13 February 2007

Are God and Darwin Really Arguing?

In response to: God, Darwin clash again in Kansas

Both the Nicene and the Apostles' Creeds affirm God the Father as the Creator. I accept this claim.


But I believe in evolution.

I know quite a few people (and know of quite a few more) who are more than willing to write me off as a Christian for such a statement. But how can this be?

Let's look at Kansas, where once again intelligent desing (ID) and evolution are being discussed as curiculum in public schools.

A little self-history: I took my high school biology class in Georgia, where law prevented the class from discussing evolution as more than series of mutations. As such, the class was unable to discuss Darwin's The Origin of Species and any possibility for analytical thinking was kept out. Since then, Georgia schools are required to use a disclaimer stating that evolution is nothing more than a theory and may contain some flaws. After my sophmore year, I moved to Kansas, where a similar debate has been ongoing for nearly eight years. In 2005, the Board of Education decided that ID had a place in the biology classroom (I know a few parents who were key in arguing for this move). Now, the BoE is shifting back to only teaching evolution.

For those who are unaware, there are a few things that evolution cannot explain. For example, we have yet to find the so-called "missing link" between apes and men. ID claims that these wholes can be filled in by an intelligent creator (most of the time, he's called God). But what scientific (or even philosophical) evidence is there for this? The kalam cosmological argument posists an intelligent designer but merely a statement and not proof. God cannot be proven or disproven (to do so would be to put God under the laws of logic and physics, the very things that He created). The existence of such a designer must be taken purely on faith.

I accept that God is the designer. I also accept that evolution was his method of choice for creation. Do these contradict? Are God and Darwin against eachother? Absolutely not.

Rock on.