Gilberson On Evolution And God

by tristero

I’ll give Karl Gilberson considerable credit for clearly articulating the intellectual poverty that is biblical literalism, young earth creationism, and intelligent design creationism. But his own theology is a muddle. As the clever interviewer, Vincent Rossmeier, makes clear, Gilberson’s belief in God more than resembles the attitudes of the id creationists. In particular, he comes perilously closely to unconsciously falling into the abyss of the God of the Gaps fallacy.

I think Gilberson’s problem is is his attempt to reconcile God with an entire worldview which is a Procrustean bed when it comes to the most common attitudes about God and spirituality – in other words, his problem is his main thesis. Gilberson advocates kind of a simplistic dualism between spirit and matter, apparetnly without recognizing that dualisms of this sort present utterly intractable problems of plausibility, ontology, and epistemology.

But these problems only arise if you insist on tucking God under science’s discursive covers. People do it all the time, but seriously, why on earth would anyone want to do that? It’s a losing proposition. Furthermore, just as intelligent design creationism reduces the role of God to, in Gilberson’s phrase, that of conjuror, so talking about God in the language of science makes the very idea of God incoherent. It is the exactly wrong language.

The study of evolutionary biology provides tremendous insight into life, and will provide in the future, more and deeper such insight. But as a way to understanding the nature of God, it’s as helpful as studying TCP/IP, perhaps less so.* We won’t better comprehend most of the meanings of Melville’s white whale by learning calculus any more than we can learn calculus by reading Moby Dick in math class (regarding the latter, I speak from shameful experience). And we shouldn’t expect to meet God as we read genetics or perform experiments.

Besides, and this is a point that all the “New Atheists” make again and again in one way or another, it is not “Spinoza’s God” that is at issue, or the related experiences of connectedness, oceanic feelings of wonder and awe at the universe, and similar emotions and states. It’s the idea that God is the big guy in the sky that knows good from evil always, smites the Evil Ones who just happen to coincide with the mundane enemies of those compiling the sacred texts, and so on – that’s the issue (and the problem). So, even if Gilberson were a sophisticated theologian, it wouldn’t matter. The Guy In The Sky worshippers don’t care about that fancy stuff and won’t listen. Gilberson perceives this somewhat, but seems not to realize that he is talking about two different Gods:one is his personal deity, the other the White Beareded One.

All this said, Gilberson makes some clever points, such as noting the difference between perceiving the Bible as the Word of God, with which he has no problem, and thinking the Bible contains the words of God, which is, to put it mildly, seriously wrong, if not overtly blasphemous within a Judeo-Christian context (as in making the Bible an idol, a graven image of God). I just wish he wouldn’t try to reconcile his beliefs with the language of science because not only is that a hopeless, thankless task, it is a meaningless one.

*Of course, science can investigate the phenomenon of religion and the nature of beliefs about God, and should.