Theology prof examines God and evolution
Many people cannot simultaneously accept the way Darwinian biology presents life and believe in a providential God, a visiting professor said in a lecture given at Utah State University Wednesday.
John Haught, a professor of theology at Georgetown University, discussed several theories from a theological background concerning Darwinian evolution. Haught addressed the attending students and faculty about the complexity of religion and understanding evolution.
“Religion is not just something that we humans do on the face of an indifferent universe to try to make it a little warmer than it really is,” Haught said, who has written numerous books, including “God After Darwin,” about evolutionary science and theology.
The thinking patterns of most people concerning religion, Haught said, tend to underestimate the concept of time and the creation of the universe. Scientists have concluded that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, Haught said, and that humans have only occupied it the last several thousand years.
Life came about through the Darwin recipe, Haught said, consisting of accidents, natural selection and long periods of time. Many people believe the origin of life itself was an accident, Haught said. However, Haught’s lecture focused on the view of the doctrine of divine providence after Darwin.
Haught proposed several categories of beliefs: those who do not believe in Darwinian evolution, those who believe in the initial cosmic design, those who believe in a divine hidden plan, those who believe in a divine pedagogy – a school for life where “life is challenged to become more and more intense” and those who believe in an evolutionary trend with a favoring divine influence.
In evaluating the various theories, Haught applied the beliefs of several theorists, theologians and biologists.
“If life had only a matter of a Biblical 10 to 15 thousand years … for primitive life to become complex, then we would be forgiven for appealing to the notion of divine providence,” Haught said about Richard Dawkins’ theory. “But the fact is today, we have deep time … there is no need for God or providence at any point for our understanding of life.”
Haught discussed the possibility of initial divine providence giving rise to life by creating the elements of the Big Bang. However, this theory ignores the Darwinian chapters, which is answered, Haught said, by accepting there is no answer in understanding the evolutionary accidents or randomness.
“We humans have to admit that we have a very narrow sense of what constitutes good order or design,” Haught said. “And whenever anything takes place that doesn’t fit into our human sense of order, we are likely to call it an accident or an absurdity. Perhaps there is a wider vision that God has, and we don’t … we are simply part of a wider, divine plan.”
Another theory, Haught said, raises the question if God created evolution to propose obstacles or challenges for life to be educational.
With this theory the question of suffering arises, Haught said, and theories that explain suffering encompass the notion that the universe is still evolving.
“There is no real alternative to an unfinished initial creation,” Haught said. “An originally perfect creation is theologically inconceivable.”
Haught ended his discussion with the conclusion of his own beliefs.
“There is no reason at all for us to identify evolutionary science,” Haught said. “The Christian can accept the providential God not in spite of but because of the three ingredients of Darwin’s recipe: Chance, natural selection and deep time.”
At the end of the lecture the floor was opened to questions from students and faculty. One student asked what use is a God as a source of hope. Haught said there are not satisfying answers to this question, but to think about things in an unfinished universe.
“What’s the alternative to hoping? Just giving up,” Haught said. “That brings life to an end.”
-kcashton@cc.usu.edu