design" and the play of law and chance might turn out to be the "place" where God works.

For Integration, the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture don't just have one author.  They're the same book.

For many, Intelligent Design provides a way to reconcile science and religion, because it offers a way of talking about God's presence in the world discovered by science without demanding that the stories of Genesis be exactly the way the world developed. God drew up the blueprint of evolution, which is unfolding to this day. Science discovers the plan; it uncovers the blueprint that has guided the development of the universe from its very beginning.

On the flipside are approaches such as Process Theology and other theological interpretations of nature. In general, these approaches take science very seriously. Although they don't look for a design in scientific data, they look for ways in which God might be working in the world process, be it on the molecular level or as the divine "lure" that is calling Creation to its fulfillment. God is always there, "in, with, and under" the regular working of the world. Although nature operates according to natural principles, God influences and guides the working of those natural processes in a godly way.

As the title gives away (spoiler alert!) and for reasons I'll explain, I'm not a fan of Integration. But that doesn't mean it has nothing to offer. Theologies of science give science its due and Intelligent Design avoids the either-or of Creationism and Materialism. It doesn't just have to be one or the other, says Integration. In fact, it's both!

In short:  Integration takes seriously the fact that we live in one world, and that world has both science and religion in it. And it demands that we do something about it. That's the benefit of Integration.

So, Paul, what do you have against Integration?

It's not that I have anything against Integration. Really! It's just that I don't think Integration approaches do full justice to the questions that arise when science and religion meet. I'll explain why twice: once for Intelligent Design and once for theologies of science.

Intelligent Design

In my opinion, Intelligent Design can't withstand the weight of scientific data. As I said in Part 2, I believe that God is the Creator of the universe and everything in it. But does that mean I must hold to either Creationism or Intelligent Design? I don't think so, and I think that anyone trying to give science its full due will think so either. Here's why:

Contemporary physics and biology are very aware that the evolution of the cosmos and of life on earth needs the interplay of chance and law to take place. So, while 1) genetic sequencing limits evolutionary possibilities (a duck isn't going to evolve into a human) and 2) from our view, evolution looks like a directed process (there's a sense of progress, or development), the processes that make evolution possible need chance, randomness, and chaos over huge periods of time to function.

That means that the idea of a "plan" or "design" can't withstand the weight of the data. 
(More on divine plans and God's will next week: Stay tuned!)

If there's a plan, it's a plan that could (if the world is truly free) always be undone by the regular working of chance. So, while Intelligent Design gives us a nice way to include God in the evolutionary process, it doesn't fit the current data. It also makes science serve a theological end, which kind of declaws the scientific enterprise.

Theologies of Nature

Theologies of nature have the opposite problem. Although Process Theology and the theologies of other Integrationist thinkers (like John Polkinghorne and Arthur Peacocke) give scripture and tradition a place in their work, the power of scripture and tradition is limited by what seems possible according to science. That means that science has power over religion, such that religion really can't be religion in the fullest sense.

And I'm absolutely committed to giving religion its full due.

This problem becomes the clearest when we talk about God. Because despite all their good efforts to unite science and religion, theologies of nature typically end up with a vague notion of God not all that different from William Paley's Divine Watchmaker.

When you're finding God at a "causal joint" (Polkinghorne) or reading the score of a "divine composer" (Peacocke), it's hard to talk about just who this God is. Is it the God of Jesus Christ? Christianity has a particular God who made Godself known to the world in particular ways. That's the God in whom we believe. I'm not sure even the best theologies of nature can get there.

Polkinghorne has a similar critique of Process Theology:  “[It] is a noble concept, but it is open to question whether deity has not been so evacuated of power that hope in God as the ground of ultimate fulfillment has been subverted…The matter can be put in the bluntest terms by asking whether Whitehead’s God could be the One who raised Jesus from the dead.”

And that's that.

In the end, Integrationist approaches, whether they lie at the theological end of the spectrum like Intelligent Design or at the scientific end of the spectrum like Process Theology and theologies of nature, suffer from the same problem. In trying to make the data "fit" one another, they take away the fullness of the power of the other field.

Because as I said before, theology and science aren't the same thing. They speak different languages and do different things. And we should let them do what they do without subjecting one to the other.

So, although for a lot of Christians looking for a way to make God "fit" with evolution, Intelligent Design offers a perfectly fine solution, it doesn't fit the data, and if we're going to take the data seriously, we need another way. 

The same goes for those scientists and thinkers who emphasize science. Their approaches offer a way to fit God and science together, but they do so by limiting what religion can say on the basis of scientific data. If you ask me, that doesn't work either.

So, where do we go from here?

I'll offer my solution in Part 4 (here's a teaser: it has to do with dialogue!).