(fwd from Bradley Jacob) Evolution and creation -Reply

[Michael MASINTER]

I wrote:

>   "I know of no theory of evolution, or, EVOLUTION, which is
> inconsistent with the existence of a God.  Why is the spontaneous
> appearance of life from random physical processes antithetical to a
> belief in a supreme being?  Or is it just that it is antithetical to the specific
> teachings of some religions?"

And Perry Glanzer replied:

>
> The National Association of Biology Teachers defines evolution in the
> following way: "an UNSUPERVISED, IMPERSONAL, unpredictable and
> natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is
> affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies, and
> changing enviornments."  CAPS MINE
>
> I think many believers in God with have a problem with the unsupervised
> and impersonal part.  Could this be an evolutionary theory which is
> inconsistent with the existence of God?  How can science prove that it
> is unsupervised or impersonal?

        Surely God could have created a universe in which random events
can be allowed to occur.  He could even have created a universe (perhaps
causing the Big Bang) whose resulting physical laws make the random events
quite likely to occur.  Having created such a universe, He could allow
events to unfold as they may.  My point is that by any definition, a God
or supreme being is not constrained to behave in any particular way.
Therefore, a scientific theory that posits unsupervised and impersonal
evolution is still not antithetical to the belief in a God, but rather is
antithetical to some human conceptions of what that God should be and how
He should behave.  That is exactly why some religious traditions find the
teaching of evolution offensive and others do not.

        Science can try to prove that life could have evolved in an
unsupervised and impersonal manner; I take the claim of evolutionary
biology to be exactly that.  The next step, already accomplished in a
laboratory, is to replicate the spontaneous generation of complex carbon
based chemistry from simpler chemistry under conditions believed to have
existed once.  From simple precursors to amino acids, I take the next step
to be replicate the spontaneous generation of proteins.  I would not be
surprised should that happen in the next thirty years.  Will that settle
the question?  Certainly not; I know of no scientist who claims to be able
to prove that no God exists, or that God could not have set in motion the
creation of the universe in which these events occur.

Michael R. Masinter                     3305 College Avenue
Nova Southeastern University            Fort Lauderdale, Fl. 33314
Shepard Broad Law Center                (954) 262-6151
masinter at law.acast.nova.edu