I'll take the Genesis story over evolution as an origin story, a philosophical framework, even as a more full description of reality than what evolution offers, you don't need to convince me there, but those bones of Turkana boy have got to have a place in the story somewhere right? It's not like the scientific evidence for evolution doesn't exist, but the atheistic story told using that evidence is incomplete. Maybe the missing thing is something like (and I'm spit balling here) the denial of dependence on the powers above (gods, spirits, angels, etc) alongside the dependence on the stuff below (cells, bones, electrons, wavefunction collapses etc). The story of evolution tells us something like "we come from the dust" which is not totally a lie, it's just only half of the truth, because we also come from the breath of God.
Love this. The trick is how to enter "the rest of the story". Because it does indeed tell us something! Love it. You are so right. But if we take the scientists mindset into the exploration of the rest of the story, well, we get stuck telling a story about data. Which is, just as you say Zac, an incomplete telling. For the me the hard part is to reside in the unknown, the scientific unknown. But it's not really that hard if you have the teleological and Christic world view and hold it as the first principle... The "holding" is the hard part in our modern mechanistic world I think...
Your deep dive is majestic and very much appreciate it. This quote above all helped me,
This is my name for a science, taken from St. John of Damascus, that would cautiously pursue its knowledge for the sake of wisdom and love, rather than power, and being willing to abstain from the pursuit of knowledge that would be gotten at too high a cost…”
It is the power quotient buried deep in modern science that I had to stain. And my tongue and cheek historical analysis is meant to enliven the conversation so that we might see that the core of the modern problem is an individualistic love of power over nature, over “all the immaterial nonsense“
Peace to you indeed! Thank you for being here! Christos Voskrese!
Zac - a great observation! It was a union of the material (mater or mother) with the pattern (pater or father) that created human.
This idea of union is so innate & natural that a young child picks up on it. The Enlightenment seems to have tried to discover “light” by studying “dark” - discarding one half of the union. The book Language of Creation has helped my modern, Protestant brain tremendously to see in a more ancient, more meaning filled way. When Moses went up the mountain, he received a pattern (the commandments AND the Tabernacle plans) - the theme of pattern repeats again & again.
A recent observation - after Christ’s death & resurrection, He appeared to the disciples. As the story goes, “He breathed on them” (John 20:22). As did the Father (Genesis 2:7) so did the Son!
Apr 27, 2023·edited Apr 27, 2023Liked by John Heers
This sort of reminds me of light people with roots in NY, IL, and UT trying to convince people in South America that they are really Hebrew, but they come doing a gnostic twist.
Also, you hit the nail on the head in regard to the fatherless. An orphaned 3 year old has asked my son, who is almost, but not quite yet, her father, if he is “dad”. None of us put this idea in her head, that’s how deep our need for a father is. She knows she has a father even though her’s has always been AWOL and she’s looking for him. I’m hoping the one who adopts her and becomes her father, will point her to her Father who art in Heaven and teaches her that Kansas songs about mere dust in the wind only make sense if you are Fatherless. I hear the sound of dry bones rattling……
Honestly, this piece was much closer to my way of thinking than I thought it would be. While I have one or two mild criticisms, which I will mention below, this hit on the more important aspects of the issue at hand. I especially liked your question about where this is all going, which I think we can both agree is nowhere good.
My main issue is that I'm not sure you're being careful enough with the word "evolution." The philosophical history and milieu in which the Darwinian theory arose and the philosophies to which they are put to service, that you described and are rightly critical of, are distinct from the data at hand as well as from the scientific framework that brings a logical and empirical coherence to that data. There is an idea within the philosophy of science known as "the under-determination of the theory by the data." This describes the phenomenon, quite common within science, where radically different, and even mutually exclusive interpretive frameworks, including especially broader epistemological and metaphysical concerns, can all make coherent sense of the data. I brought this up as one way, among many, to say that one need not hold to one iota of the philosophies you mentioned to be convinced by the forensic explanation offered by evolutionary biology of the data we have at hand.
In other words, by using the word "evolution" as you do, it becomes all too easy to confuse the broader philosophical issues, and the much more narrow, and as Zac Chave-Cox said, incomplete, forensic explanation offered by a well supported and legitimate scientific enterprise. This confusion is dangerous because it can lead to an unnecessary battle by making it easy to go after the wrong target, which in turn can actually make it more difficult for the Faith to fight its true enemies. As St. Augustine said in his Literal Meaning of Genesis, even infidels know something of the natural world through their own experience and reason and attacking their true knowledge with misapplication of our Faith's teachings can only lead to the infidel never coming to accept the important stuff, like the resurrection of the dead. Finally, one must exercise care in criticisms of this sort because one can easily end up erroneously claiming that others are outside the true Faith simply because they are sincerely convinced of a position on a more peripheral issue.
Now, I'm not saying this is what you're doing. In fact, after reading this, I'm certain you're not. I just think your case needs to be stated a little more carefully. And, in your defense, these are deep and complicated issues. It is very difficult to separate truly scientific claims from philosophical interpretations of those claims. This is because there isn't really a sharp boundary. There's no such thing as fact totally separated from value-laden interpretation.
To end, Iwant to actually show that I'm much closer in agreement with you than the above might indicate. You are 100% correct that the philosophies out of which evolution grew are incompatible with Christianity. Further, though I am convinced that evolutionary biology is "correct" in a forensic and factual manner, I am of the opinion that it, along with most of our scientific and technological knowledge are of demonic origin. The only thing more harmful than a total falsehood is an unhelpful truth or half-truth.
I recently received a B.S. degree in physics, so I did a lot of math. One evening, studying for an exam in my mathematical methods course, I was simply stuck on a problem and went to my professor. I showed him where I was getting stuck. He said that the algebraic step I had just made was correct, but unhelpful and led me down a wrong path. He showed me a different, and just as correct, mathematical statement that put me on the right path and the problem resolved itself. That lesson, that there is a distinction between "correct" and "helpful", is one that has stuck with me ever since.
Further, I have learned from Jonathan Pageau and from the Lord of Spirits podcast how the demons provided Cain's line with knowledge, such as metallurgy, that led to greater destruction, death, and chaos.
Putting these together, I would say that though evolutionary biology elucidates "correct" mechanisms of how species change and form, it was entirely unhelpful and has led to chaos. Given where the Western world was in the 19th century, evolutionary theory was the last thing we needed. What did it lead to? "Scientific" racism, eugenics, and the reduction of the human person in the eyes of the West. It buoyed reductionism, materialism, and atheism. Though many Christians, such as myself, can recognize truth and beauty in it, it has been, as historical fact, devastating for the Church in the West. And unless something changes, this knowledge is helping lead to demonic dominance over our cultures.
Unfortunately, we can't unlearn this knowledge. I would say our task is to attack the philosophical and theological core of our Baconian science, my name for science as it is now seen and practiced, taken from Francis Bacon, and build a Damascene science. This is my name for a science, taken from St. John of Damascus, that would cautiously pursue its knowledge for the sake of wisdom and love, rather than power, and being willing to abstain from the pursuit of knowledge that would be gotten at too high a cost or is seen to be unhelpful.
Sorry for the long comment, but this post, despite my mild criticisms, has earned you another subscriber! Thanks for it!
It's very interesting as a Kenyan who has recently been struggling with this stuff, on one hand we have the race problem and I've been steeped in Sowell and others for a while, and while I agree with your general thesis I'm left ambivalent especially since the state of the church here especially the evangelical ones is terrible, they're reactionary and driven mostly by American right-wing and republican think tanks and local political interests than actual thought, philosophy -most of them are openly anti philosophy - and Leakey and his family, my opposition to their Scientism and positivism not withstanding have done amazing things for the nation, much better than our politicians, so I'm conflicted. That said, as a kikuyu I think what Africa needs most right now is a story, a myth, I'm a huge fan of the inklings, Barfield, Williams and Tolkien in particular and I think we need a mythos to unite us, to give us meaning, identity, telos and to reenchant our world. I see no conflict at all between England and kikuyu and Ethiopian myth and using the universal history framework of Jonathan Pageau, I believe it can be done so we can be done with all the anti colonial, post colonial, deconstructionist, anti racist, post modernist nonsense here. And most of all maybe solve the cultural problems, orient a people towards higher values like truth, beauty and justice not the cultural framework we work in right now in Africa of sheer materialistic gain and etcetera. Anyways, thanks for the good work, wouldn't have learnt all this without you guys and kingsnorth among others, we're listening and you're helping immensely.
I'll take the Genesis story over evolution as an origin story, a philosophical framework, even as a more full description of reality than what evolution offers, you don't need to convince me there, but those bones of Turkana boy have got to have a place in the story somewhere right? It's not like the scientific evidence for evolution doesn't exist, but the atheistic story told using that evidence is incomplete. Maybe the missing thing is something like (and I'm spit balling here) the denial of dependence on the powers above (gods, spirits, angels, etc) alongside the dependence on the stuff below (cells, bones, electrons, wavefunction collapses etc). The story of evolution tells us something like "we come from the dust" which is not totally a lie, it's just only half of the truth, because we also come from the breath of God.
Love this. The trick is how to enter "the rest of the story". Because it does indeed tell us something! Love it. You are so right. But if we take the scientists mindset into the exploration of the rest of the story, well, we get stuck telling a story about data. Which is, just as you say Zac, an incomplete telling. For the me the hard part is to reside in the unknown, the scientific unknown. But it's not really that hard if you have the teleological and Christic world view and hold it as the first principle... The "holding" is the hard part in our modern mechanistic world I think...
Zac,
Your deep dive is majestic and very much appreciate it. This quote above all helped me,
This is my name for a science, taken from St. John of Damascus, that would cautiously pursue its knowledge for the sake of wisdom and love, rather than power, and being willing to abstain from the pursuit of knowledge that would be gotten at too high a cost…”
It is the power quotient buried deep in modern science that I had to stain. And my tongue and cheek historical analysis is meant to enliven the conversation so that we might see that the core of the modern problem is an individualistic love of power over nature, over “all the immaterial nonsense“
Peace to you indeed! Thank you for being here! Christos Voskrese!
Zac - a great observation! It was a union of the material (mater or mother) with the pattern (pater or father) that created human.
This idea of union is so innate & natural that a young child picks up on it. The Enlightenment seems to have tried to discover “light” by studying “dark” - discarding one half of the union. The book Language of Creation has helped my modern, Protestant brain tremendously to see in a more ancient, more meaning filled way. When Moses went up the mountain, he received a pattern (the commandments AND the Tabernacle plans) - the theme of pattern repeats again & again.
A recent observation - after Christ’s death & resurrection, He appeared to the disciples. As the story goes, “He breathed on them” (John 20:22). As did the Father (Genesis 2:7) so did the Son!
This sort of reminds me of light people with roots in NY, IL, and UT trying to convince people in South America that they are really Hebrew, but they come doing a gnostic twist.
Also, you hit the nail on the head in regard to the fatherless. An orphaned 3 year old has asked my son, who is almost, but not quite yet, her father, if he is “dad”. None of us put this idea in her head, that’s how deep our need for a father is. She knows she has a father even though her’s has always been AWOL and she’s looking for him. I’m hoping the one who adopts her and becomes her father, will point her to her Father who art in Heaven and teaches her that Kansas songs about mere dust in the wind only make sense if you are Fatherless. I hear the sound of dry bones rattling……
Kansas! Dust in the wind... that brings back some memories sister!
Honestly, this piece was much closer to my way of thinking than I thought it would be. While I have one or two mild criticisms, which I will mention below, this hit on the more important aspects of the issue at hand. I especially liked your question about where this is all going, which I think we can both agree is nowhere good.
My main issue is that I'm not sure you're being careful enough with the word "evolution." The philosophical history and milieu in which the Darwinian theory arose and the philosophies to which they are put to service, that you described and are rightly critical of, are distinct from the data at hand as well as from the scientific framework that brings a logical and empirical coherence to that data. There is an idea within the philosophy of science known as "the under-determination of the theory by the data." This describes the phenomenon, quite common within science, where radically different, and even mutually exclusive interpretive frameworks, including especially broader epistemological and metaphysical concerns, can all make coherent sense of the data. I brought this up as one way, among many, to say that one need not hold to one iota of the philosophies you mentioned to be convinced by the forensic explanation offered by evolutionary biology of the data we have at hand.
In other words, by using the word "evolution" as you do, it becomes all too easy to confuse the broader philosophical issues, and the much more narrow, and as Zac Chave-Cox said, incomplete, forensic explanation offered by a well supported and legitimate scientific enterprise. This confusion is dangerous because it can lead to an unnecessary battle by making it easy to go after the wrong target, which in turn can actually make it more difficult for the Faith to fight its true enemies. As St. Augustine said in his Literal Meaning of Genesis, even infidels know something of the natural world through their own experience and reason and attacking their true knowledge with misapplication of our Faith's teachings can only lead to the infidel never coming to accept the important stuff, like the resurrection of the dead. Finally, one must exercise care in criticisms of this sort because one can easily end up erroneously claiming that others are outside the true Faith simply because they are sincerely convinced of a position on a more peripheral issue.
Now, I'm not saying this is what you're doing. In fact, after reading this, I'm certain you're not. I just think your case needs to be stated a little more carefully. And, in your defense, these are deep and complicated issues. It is very difficult to separate truly scientific claims from philosophical interpretations of those claims. This is because there isn't really a sharp boundary. There's no such thing as fact totally separated from value-laden interpretation.
To end, Iwant to actually show that I'm much closer in agreement with you than the above might indicate. You are 100% correct that the philosophies out of which evolution grew are incompatible with Christianity. Further, though I am convinced that evolutionary biology is "correct" in a forensic and factual manner, I am of the opinion that it, along with most of our scientific and technological knowledge are of demonic origin. The only thing more harmful than a total falsehood is an unhelpful truth or half-truth.
I recently received a B.S. degree in physics, so I did a lot of math. One evening, studying for an exam in my mathematical methods course, I was simply stuck on a problem and went to my professor. I showed him where I was getting stuck. He said that the algebraic step I had just made was correct, but unhelpful and led me down a wrong path. He showed me a different, and just as correct, mathematical statement that put me on the right path and the problem resolved itself. That lesson, that there is a distinction between "correct" and "helpful", is one that has stuck with me ever since.
Further, I have learned from Jonathan Pageau and from the Lord of Spirits podcast how the demons provided Cain's line with knowledge, such as metallurgy, that led to greater destruction, death, and chaos.
Putting these together, I would say that though evolutionary biology elucidates "correct" mechanisms of how species change and form, it was entirely unhelpful and has led to chaos. Given where the Western world was in the 19th century, evolutionary theory was the last thing we needed. What did it lead to? "Scientific" racism, eugenics, and the reduction of the human person in the eyes of the West. It buoyed reductionism, materialism, and atheism. Though many Christians, such as myself, can recognize truth and beauty in it, it has been, as historical fact, devastating for the Church in the West. And unless something changes, this knowledge is helping lead to demonic dominance over our cultures.
Unfortunately, we can't unlearn this knowledge. I would say our task is to attack the philosophical and theological core of our Baconian science, my name for science as it is now seen and practiced, taken from Francis Bacon, and build a Damascene science. This is my name for a science, taken from St. John of Damascus, that would cautiously pursue its knowledge for the sake of wisdom and love, rather than power, and being willing to abstain from the pursuit of knowledge that would be gotten at too high a cost or is seen to be unhelpful.
Sorry for the long comment, but this post, despite my mild criticisms, has earned you another subscriber! Thanks for it!
It's very interesting as a Kenyan who has recently been struggling with this stuff, on one hand we have the race problem and I've been steeped in Sowell and others for a while, and while I agree with your general thesis I'm left ambivalent especially since the state of the church here especially the evangelical ones is terrible, they're reactionary and driven mostly by American right-wing and republican think tanks and local political interests than actual thought, philosophy -most of them are openly anti philosophy - and Leakey and his family, my opposition to their Scientism and positivism not withstanding have done amazing things for the nation, much better than our politicians, so I'm conflicted. That said, as a kikuyu I think what Africa needs most right now is a story, a myth, I'm a huge fan of the inklings, Barfield, Williams and Tolkien in particular and I think we need a mythos to unite us, to give us meaning, identity, telos and to reenchant our world. I see no conflict at all between England and kikuyu and Ethiopian myth and using the universal history framework of Jonathan Pageau, I believe it can be done so we can be done with all the anti colonial, post colonial, deconstructionist, anti racist, post modernist nonsense here. And most of all maybe solve the cultural problems, orient a people towards higher values like truth, beauty and justice not the cultural framework we work in right now in Africa of sheer materialistic gain and etcetera. Anyways, thanks for the good work, wouldn't have learnt all this without you guys and kingsnorth among others, we're listening and you're helping immensely.