Science and theology are very different disciplines. Science is propositions seeking to be disproven while theology is metaphor seeking affirmation by the heart. Science could disprove all my religious constructs and stories and I would still have faith.

I attended Roman Catholic Schools for 16 years of my life, and I was never taught that there is a conflict between my belief in God as creator and the science of evolution.

Certain folks have difficulty making the distinction between what we believe by faith and that which can be proved by scientific methods.

The "enlightened" creationists, who do not insist upon the 6000 year old earth, with humans and dinosaurs walking together, but who want Intelligent Design taught in science classes, are my special bête noire.

I have, at times, talked until I'm blue in the face to try to explain that ID cannot be proved by scientific methods, but it's mostly wasted effort.

You can believe ID till the end of time, but you can't prove it by science. We should have no fear that scientific discoveries will shatter our faith.

Why is that so hard? Ignorance abounds, and it doesn't stop with Sam Brownback.

Ann said it better and shorter, and I didn't mean to run on so.

June Butler

"Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order" is not a fact but a value. Brownback's use of "man" for humanity and his implicit disrespect for other species are expressions of his attitude toward the world. I won't even get into the neoPlatonist dualism in which the world is but a reflection of some ultimate reality. None of this stuff could ever be proved or disproven, which is why it is not science.

Science does not concern itself with these sorts of pseudo-propositions and faith doesn't need them either. A faith which would need to dress itself as a scientific proposition is already dying.

Gary Dasein

I was struck that most of the comments at Canon Harmon's blog about this artcile were so favorable to Brownback's op-ed and so hostile to evolution. Yes, I know Harmon's readers are on the conservative side, but most are Anglicans, after all.

It struck me that part of the issue here is our vision of how God operates in the world. If you believe that God acts directly, the theological implications of evloution are very troubling. Acceptance of evolution suggests a very different view of how God acts in the world than that explained in Genesis and other bibical accounts of God's actions in the world. Under this view of God, when God wants something done, God acts directly--he creates every species directly and individually, he parts the Red Sea, and he smites Israel's enemies.

Acceptance of evolution, however, suggest that God acts in more indirect ways, and this is disturbing to anyone brought up to believe a more direct view of God's action in the world. As the Episcopal Church's Catechism of Creation describes some of the recent theological thinking about theistic evolution, evolution changes the way we should view how God operates In the World.

I find this pro-evolutionary view of God compelling. It essentially describes a God who gives free will to all creation, and explains why there can be evil and misfortune caused not merely by fallible man, but also by the rest of God's creation. And it is consistent with how God is acting in the world today. For example, God did not smite the Slavers who were moving millions of Africans to slavery. Instead, he worked through men like William Wilberforce, a devout Christian whose faith led him to wage a fight against Slavery.

Nonetheless, this view of God differs from what many of us were taught to believe. It is therefore understandable that many Christians would therefore hesitate to accept evolution.

So, Chuck, that means that I can't pray the hurricanes away from my spot in south Louisiana. Well, I know that I can't do that, but I still do pray that we will be safe. What the ramifications of those prayers are, I can't say.

I don't believe that God intervenes in the course that hurricanes take. My prayers are more about connecting with God in a time of impending danger.

June Butler

Krauthammer said it very well here,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/17/AR2005111701304.html

quote/
Let's be clear. Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological "theory" whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge -- in this case, evolution -- they are to be filled by God. It is a "theory" that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species but also says that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, "I think I'll make me a lemur today." A "theory" that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science -- that it be empirically disprovable. How does one empirically disprove the proposition that God was behind the lemur, or evolution -- or behind the motion of the tides or the "strong force" that holds the atom together?

In order to justify the farce that intelligent design is science, Kansas had to corrupt the very definition of science, dropping the phrase " natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us," thus unmistakably implying -- by fiat of definition, no less -- that the supernatural is an integral part of science. This is an insult both to religion and science.
/unquote

Jim, We seem to be ignoring your getting the ball rolling question. The irony, given present day _perception_ of Islam, Islam has a long scientific tradition for just the reason you suggest. The West would not have emerged from the Dark Ages as quickly without Islam.

But getting back to the track of the comments, does evolution (for example) distance God from human? Does it deny God's immanence? And, getting back to Kendall's readers, does it threaten my personal relationship with God?

June:

I pray every day for good weather, and since I live in Arizona, my prayers are usually granted. Grin.

Seriously--I think that with God all things are possible despite my belief in how God usually operates. And, as you point out in you comment, prayer is always a great way to stay in touch with God.

Chuck, I don't see how "evolution changes the way we should view how God operates In the World." Stating a view of how God operates in the world sounds too much to me like an empirical statement. The phrase "God acts" is, like "God exists," unfalsifiable. Faith is not about propositions. Saying God acts indirectly is, in a sense, playing the same game as saying God acts directly. I would argue that the words "act" and "operate" have gone on a holiday here and that, for purposes of faith, one needn't worry.

garydasien

John Chilton is on the money in terms of where the conflict lies. When "religion" is only around the plug the gaps in understanding the world, and science comes along and plugs those gaps more effectively and persuasively, religion will feel assaulted. That is why a faith that is based more on a Who than a Why or How is more lively, and surely at the root of Christianity we have a grasp on Who we worship. In the long run, this Who is at the base of everything, not just the gaps. Perhaps an appropriate thought on Trinity Sunday?

Tobias Haller

I am surprised that no one has picked up on the assertion that he (Brownback) was willing to accept "small changes within species," thus precluding the basic concept of evolutionary change! He thus was quite correct in holding up his hand as one who does not believe in evolution, and his argument that he has a nuanced view fails.

Alice MacArthur