Theology and Evolutionary Psychology, Prelude: Galileo’s Dilemma

I’m going to start a series theologically interacting with evolutionary psychology. I hope you’ll find this series fun and illuminating.

Evolutionary psychology is a growing paradigm in the social sciences. Its logic and findings are even spilling out into popular media outlets. Some of this is of dubious quality and some is pretty good. Regardless, evolutionary psychology is posing some interesting problems for theology. This series will both introduce you to evolutionary psychology and point out some of its theological implications.

But let’s back up and talk a bit about science and faith.

Thomas Henry Huxley, a friend and peer of Charles Darwin (Huxley was sometimes called “Darwin’s Bulldog” for his vigorous defense of Darwin’s theory of evolution), in a letter to his friend, the clergyman Charles Kingsley, wrote these words:

“My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to the facts, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. Science seems to me to teach the highest and strongest manner the great of which is embodied in the Christian conception of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down before a fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads you, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.”

Let’s reflect on Huxley’s words. Specifically, is it possible, is it truly surrendering to the will of God, to humbly follow wherever nature leads us? Is it spiritually wise to teach your aspirations, even our traditional Christian teachings, to “conform themselves to the facts”? Or, should we, like many do, make the facts “harmonize with our aspirations”? More disturbingly, what should we do when the facts appear to be in conflict with the Bible?

A similar conflict was experienced when Galileo faced off with the Inquisition. You will recall that in his book The Starry Messenger Galileo defended and supported the heliocentric (Sun-centered) vision of the solar system as described by Copernicus. More than this, Galileo, by turning one of the first telescopes toward the heavens, also observed firsthand that the Ptolemaic theory (that the earth was the center of the universe) was inconsistent with his observational data. Unfortunately for Galileo, the Ptolemaic system was the official orthodoxy of the Catholic Church. Consequently, by publishing his observations Galileo was potentially undermining the orthodoxy of the Church and in danger of contradicting Holy Scripture. Over time this book, and others published later, coupled with growing antagonism within the Papal court, eventually led to Galileo falling afoul of the Inquisition. Consequently, in 1633, Galileo was arrested, tried, forced to recant, and placed on house arrest for the rest of his life.

But what should Galileo have done? Go with the facts as he knew them or with received church orthodoxy? We can call this decision—the conflict been empirical observations and a literal reading of the Bible—Galileo’s Dilemma. In Galileo’s own words:

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with senses, reason, and intellect intended for us to forgo their use…He would not require us to deny sense and reason in physical matters which are set before our eyes and minds by direct experience or necessary demonstrations.”

Also,

“I think that in discussion of physical problems (Nature) we ought to begin
not from the authority of scriptural passages, but from sense experiences and necessary demonstrations.”

Galileo’s Dilemma continues to worry many Christians. Currently, Galileo’s Dilemma is best illustrated in the debates involving Darwinian evolution.

Although there are a variety of procedures for resolving Galileo’s Dilemma, no real consensus exists within Christianity. People of good will differ in how they resolve the Dilemma. Some, Christian fundamentalists for example, adopt an extreme, uncompromising approach. That is, Revelation always trumps Reason. In contrast, other Christians attempt to make significant accommodations to science.

What are the options before a Christian in dealing with the empirical data in favor of an old earth and biological evolution? First, as mentioned, we could attempt the method of radical non-accommodation of the Christian fundamentalists. According to a literal reading of the Bible, the earth is only about 6,000-7,000 years old (estimated by counting and calculating the generations and lifespans within Biblical genealogies). Consequently, this position is called Young Earth Creationism in that it claims the earth is very young compared to scientific estimates. Further, according to a literal reading of Genesis, animal and plant species are unique and separate creations. That is, according to a literal reading of the Bible, humans did not evolve from more primitive life forms. This Revelation (a literal reading of Genesis) seems to conflict with Reason (the scientific data). Those using a non-accommodation approach simply assert that science is wrong. That is, Young Earth Creationists assert that evolution did not occur and the earth, despite appearances, is very young (relative to the geological dates which state that the earth is 4 to 5 billion years old).

Many Christians are characterized by this radical non-accommodation approach. Others, having carefully weighed the evidence, find parts of the scientific picture credible and attempt to accommodate this evidence. A good example of this is Old Earth Creationism. Many Christians appear convinced that the earth is very, very old. Certainly more than 6,000 years old. How do they accommodate this evidence? They typically do this by reading the word “day” in Genesis figuratively. That is, a “day” in Genesis could be poetic shorthand for “a phase of creation.” A “day” could be 10 hours or 10 million years. Some Christians even support this notion by citing 2 Peter 3:8: “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”

Let’s pause and see what is gained and lost by accommodating the geological evidence regarding the age of the earth. First, compared with Young Earth Creationists, the Old Earth Creationists seem to be more scientifically respectable. They have accommodated a widely accepted scientific fact and so appear more intellectual and less reactionary than their Young Earth counterparts. But at what cost? Old Earth Creationists must forgo a strict adherence to Biblical literalism. The word “day” in Genesis 1 is a “poetic” day, a metaphorical day, not a literal 24 hour day. For Old Earth Creationists this is a small price to pay to accommodate overwhelming scientific evidence. Any yet, Young Earth Creationists see in this a dangerous and slippery slope. If “day” in Genesis is read metaphorically why couldn’t “God” be read metaphorically?

Leaving behind the concerns of the Old and Young Earth Creationists, I simply want to point out the gains and losses involved in most cases of scientific accommodation. Crudely, the tension is between scientific accommodation and Biblical literalism. If the Bible is read literally science cannot be accommodated. If science is accommodated then parts of the Bible must be read non-literally. That is, scientific accommodation and biblical literalism are in tension with each other. The game isn’t zerosum, but it’s close.

Moving on. Accommodating science even further, we have theistic evolutionists. Theistic evolutionists (e.g., the Catholic Church) accept biological evolution but claim that the process was God-directed, culminating in Homo sapiens. Obviously, then, for theistic evolutionists, Genesis is read figuratively, metaphorically, mythically. That is to say, theologically.

There are plenty of other models in play here as we accommodate science further (e.g., deism, pantheism, panentheism). But again, I just want to make a couple observations:

1. We are all facing Galileo’s Dilemma.
2. Generally, this involves choices between biblical literalism and scientific accommodation.
3. This tension forms a continuum, with different choices available to Christians.
4. Intelligent Christians of good will make different choices along this continuum (e.g., Young Earth Creationism vs. Old Earth Creationism vs. Theistic Evolution).

And my 5th point would be: Accommodating science and letting go of biblical literalism doesn’t matter much. For example, I agree wholeheartedly with the respected New Testament scholar, Luke Timothy Johnson, who makes the following statement in his book The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why it Matters?:

“The [Christian] vision of creation—which is simply the vision supposed by the entire weight of Scripture—is entirely compatible with theories of evolution, including the evolution of species. Such a view of God’s creation is perfectly compatible with the evolutionary sense of the world constantly becoming, constantly in process…[Further] the natural and biological sciences…are full of important insight that Christians neglect or deny at the cost of intellectual integrity…[Thus] [t]rying to read the account of origins in the Book of Genesis as a source of scientific knowledge is both bad science and a disastrous misunderstanding of Genesis as a literary and religious text. Whatever Genesis might be, it is not a scientific tract, not even by ancient standards. Only those desperate to save the ‘inerrancy’ of the biblical text, and lacking any sense of how stories can be true without being accurate, will engage in such a dubious misuse of intelligence…Genesis speaks the truth about the origins of the world, but not according to the standards of the natural and biological sciences. It speaks truth through literary and religious [narrative]. It tells us plainly that everything existing comes to exist from a God who is not part of the world but who brings it into being by his power of knowing and loving (that is, by his ‘word’).”

All this is to say that, in this series, I’m going to be taking the evolutionary data very seriously. And I’m well aware that this has implications for how I read the bible. But, like Johnson, that’s okay with me.