THE
P RTAL
May 2019
Page 23
Do you need ID?
Science and Christianity in conflict?
Not according to Fr Simon Heans
N
o, this is not a scare story about travel abroad after Brexit! By ID I mean Intelligent Design, the
movement which is taking the worlds of palaeontology and biochemistry by storm. You remember, I am
sure, ‘the atheist bus’ (‘There’s probably no God…’). Well, ID says the opposite. There probably is a God – and
it is Richard Dawkins’ fellow scientists who are saying it.
One of them, biochemist Jonathan Wells, in his
recent book Zombie Science, quotes a poll of young
American ‘nones’ who claim no religious affiliation.
Nearly half (49 %) said that lack of belief led them away
from religious practice. Top of the list of reasons for
loss of faith was ‘Learning about evolution
in college’.
But, I hear you say, that’s
America, where many churches
teach a literal interpretation of
Genesis 1-3. Churches that
do not fall into this trap, and
so embrace evolutionary
science, are much better
placed to ensure that their
members’ Christian faith is
not undermined by it.
It is certainly true that members
of the Society of Ordained
Scientists in the CofE have long
maintained that there is no
conflict between evolution and the
biblical creation account as long as both are properly
understood.
I have on my shelves Intelligent Faith (published for
the 150 th anniversary of the On the Origin of Species
with a preface by Rowan Williams), which argues just
this position. And in the Catholic world there is the
Faith movement, inspired by Fr Edward Holloway’s
synthesis between Catholicism and evolutionary
thought, and which has produced many intellectually
able priests and lay people, working scientists among
them.
But what is science? Dr Wells distinguishes three
things that the word can mean. First, what he defines
as ‘formulating hypotheses and testing them against
evidence’ (‘empirical science’). Second, there is ‘modern
advances in medicine and technology’ (‘technological
science’). Thirdly, there is what he calls ‘establishment
science’ by which he means the ‘majority opinion’
of those who are ‘trained and employed to conduct
research in various areas.’
As he points out, this group has often been wrong in
the past quoting (rather amusingly in view of its place
in Science versus Religion historical polemic)
as an example the view overturned by
Canon Nicholas Copernicus, that the
sun revolves around the earth. Wells’
contention is that Darwinian
evolutionism is in the same state
now as Ptolemaic geocentrism
in 1500. It is a ‘theory in crisis’,
as mathematician William
Dembski puts it.
In order to see what this crisis
is, and why it is relevant to the
Christian faith, we need to go to
Wells’ fourth definition of science,
viz., ‘accounting for all phenomena
in terms of material objects and the
physical forces among them.’ Wells goes on to
explain that this ‘methodological naturalism’ does not
in principle ‘rule out the existence of a non-material
realm’, but that many scientists ‘assume that if they
search long enough they will find a materialistic
explanation for whatever they are investigating.’
Thus, the existence of spiritual entities, i.e., God,
mind, free will etc., is, in the last analysis, illusory.
Wells’ contention (and that of other ID scientists) is
two-fold: that Darwinian evolutionism is founded
upon just such a materialist philosophy, and that
empirical science (number 1 above) is showing this to
be false. In other words, that the best explanation for
most of the phenomena which Darwin and his latter-
day disciples try to account for in materialist terms,
is rather that they are the result of intelligence: they
show evidence of having been designed.
Of course, don’t take my word for it: read Dr Wells
and the other ID scientists. I hope you will agree with
me that you do need ID.