The most recent book I’ve completed is Kenneth Miller’s
Finding Darwin’s God. This one took me a
while to finish – not because the content was difficult, but because the work
of the semester limited my reading time (well, that and finding Alias on
Netflix). As with my previous book,
(Saving Darwin – see previous post) bad theology leads to some interesting
conclusions.
There were too many times to count the number of times Miller
said the he “knew” or science had “proved” something about the age of the Earth
and the means of the appearance of life.
He even denigrates our ancestors saying that ‘our species has now grown
up’ and that we should have a more sophisticated view of the history of our
planet and species. His comments show
his ignorance of the limits of science.
Science cannot prove anything – the data support or refute hypotheses. In addition, data support multiple hypothesis
– some of which have not yet been thought of by humans. I find it ironic that Miller has such a high
view of science, which was conceived by our ancestors, when he then belittles
the views of the same people.
Miller’s treatment of the Fall minimizes the effect of sin
on the human heart and all of Creation.
Rather than acknowledge that we may not understand the impact of the
Fall on biological systems, he dismisses such an idea with less than a paragraph. Scripture is pretty clear that sin affected
not only our spiritual condition, but the natural world, as well.
There were many points that Miller argued from history
rather than from a proper understanding of Scripture. In multiple areas, he gives erroneous
interpretations of Scripture as the true meaning of the Bible. I am not sure if he was trying to address
these views within the church or not, but it seemed he tried to debunk a widely
held idea based on what other people thought rather than debunk it with a
correct interpretation of Scripture (what God thought).
As the book progressed from biological evolution, I learned
much about Miller’s theology.
1.
He seems to believe that God is not involved in
a natural process if that natural process can be explained by natural
causes. The only time that God
intervenes is directly and in those cases, He suspends the laws of nature.
2.
He states that God HAD to make the world the way
He did so it could be independent.
Otherwise, we live in a world with no free will, no independence. He even argues this is so based on quantum
theory.
I don’t think that God is held hostage by the properties of
matter. God is eternal – matter is
not! My understanding of Scripture would
say that God IS in control of His creation and He knows where history is
leading. But this does not eliminate
free will – where we are free to act in harmony with our nature. This reality is one of the mysteries of
Scripture as I don’t fully understand how both are true.
Overall, this book had a lot of interesting views. Christians who hold
to evolutionary theory in various forms have gained an audience in the wider culture. Yet, I wonder how many of Miller’s views mentioned
above are shared by Collins and other popular Christian writers.
