Source material for "Does God Play Dice?"
DOES GOD PLAY DICE? Reconciling Evolution and Faith
June 17, June 24, and July 1 at St. Benedict’s, Los Osos - 7 p.m.
Presentations on evolutionary theory, the challenges the theory presents for people of faith and the ways in which scientists and theologians have responded to these challenges. Led by three scientists: Ed Himelblau (geneticist), John Horsley (theoretical chemist), and Rob Ross (biochemist); sponsored by the Hollister Institute at St. Benedict’s Church.
John Horsley's talk outlines
Does the role of “chance” in evolution make evolution incompatible with faith?
John Horsley
It is undeniable that “chance” or “contingency” plays an important role in evolution.
The paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould (1) wrote that if you re-ran the tape of evolutionary history, an entirely different set of creatures would emerge. Humans would not exist because the enormous number of random changes that resulted in us would never be repeated exactly the same way. As a result some Christians have declared that evolution must be in conflict with faith, as a Creator God would not leave matters to chance. However, what may be needed is a different concept of God.
The traditional concept of God as a Being “out there” who intervenes from outside Creation does indeed appear to be inadequate in the light of evolution. Another concept of God, known as panentheism seems to be more appropriate. Panentheism (note the –en- in the middle of the word) is the belief that “the Being of God includes and penetrates the whole universe so that every part of it exists in God but that God’s being is more than the universe” (definition from the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church). As Marcus Borg (2) puts it, panentheism means that God is “right here” rather than “out there”. In this concept of God, God’s creation is within Godself (although distinct from it) and the processes of the natural order are God’s action in creation (but are not themselves God). God is actively and personally creating through the processes of the world.
How does chance fit in to this picture? The biochemist and theologian Arthur Peacocke has proposed that God is using the chance events of evolution to explore the potentialities that God has given to the universe (3). A similar view is proposed by the Roman Catholic theologian Elizabeth Johnson (4): “"In the beginning" the Creator endows the material of this world with one set of potentialities rather than another. These are then unveiled by chance exploring their gamut in an inevitable yet indeterminate evolutionary process. Indeed, in retrospect, this seems to be the only way in which all of matter's potentialities might eventually, given enough time and space, be actualized. Consequently, chance is not an alternative to law, but the very means whereby law is creative”
So the God that evolution points to is a God “in Whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), a dynamic God who is “continually bringing into existence the new”5. “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it?” (Isaiah 43:19).
1. Stephen J. Gould; Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (W. W. Norton, 1989).
2. Marcus Borg ; Seeing God Again: in God at 2000, Morehouse Publishing, 2000, p. 7.
3. Arthur Peacocke; Evolution – The Disguised Friend of Faith, Templeton Foundation Press, 2004, p. 55.
4. Elizabeth Johnson; Does God Play Dice? Divine Providence and Chance; Theological Studies, Vol. 56 (1996), PP. 3-18.). The article can be found on the web site of the American Association for the Advancement of Science:
www.aaas.org/spp/dser/03_Areas/evolution/perspectives/Johnson_1996.shtml
5. Arthur Peacococke; Evolution – The Disguised Friend of Faith, Templeton Foundation press, 2004, p. 96.
Does the Human Species have a Special Place in Evolution?
John Horsley
As I pointed out in the outline of my first talk, some theologians have proposed that God is using the chance events of evolution to explore the potentialities that God has given to the material universe. What new potentialities have emerged in humans? I think most people would agree that the most important of these are: self-consciousness or self- awareness (leading to the use of “I”) and, resulting from this, free will – the ability to choose to do something or not. Although self-awareness may be present to a very limited extent in some animals (higher primates, dolphins?) it is only fully actualized in humans. “Humans are the first animals who, by self-consciously shaping and choosing their own environment, have stepped outside the process of evolution by natural selection operating on mutations” (1).
So, although the contingency of events in evolution means that the creation of the human species in the form that emerged from evolution was not specifically part of God’s purposes, part of God’s purposes could be said to be the “generation of communities of free, self-aware, self-directing sentient beings”, as proposed by the theologian Keith Ward (2).
However, in addition to these realized potentialities, people of faith believe there are other potentialities in humans that can be actualized. According to Christian theology, the reason that they are not actualized is humanity’s deliberate refusal to cooperate with God – what has traditionally been called “sin”. Christians believe that these potentialities have nevertheless been fully expressed by one human being, namely Jesus Christ. For Arthur Peacocke (3), this had led to nothing less than a new stage of evolution. “…in Christ a “trans-mutation” (rather than the “mutation” of biology) of human life was effected at a new depth of the personality and those who participate in, or acquire this new depth of life in Christ are becoming a new sort of human being. ……..The Christian transformation, once accepted as a reality through reflection on the historical evidence, can properly be viewed as a new phase of that cosmic development which is disclosed by science….”. “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17)
1. Arthur Peacocke; Evolution – The Disguised Friend of Faith, Templeton Foundation Press, 2004, p. 134.
2. Keith Ward; God, Chance and Necessity, Oneworld, Oxford, 1996.
3. Arthur Peacocke; Evolution – The Disguised Friend of Faith, Templeton Foundation Press, 2004, p. 150.
Rob Ross's talk and notes
Does God Play Dice? Reconciling Evolution and Faith: Session 3
Rob Ross
I want to begin by briefly revisiting two of the topics that John addressed last week, and then move to the topics of pain, prayer, and polity.
The first topic that I want to revisit is the metaphor in which God is a mother who nurtures the developing universe in her womb. I was personally moved by that metaphor and I am grateful to John for introducing it. For me, it captures all that I understand of last week's big vocabulary word: panentheism. More on this later.
The second topic that I want to revisit is RERUNNING EVOLUTION
John talked about the following (quoting from his outline):
The paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote that if you re-ran the tape of evolutionary history, an entirely different set of creatures would emerge. Humans would not exist because the enormous number of random changes that resulted in us would never be repeated exactly the same way.
I wonder how different a rerun would be. The date that some species starts making TV sets might change by a few million years, and the TV makers would look a bit different from humans, but how different? Two eyes? Two legs? Two genders? Five fingers? Speculation about such things is mostly the stuff of science fiction, but I wondered if Ed could comment on what hard evidence there might be. It turns out that he has done experiments (on plants) that have attempted to "rerun the evolutionary tape." He says that the reruns are usually rather different.
Now for the three new topics this evening.
The first is PAIN (and evil).
Why does God allow pain and evil in the world? This is a question that has vexed the faithful for centuries, and there is a whole area of theology, called theodicy (tonight's big vocabulary word), devoted to defending God against charges of incompetence or uncaring.
For some, accepting the reality of biological evolution makes the problem worse. Where is God in the millions of years full of pain, death, and extinction of species that have led to our present world? Couldn't God have found a better way to do it?
For others, evolution provides an explanation for pain and evil. Francisco Ayala is a distinguished geneticist at the University of California, Irvine who is a former Catholic priest. He says that evolution "is more consistent with belief in a personal god than intelligent design. If God has designed organisms, he has a lot to account for." (quotes from The New York Times).
For me, the concern about evolution being full of pain and death stems from a misunderstanding of evolution that dates from about the time of Darwin. In college I learned of the phrase "Nature red in tooth and claw". Perhaps you did, also. It seems to epitomize the terrible nature of evolution. The phrase is actually from an 1849 poem by Tennyson, predating the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species by 10 years. In my mind its use is associated more with the philosophy of social Darwinism than based on an accurate understanding of biological evolution.
Any animal with a well-developed nervous system experiences physical pain. It is a necessary consequence of self-protection against physical injury. Those who cannot feel pain wind up burning their fingers. It is not a failure of God to get it right and not something exacerbated by evolution.
Similarly, psychic pain--say, on the death of a loved one--seems to be a necessary consequence of functional social interaction. Those who lack psychic feeling bear names like "psychopath" or "sociopath".
But still, there is cancer and genocide. Where is God in them?
And so I return to the metaphor of God as a woman who cradles the universe in her womb. The woman-God cares deeply for the developing child-universe within her, but bad things sometimes happen. She did not will them, and she grieves deeply for the loss within her.
The second of the three new topics for this evening is PRAYER
To me the key question for this series of evenings has been "Does God let biological evolution and other natural processes occur without continually meddling with them?" If the answer is "yes", which has been our answer, then of what use is prayer and what does God's love mean in any practical sense?
I have to begin this section by confessing that many of my own prayers are very foolish. Sometimes I even pray for parking places. I have absolutely no intellectual (or ethical) defense for this. If God isn't going to stop a tsunami, then why would He (or She!) arrange for a parking place?
But let me tell you about two situations in which prayer has meant a lot to me.
The first is from when I was teaching at Ohio State. I taught biochemistry to lecture sections of 200 students, and I had several assistants to handle most student questions. Only the most needy students came to see me personally, and their questions usually became much deeper than "Can I get credit for a few more points on the last exam?". During these sessions, which often ran for an hour, I would be simultaneously be carrying out two conversations: one with the student and one with God, asking for the wisdom to ask the right questions and to give the most helpful responses.
The second is from when I stayed with my dad (and mom) while he was dying from pancreatic cancer. I was simultaneously caring for him and praying, pretty constantly. Also, some of those who came to see him, to say goodbye to him, wanted to talk about their own fears and needs, much like those biochemistry students. So again I would be simultaneously be talking with, say, my uncle and with God.
I must tell you from personal experience that this kind of prayer is wonderfully effective, and it doesn't require breaking any scientific laws.
This kind of prayer has an honorable history. Saint Teresa of Avila (born in 1582) described prayer as "water for the soul".
Perhaps building on this image, the modern Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel has famously said "Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will."
As I have been thinking over the past several weeks about what I would say tonight, a verse from a church folk song has been going through my head. A few days ago I got around to Googleing it and learned that the text of the song I was remembering is also from Saint Teresa of Avila:
Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks
compassion on this world
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
The last of the topics for this evening is POLITY. (perhaps not the best term, but I liked having every topic start with a "p")
The basic issue is why half of the American public fails to accept the overwhelming evidence for biological evolution, and what might be done in response to this.
I think that a major reason folks don't accept evolution is publicly-prominent scientists (Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins) who say "science proves that a belief in God is foolish". These people think: "I've had a powerful experience of the divine that is far more real to me than anything I could understand from a science class. If I'm forced to choose between science and God, then I choose God."
The other reason is that the loudest voices among religious leaders are those who also argue that faith and acceptance of evolution are incompatible. This may leave some among the half of Americans who do accept evolution thinking that their belief would not be welcome in a Christian church.
How should mainline denominations such as the Episcopal Church handle this issue, and how should this issue be handled in the science classroom?
ROLE OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH
John has introduced us to
Arthur Peacocke, the Oxford biochemistry professor turned Anglican priest responsible for the lovely metaphor of the universe as fetus in God's womb. Another British professor turned Anglican priest is the Cambridge physicist John Polkinghorne.
Theirs are the two of the clearest voices on the relationship between science and Christianity, and I am delighted that they come from our denomination.
I'm also delighted to report that the best Web resource I've found on the implications of evolution for mainstream Christians is on our own national church's website.
Its "Catechism of Creation", is at
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/19021_58393_ENG_HTM.htm
Part II is on "Creation and Science", for which an extensive bibliography is at
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/19021_32290_ENG_HTM.htm
I think that Donna has plans to do some similar things on the coming website for the SLO Deanery.
Supplemental notes (by Rob):
If one types "does God play dice" into Google, the top link is to a wonderful public lecture by Stephen Hawking, at http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html . In it, Hawking attributes the first public expression of "scientific determinism" to the French mathematician-astronomer Laplace (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace ), the same fellow who was reported to say "I had no need of that hypothesis" when Napoleon remarked on the absence of God in his writings. Hawking talks about how the Uncertainty Principle of quantum mechanics, chaos theory, and our new understanding of black holes all undermine the determinism popular among scientists since Laplace.
That said, dice can produce decidedly unrandom results (upon which casino owners rely). For several years I taught a graduate course in statistical mechanics, a field in which one combines statistics and the fundamental physics of individual atoms or molecules to compute the bulk properties of matter with remarkable precision. Here is a simple analogy, using coins instead of dice because they are simpler: A balanced coin is famous for giving half heads and half tails. If you toss 2 coins, you have only a 50% chance of getting half heads and half tails; the other 50% of the time you will get all heads or all tails. Very "dicey". But, if you toss a million coins, you should get half heads and half tails to within 0.1%. If you don't, then you now know the coins are not balanced. A small "imbalance", caused by whatever creator, will have highly predictable results, even if the individual events are quite random. If one chooses to call the creator God, then God can usually "play dice" and get results that are indistinguishable from the those of determinism.
Wikipedia on panentheism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism
links from this Wikipedia page:
video of Arthur Peacocke, Oxford biochemist and Anglican priest:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-150936448344699981&q=quantum&time=1260000
video of John Polkinghorne, Cambridge physicist and Anglican priest: http://meaningoflife.tv/video.php?speaker=polkinghorne&topic=complete
(From the prominence of Anglican scientist-priests in the links, I gather that Anglicans are particularly fond of panentheism. Either that or Anglicans were really active in writing the Wikipedia article.)
portion of Polkinghorne video on evil: http://meaningoflife.tv/video.php?speaker=polkinghorne&topic=evil
(This is the one web resource on evil/pain/theodicy that I've found so far that I like.)
Templeton Foundation "conversation" on "Does science make belief in God obsolete?" (portions printed in ads placed in many newspapers and magazines):
http://www.templeton.org/belief/
article in The Times of May 26, 2008 summarizing this conversation: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/tim_hames/article4004326.ece