Bankrupt and Evolution

I am really intrigued by Michael Dowd’s essay which contends that “Biblical Christianity” is bankrupt. He argues largely on the basis of their hermeneutic and uses science primarily as his tool. I agree that the hermeneutics of “Biblical Christianity” are inherently flawed and have not produced valuable insight the Church has not seen before. It is certainly one reason I am no longer a fundamentalist. There are far more beneficial ways to look at the world, God, and the Scriptures – ways in which the Church has been doing it for thirteen hundred years before this biblical literalism came along in the 1970s. But, I do have to take Dowd to task on certain points:

• His application of scientism (that is the method of knowing which science purports as the only way of knowing) to other areas not contained within science is incredibly false. This is the error of our age – and it is the same error which “Biblical Christianity” makes. They play by the scientism where “objective” “evidence” is the rule of law. If Dowd was well connected with philosophy he would understand the incredible bait and switch that has happened in this materialistic worldview (something I write about often here). Unfortunately there is no way to be “objective”, and the categorical imperative is woefully unsupportable as a measuring rod for humans. If the only way to know anything was according to the rules of scientism we would know far less than we ought. In fact, the overwhelming majority of “what we know” does not come by the rules of scientism, however we’ve been rationalizing it to ourselves that we do know them according to those rules.
• His quote of Aquinas is woefully inadequate for his argument. It can’t be marshaled in favor of his argument because of what Aquinas is doing. Aquinas is making the classic first-mover/uncaused-causer argument in his Summa. Aquinas is not making a naturalist statement about creation – he is making a theological and philosophical statement about creation. And Aquinas is upending the first thirteen hundred years of neo-Platonic Christian theology in the process. He claims that they are the ones that have made the mistake (even though Bonaventure makes a similar, albeit importantly different, first-causer argument centuries earlier).
• When talking about a literary passage he argues it is an interpretation. Without question the entirety of Scripture is an interpretation. Just like the entirety of written history is an interpretation. Just like the entirety of every literary work (this blog entry, Dowd’s blog entry) is an interpretation. According to scientism, interpretations must be removed and sifted through to find the “facts” behind them. But in this entire enterprise we are actually not after facts. Dowd doesn’t write to find the facts. The facts are the sun is up there combusting away. We are down here milling around. The earth is spinning. People die, and people are born. The question we are all here asking is “What does all that mean?” or “How am I to interpret this?”. The question is not “What is happenening?”. We can all essentially see what is happening.
• Therefore when Dowd is talking about “Life as It Really Is” he is not talking about the facts. We can all understand the basics of the facts. When the Egyptians called on Ra the Sun God it was not because they were confused about how things worked. It was a deeply entrenched interpretation which structured their world and society. That was “Life as It Really Is” to them. For Dowd, scientism is “Life as It Really Is”. Unfortunately, science cannot and can never offer an interpretation. Analysis can never offer meaning. Dowd is talking about the “fact” of evolution and therefore interprets that to mean that, in some way or another, “If God is the creator, then God is the process of evolution.” That is an interpretation, not a fact. And one which all of Christians (ignoring the “Biblical” ones) disagree with.
• In all points Dowd is picking on the lowest forms of Biblical Christianity, a strawman. He has placed caricatures of many dogmatic points out there. This is a familiar tactic borrowed from the New Athiests. I am only reminded of the tounge-in-cheek remarks of the Bad Vicar @ 1:22-1:50
  

In my view, “Biblical Christianity” is also bankrupt. Not because it doesn’t adopt the presumptions and methods of scientism (which are wholly unwarranted within matters of faith and meaning) but because it does an incredibly poor job of understanding Scripture, representing the Christianity it has inherited, and integrating with the wider world.

Evolution to my mind is actually an incredibly strong point against the scientism “objectivity” which philosophically has degenerated into nihilism. Because evolution values life. All organisms are geared to live (current evolutionary theory is being attacked on the premise that “survival of the fittest” is not quite how it works). Evolution “knows” something much greater than all the scientific interpretive grids have allowed it to. It knows that life has intrinsic value and meaning and should continue on. No single philosophical interpretive grid has any statement affirming that, largely because it cannot. Philosophy is rigidly stuck within Kant’s method of knowing and therefore cannot affirm any humanity or meaning.