Theistic evolution: Deism revisited?

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Dec 1997 by Harbin, Michael A

MICHAEL A. HARBIN*

The current creation-evolution debate is much more complex than a mere religion-science issue, although it is often simplified into an either-or conflict between right-wing Christian fundamentalists and science.l This simplification probably occurs because the classic evolutionist position is both naturalistic and atheistic. It is naturalistic because it argues that the entire universe is a product of natural processes that are currently being observed through science and that may be extrapolated back for an extremely long period of time. It is atheistic because a universe of natural causes seems to lead logically into a position that there is no God. The antithesis of this position is creationism, normally formulated in terms of a literal understanding of the first two chapters of Genesis and usually associated with what is called a young earth.

While often characterized as a religion-science debate, both sides claim to be based on scientific data. 2 Both sides are also often characterized as religious.3 Moreover many people who hold to an evolutionary model also claim to hold to the traditional beliefs of Christianity.

Phillip Johnson argues that the basic struggle is really between two worldview paradigms: "Is God the true creator of everything that exists, or is God a product of the human imagination, real only in the minds of those who believe?"4 According to Johnson the basic issue is not the question of the data but how the data are interpreted-whether one views the data through a theistic grid or through a naturalistic grid.

The question that arises immediately is whether this polarization is correct. Are these the only alternatives? Could not one view the data from a theistic grid and yet accept the evolutionary hypothesis? Ever since Darwin published his watershed book a number of scholars have indeed proposed such a third alternative, arguing that evolution is the physical process that God initiated and sustained to create the universe.5 This mediating position has been termed "theistic evolution."

Theistic evolution, however, has not proven to be the mediating position once hoped for. On the one hand, many naturalistic scientists have attacked theistic evolution because God, a supernatural Being, has been incorporated into an otherwise totally naturalistic process.7 On the other hand, some conservative scholars have attacked theistic evolution for a variety of reasons. A number of scientists have argued that the entire evolutionary concept is false, including theistic evolution.s Many Biblical scholars have raised objections in terms of the problem of reconciling a theistic evolution position with a literal hermeneutic of Scripture, most specifically in the early chapters of Genesis.9 Furthermore some scholars have expressed the fear that the position tends toward a view of God that is more deistic than theistic.10

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate this last criticism-namely, that theistic evolution tends toward deism. Specifically I propose to look at sample positions of theistic evolutionists to evaluate this aspect of their integration of faith and science. Because of the copious material written in this area, this study is necessarily very preliminary.

In the process of our evaluation we must expressly define several terms. The first is the word "creationist." In the strictest sense of the term a creationist is one who views the universe as a created entity and asserts that there is a Creator behind it, normally referred to as God.ll In this sense many theistic evolutionists (at least of the conservative camp) would view themselves as creationists. 12 In the debate that has ensued over the past few decades, however, the term "creationist" has come to take on the narrower connotation of what may be better described as a "special creationist"-that is, one who argues for a direct creation of the universe, the world, and the life on it. As noted by Del Ratzsch, this includes "young-earth creationists, oldearth creationists and progressive creationists, but would not include theistic evolutionists."13 For our purposes this definition is sufficient although, as Ratzsch notes, most of the current debate focuses around a young-earth creation scenario.

Our second term is "theistic evolution." We should note that theistic evolutionists disagree in several areas. For this reason we need to state up front that it is wrong to classify theistic evolution as one homogeneous grouping as is done by D. H. Lane.14

But as we look at theistic evolutionists we might note that several positions are held in common. First, theistic evolutionists view God as the Creator of the universe. Second, by definition all theistic evolutionists accept the evolutionary hypothesis as a scientifically demonstrated process. But what do we mean by the term "evolution"? The concept of evolution as used today includes a number of different aspects, each of which carries different scientific, theological and philosophical connotations. The term, however, is often used very haphazardly, creating much confusion. In fact many writers commit the logical fallacy of equivocation by arguing for or against one aspect of evolution and then making a conclusion regarding another aspect. For our purposes we may distinguish five aspects.