Recently, at the University of Southern California, I've found myself engaged in conversations about the nature, or super-nature, of God. A few weeks ago, I attended a talk for the evangelical Christian club at our medical school. (The title of the talk was "Why I Am Not an Atheist" - which, sure enough, raised the hackles of our atheist medical students, one of whom showed up to complain. "How would our Muslim students feel," the student asked, "if the title of this talk was 'Why I Am Not a Muslim'?" A really good question....) The speaker proceeded to give the usual arguments, unscientific and illogical, but invoking science and logic, for the existence of a supernatural God. You can look up all these arguments on the internet. The argument from time, Pascal's wager, the argument from morality. If any of them were convincing, then we'd all be convinced... but they aren't, and we're not.
At the question and answer period, I said, "As a progressive Christian, I have found a way to experience God without having to go through this exercise of trying to prove the existence of God. I don't need to believe in a supernatural God to be Christian, so this effort to account for such a God through science and logic isn't necessary. Your arguments fail because they are tautological: effectively they depend on the initial assumption that there is a supernatural God outside the universe who created it and tinkers with it from outside, so it is no wonder that they circle back to that conclusion."I have yet to meet anyone who became a Christian or came to believe in a supernatural God as a result of any of these propositions. I've met many hundreds of people who became evangelical or fundamentalist Christians because they came into contact with Christians whom they admired and with whom they wanted to belong. They accepted the supernaturalist doctrines of these Christian groups because that was the price of admission. Seeing later that there were serious logical and scientific challenges to supernaturalism, some of them sought out arguments based on science or logic to give support for their beliefs. But not once have I met a person who started down the Christian path on the strength of these explanations.
A few nights ago our Office of Religious Life hosted a stage performance of "Dangerous Descent", written by Colin Cox, at USC. It's a dramatization of the debates between evolutionary biologists and proponents of the "intelligent design" version of Christian creationism. It pits 'scientism', a stridently atheistic expression of the evolutionary biology position, against the supernaturalistic Christian account of the emergence of life on earth. The play made no reference to the progressive Christian movement, which does not posit a conflict between Darwin and faith. But despite and perhaps because of its polemical nature, the play was a good conversation-starter for the audience after the performance. The actors, the playwright, an evolutionary biologist at USC, and myself were the panel initiating the after-show discussion. Of the hundred-odd students and staff who attended, it appeared that a handful were proponents of the 'intelligent design' perspective.
One of them spoke up and said that there was no way that the complexity of certain features of life could be accounted for by a process of random mutation, so an intelligent Creator must have formed those features. I answered: "You are completely entitled to your religious belief. But in order for your idea to be scientific, you have to explain how God did what you say he did." 'Intelligent design' does not and cannot offer such explanations. 'Intelligent design' rests on the idea that God is supernatural. But to explain the processes by which God creates would suggest that God's acts are part of the realm of nature. This would deny the supernaturalism, and thus the existence, of God.
Michael Dowd, author of "Thank God for Evolution!", is the nation's foremost "evangelist" for celebrating the compatibility of sound science and good religion. In a recent blog, Michael points out the consequences of the biblically literalistic defense of supernaturalism. "Is it any wonder that young people are leaving religion by the millions, if this is the 'good news' they are offered? Is it any wonder that the new atheists continue to ride bestseller lists if religion is equated with such 'supernaturalism'?"
All the arguments for 'intelligent design' are appeals to belief in the "God of the gaps", a supernatural deity whose existence is supposed to account for the existence of things that science can't yet explain. In the "Dangerous Descent" play, the actor advocating for 'intelligent design' constantly complains whenever the actor advocating for evolutionary biology says 'not yet'. But science is all about seeking out explanations for that which has 'not yet' been understood. All that has so far been discovered was once 'not yet' explained. Science thrives on the quest to close the very 'gaps' that supernaturalist Christians invoke as evidence of the existence of their God. The "God of the gaps" has been in retreat for centuries now, as each gap is filled by new discoveries.
But there is a gapless God: the One who is one with the process of evolution and ongoing creation. The One who is one with nature. The One who is a verb that moves from within, rather than a noun that stands outside the universe and gives directions. The One who is existence itself, and thus whose existence is pointless to prove. The One whose presence we feel in prayer and worship, the One who is the essence of the awe we feel when we consider the natural marvels that surround us. The God we know in the glow of wonderment, as we consider both our knowledge and our ignorance of how the universe works.
Jim Burklo
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