College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University DigitalCommons@CSB/SJU DigitalCommons@CSB/SJU Forum Lectures Forum 2-20-2020 Why Darwin remains a problem for theism Why Darwin remains a problem for theism John Houston College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University, [email protected]Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/forum_lectures Part of the Philosophy Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Houston, John, "Why Darwin remains a problem for theism" (2020). Forum Lectures. 419. https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/forum_lectures/419 This Presentation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@CSB/SJU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Forum Lectures by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@CSB/SJU. For more information, please contact [email protected].
College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University
DigitalCommons@CSB/SJU DigitalCommons@CSB/SJU
Forum Lectures Forum
2-20-2020
Why Darwin remains a problem for theism Why Darwin remains a problem for theism
John Houston College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University, [email protected]
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/forum_lectures
Part of the Philosophy Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion
Commons
Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Houston, John, "Why Darwin remains a problem for theism" (2020). Forum Lectures. 419. https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/forum_lectures/419
This Presentation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@CSB/SJU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Forum Lectures by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@CSB/SJU. For more information, please contact [email protected].
“If you interrogate the flora and fauna of land, air, and sea,
the text suggests their response will lead your mind and heart to the living God, generous source and sustaining power of their life. In their beauty, their variety, their interacting, their coming to be and passing away, they witness to the overflowing goodness of their Creator.”~Elizabeth Johnson, Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love
“What a book a devil’s chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low and horribly cruel works of nature”~Charles Darwin, Letter to Hooker
Two Optics on Creation
Theism: The hypothesis that there exists an all knowing, all powerful,
infinitely loving and morally perfect God. Philosophical Naturalism: The cosmos is all there is, and only natural
laws and forces are operative in the world. (Entails theism is false). Evolution: The hypothesis that there is phylogenetic continuity to all life
due to the emergence of ever more complex living creatures and species from simpler forms of life—(originally unicellular organisms gave rise to multicellular organisms that resulted in increasingly more complex organisms…).
Natural Selection: The hypothesis that the mechanism of evolutionary change results from competition for survival, random variation, and heredity.
Darwinian Evolution: The conjunction of evolution with the theory of natural selection.
Defining Some Terms
Prima Facie Evidential Reason: Good reason for thinking something is
true in the absence of overriding reasons to think otherwise. Problem of Evil: The challenge of reconciling theism with suffering in
the world. Pointless Evil: Suffering that serves no purpose or greater good. The Problem of Divine Hiddenness: A species of a the problem of
evil resulting from the indiscernibility of God’s presence (intellectually or experientially) in the midst of seemingly pointless suffering.
My Thesis: The problem of evil as manifest in Darwinian evolution provides strong prima facie evidential reasons that cast doubt on theism.
Defining Some Terms
LPE Attempts to demonstrate that belief in God is logically incompatible with the world as we know it.
The Argument Distilled:
1) If theism were true, there would be no evil. 2) There is evil. 3) Therefore, theism is not true.
Deductive; Addresses Logical Possibility; Aims at Proof
Evaluation: Is it valid? Is it sound?
P2: The “privation” response & why it is irrelevant.
• Addresses metaphysics, but not the epistemic problem. • Why this absence when God is said to be over all, in all, and through all?
The Logical Problem of Evil
P1: “If theism were true there would be no evil”
Theodicies
• Stories that show the logical compatibility of theism with evil• e.g. The free will theodicy; the soul making theodicy etc.
Verdict? The argument from the logical problem of evil is a failure. Theism is logically (and metaphysically) compatible with evil.
Is the matter concluded? Is the problem of evil really just a non-problem after all?
The Logical Problem of Evil (cont’d)
• Deals not in deduction, but induction.• Deals not in possibilities, but probabilities • Deals not in proof, but likelihood
Poses the following questions:
1. Given the hypothesis that theism is true, what sorts of things might we expect to encounter in the world, and what sorts of things might we be surprised to encounter?
Or conversely,
2. Given the hypothesis that philosophical naturalism is true (theism is false) what sorts of things might we expect to encounter in the world, and what sorts of things might we be surprised to find?
Take the first: Given theism, how surprising are the following phenomena?
• Life? Rational Creatures? A Finely-Tuned Cosmos? (Unsurprising given theism). • Ubiquitous, Gratuitous, and Seemingly Pointless Suffering & Death? (Surprising given
theism)
The Evidential Problem of Evil
According to the Darwinian theory of evolution through natural selection, the
world in which we live was actualized through extraordinary brutality, apparent prodigality, and incalculable suffering over millions of years. Given theism, this is very surprising indeed. From our epistemic vantage point, an all-powerful God’s making natural selection the means by which species emerge in the world could strongly suggest indifference to suffering at best, if not callousness or cruelty. Given the gratuitous suffering it entails, it is far easier to see how such a mechanism’s being the means of the emergence of species is compatible with deism or atheism than theism. After all, given deism or atheism, there is no theological reason to expect that the world be structured so as to mitigate creatures’ pains. On deism, God is an absentee landlord who doesn’t care about life on earth, and on atheism there is no God and nature proceeds blindly and amorally, wholly indifferent to the plight of living creatures. In such a world there is nothing at all surprising about finding gratuitous brutality throughout nature, or even discovering (as we do in this world) that such brutality is not only ubiquitous, but essential to the continuation and proliferation of life on this planet.
What about Darwinian Evolution?
But theism, on the other hand, provides prima facie reasons for expecting that God would not actualize a world that is inclusive of needless suffering, especially to the scope and degree it appears to exist in our world; for God is love, and love never willingly causes needless pain and suffering. Given theism there is no reason that the means by which life emerged necessarily had to have been natural selection. Other logical and metaphysical possibilities yielding far less suffering are open to the creative work of an omnipotent and loving God (special creation being among them). Natural selection just is survival selection, and as it turns out, in the history of species on this planet, almost every single species that has ever existed has failed to thrive or even survive. According to our best understanding of the history of biological life on this planet, the process of evolution by natural selection has entailed the failure of millions of generations of creatures to thrive, and this abortifacient process by which nature deals with her young has gone on long before human beings appeared on the scene.
What about Darwinian Evolution?
We can offer a myriad of examples of apparently gratuitous suffering that daily emerge as a consequence of natural selection. “Failure to thrive” seems at best a euphemism when describing what the elimination of species entails at the individual level. Not only do lesser adapted, weaker and infirm animals suffer being mauled, torn apart, chomped, crushed, maimed, and/or consumed by their predators (often alive, piecemeal) but some animals, due to random genetic mutations, suffer elimination through horrific congenital defects. Some of these creatures are born into a short life of pain and perish soon after due to their biological unfitness to live. Others endure the effects of congenital defects for years before succumbing to death. Still others flourish for a time, only to perish prematurely before passing on their genes.
What about Darwinian Evolution?
The Gratuitous Suffering of Individual Animals
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Thus far, given the panoramic nature of suffering in the world that natural selection entails, I’ve been painting with broad brush strokes. Let us narrow our focus and consider two specific examples of individual animal suffering in the context of natural selection. The first is a consequence of predation, the second, of congenital defect. A lioness’s cub is mauled and critically injured by a territorial adult male lion seeking dominance to secure successfully passing on its DNA. It was not attacked for food, nor did the attack end in a quick death. Rather, the injuries sustained were sufficient for its being maimed, making its eventual death inevitable. The pride, including the cub’s reluctant mother, must move on. The cub is left with crushed ribs, a punctured lung, and flesh torn from its broken paws and face. For four days the cub lies in abandonment dying, mouth gaping for air, as it is consumed piecemeal by vultures under the hot savanna sun. This cub is a casualty of nature’s being, as Tennyson aptly put it, “red in tooth and claw.”
The Gratuitous Suffering of Individual Animals
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Next consider the plight of the Dall ram suffering a congenital defect that causes its horns to slowly grow into its head, sometimes through its eyes, sometimes its cheek and teeth, other times the frontal portion of its skull and into its brain. In some instances the horns will grow through the skull or cheek bones and out the other side. This, of course, takes a considerable amount of time and makes daily functions, especially eating, excruciating. Depending on the direction of the wayward horn’s growth, sometimes the ram is forced to chew through it’s own horn, other times it has its eye slowly gouged out, still other times it becomes disabled and unable to continue functioning due to brain injury. Often these creatures live on for years of incessant pain, languishing for considerable periods before succumbing to the deadly effects of their genetic inheritance. Eventually natural selection will weed them out, as their condition is not conducive to survival. In the meantime, they live and suffer as nature slowly takes its course. The story of so many animals’ lives might be summed up as follows: It was born. It suffered much. It died. It is hard to argue that the existence of such creatures is for them a good on the whole. The plight of the lion cub and the ram are examples of exquisite, protracted and acute suffering that seem gratuitous. They are typical examples of natural selection at work. Both are readily preventable by omnipotence; and neither would be overlooked nor disregarded by an infinitely loving creator. Further, it hardly seems credible in either case that God needed to allow this suffering in order to secure some greater good that could not otherwise be realized. Both of these instances of natural selection at work constitute prima facie evidential problems for theism. Elizabeth Johnson recommends (as the title of her book suggests) that, should we wish to learn about the nature of God, we ought to consult the beasts for their testimony on the matter. Let us do so. But let us not cherry pick from amongst the beasts whatever we find lovely or beautiful. Let us pause to interview our young lion cub out on the savannah or our Dall Ram in the crags and hillsides. And let us remember, that we live in a world where, when the lion lies down next to the lamb, the lamb becomes supper with no guarantee of a short death. For, just as often as not, predators do not kill and consume, but kill by consuming. Both the examples of the cub and the ram successfully resist being subsumed into any account of their suffering serving some recognizable purpose or being necessary to realize some greater good. So often when faced with instances of suffering congenital optimists immediately go to work suggesting it is justified by its making possible some other good. Thus, many routinely suggest that pain & suffering are justified because of the lessons they teach us, one of which is that we should learn to appreciate the good in life, and that without the suffering life brings our way this is not possible. While I applaud their energy and aim, I find this maneuver suspect. After all, the cub and the lion learn no lesson from their agony because a) neither is the kind of creature that has the capacity to “learn”, and b) even if there were some ‘lesson’ to be learned, neither is around to apply it, as both suffer unto death. Finally, there are no persons or other creatures around to draw a moral or a lesson from the suffering of either. In sum, if a lion cub agonizes for days on the savannah while being devoured alive, or a ram suffers for years in the mountains as its maladaptive genetics subject it to a slow death, and no one is around to see or hear them, they still suffer, and their suffering is not morally insignificant.
“The existence of all creatures is an unowed gift. They exist in a relationship of radical ontological dependence on the overflowing Wellspring of life. And it is good.”~Elizabeth Johnson, Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love
Thus, it is God who brings creatures into existence and sustains their existence.
Problem: It is hard to see how the continued existence of a life of acute agony could be a good for any subject that experiences it, much less a “gift” that testifies to a good and loving father and steward of creation.
Verdict: Given theism such instances of needless suffering are surprising. In other words, such instances of suffering (which for omnipotence are clearly avoidable) provide strong prima facie reasons for thinking theism is not true.
The “Gift” of Life?
Presenter
Presentation Notes
The natural world, theologians tell us, is the offspring of God. But this same natural world, so far as Darwinian evolution is concerned, proceeds with indifference to our existence. She deals out pain and death to the most vulnerable members of her domain without exception. Within the order of nature the weak are not made stronger; they are crushed and devoured; and the last are not made to be first—except insofar as the last in the herd is the first to be devoured. In the order of nature the meek among the beasts inherit not the earth, but death. Thus divine hiddenness comes to feel like divine absence; in this void and absence there emerges an ominous presence, viz. the presence of evil.
Darwin’s Own Foresight on the Problem
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Given theism, the discovery that tremendous suffering and incalculable death was instrumental to actualizing life on this planet is surprising indeed. This is precisely what bothered Darwin himself, who, as I have pointed out, remarked, “What a book a devil’s chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low and horribly cruel works of nature.” He did in his earlier years believe in God. And there is evidence that, as time went on, he wanted to continue to believe in God. But he eventually landed in agnosticism. He wasn’t antagonistic to theism, but he apparently saw, in part, the implications of what his theory meant. It meant that if theism were true, God had employed what appears to be a needlessly profligate process to actualize life on this planet—that God utilized millions of years of eradication, pain, pointless suffering, and general brutality to bring about the emergence of species that now exist in the world. We are, all of us, descendants of death, forged by the perpetual elimination of creatures less fit (biologically) than ourselves to live on, and we too shall endure our own biological extinction momentarily, as in our death we make way for new forms of life. Again, given the tools available to omnipotence and omniscience, and the supposition that the all mighty and all- knowing author of creation is morally perfect and perfectly good, that this should be the scheme of things is quite surprising indeed.
• Extinction is integral to natural selection.
“Two dynamic principles amplify the outcome of natural selection, acting like its right and left hands, namely, divergence and extinction.” ~Elizabeth Johnson, Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love
• Nature as Exterminator & Abortionisto More than half of all human embryos die within the first five days of their
lifespan. o Planet Earth’s Five Mass Extinctions: More than 99.9% of all species that have
ever existed on this planet have perished from the face of the earth.o Descendants of death & pain & elimination
Verdict: Given theism the fact that almost all life on this planet has failed to flourish and been consigned to non-existence is surprising. In other words, the fact of repeated mass extinctions (which for omnipotence are clearly avoidable) provides a strong prima facie reason for thinking theism is not true.
Global Suffering and the Problem of Mass Extinction
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Nature herself is the greatest exterminator of all. Consider, for a moment, the human condition alone. In herself nature is not only apparently indifferent, but hostile to our presence. She is the great abortionist—cutting down more than half of all human embryos within the first five days of their lifespan, and many more before they can emerge from the womb. But that’s merely a footnote in the grand scheme of the extermination process in this world. We live on a planet that has undergone five mass extinctions, and more than 99.9% of all species that have ever existed have perished from the face of the earth. Consider for a moment the eons of destroyed life summarized succinctly in that single sentence. Death is integral to the continuation and proliferation of life on this planet. This has been true long before we arrived, and will remain true after we too perish. Of course, according to Christian theology and the doctrine of creatio nova, our death and the death of the planet is not the conclusion of the matter, and I will come to that momentarily. But for now, suffice it to say that, as in the case of the author of Ecclesiastes, all that I here have said is true of things “under the sun”, operating in accordance to the scheme of things in this domain as we know it to be.
• Defending the Fort
o Offering one’s “apologia” for a position already held.o Arguments for the compatibility of Darwinian natural selection with
theism.
“I intend to dwell primarily on the adjustments that Christian theology has to make if it hopes to stay in touch with the world of scientific discovery.” ~John Haught, Making Sense of Evolution: Darwin, God and the Drama of Life
Translation: I admit that evolutionary theory seems incompatible with theism. But given enough time and ingenuity we shall be able to construct (through no small amount of ad hoc reasoning) a chain of arguments that demonstrate that this is not necessarily the case.
The Inadequacy of Apologetic Methodology
• Haught is correct: It is possible to develop arguments or narratives that demonstrate the logical
or metaphysical compatibility of his creed with the discoveries of the sciences, including those related to Darwinian evolution.
• However, this is of little consequence. For the same reasons the logical problem of evil fails to undermine theism, so too does the contention that Judeo-Christian religions are logically and metaphysically incompatible with the discoveries of the sciences. They are logically compatible.
• In other words, the sciences are not fundamentally at odds with Judeo-Christian religion.
• But again, logical compatibility is the lowest of criteria. While it tells you what might possibly be true, it does little to tell you what actually is true.
Verdict: This is not helpful. What theism needs in the face of the Darwinian challenge is not a story of the compatibility of God’s existence with the Darwinian account, but the opening of a discussion about the evidential implications of Darwinian evolution for theism.
The Inadequacy of Apologetic Methodology cont’d
Cosmic Interstellar Biologists and Anthropologists: A Thought Experiment
Presenter
Presentation Notes
To summarize the force of the evidential argument to this point, join me in a brief thought experiment. Admittedly, it will contain some strange counterfactuals, but bear with me. Suppose you were an interdimensional interstellar traveler from another world who specializes in the exploration and study of biology and, whenever applicable, anthropology. Suppose that the world you come from, like our own, is a place of episodic joy and happiness, but also contains a great deal pain and suffering. However, unlike our current world, the inhabitants of your world (yourself included) are all agnostic regarding supernaturalism. None are theists, i.e. none believe their world was actualized by an infinitely powerful and loving God. For all they (and you) know, nature is just a brute fact with no further explanation beyond herself; and the unfolding of the cosmos is guided and overseen by nothing beyond nature herself. However, you have been told that you have been selected for an interdimensional traveling opportunity—you shall boldly go where none of your kind have gone before. You are to visit a world that has been created (creatio originalis) and sustained (creatio continua) by a being that is infinitely loving, good, powerful, and knowledgeable. What expectations might you have as you prepare for your journey? What might you expect this world to be like? Perhaps that question is too difficult. At least it is for me. Consider instead what might be some obvious non-candidates for what you might expect this world to be like. Would you suspect something like the present world we inhabit to be your destination? What would you and your fellow travelers make of the death, carnage, and destruction with which you would find yourself surrounded in this world? What might you think when you discover that this death and carnage is not merely peripheral or accidental to life on earth, but is absolutely integral to the ecosystem on this planet as we know it? Would you not be surprised to discover a world of this sort, the very fabric of which requires the continuous death and suffering of its creatures to renew and rejuvenate its overall health and move forward into the future? Surely you would. And would not the reasons for your being surprised count as strong prima facie reasons for doubting the claim that the world has been created and is governed by an Omnipotent loving God? If you have answered yes to these final two questions, you’ve conceded my thesis.
Let Us Ask More Than the Beasts…
Presenter
Presentation Notes
As for Professor Johnson’s suggestion that we should “ask the beasts” if we wish to learn about the goodness and grandeur of God this is, of course, a piece of poetic license. We cannot consult non-rational creatures about anything. Earlier I contended that our “inquiry” mustn’t only be directed to the flourishing, but also to the casualties among the beasts. Now I would like to suggest that we also extend the inquiry to other non-human creatures. Suppose we include non-human rational creatures in our query. What if we were to ask Neanderthals to share their thoughts on the matter? What might they say about the history of their existence on this planet and natural selection’s final verdict on their continued existence? What might they, these living, breathing, feeling, and thinking creatures say about the fact that natural selection determined that they would not, unlike their more successful (and perhaps more vicious) cousins, homo sapiens, promulgate their genetic material into the future? Here we have an instance of the obliteration of an entire species of rational animals, gone extinct due to the harsh and brutal verdict of the evolutionary process in this world, which, no doubt, was hastened by the hands of their murderous brothers and sisters, homo sapiens. I wonder what it would be like to obtain an audience with one of them and to sit and listen to her or him offer their thoughts on the evolutionary process that governed their emergence, and finally their extinction, on this planet.
Let Us Ask More Than the Beasts…
Presenter
Presentation Notes
I wonder what they might say to the supposition that God was right there with them, suffering alongside of them as the last of their species was violently removed from the face of the earth. That creatures such as themselves, who have and are selves, who can feel and think and dream and desire and play and laugh and love, should be altogether abandoned to brutality and extinction due to natural selection’s unfolding the ‘drama’ of life as we know it on our planet, this is hard to accept. Would they find any solace in the idea of a silent, undiscernible, divine presence as the last of them and their progeny vanished from the face of the earth, consigned to oblivion along with the ever-mounting number of species daily going extinct on this planet? In my life I have learned to be very careful when speaking of the significance of the suffering of other creatures, especially regarding whether their having lived in the world was “worth it”—I am no Ivan Karamazov. I will be true to that lesson here. But the question I’m posing must nonetheless be fully tasted and fully digested by all who would celebrate the evolutionary process as the means by which a loving and morally perfect God would operate to bring about the emergence—and permit the eventual annihilation of—species on this planet. If God exists it is surprising to discover a preponderance of creatures whose existence is not, on the whole, a good for them. Given the proliferation of congenital defects causing profound disability; the brutality creatures suffer from each other and their environment; and the vast numbers of entire species that languish unto extinction, it seems we find such creatures in this world. Many fail to thrive, languish from day one, and perish. This is an evidential strike against theism.
ME = Mass Extinctions
s = suffering of individual creatures
S = Overall cumulative pain, suffering, and failure to thrive of life forms in general in this world
In short, let MEsS represent the problem of evil entailed by Darwinian natural selection. Thus, I maintain that:
Given the facts of repeated mass extinctions; the gratuitous suffering of individual animals; and the cumulative pain, suffering, and failure to thrive of this world’s inhabitants, the probability of Philosophical Naturalism is greater than the probability of Theism given those same facts.
While this might not be an unanswerable challenge to theism, it is a formidable one.
What then might we say to that challenge?
The Argument Formalized
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Let us compress the components of my argument writ large into a more succinct form. Let “ME” represent mass extinction. Let “s” represent the gratuitous suffering of individual creatures. Let “S” represent the overall cumulative pain, suffering, and failure to thrive of life forms in general in the world. In short, let MEsS represent he problem of evil entailed by Darwinian natural selection. Thus, I maintain that: Pr (MEsS | Philosophical Naturalism) > Pr (MEsS | Theism) Given the facts of repeated mass extinctions; the gratuitous suffering of individual animals; and the cumulative pain, suffering, and failure to thrive of this world’s inhabitants, the probability of philosophical naturalism is greater than the probability of theism given those same facts. Often when faced with these rather sobering facts, the response of the theologian is to refer to them as a mystery. Given theism, they are indeed a mystery. But that mystery entails an extraordinary evidential challenge for theism. While this might not be an unanswerable challenge to theism, it is a formidable one. What then might we say to that challenge? It doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon.
