SUMMER 1982 VOL. 2 NO. 3 $5.00

SCIENCE, THE BIBLE, AND DARWIN

Robert Alley Randel Helms ºPhilip Appleman Paul Kurtz Paul Beattie Gerald Laru ÁH. James Birx William Maye oseph Blau Kai Nielsen Charles Cazeau Michael Novak Joseph Fletcher John Priest Antony Flew Sol Tax Garrett Hardin Richard Taylor ISSN 0272-0701 SUMMER 1982 VOL. 2 NO.3

AN INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON SCIENCE, THE BIBLE, AND DARWIN

3 Introduction Paul Kurtz 4 Part One THE BIBLE RE-EXAMINED: A SCHOLARLY CRITIQUE 5 The Word of God: A Phrase Whose Time Has Passed Robert S. Alley 9 Creationism: 500 Years of Controversy Gerald Larue 15 The Bible and Authority John Priest 20 How the Gospels Tell a Story Randel Helms 24 Part Two DARWIN, EVOLUTION, AND CREATIONISM 25 Darwin and Literature Philip Appleman 28 The Legacy of Darwin William V. Mayer 32 Geology and the Bible Charles Cazeau 34 Charles Darwin and Fossil Man H. James Birx 38 Grounded Reason vs. Received Formulas Garrett Hardin 42 Creation and Evolution Sol Tax 46 Darwin, Evolution and Creationism Antony Flew 50 Part Three ETHICS AND RELIGION 51 Why Ethics Should Avoid Religion Joseph Fletcher 53 Religion vs. Ethics Richard Taylor 57 Ethics without Religion Kai Nielsen 59 How are Ethics Related to Religion? Paul Beattie 62 Part Four SCIENCE AND RELIGION

63 Science, Religion, and the New Class Michael Novak 67 New Thoughts (and Old) on Science and Religion Joseph L. Blau 71 CLASSIFIED

Editor: Paul Kurtz FREE INQUIRY (ISSN 0272-0701) is Associate Editors: Gordon Stein; Lee Nisbet published by The Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism Contributing Editors: (CODESH, Inc.), a non-profit Lionel Abel, author, critic, SUNY at Buffalo; Paul Beattie, president, Fellowship of Religious corporation, 1203 Kensington Avenue, Humanists; Jo-Ann Boydston, director, Dewey Center; Laurence Briskman, lecturer, Edinburgh Buffalo, N.Y. 14215. Phone (716) University, Scotland; Albert Ellis, director, Institute for Rational Living; Roy P. Fairfield, social 834-2921. Copyright © 1982 by scientist, Union Graduate School; Joseph Fletcher, theologian, University of Virginia Medical CODESH, Inc. Second-class postage School; Antony Flew, philosopher, Reading University, England; Sidney Hook, professor paid at Buffalo and at additional emeritus of philosophy, NYU; Marvin Kohl, philosopher, State University College at Fredonia; mailing offices. Jean Kotkin, executive director, American Ethical Union; Ernest Nagel, professor emeritus of Subscription rates: $14.00 for one year, philosophy, Columbia University; Cable Neuhaus, correspondent; Howard Radest, director, $25.00 for two years, $32.00 for three Ethical Culture Schools; Robert,Rimmer, author; M.L. Rosenthal, professor of English, New years, $3.50 for single copies. Address York University; William Ryan, free-lance reporter, novelist; Svetozar Stojanovic, professor of subscription orders, change of addresses, philosophy, University of Belgrade; Thomas Szasz, psychiatrist, Upstate Medical Center, and advertising to: FREE INQUIRY, Box Syracuse; V.M. Tarkunde, Supreme Court Judge, India; Richard Taylor, professor of 5, Central Park Station, Buffalo, N.Y. philosophy, University of Rochester; Sherwin Wine, founder, Society for Humanistic Judaism. 14215. Manuscripts, letters, and editorial inquiries Film Reviews: Hal Crowther; Poetry Editor: Sally M. Gall; Book Review Editor: Victor Culotta. should be addressed to: The Editor, FREE INQt1IRY, Box 5, Central Park Station, H. James Birx, Marvin Bloom, Vern Bullough, James Martin, Steven L. Editorial Associates: Buffalo, N.Y. 14215. All manuscripts Mitchell, George Tomashevich, Marvin Zimmerman. should be accompanied by three additional copies and a SASE. (Poems should be Managing Editor: Richard Seymour; Copy Editor: Doris Doyle; Art Director: Gregory Lyde submitted in duplicate to the Poetry Vigrass. Editor, with a SASE for return). Opinions Executive Director of CODESH, Inc.: Jean Millholland; Editorial Staff: Joellen Hawver, Barry expressed do not necessarily reflect the Karr, Marianne Karr, J. Quentin Koren, Lynette Nisbet. views of the editors or publisher. Cover Sculpture: Anthony R. Paterson; Photographs: Idelle Abrams, Richard Seymour.

2 SCIENCE,THE BIBLE AND DARWIN Introduction

Paul Kurtz

In recent years, a small but vocal minority the inerrant word of God but as a fallible the moral life, as some religionists today in- of religious critics have launched an inva- human document. The creationist story sist? All four contributors — Joseph Flet- sion of American freedom on two major contained in Genesis is not unique but is a cher, Richard Taylor, Kai Nielsen, and Paul fronts: science — the theory of evolution, myth that was shared by other ancient Beattie — deny that it does. They find the in particular — and morality. Scientists and peoples. Nor is the New Testament, often Bible often irrelevant to our ethical life, humanists have been forced to wage a rear- used as the ultimate ground for morality, even harmful, and argue that there can and guard action in order to defend both the in- based upon direct empirical evidence for should be a rational humanist ethic in- tegrity of free inquiry in science and a ra- the divinity of Jesus. Rather, it is the dependent of religious grounds. tional approach to ethics. literary contrivance of propagandists at- Part 4, "Science and Religion," ex- Darwin's theory of evolution has come tempting to gain adherents for a miraculous amines the relationship and conflict be- under unrelenting attack. Although the religion of revelation. tween science and religion. Michael Novak fundamentalists offer "scientific" crea- Perhaps the most significant result of represents the Catholic position; Joseph tionism as an alternative to evolution, in ac- this symposium was the recent formation of Blau, the humanist viewpoint. They ask, is tuality their premises are rooted in the book the Religion and Biblical Criticism Research there any way to resolve the conflict? If of Genesis. The Bible, as they interpret it, is Project, under the chairmanship of Gerald religion cannot compete with scientific also the ultimate ground for their opposi- Larue, in cooperation with Robert Alley, truths or with morality — both of which are tion to secular and humanist morality. John Priest, Randel Helms, and others. autonomous fields — what is left to Unfortunately, this assault on scien- The purpose of this group is to implement religion, if anything? Both Novak and Blau tific and secular humanism has been one- the Call for the Critical Examination of the attempt to place the current controversy in sided. The claims put forth by the pro- Bible and Religion by reawakening an in- a broader sociological framework. Novak ponents of the Bible have not been openly terest in serious biblical scholarship and to believes that both scientific humanists and examined. With this in mind, "A Call for provide resource material in the form of religionists can and should be allies against the Critical Examination of the Bible and books, articles, and bibliographies. We will the erosion of reason and moral values Religion" was recently published in this keep the readers of FREE INQUIRY appris- engendered by the banalities of the mass magazine (Spring 1982). ed of the future work of the Research Pro- media. Blau maintains that the current This was followed by the international ject, which is now expanding its member- retreat from liberalism and humanism is a conference "Science, the Bible, and Dar- ship. We hope it will help to stimulate and result of America's "failure of nerve." win," sponsored by FREE INQUIRY. This crystalize important new directions in the The symposium concluded with a unique symposium was held at the State discussion of religion. brilliant demonstration by James ("The University of New York at Buffalo on April Part 2, "Darwin, Evolution, and Crea- Amazing") Randi in which he pointed out 16-17, 1982, to mark the 100th anniversary tionism," deals with the influence of the magical basis of religious miracles and of the death of Charles Darwin. Many Charles Darwin. The theory of evolution is the similarities between the untested claims distinguished scientists and scholars par- as well-established a principle as any in con- of the paranormal and those of traditional ticipated in this historic conference — the temporary science. Scientists may differ religion. (We regret that we cannot bring major commemoration of the Darwin about how evolution occurs, but not that it his performance to our readers.) centennial in North America. occurs. They recognize that Darwin's own In the current assault on scientific in- We are pleased to devote this entire account of the mechanisms of evolution quiry and secular values the Religious Right issue of FREE INQUIRY to the papers that needs to be supplemented. One may ask: Is has had a field day — until now its sacred were delivered. (Because of limited space, evolution a gradual and continual process, preserve has been largely unchallenged. The many of these essays had to be shortened.) as Darwin thought, or does it proceed by participants in this symposium generally We shall resume our regular features in the spurts (punctuated equilibria, as Nyles agree that we must resist any efforts by fun- next issue. Eldridge and Stephen Jay Gould have damentalists to impose their particular in- This special issue is divided into four recently suggested)? Whatever the resolu- terpretation of the Bible on our pluralistic parts. Part 1, "The Bible Re-examined," tion of this issue, there will be no room for democratic society. Religious zealots are was the central focus of the symposium and creationism, which rests upon scientifically less likely to succeed in doing so if their is concerned with explicating the methods unverifiable grounds. theological premises are opened up to of biblical criticism. The participants argue Part 3, "Ethics and Religion," is a critical scrutiny and debate. We modestly that the Old Testament was written over discussion of the foundations of morality. hope that this issue of FREE INQUIRY will many centuries and should not be read as Does the Bible provide the only basis for contribute to this important task. •

Summer, 1982 3

Part One THE BIBLE RE-EXAMINED: A SCHOLARLY CRITIQUE

ROBERT ALLEY is professor of humanities at the Universi- RANDEL HELMS is an associate professor at Arizona State ty of Richmond. The author of Revolt Against the Faithful, University, where he teaches courses in the Bible as literature. Dr. Alley recently organized Free Access/Informed He has published two books on the fantasy fiction of J. R. Response, a citizens' group seeking Fairness Doctrine time to Tolkien and is now working on a study of the fictional aspects respond to television evangelists. of the Four Gospels.

GERALD LARUE is emeritus professor of archaeology and JOHN PRIEST is professor and chairman of the Depart- biblical history at the University of Southern California, Los ment of Religion at Florida State University. He has taught at Angeles. His forthcoming book Human Sexuality and the Bi- Princeton, Yale, and the Union Theological Seminary, and is ble (Prometheus) will be published in 1983. the former dean of the Hartford Seminary Foundation.

John Priest and Gerald Larue being interviewed

Homer Duncan, author of Secular Humanism: The Most Dangerous Religion in America Joseph Fletcher and Randel Helms at reception

4 • The Word of God A Phrase Whose Time Has Passed

Robert S. Alley

I recently attended a symposium on the teaching of evolution fuzzy thinking and ignorance of the Bible, persons like Jerry in Virginia public schools. For an entire day highly competent Falwell identify themselves as men of God. They garner sup- biologists and geologists reflected a sense of unease, as if an port from the public through the use of the Bible as a prop. uncontrolled terror hovered outside the door. Of the 150 par- Thus armed, these evangelists promote their own secular ticipants that day only one, as far as I could ascertain, espous- agenda in the name of God. Even the best of American jour- ed "creationism." Yet David R. McQueen, instructor in nalists have allowed Falwell to "witness" unchallenged on geology at a state university, became the aggressor, bold to programs like "Meet the Press." assert the most unscientific theories. Certainly he should have Most Americans seem prepared to accept the Bible as been heard, but the almost tentative response to him by com- some type of authority, but their general ignorance of its petent scientists was a sign of the existing power of irrationali- nature and content leave them susceptible to manipulation by ty in our society. This same Mr. McQueen informed me that persons claiming a corner on the knowledge of both. Less he believed Adam wrote Genesis and was an eyewitness to than intrepid mainline church leaders have, for decades, creation. Now, if rational people must take such nonsense assisted the growth of a vacuum in biblical knowledge by fail- seriously, the reason must lie in the belief that, absurd though ing to address the critical problems surrounding the Bible. it is, this nonsense is receiving a sympathetic hearing in the The result is an ignorant flock. Long after most ministers public arena. knew better, they were continuing to perpetuate a prescien- The seedbed for this dilemma lies, at least in part, in the tific approach to biblical studies, only occasionally noting, in definition of the Bible in American culture. Supporters of a gingerly fashion, the existence of textual criticism. scientific inquiry should have been far more vigilant in In this environment, when religious personalities invoke preventing evolution from becoming the battleground. We the Bible as the "Word of God" in some peculiar cause, should have forced the prior question, the Bible and its role in public esteem often makes ineffective any critical response. history. Indeed, this is critical in light of America's long love Billy Graham is a prime example of this phenomenon. Since affair with the Bible. Even as First Amendment rights were early in the fifties he has waved his red rubber Bible, being penned, one of the first acts of Congress was to maneuvering millions toward an unhealthy, uninformed view authorize a particular version of the Bible for publication in of the world, based upon an equally faulty understanding of the new nation. Our Founding Fathers quoted the book, and the Bible. Too few knowledgeable clergy (Reinhold Niebuhr to this day our courts use it as a touchstone of truth. It holds a was a shining exception) challenged the frequently repeated place of honor for the vast majority of the public. And phrase "The Bible says" as Graham employed it. The harvest since advocates of creationism ground their entire argument is in the shape of Falwell, Pat Robertson, and James on the Bible, the debate should and must center on that Robison, a current crop of preachers pounding the Word of book. God to support fear and retreat, injustice and violence, pre- For most citizens the Bible is clothed in mystery, iden- judice and intolerance. These men appear to be causing even tified vaguely as a repository of proper morality. For the Graham some unease today. It seems that it has taken "faithful" minority it is also the source of true and orthodox Graham his entire career as a Christian minister to discover Christianity. The fundamentalist preacher uses his faithful Jesus as peacemaker. community to establish his credibility as Bible interpreter and The two bases for this resurgence of fundamentalism are then addresses the larger public as an expert. Trading upon Christian exclusivism and infallible biblical authority. In my

Summer, 1982 5 opinion the single most disturbing element in the Christian The Reformation, then, seems to have given birth to the heritage, that which makes interest in others without bias ex- myth of inerrant Scripture as a replacement for papal authori- tremely difficult, is the claim to exclusive possession of divine ty. As this alternative grew in popularity, no one attempted to truth. In 1932 a "Laymen's Foreign Missions Inquiry" ad- explain how a God who so meticulously dictated the entire dressed this problem for American Protestants. corpus of the Bible to willing scribes could be so inept as to allow the loss of every single original. Listen for a moment to It is clearly not the duty of the Christian missionary to attack the non-Christian systems of religion — it is his primary duty the words of the author of the 1962 Southern Baptist Confes- to present in positive form his conception of the way of life sion of Faith as he addressed the question of the Bible in and let it speak for itself. The road is long, and a new patience 1980. is needed: but we can desire no variety of religious experience Of course, when we speak of the inerrancy of the Scriptures we to perish until it has yielded up to the rest its own ingredient of are referring to the To be sure, we have none of truth. The Christian will therefore regard himself as a co- autographs. them in hand. But we accept this statement by faith, knowing worker with the forces within each religious system which are making for righteousness. that the God of truth does not speak error. The Holy Spirit protected the original authors from error. But he does not pro- tect copyists from such anymore than he protects typesetters. But few heeded this timely warning. Whether one reads recent Roman Catholic or Protestant history, the claim to the Such a God fits Woody Allen's description of him as an possession of this exclusive truth remains paramount, underachiever. whether the source be tradition or the Word of God. As they became more widespread, the dual affirmations Exclusivism is at the heart of the Reformation and it of dictation and infallibility generated an attitude of found its new mooring in "sola scriptura" and the preaching reverence for the Bible far beyond the reasonable bounds for of the "Word." It is true that the Bible replaced the church a religious document. With the handy label "Word of God," institution as authority, assuming in the process a highly visi- scores of religious leaders in succeeding decades were able to ble role, but the reformers early came to understand that sole promote their own personal interpretations of Christianity as dependence on the Bible was a source, not of unity, but of authoritative, based on God's Word. This mentality was division and disagreement. Thus, retreating from the princi- clearly destined to conflict with both science and history. ple of "sola scriptura," Calvin and Luther offered to the What Charles Darwin experienced as an annoyance, faithful a true, orthodox meaning of the Bible. Hence an dozens of bright biblical scholars felt as directly destructive, authority that had momentarily been individualized was as a raging terror of nineteenth-century theological tenacity almost instantly translated into various authoritative Refor- ferreting out "heresy" from Louisville to New York. The mation theologies. Edwin Lewis commented: scientific method was rejected by such a large segment of church leadership that even in the present decade the critical Neither Luther nor Zwingli nor Calvin ever quite freed himself method of biblical analysis often seems to require an from the "medieval error that the source of authority is apologetic. Not until 1969 was the Presbyterian church in the necessarily to be found in some place wholly outside the in- dividual." It is certainly true that this "error" returned with United States able to eliminate negative references to evolu- full force upon their followers. The courage to hold oneself tion from its confession. Southern Baptists regularly elect of- free of external constraints in matters that have to do with the ficers who view evolution as "the big lie." soul and its destiny is not easily acquired, nor is it easily kept. Indeed, even the chief of Protestant theological movements of the mid-century, neo-orthodoxy, does not The reformers had learned early that no solid foundation receive high marks. It mistakenly ordered its theology on the for an authoritarian institution was to be discovered in per- presumption that the biblical affirmation of the resurrection sonal, subjective interpretations of the Bible. In the final was impervious to critical challenge. For neo-orthodoxy the reckoning all of the reformers seemed more concerned for role of the critic was to explicate the central theological truths power and institutional regularity than for the welfare of the of the Gospel. In the last two decades, however, radical believer, or at least they construed that welfare quite dif- scholarship has demonstrated that this view of authority is no ferently than I do. Sadly, the Bible emerged as a weapon used longer tenable. A picture of the Bible is emerging that by "saints" to enforce their own peculiar understandings of removes much of the mystery. Honest appraisal of the results faith, even though it might cost the lives of peasants or Jews frightens a number of the elder statesmen of neo-orthodoxy. or Michael Servetus or Felix Manz. Erasmus' dream of Chris- Of course the literalist chortles, consistently having con- tian humanism faded. E. Harris Harbison asks: "Who would tended that if ever one undertook a thoroughgoing critical split theological hairs and burn heretics if he realized that the analysis of the Bible, with the necessary presuppositions to essence of Christianity is to lead a Christian life?" The achieve that end, the result would be complete destruction of answer: "Too many!" the Word of God and the authority of the faith. Unfortunate- Concurrent with the Reformation, the printing press ly the failure of neo-orthodoxy to anticipate that the freedom made available for the first time multiple copies of identical it extended to the critic could not be reined in arbitrarily when texts, creating the illusion of a single version, when, in fact, the resurrection was approached inevitably led to trouble. the new printed translations of the Bible were drawn from In retrospect, many neo-orthodox theologians appear to hundreds of Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. have assumed some divine protection of biblical passages sup-

6 cLu'i'Jt porting their own faith agenda, something they were not The competent biblical scholar knows that fundamen- prepared to supply to the fundamentalist foe. They were talist extrapolations from the Bible defy reason and perfectly willing to see the texts supporting the virgin birth knowledge. Humanists know the smokescreen of biblical in- dismissed, since that doctrine was not integral to their par- errancy and authority only poorly disguises an effort to en- ticular theology. That should have been a warning, for it was force "right" thinking, that is, some self-proclaimed authori- only subjective bias that insisted that belief in the virgin birth ty's thoughts. But, in all candor, until the mainline church was optional but not belief in the resurrection. leadership, lay and clergy, is prepared to mount an aggressive Neo-orthodoxy seems to have confused the notion that their God had nothing to fear from the critical method with "The single most disturbing element in the Chris- the idea that the biblical record had nothing to fear. In this tian heritage is the claim to exclusive possession of they were mistaken. And all the language of paradox could divine truth." not put the resurrection together again. Unfortunately, these theologians were not prepared for unrestricted criti- and positive campaign of information about the Bible, little cism, because they had not released themselves from shift in the existing balance is likely. The fundamentalists are dependence upon the historical veracity of certain portions of quite aware of this, and that is the reason they so regularly the Bible. They were still bound to a belief that some specific assail humanists and critics. They fear a rational community acts of God in history are or were necessary to authenticate of faith that might recognize its natural alliance with the faith. This was the fatal flaw. humanist point of view. An honest facing of this reality would require the chur- In the fall of 1981, Pat Robertson (who, by the way, ches to be open to the Bible as subject to the same errors as seems never to have been predicted by Nostradamus), the any other human document. In no way need that affect the Tetzel of the Tube, identified the basest desires in the United truths that one may discern in the words of the Bible. States with the "religion of secular humanism." He seems in- Mainstream Protestant leadership needs to provide un- ordinately afraid of what he terms the "anti-Christ apologetically a means to make the exciting results of biblical rebellion." criticism available to the community of faith. The phrase I am optimistic that an expansive view of mankind, one "Word of God" is a hindrance, constricting an under- proclaiming human dignity as fundamental, a view that grap- standing of the majesty and freedom attributed to the God ples, in practical terms, with nuclear danger, can garner the of the Judeo-Christian Scripture. It fails to take seriously the support of millions of Americans. For a brief period in the humanity and personality of the biblical writers. The phrase sixties it seemed we might comprehend and heed Norman needs to be retired. Cousins's words, "War is an invention of the human mind. It is time to reassert the Erasmian tradition in the Chris- The human mind can invent peace and justice." However, in tian communion, what Harbison would term "scholarship as the aftermath of assassinations, bigotry, Vietnam, and a Christian calling." Biblicist Philip Hughes charges that Watergate, radicals broke to the left and right and the muddl- "unbiblical humanism, which denies the sovereignty and the ed middle was best described in Adlai Stevenson's words, "a otherness of God and affirms the adequacy and centrality of nation of little aims and large fears." The present trend man, is always present because it is the expression of original toward serious discussion by national leaders of the feasibility sin. And its main threat to the Church of Christ is from of nuclear war and the relative conditions we would ex- within. " That awful "sin" is, he insists, the assertion "that perience during a "second strike" makes one question the man must be set free from the doctrinal and ethical absolutes sanity of officials apparently oblivious to the very survival of of Scripture." the human community. We appear trapped in a political "biblicism" reminiscent of Dr. Strangelove. "Most Americans seem prepared to accept the Bi- Joining this madness is a revitalized and televised fun- ble as some type of authority, but their general ig- damentalism, grasping those large fears and seeking to lead norance of its nature and content leave them the nation with its little aims. These men who rattle swords in susceptible to manipulation by persons claiming a the name of biblical references and find models for govern- corner on the knowledge of both." ment in the seventeenth-century Puritan oligarchy are witting allies in an Armageddon or Chicken Little theology. (Watch By whose authority does a biblical idea become absolute? Pat Robertson for a few days.) These religious figures gen- The humanist affirms that man should be set free to com- uinely fear the world they claim their God created. They fear, prehend the doctrine and ethics of Scripture in its richness as well, a majority of the people their God made in his own and variety, without the interposition of traditional inter- image. They reflect a theology well described by Charles pretations, fundamentalist or liberal. Use criticism to clarify, Chauncy two centuries ago. not to endorse or debunk. Biblical readers need to be freed from the restrictive dogma that places biblical writers in a The God to whom you pay your religious homage needs the in- straitjacket, and thereby proceeds to select arbitrarily a few troduction of sin and misery, in order to illustrate His own hundred pages as the single place to incarcerate a heretofore- character and display perfections ... You expect to look free God. The Old Testament sense of the Word is an effec- down from heaven upon numbers of wretched objects, confin- tive antidote to this defensive theology. ed in the Pit of Hell, and blaspheming their Creator

Summer, 1982 7 forever ... You imagine the Divine Glory will be advanced by tianity, if it accepts the Moral Majority's position that human- immortalizing sin and misery; I, by exterminating both natural ism is the enemy of God's truth, and if it consents to changing and moral evil, and introducing universal happiness. Which of the Constitution to reflect the fears of fundamentalism, then our systems is best supported, let reason and Scripture deter- we will have pointed the national ship of state in the direction mine. of theocracy. A significant challenge to military madness and literalist The same uncontrolled fear that grips fundamentalists in traducianism lies in a harmony of reason and Scripture, what relation to humanism is often evident in the clergy's distrust Martin Luther in his saner, more principled moments describ- of the laity, expressed in a feeling that too much exposure to ed as "plain reason." This challenge must involve a free inquiry respecting the Bible is dangerous. In contrast, I thoughtful definition of the nature of the American heritage and a reasoned examination of the role of the Bible therein. Does American history provide us with an image of a na- "These men who rattle swords in the name of tion concerned for human rights or for "right" beliefs? That biblical references and find models for government is the essence of the matter. Although there is ample evidence in the seventeenth-century Puritan oligarchy are for those who desire to impose "right" beliefs that some in witting allies in an Armageddon or Chicken Little our past supported such a position, the Founding Fathers theology." were almost to a man Christian humanists. Beginning in the seventeenth century with Calvinist Roger Williams and con- tinuing with James Madison, Thomas Paine, and Thomas see a far greater potential for openness in the pew than is Jefferson, and then Jonathan Mayhew and Charles Chauncy, usually evident in the pulpit. As long as the pulpit is frighten- a tradition was established of a nation committed to eman- ed by pew and plate, a phenomenal biblical coverup will con- cipation, human dignity, justice, and liberty. And while the tinue. Most clergy know better, were taught better. But the achievement of goals in these areas has often been slow, as specter of institutional upset, the thought of the pew in con- Franklin Roosevelt noted, "The fight for social justice and trol of its own destiny, is a mighty conditioner toward economic Democracy ... is a long, weary, uphill struggle." establishing conformity. Nevertheless, the direction is set. When I advocate a more creative use of biblical criticism The American republic practices a secular morality, in- I do not mean apologetics. We do not need to be reassured fluenced alike by the philosophies of humanists, Jews, Chris- that the Bible is credible because we can explain away many tians, ethical agnostics, and many others. The United States is miracles. We need to face forthrightly that the writers believ- a secular, pluralistic state and, as the Treaty of Tripoli ed those mighty acts and signs really happened. We should (negotiated by Washington and signed by Adams) notes: respond to them as we would to any first-century believer in "The government of the United States is not in any sense magic. founded on the Christian religion." The state is charged with Modern scholars need to rescue the critical analysis of impartially guarding freedom for the religious and nonreli- the Bible from its often-assumed role as an exercise in the gious alike. picayune. Jot-and-tittle criticism seeking significant meaning The laws of our land recognize crimes, not sins. Crimes in obscure words is an embarrassment to scholarship, failing are based upon human relationships, sins upon relationships as it does to recognize that the Bible was written by men of between certain men and women and their particular versions faith who assumed no more authority for their writing than of God. Here lies the difference between the self-styled Moral might you or I. The biblical apologist and the fundamentalist Majority and the proclamations of Martin Luther King, Jr., exegete fail miserably to comprehend the community of faith who sought to preserve rights in the name of love, rather than that expressed its commitments in various interpretations of impose "right" belief in the name of law. Jesus. The focus of biblical criticism is fuller understanding, The historic tension between the humanist tradition in bent on proving nothing. America and an equally significant reform tradition has serv- Biblical apologetics has always been suspect, because it ed the country well. (Note particularly the work of Nick Gier regularly depended upon the notion that the absolute authori- of the University of Idaho.) The belief in human reason, ty falsely assigned to the Bible was transferable to the current dignity, and freedom by the humanist, tempered by the world of scientific inquiry. The most recent venture along reformer's theory of human frailty, has fostered a spirit of these lines appears to be a book by Davis A. Young, Chris- liberty that "seeks to understand the minds of other men and tianity and the Age of the Earth, which, according to the women." It has brought into focus the affinity of Erich press release, attempts to demonstrate that the "young-earth Fromm's "man for himself" and Dietrich Bonhoeffer's view" is unscientific and that the Bible does not demand such "man for others." a view. The author is identified as a "creationist," apparently In the past the tension has not been without name- with a more liberal view of the creation date. It reminds me of calling, but until the most recent period annihilation of the a professor I had in the seminary, who dated the beginning of other has not been the organized goal of either side. How- the earth at 4004 B.C. Challenged by a skeptical student who ever, if a disconsolate public majority, disturbed over crime, suggested there might be a different date, the professor was economic chaos, and decay of the fabric of the family, fails to quite responsive. "True," he said, "some scholars date the recognize the affinity between humanism and genuine Chris- beginning at 4020 B.C." The point needs to be made that it

8 matters not one bit what the Bible records or suggests about the human condition of a group of women and men who ex- the history of the earth as far as modern science is concerned, perienced life differently because of another man, Jesus. In and it should not become an issue between the scientist and their construction of myths about that man are they very dif- the person of biblical faith. The public should not allow it to ferent from us? If they were disciples, often blinded by devo- disorder rational scientific inquiry in the public schools. tion, do they differ markedly from modern disciples of Freud There is a line in Hadrian VII in which Hadrian is accus- and Jung, Marx and Jefferson, Lincoln and King, Barth and ed of being in revolt against the faith. He replies, "I am not in Brunner? We need not strike out in anger or ill will at biblical revolt against the faith, I am in revolt against the faithful." writers merely because a lunatic fringe desires to co-opt them. For many humanists still related to the Christian tradition, no When Pat Robertson asserts that the United States is men- matter how tenuously, this statement applies. For, indeed, in tioned only once in Ezekiel (chapter 38, for the curious) it is the present decade the critic and the Christian humanist alike not the author of Ezekiel who is a fool! are camp followers, to borrow a phrase from Van Harvey, We can most assuredly take heart that our human ra- unacceptable to the faithful but unwilling to forsake the faith. tionality is pitted against a band of religionists who, taking a Now, by "the faith" I mean quite a different thing from cue from "Amazing Grace," claim to be wretches in the sight that suggested by various current orthodoxies. It does not oc- of God. We would be more comfortable with an appellation cur to me that I am required to abandon a worthy philosophy written by Emerson and reportedly applied by Thomas Hux- just because of a rather consistent pattern of lunacy asso- ley to Charles Darwin: "Beware when the great God lets loose ciated therewith. As a humanist I am prepared to respond to a thinker on this planet." •

Creationism: 500 Years of Controversy

ANNRIMITIN

Gerald Larue

When Christianity became the religion of kings and emperors the cosmos came into being through a series of divine acts and came to dominate the Western world, it inherited from spread across the Jewish week of six workdays. Because this Judaism a cosmology and a weltanschauung that fitted well revelation was conceived as divine truth, to doubt was with what was known of the world at that time. The earth was heresy. believed to be a flat disc, surrounded by seas. Above was the To be sure, the Christian and Jewish worlds confronted firmament, the hard shell of heaven, and above the firma- other ideas. The Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and other ment were the primeval waters. The sun, moon, and stars Europeans had differing theories, myths, and theologies, but were set immediately below the heavens, while somewhere the actual structure of the world in these so-called "pagan" above in a never too clearly defined locale was the realm of cultures was not out of keeping with the biblical view. It was the deity and the court of heaven. Below the earth was the only necessary to insist that the biblical view was correct or to place of the dead, the underworld, and the kingdom of Satan. enter into dialogue with the philosopher's teachings. Farther below this were the primeval waters. It was not until the time of Copernicus (1473-1543) and Sandwiched between heaven and hell, between the realms during the following five hundred years that the conflict bet- of light and darkness, were humans who inhabited the earth ween the church — or religion — and science developed. That and whose welfare depended upon their roles in the continual conflict is still going on. struggle between good and evil. For guidance toward the The Polish astronomer Copernicus, who said that good and for warnings against evil, God had provided reveal- planetary motion was heliocentric, lived at a time when other ed Scriptures. Included in those Scriptures was an account, horizons were being broadened. Christopher Columbus had believed to have been written by the deliverer Moses, of how sailed from Spain in 1492 and had discovered a new world,

Summer, 1982 9 and Vasco da Gama had sailed to India (1493). The world was John Ray had argued that fossils were the remains of living quite a bit larger than before. Questions were being raised organisms whose presence revealed that the earth's surface about the geography of Genesis. There was excitement in the had undergone dramatic changes that could not be reconciled air, and the implications of these new discoveries had not yet with the Genesis creation account. had an impact upon the Christian church. It was not until the Georges Leopold Cuvier (1769-1832), the paleontologist, Italian scientist and philosopher Galileo began to make his had to some degree allayed the fears of believers by saying thinking known that the real conflict between science and that the earth had experienced a series of cataclysms that had religion began. Doubts were raised about the validity of destroyed its inhabitants, so that the idea of the Flood was biblical cosmology. left secure. But there still remained problems with the six days It is interesting to note that at this time the church did of creation. Something of the resentment of the ordinary not take a doctrinal stand, to try to show that science was churchgoer was expressed by the poet William Cowper wrong. Rather, personal limitations were put upon Galileo by (1731-1800): Cardinal Bellarmine so that certain precepts could not be taught. In 1615 Bellarmine wrote to the Carmelite Foscarini: Some drill and bore The solid earth, and from the strata there If there was a real demonstration that the sun is in the center Extract a register, by which we learn, and that the earth goes around it, then one would have to pro- That he who made it, and revealed its date ceed with much care in expounding the places of Scripture to Moses, was mistaken in its age. which seem to be contrary to that, and it would be better to say that we do not understand them than to declare that false which has been demonstrated. Between 1830 and 1833 the British geologist Sir Charles Meanwhile in China, where Roman Catholic missionaries had Lyell (1797-1875) published Principles of Geology, in which taken the theories of Galileo, correct calculations were made he tried to accommodate geological findings to Genesis by for an eclipse and, the missionaries reported, the Ptolemaic postulating a series of creative acts, but when he published formulae were found to be in error.2 Evidence for the Antiquity of Man in 1863 he demonstrated About this same time James Ussher (1581-1656), convincingly the presence of humans long before the time archbishop of Armagh in Ireland, determined that Adam was allowed by biblical chronology. The community of believers, created in the year 4004 B.C. and that the flood occurred 1655 however, held fast to the established date of 4004 B.C. Some years later in the year 2349 B.C. John Lightfoot of Cam- would expand the six days to six ages, but the conviction re- bridge stated in 1642 that the creation of man had taken place mained that somewhere, back in distant history, Adam and at 9:00 A.M. on October 23, 4004 B.C. Archbishop Ussher Eve had been created. published his chronology titled Annales Veteris et Novi There were objections to the attempts to reconcile the six Testamentum between 1650 and 1654. By 1703 the dates he days of creation with geological epochs. In 1855, Tayler proposed were being printed in the margins of the King James Lewis wrote: Bible published by Charles Bill. They have continued to be printed in modern times, and thus they tend to be given the It is a wretched self-deception, when we fancy we have a belief same authority as other Biblical materials by believers. grounded on the Scriptures, which after all rests for its main But by this time the rationalist movement was beginning. support on Buckland, or Lyell, or Hugh Miller ... If the Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and Rene Descartes (1592-1650), twenty-four-hour hypothesis is the one, and the only one, that both of whom professed orthodoxy, raised doubts about the comes from a faithful and exact exegesis of the Sacred Words, he [the believer] must accept it in spite of any difficulties of authority of the Bible because they made reason the ultimate science; he must believe — as faith is often required to do — criterion. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) and his followers, against appearances, however striking, or reasonings however with their concepts of celestial mechanics in which there was plausible. And he would not be irrational in so doing ... We no reference to a creator, were to start in motion scientific can get along very well without geology; our intellectual and ideas that would later have an impact on the church. Newton, moral dignity would not be impaired had no such science ever however, held that his research only served to enhance the existed. But where are we without Revelation, if the very initial wonder of the universe and exalt the wisdom of the creator. recognition of Man, and of the Earth, turns out to be all false, Since many church people subscribed to his idea, reveal- a lying legend — a work of fancy or designed deception?3 ed religion and science were able to coexist. Certainly for the ordinary person the biblical view of the relationship between Lewis proposed to study the Bible without being in- God and man had not been seriously affected by the Coper- fluenced by science by using the following design:4 nican removal of the earth from the center of the universe, nor by Newton's thesis that the heavens were subject to the 1. "Revelation is independent of science." same mechanistic patterns that could be observed in everyday 2. Revelation uses its own language which is not scientific, experience. nor poetic or metaphysical, but is strictly phenomenal — "that The real clash came with the confrontation of the fin- is, it takes as representatives of remote energy — remote either dings of geologists. Before the end of the seventeenth century, in time, or causal sequence, or both — those last phenomena

10 Fee Irt wuor or appearances through which these remote energies finally Although the thinking of the seventeenth century seemed manifest themselves directly to the senses, and which are, to be aimed at accommodating religion and science, the foun- therefore, the same for all ages and all men ... These dations for rational criticism were being laid. The basic ultimate appearances or 'the things that are seen' thus furnish assumption was that, in matters of religion, reason is the name to the unseen ultimate causality or the remote supreme. For example, John Locke (1632-1704) in his Essay creative energy. Thus in phenomenal language, to make the on Human Understanding (1690) wrote that reason and firmament, is to bring into being, and into action, that system revelation were not opposed. or series of physical law or laws, which terminates in the manifestation so named ... 3. "The Bible may be, in some respects, designed to teach "The relationship between the Babylonian creation us natural and not merely moral truth ... the Bible, rightly account ... and the Hebrew version of Genesis I is interpreted, and its meaning fairly ascertained, is of authority unmistakable.... In both stories divine spirit is in whatever it proposes to teach us of the natural world .. . " involved: in the Babylonian, divine spirit and 4. "Creation is an alternating series of growths or natures ... each have a supernatural beginning ... [which] cosmic matter coexist and are coeternal; in the Bi- followed by natural growths, constitute the chronological ble divine spirit exists independently of cosmic mat- periods of the divine working, of which there are six mention- ter and creates it." ed by Moses as having a direct relation to the birth or genesis of our own world, in its present formation." But were there limits to the supernatural communication 5. "These creative periods are indefinite ... They are called days for three reasons: 1st. Because this is the best of truth? Many felt that Christianity had to be accepted as language the Hebrew or any other tongue could true and the Bible as credible. To support that thesis a statute furnish ... 2d. Because of its cyclical or periodical character, was enacted in Britain that provided that anyone "who shall and 3d. because this periodical character is marked by two deny the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be contrasted states which could not be so well expressed in any of divine authority" could not hold public office, and for a way as by those images that in all the early tongues enter into second offense would be sentenced to three years imprison- the terms for evening and morning." ment. Indeed, in 1697 an eighteen-year-old man, Thomas 6. "This ... is forced upon us by considerations which Aikenhead, was hanged in Edinburgh because he said that lie upon the very face of the account, especially in the descrip- Ezra wrote the Pentateuch and that Moses had learned magic tion of the first four periods which preceded the regular divi- in Egypt.6 sion of days by the sun. By representing them as ante-solar, the But the confrontation could not be deterred. The Deists writer ... gives us a clear intimation that the days ... are not the common diurnal revolutions measured by the rising could accept the idea of a deity that created the heavens and and setting of heavenly bodies ... " the earth, but the crude anthropomorphisms that insisted that 7. "The key-note ... comes from the distinction which is this same God made clothing for Adam and Eve and muzzled believed to exist, between the language of Paul, Hebrews 11:3 lions to protect Daniel was a bit too much to accept. The and that of the Mosaic account in Genesis — the one referring Deist controversy weakened the traditionalist position and the to the essential, the other to the phenomenal ... " publication of many aspects of the debate in pamphlets tend- 8. "An important aid in interpreting the days in ed to remove the Bible from the secure pedestal it had oc- Genesis ... is derived from a right view of the Hebrew olam, cupied during the seventeenth century. and the Greek aion, as they so frequently occur in the Old and Despite the defensive efforts of the literalists, the attack New Testaments. These terms show that there existed in the on the Bible continued. Even the idea that the divine Creator earliest use of language, a conception of durations transcen- should reveal his nature and purpose to a small barbaric ding any of the ordinary divisions of time as measured by the group living in an obscure corner of the earth through "a heavenly phenomena ... This Hebrew conception of olams, or of world under that name, is in striking contrast with the series of trivial and sometimes outrageous laws and anec- modern notion that five or six thousand years carries us back, dotes"7 was simply unacceptable. The impact of Thomas not only to the beginning of the human race, but to the ab- Hobbes (1588-1679), who in Leviathan disputed the Mosaic solute beginning of all created substance with nothing before it authorship of the Torah, and of Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), — if we accept the solitary divine existence — but an eternal the Dutch philosopher and theologian who argued that the Bi- blank." ble should be treated like any other book, were not to be denied. Lewis argued that "the Bible does not teach that the The battle continued into the eighteenth century with creative days were twenty-four hours long, but leaves a great contenders like David Hume (1711-1776), Voltaire latitude in this respect, determining nothing about their dura- (1694-1778), Rousseau (1712-1778), and popularizers of the tion except that they must be in harmony with the growths debate, such as Tom Paine (1737-1809). Now, however, a new and processes assigned to each."5 In other words, though he emphasis was developing — the analytical approach to Pen- argues that he does not approach the Bible from the point of tateuchal studies. view of the science current in his time, he ends up Questions about the Mosaic authorship of the Torah had demonstrating that the Bible is in accord with science. His is been raised long before the eighteenth century. After about only one of the attempts to make an adjustment between the 400 B.C. it was commonly accepted that Moses wrote the Hebrew creation account and science. Torah, but there were some who questioned. The author of

Summer, 1982 11 Fourth Ezra (about A.D. 90) thought that the entire Torah 3. The third source, "D," consists of the Deuteronomic had been lost and that it had been revealed to or dictated to code of 621 B.C. and was added by a redactor (RD) about Ezra under divine inspiration. Jerome (died 420), the 550 B.C. translator of the Bible into Latin Vulgate, was able to accept 4. The fourth source, "P," was composed between 500 Moses as the author and Ezra as the editor. About A.D. 500 a and 450 B.C. and was added by the final redactor (RP) about passage in the Talmud (Baba Bathra 14b) suggested that 400 B.C. when the Torah was completed. Joshua wrote the last eight verses of Deuteronomy, in which Subsequently, other scholars found minor sources within Moses describes his own death, funeral, and burial. the four. Still others found major sources such as that labeled During the Reformation, scholars began to point to "S" by Pfeiffer and "L" by Eissfeldt. The source theory is other problems in the Torah associated with shifts in diction still current, but modern scholars have pushed the dates back. and style and with such inconsistencies as the mention of the Both J and E are now dated in the second half of the tenth city of Dan, which did not come into existence until after century B.C. — that is, during the reign of David and Moses' death. It was suggested that other hands besides those Solomon for J, and during the reign of Jeroboam of Israel for of Moses were involved in recording the accounts, either in E. Many would insist that P was begun during the last half of touching up the originals or in introducing materials of the sixth century when the Jews were exiles in Babylon. All human origin. would agree that the Torah reached its final state by the time of Ezra, about 400 B.C. There have been battles against this hypothesis. Some would dismiss the whole argument and return to the Scrip- "So far as modern scholarship is concerned, Hebrew tures as they are published today. There have been debates creation myths are no more factual or scientific than over datings and sequences. The result has been the same: the those of other peoples." concept of the Torah as a divinely revealed document has come under challenge, and the Torah as the handiwork of dif- ferent authors and editors has been demonstrated. During the eighteenth century what is now called "the At least two differing creation accounts have been older documentary hypothesis" was developed. Individuals recognized, and the remnants of others are scattered like Pastor H. B. Witter (about 1711) of Hildesheim, and throughout the Bible. Through the research of Hermann Jean Astruc, the son of a Protestant minister who became a Gunkel (1862-1932), who is often called the father of biblical Roman Catholic after studying medicine at Montpellier (died form-criticism, differing literary categories have been iden- 1766), began to recognize sources within the Pentateuch. tified. Gunkel was influenced by the folkloric studies of the Astruc suggested that Moses had two sources from which he brothers Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, who classified folk- drew: an "A" source, which used the divine name Elohim for traditions as fairy-tales, sagas, and legends and myths. Myths the deity, and a "B" source, which used the divine name were defined as "stories of the gods." Because he believed Yahweh. His work was expanded in a three-volume Introduc- that myths require more than one deity, Gunkel found only tion to the Old Testament by J. G. Eichhorn, published bet- "faded myths" within the Old Testament.8 Most scholars ig- ween 1780 and 1783. And there were other hypotheses. nore this comment and the creation accounts are labeled, Alexander Geddes, an English Catholic priest, proposed together with creation accounts from other cultures, as a "fragment hypothesis" which was later developed in Ger- "myths." So far as modern scholarship is concerned, Hebrew many by J. S. Vater. This theory said that the Pentateuch was creation myths are no more factual or scientific than those of compiled in the time of Solomon from fragmentary remains other peoples. of two older documents that used differing divine names. The Two more developments were to bear upon the creation fragments were combined by a redactor who disregarded stories in the Bible. The first was the publication of Darwin's continuity. Origin of Species on November 24, 1859. The second was the Still other hypotheses appearing during the nineteenth discovery of Mesopotamian creation myths. century led to what has been called "the new documentary The pre-Darwinian concept of species implied an absence hypothesis." This bears the names of K. H. Graf and J. of intermediate links, and when in Charles Darwin's time Wellhausen. They proposed that the Torah was composed of such links were being found, the conservatives could either four major sources or documents, each distinguishable by react with impatience, admit their error, or reaffirm biblical stylistic and linguistic usages, which were combined, added authority. to, or adjusted by redactors: Within Roman Catholicism, there was at first some at- 1. The earliest document, the "J" source, was believed tempt to find a concord between science and religion. In 1861, to have been composed in Judah about 350 B.C. and used the Cardinal John Newman wrote that he found no collision bet- divine name Yahweh throughout. ween religion and science, for each operated in separate 2. The "E" source was composed in Israel about 750 spheres with little in common. "Nothing that human science B.C. and used the divine name Elohim until the name or inquiry can discover is able to reach for confirmation or Yahweh was revealed to Moses on Mount Horeb (Sinai in for damage, those sacred truths and facts which the voice of "J"). The two sources "J" and "E" were combined by a the Church, or of her Doctors and schoolmen, or of her redactor (RJE) about 650 B.C. Bishops and people in orbe terrarum has recognized and

12 declared to be dogma in the Written Word." contained translations and a discussion of the fragments that In 1870 the First Vatican Council took a stand that had close affinities with the opening chapter of Genesis. reflected the impact of Darwin's ideas and biblical criticism; Subsequent excavations at other sites have enabled scholars to it was much stronger. The Council not only affirmed God as know that there were seven tablets and to recover the myth creator and Lord, who by a completely free decision almost in its entirety. Although Ashurbanipal's library was "established, at the same time as time began, creatures of developed during the seventh century B.C., that monarch had both kinds, spiritual and bodily from nothing; and then the sent his scribes to the learning centers of his world to copy human creature, made up of spirit and body, as it were materials. together," but announced that anathema would be decreed on all who disagreed: If there is anyone who does not confess that the world and all "To follow logically the arguments of modern the things that are contained in it — both spiritual and material — have been produced in their entire substance by science and to let logic and reason lead, rather than God out of nothing: or who says that God's will to create was a dogma about biblical inspiration, would result in not free from every kind of compulsion, but that he created as the recognition that biblical creation mythology is necessarily as he necessarily loves himself: or who denies that not only outdated but irrelevant." the world has been established for the glory of God — let him be anathema.9 The inspiration of the Scriptures was reaffirmed in 1893 in the encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus: It is now clear that the Mesopotamian creation myth is much older than the time of Ashurbanipal, that it was used in For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and the New Year ritual during the month of Nisanu at the shrine canonical are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, of Marduk in Babylon as far back as the time of Hammurabi at the dictation of the Holy Spirit; and so far it is from being (1723-1686 B.C.), that there are indications that it may go possible that any error can coexist with inspiration, that in- back to Sumerian times (third millennium B.C.), and that it spiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but was used in rituals as late as the time of Alexander the Great excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is im- (fourth century B.C.). Moreover, it is clear that the impact of possible that God Himself the supreme Truth, can utter that Babylon on the Near Eastern world was so great that parts of which is not true. the myth appear to have been translated into the languages of Books on evolution by Roman Catholic scholars were many of the cultures of the ancient Near East. condemned or withdrawn from circulation. The Mosaic The relationship between the Babylonian creation ac- authorship of the Pentateuch was reaffirmed. The effect of count, named after its opening words, enuma elish ("when on such measures was to delay any effort by the church to ac- high"), and the Hebrew version in Genesis 1 is unmistakable. commodate to evolutionary theories and developing biblical As Alexander Heidel demonstrated in 1942 in his study of the criticism until after 1943, when Pope Pius XII issued his en- Babylonian account, in both stories divine spirit is involved: cyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu and the encyclical Humani in the Babylonian, divine spirit and cosmic matter coexist and Generis in 1951. Divino Afflante recognized the contribution are coeternal; in the Bible, divine spirit exists independently of authors who wrote under divine inspiration in the making of cosmic matter and creates it. In the Enuma elish, there was of grammatical errors, in the choice of metaphor, in the use primeval chaos and the goddess Tiamat was enveloped in of non-historical genera, and even in inaccurate citations. darkness; in Genesis, the earth is a desolate waste with Despite these human errors the writers do not put forth as darkness covering the deep (tehom, which is a term related to their own that which is false. Tiamat). In Genesis light is created; in Enuma elish it Since that time, the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy and emanates from the gods. In both there is the same sequence of inspiration has undergone considerable reinterpretation creative events: the firmament, dry land, the luminaries, and because of the pressures of modern science, even though the lastly man. In both there is a day of rest: in Enuma elish the Roman Catholic church still maintains its position. gods rest and celebrate, in Genesis God rests and sanctifies References to biblical error can be held as unofficial opinions the seventh day.to and explained as the human assumptions of the biblical It has been argued that the Hebrews were exposed to and writers. The Roman church remains the guardian and only adapted the Babylonian myth during their captivity in the authentic interpreter of the Bible, so that belief in inerrancy sixth century B.C. Others have suggested that the influence of and inspiration is linked to the belief in the infallibility of the Babylon had impacted earlier. church. For the most part, conservative scholarship has ignored Between 1848 and 1876, Austen Henry Layard the Babylonian creation myth and its relationship to the Bi- discovered for the British Museum thousands of tablets in the ble, just as they have ignored the relationship of the "J" excavation of the library of King Ashurbanipal of Nineveh in myth to ancient Near Eastern mythic patterns. Even in liberal Assyria. In 1876, George Smith, who had been working with scholarship, much emphasis has been placed on the crudeness these tablets, published from some twenty fragments of of the Babylonian account, which describes the creative pro- tablets a book titled The Chaldean Account of Genesis, which cess in terms of battles between deities, as opposed to the

Summer, 1982 13 sublimity of the Hebrew account. Even Heidel, a first-rate private admitting that they are no longer where their fathers Semiticist but a devout Lutheran, felt compelled to make a and grandparents were in their belief patterns. disclaimer. Meanwhile, the fundamentalists have continued to at- tempt to reconcile biblical beliefs with modern science, to ex- There are those who seem to be convinced that Gen. 1:1 to 2:3 plain Hebrew cosmology in conformance with modern views shows Babylonian traces, while others appear to be just as con- vinced that it does not. In my estimation, no incontrovertible about the universe. One writer, James Lauer Baldwin, has an- evidence can for the present be produced for either side; I nounced that science has returned to special theories of evolu- believe that the whole question must still be left open. But tion and that the belief in the divine creation of species is no whatever the true facts of the case may be, whether the biblical longer just an article of faith.14 The interpretation of the account is or is not dependent on the Babylonian material, Hebrew word for "day" (yom) is important in this type of there is no reason, as we have seen, why anyone should be presentation, and it is argued that yom simply means a long disturbed in his mind and lose his reverence for the opening period of time and should not be linked to a solar day. chapter of the Bible. If certain features of the biblical account were derived from the Babylonian, this was done in conformi- "So far as modern scholarship is concerned, ty with the will of Him who according to Heb. 1:1 revealed Hebrew creation myths are no more factual or Himself "in divers manners." Moreover, a comparison of the Babylonian creation story with the first chapter of Genesis scientific than those of other peoples." makes the sublime character of the latter stand out in even bolder relief. [p. 139] The first three "days" of the Genesis myth were lighted by electrical energy from thunderstorms coming from the in- Some scholars make a cursory note of the relationship terior of the earth and producing lightning and from radioac- but almost dismiss it as irrelevant. Others, such as Gerhard tive gases projected into the upper atmosphere or from solar Von Rad, accept the fact that in the opening verses "all these and planetary flares. Of course there is no scientific basis for statements have their terminological origin in the mythologies these conjectures. This particular group of creationists is of neighboring religions." 11 ready to accommodate the biblical day to fit scientific epochs How does the effect of cosmology, geology, ar- in order to account for the long process of evolution. chaeology, and comparative mythology impact on the work Such arguments — and others set forth by various crea- of the scholar and on the belief-systems of the Jewish and tionist groups — are on the order of last-ditch attempts, to Christian world? For some, there is a frank admission that make the biblical creation myths credible in a modern scien- the material is mythological, that it comes from and belongs tific world. To follow logically the arguments of modern in a different place-world and time-world. There is no at- science and to let logic and reason lead, rather than a dogma tempt and no desire to make it scientific. Nahum Sarna told about biblical inspiration, would result in the recognition that his readers: biblical creation mythology is not only outdated but irrelevant. It should be obvious that by the nature of things, none of these stories can possibly be the product of human memory, nor in any modern sense of the word scientific accounts of the origin Notes and nature of the physical world. Biblical man, despite his undoubted intellectual and I. Quoted by F. J. Crehan, "The Bible in the Roman Catholic Church spiritual endowments, did not base his views of the universe from Trent to the Present Day," in The Cambridge History of the Bible: The and its laws on the critical use of empirical data. He had not, West from the Reformation to the Present Day, ed. by S. L. Greenslade (Cambridge, 1963), p. 225. as yet, discovered the principles and methods of disciplined in- 2. Ibid. quiry, critical observation or analytical experimentation 3. Tayler Lewis, The Six Days of Creation; or the Scriptural Cosmology ... Hence, it is a naive and futile exercise to attempt to recon- with the Ancient Idea of Time-Worlds, In Distinction From Worlds in Space. cile the biblical accounts of creation with the findings of (London, 1855), pp. 1-2. modern science. 12 4. The outline is taken from Lewis, op. cit. pp. 3-8. 5. Ibid., p. 12 In The Interpreter's Bible, which was designed as a 6. W. Neil, "The Criticism and Theological Use of the Bible, scholarly and homiletic aid for the teacher and preacher, the 1700-1950," in S. L. Greenslade, op. cit., pp. 241 f. expositor urges his readers to find "the truth" embedded 7. Ibid., p. 247. within the Genesis mythology — the truth that "God 8. Hermann Gunkel, The Legends of Genesis, tr. by W. H. Carruth created."13 This response reflects the way in which many (New York, 1964, first ed., 1901), p. 14. liberal church persons handle the issue. To let their scholar- 9. Quoted in Robert Butterworth, S.J., The Theology of Creation (South Bend, Ind., 1969), pp. 14 f. ship and logic lead them to the conclusion that creation 10. Alexander Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis (Chicago, 1969), p. 129. mythology is simply the way in which persons living in a small 11. Gerhard Von Rad, Genesis, tr. by John Marks (Philadelphia, 1961), corner of the Mediterranean world viewed their universe and pp. 48 f. translated their beliefs about beginnings into cultic myth and 12. Nahum M. Sarna, Understanding Genesis (New York, 1966), to admit that these beliefs are no more significant than those pp. 2 f. 13. Walter Russell Bowie, The Book of Genesis: Exposition, of the ancient Egyptians or Greeks or Romans would be to in The In- terpreter's Bible, vol. 1. (Nashville, 1952), pp. 462 ff. move against the dogma of inspired scriptures. Indeed, many 14. James Lauer Baldwin, A New Answer to Darwin (Chicago, 1957), retain this theological concept in public settings, while in P. 1. •

14 The Bible and Authority

John Priest

I do not propose to sketch the history of the critical study of ultimate authority. (4:2 "You shall not add to the word which the Bible or to set forth the present general consensus of the I command you, or take from it.") results of that study, but I would like to call attention to an This conception of authority residing in a book con- issue that demands urgent consideration. This issue pertains tinued in post-exilic Judaism, and the work of Ezra around to the debate between the so-called biblical view of creation 400 B.C. culminated in the first phase of the canonical pro- and the theory of evolution. This debate unfortunately has cess. There were, to be sure, diverse movements in Judaism, been renewed with an unexpected vigor in recent years, but it but the official outlook was that the basis of the life of the goes beyond that into considerations affecting the very fabric community rested upon a fixed body of literature as it was in- of our democratic society. terpreted by the duly constituted authorities. The tradition of First, a brief historical survey is in order. In what manner the Great Synagogue, whatever its historical merits may be, did the assigning cf authority to a particular collection of confirms that outlook.' By the end of the first century of the written documents arise, and why did it arise? Although there Christian era, a fixed collection of religious texts had been were in Israel from the earliest times historical traditions agreed upon and for the Jewish community the canon was and legal corpora that were considered normative and complete. The Christian canonical process evolved through authoritative by various groups in differing places, there was approximately four centuries. There remain slight also a sense of openness. New legal decisions from the priests disagreements as to the extent of the canon, but the principle and fresh words from the prophets were as important as the of a fixed body of literature deemed authoritative by a par- transmitted lore of the past. ticular religious body was established. A change in this attitude began during the traumatic Three episodes in Jewish tradition may illustrate the cen- upheavals that shook the ancient Near East in the late seventh trality of establishing a basis for attributing ultimate authori- century B.C. For nearly two centuries Assyria had maintained ty to a particular body of literature. a hegemony over the area, which, while it was characterized After the exile Judaism was divided into three major by cruelty, did ensure a measure of relative stability and geographical areas: the homeland, Palestine; the eastern security. The rapid dissolution of that empire created just the diaspora centered in Babylonia; and the western diaspora opposite atmosphere. Throughout the area one response to located first in Egypt and later spreading throughout the that new mood was archaism and atavism. The Israelite Mediterranean basin. While geographical diversity did lead to manifestation was the promulgation of the Code of ideological differences, Jews everywhere agreed on the central Deuteronomy, which attempted to establish a system of necessity of adhering to the Law set forth in the Pentateuch. uniform belief and practice upon all of what was left of Familiarity with the provisions of that law was a primary Israel. The code was considered to be not only authoritative necessity. A problem arose: the Pentateuch was written in but a fixed and final authority. Over and over again Hebrew, and for most Jews everywhere Hebrew had ceased to Deuteronomy stresses that the words of this book possess be a living language. In Palestine and the eastern diaspora

Summer, 1982 15 Aramaic prevailed. In Egypt and the rest of the West authority but not its source. The dicta of IV Ezra are accord- Hellenistic Greek was the lingua franca. Palestine and the ed finality because they have been received directly from God. East chose the method of using Aramaic paraphrases The final illustration in this connection warrants a study (Targumim) of the biblical text, but the Jews of Alexandria in itself, but I shall be brief. The Hebrew language was opted for a straightforward translation. Thus, sometime in originally written in consonants only. At a fairly early period the middle of the third century there emerged a Greek transla- some consonants were utilized to serve as vowels, matres lec- tion of the Pentateuch, which, for good or ill, is called the tiones, and finally, when Hebrew ceased to be a living Septuagint. The actual historical origins of the Septuagint are unknown. But in Jewish literature stories of its origin were written, and those stories are highly relevant for our topic. A "It is this conviction of the total inerrancy of Scrip- detailed examination of the development of the Septuagint ture that precipitated the conflict between religion legend in both Jewish and Christian sources is a fascinating and science in the nineteenth century, a conflict topic in and of itself.2 For our purposes, however, the follow- that we are all well aware continues unabated in ing will suffice. In what is probably the oldest account, the letter of Aristeas to Philocrates, we are told that the transla- some circles." tion was instigated by a Ptolemy (probably Philadephus) and that the Jewish scholars summoned "proceeded to carry it [the translation] out, making all details harmonize by mutual language, several systems of vocalization were developed. comparisons. The appropriate result of that harmonization These processes of vocalization, punctuation, and accentua- was reduced to writing under the direction of Demetrius.3 tion were carried out by a series of Jewish scholars called col- What we have here is an appropriate scholarly transla- lectively the Massoretes. Their activity continued over nearly tion, carved out through the process of consultation and com- a millennium and their results were the so-called Massoretic parison. From Philo, a tradition in Tannatic literature, and in Text. In the present context it is impossible to deal with the many patristic writings, we get quite a different picture. The total activity of the Massoretes, but one consequence of their details vary but increasing emphasis is laid upon the convic- activity directly pertains to our present concern. tion that the translators worked in isolation and that their Some Jewish leaders opposed the introduction of separate translations in the end agreed word for word. The vocalization on the ground that it had not been included in reason for the development of this legend should be obvious. the original revelation of the Torah to Moses. To counter this If a written text is accorded ultimate authority, then the argument other scholars insisted that "God had not created authenticity of that text is mandatory. Since Jews believed the Torah without pointing ... "5 The controversy was that the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch had come from God never very significant in Jewish circles, but became a central himself, a similar authority must be accorded the translation issue among Christians in the period of the Reformation. In of that text. Just as God had inspired Moses, the supposed the battle between the primacy of scripture (Protestant) and author of the Pentateuch, so had he inspired the translators. tradition (Roman Catholic), the absolute authenticity of the An authoritative text must be a divinely given text. biblical text became a sine qua non for the Protestant posi- The second example may seem somewhat tangential, but tion. "The very titles of vowels and accent signs had been I include it because it raises a fundamental issue of the extent transmitted by the Massoretes from the time of Moses. To of canon literature which is authoritative. The work, called speak of the correct `Massoretic Text' implied, as it were, the either II Esdras or IV Ezra, is clearly a composite and has had continuous chain of pure divine word from Sinai."6 The a checkered career.4 It does not appear in the Septuagint but untenable nature of this position, put in its most extreme is usually included now in Protestant collections of the form by the Basel scholar Johannes Buxtorf the Elder, was Apocrypha and as an appendix to the Vulgate. Its literary rather easily demonstrated, particularly by the work of Cap- history is interesting and important but not central to our pre- pellus, but the fact that it could be seriously proposed sent considerations. I focus on the account in chapter 14 witnesses to the felt need for an absolutely authentic text that where Ezra, lamenting that all of the scriptures of his people would be an authoritative text. have been burned (14:21), is assured that all will be restored. There is, however, a fundamental difference between the Subsequently, Ezra and five others are filled with the Holy notion of an authentic text and an authoritative text. The Spirit and write anew the inspired law "in characters which former is the proper task of textual criticism carried out in ac- they did not know" (14:42). But in addition to the canonical cord with strict scientific principles. The more or less ade- books, which supposedly had been lost, they were also in- quate completion of that task, an established text, has no in- spired to write an additional seventy books, which were to be trinsic connection with authority. The classicist Ben Perry given to the wise in the end of days. spent most of his career reconstructing the best, most authen- Intertestamental writers also needed a sense of authority. tic text of Aesop's fables, and his work is a scholarly marvel. The story in IV Ezra not only authenticated the authority of But, while one can use the fables with considerable value, one the twenty-four canonical books of the Hebrew Scriptures but hardly accords them authority. No, the question of authority also extended that authority to the "hidden" books that lies elsewhere. Two themes present in the Renaissance and would soon be revealed. IV Ezra questions the extent of Reformation bring us to the heart of the question.

16 Thus far I have not mentioned the issue that was central terpreter."9 For Protestants, the rule of interpretation of in the conflict between science and the Bible in the nineteenth Scripture is Scripture itself.10 Two important consequences century, the matter of historicality or facticity of the biblical follow from the Protestant assertion. First, as we have material. This is an intentional omission, for until the Refor- discussed earlier, if Scripture stands alone there must be an mation historicity, in the sense of verifiable facticity, played a indisputable authentic text. This was the issue in the vowel- minor role in both Jewish and Christian traditions. I do not point controversy. But even possession of such a text is not mean to imply that facticity of Scripture was denied in those enough. One must be assured that the authentic text possesses traditions. Rather, facticity was simply not a central issue, authority. Wherein does that authority lie? and for two reasons. As I noted above, Scripture was The most obvious answer is that the authority of the Bi- authoritative since it was interpreted by duly constituted ble rests in that it is the Word of God. While recognizing the authorities. Thus, ecclesial authority acted as a safeguard, human instrumentality of the documents, there was the con- mediating to the faithful what was necessary for faith and viction that men wrote under divine inspiration and that in practice. Further, where serious difficulties arose between the the final analysis God was the author of the Bible.11 Both apparent plain meaning of a text and a rational view of Luther and Calvin, with that marvelous inconsistency that is human experience, there was recourse to a mode of inter- the mark of true greatness, noted inconsistencies and pretation that had a hallowed history from Hellenistic times, problems in the text, but could also affirm that the Bible was namely, allegory. But, already in the late medieval period, the sure and infallible record and the unerring standard. Of- leading biblical scholars were turning more and more to ficially, the Bible is free of error and contradiction. Protes- historical exegesis, although in popular interpretation tant scholasticism, both Lutheran and Calvinist, tended to ig- allegory continued to predominate. nore the reformers' statements and attitudes that would have Renaissance humanism, with its insistence that the same led to a historical and critical evaluation of the Bible and to focusing on those teachings that stressed the inerrancy of Scripture. More and more the position was emphasized that "As a biblical scholar ... in my judgment the il- since the Bible is the Word of God and that God is the licit encroachment of biblical authority into public ultimate author of Scripture, it follows that the Bible must be legislation and regulation will have to be fought on free from all error. It contains not only religious truth but also historical and scientific truth. For, it was often asserted, another front, the political sector." "God cannot lie." It is at this juncture that the problem of historicality becomes central, and it is this conviction of the total inerran- principles used to derive the meaning of any text should also cy of Scripture that precipitated the conflict between religion be applied to the Bible, furthered the challenge to allegory. By and science in the nineteenth century, a conflict which we are and large Luther and Calvin favored the historical model, all well aware continues unabated in some circles. though each continued to utilize allegory from time to time. I shall now set forth clearly my conclusions as to what The clash between historical and allegorical emphasis was not precipitated the vigor with which Protestant orthodoxy in- new. The struggle between Antioch and Alexandria was an- sisted upon an inerrant Bible. As I have noted, for a long time cient indeed. The new and profoundly significant dimension in Christian history the need for an inerrant text was lay not in the exegetical mode but in the shift of the locus of mitigated by the presence of ecclesial authority that could authority.? supplement Scripture with tradition and, by the use of One well-known shibboleth of the Reformation was allegorical interpretation, could operate where the text was Scriptura sola; the charge was often made that many Roman not clear or seemingly alien to experience. The reformers doctrines were based on sources other than the Bible. The denied ecclesial authority and severely limited the use of Council of Trent affirmed the centrality of Scripture but also allegory. Thus the only remaining authority was Scripture gave due import to the centuries of accumulated tradition. itself. When Protestant orthodoxy later accepted the Put simply, the Council "affirmed that the Bible is the in- historicist definition of "truth" as that which is verifiable, spired word of God, which tradition is not; but tradition is a the "facts" of the biblical narrative had to be "facts" in that source of faith equal to the Bible in that it is a true source and sense. This was a leap that need not have been made and that that it imposes the assent of faith."8 The reformers, in theory has seriously impaired what I consider to be the nature, func- at least, repudiated this and insisted that the Bible alone tion, and, if you will, authority of the Bible. But made it was, stands as the supreme authority for the Christian faith. Not and the consequences abide until this day. popes, nor councils, but Scripture alone. Genuine biblical criticism of a scientific nature did not There was another issue in the Protestant-Roman begin until the eighteenth century;12 but there were precur- Catholic controversy that was perhaps even more significant sors, three of whom were outside the professional theological than the debate over tradition. Even if Protestants and realm. The eminent Dutch jurist, Grotius, wrote a series of Roman Catholics agreed on the centrality of Scripture, they annotations on all the books of the Bible. His critical conclu- divided sharply on the principle by which Scripture was to be sions seem mild and modest to us today, but the significant interpreted. The Roman position was that "the Bible needs point is that he felt a freedom to explore the Bible without any the church as interpreter, and there is no other authentic in- constraint of authority. Neither the authority of an ecclesial

Summer, 1982 17 body nor the authority that asserted that God was the author possess authority, but its authority was that which was inter- of Scripture deterred his explorations on matters of date, preted and mediated through "God's Lieutenant," the civil authorship, and the like. This assumption, such a com- sovereign. monplace among scholars today, marked a genuine Coper- While I do not find Hobbes's political theory particularly nican revolution in his time and set in motion the possibility attractive, it cannot go unnoticed that his critical conclusions of historical criticism in biblical studies. on the Bible, placed in the service of his political theory, do Another seventeenth-century nontheological contributor challenge any notion of intrinsic authority of the Bible as to the rise of biblical criticism was the English philosopher such. The Bible says what the sovereign says that it says. We and political theoretician Thomas Hobbes. In his Leviathan, might transmute this: cuius regio, eius religio to cuius particularly Part III, Hobbes furthered considerably the work biblia eius biblia. I shall not pursue the inherent dangers im- of Grotius. Indeed, chapter 2 of that section reads like a plicit in making religion and the Bible the handmaiden of the veritable, though nascent, introduction to the books of the policies of the state, though they are not without considera- Bible. He follows the freedom of Grotius, but his method is tion on the contemporary scene. keener and more systematic. He sought to establish the date The third seventeenth-century precursor is, for my pur- and authorship of each book of the Old Testament on the poses at least, the most important. Baruch Spinoza was a basis of internal evidence. native of Amsterdam and was of Portuguese, or possibly Spanish, Jewish extraction. In his Tractatus he developed a Who were the originall writers of the several Books of Holy historia Scripturae, by which he meant a biblical science. His Scripture, has not been made evident by any sufficient outline is worth noting. First, he remarks that this method has testimony or other History, (which is the only proof of matter as a fundamental prerequisite a thorough grounding in the of fact); nor can be by any arguments of naturall Reason: For languages of Scripture. Secondly, such a history should relate Reason serves only to convince the truth (not of fact, but) of "the environment of all prophetic (scripture) books extant; consequence. The light therefore that must guide us in this that is, the life, the conduct, and the studies of the author of question, must be that which is held out unto us from the Books themselves: And this light, though it shew us not the each book, who he was, what was the occasion and the epoch writer of every book, yet it is not unusefull to give us of his writing, whom did he write for, and in what language. knowledge of the time, wherein, they were written.13 Further, it should inquire into the fate of each book; how it was first received, into whose hands it fell, how many dif- Like Grotius, Hobbes's critical conclusions were not par- ferent versions there were of it, by whose advice it was receiv- ticularly daring and are mostly of antiquarian interest. For in- ed into the Bible, and, lastly, how all the books now univer- stance, Moses could not have written all of the Pentateuch, sally accepted as sacred, were united into a single but a considerable amount of that material did come from whole."16 This is precisely the operating procedure of the him. Job is a moral tract, not history, but Hobbes did not historical critic. doubt that there was a historical Job. Most of the Psalms are Having a more thorough grasp of biblical material than by David, but one at least (79) must come from the time of did either Grotius or Hobbes, Spinoza was able to make more Antiochus Epiphanes. precise and more detailed critical comments. Some of his Hobbes was cautious about subjecting the New Testa- observations remarkably anticipate conclusions reached by ment to the same scrutiny. He somewhat lamely observes that later critics. In particular, his view that almost all of the Old "The writers of the New Testament lived all in less than an Testament underwent a post-exilic redaction (he wrongly at- age [generation] after Christ's ascension, and all of them had tributed most if not all of this to Ezra) and his linking the seen our Saviour, or been his disciples, except St. Paul and St. Pharisees with the final shape of the canon are eminently Luke; and consequently whatsoever was written by them, is as modern. But the true significance of Spinoza does not lie in ancient as the time of the Apostles." 14 He could even say: his specific critical judgments but in his interpretative "I see not therefore any reason to doubt, but that the Old and method, his hermeneutic, if you will. He is primarily concern- New Testament, as we have them now, are the true registers ed with something other than biblical criticism as such. of those things, which were done and said by the Prophets It is commonly stated that his aim was to demonstrate and Apostles." 15 the supremacy of reason over revelation. This is a mistaken Nevertheless, the work of Hobbes has two significant view. Rather, his aim, in the Tractatus at least, was essentially consequences for our study. At one level his method of sub- a political one: to show that no religious doctrine should take jecting biblical texts to the canons of critical rational in- a precedent role in the affairs of state. He clearly demarcates vestigation clearly demonstrated their historical conditioning the sphere where reason and politics are operative and in- and thus stripped them of any ab extra authority. Hobbes's dicates the sphere appropriate to religion. I should add that primary interest, however, was not in a historical reconstruc- he felt nothing in Scripture, properly interpreted, was repug- tion of the Bible or in theology as such. His real concern, in nant to reason, and he did not deny that in the Bible one Leviathan, was to establish the source of the ultimate authori- found the Word of God (which he distinguished from the ty of the state. Thus his examination of the origins of Scrip- Books as such). He can even refer to God as the author of the ture was designed to demonstrate that neither the text itself Bible. He prized the religion he found in the Bible once it had nor the ecclesial interpretation of the text superseded the uses been properly interpreted by the historical method. made of the text by the head of the state. The Bible did indeed But to return to his aim. How does his historical analysis

18 relate to it? Put simply, and briefly, by showing the historical- We may call old notions fudge, ly conditioned nature of the biblical material, he was able to And bend our conscience to our dealing; relativize it and to preclude its being used as an eternal and The Ten Commandments will not budge, absolute norm for laws and customs in other times and And stealing will continue stealing. places. We must "not confound precepts which are eternal with those which served only a temporary purpose, or were It is not inappropriate that ethical and moral principles deriv- only meant for a few."17 Religion possesses authority only in ed from our religious traditions be incorporated in our legal the private, and not the public, sphere. codes, but they are to be incorporated on the basis of public It is here, and not in the debates about inspiration, in- consent and not biblical authority. Further, they must con- fallibility, inerrancy, and historical conditioning, that the tinue to bear critical scrutiny and be modified where changed crucial issue comes to the fore. Argument over the historicali- conditions warrant. The earlier quotation from Spinoza ty, the facticity, of biblical narratives is, after all, rather should remain a criterion.18 useless. If one chooses to believe that the earth was created Centuries of careful critical study of the Bible have failed some 6,000 years ago in six calendar days, that the sun once to convince many of its obvious historical conditionedness, stood still to enable a general to complete his victory, that a and I doubt that much progress on that front will be made in fish provided transportation for a reluctant and recalcitrant the near future. As a biblical scholar, I shall of course prophet, that a man already in the process of decomposition persevere in that task. But, in my judgment, the illicit en- was restored to life - and so on and so on - such beliefs qua croachment of biblical authority into public legislation and beliefs are of no import to those of us who choose to interpret regulation will have to be fought on another front, the such narratives in radically different ways. At this level the political sector. matter is simply one of de gustibus. The crux lies not in prov- ing or disproving incidents recorded in the Bible, but in the scope of the authority of biblical beliefs and practices for society at large. Notes I stress the words at large. I would not for one moment 1. The Mishnaic tractate, Pirke Aboth, begins with the assertion, "Moses dispute the legitimacy of a religious group to impose its inter- received the Torah from Sinai and delivered it to Joshua, and Joshua to the pretation of biblical authority upon its own constituency. Elders, and the Elders to the Prophets, and the Prophets delivered it to the This is, in my judgment, a critical point. If, for instance, men of the Great Synagogue." The concern of the legend is to ensure con- Seventh-Day Adventists make abstention from eating pork or tinuity and authenticity. refusing to work on Saturday criteria for membership in their 2. A good summary of the growth of the Septuagint legend is available in denomination, well and good; so long as these criteria are not Mose Hadas, Aristeas to Philocrates (New York, 1951), pp. 66-84. 3. Aristeas, p. 302 (Hadas's translation). expanded to prohibit the sale of pork and the pursuit of 4. A recent analysis of the book and a summary of contemporary scholarly business on Saturday to society in general. If Roman opinion regarding it may be found in George Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature Catholics ban or severely limit artificial contraception, abor- Between the Bible and the Mishnah (Philadelphia, 1981), pp. 287-94. tion, divorce, and the like for Roman Catholics, that is their 5. Ernst Wurthwein, The Text of the Old Testament (0xford, 1957), p. 20. business. If Methodists, my denomination, insist that their 6. Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, "The Aleppo Codex and the Rise of the Massoretic Text of the Bible," Biblical Archaeologist 42, 3 (Summer 1979), clergy abstain from the use of alcohol and tobacco, there are pp. 145-63. The quotation is on p. 158. plenty of other denominations that permit, even foster, such 7. Reliable summaries of the history of biblical interpretation may conve- practices. niently be found in The Interpreter's Bible, vol. 1 (New York, 1952), pp. If my local representative in the Florida legislature in- 106-41 and The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (New York, 1962), pp. forms me that he personally believes in the biblical story of 407-13. A special study of critical study of the 0ld Testament is that by E.F. Kraeling, The Old Testament Since the Reformation (New York, 1955). creation but opposes the teaching of scientific creationism in 8. John E. McKenzie, The Roman Catholic Church (New York, 1969), the public schools because he is convinced that the issue is p. 211. religious and therefore inappropriate in light of the constitu- 9. Ibid. p. 213. Good surveys of current discussions within the Roman tional separation of church and state, I am saddened by his Catholic tradition may be found in Raymond Brown's New Testament Essays (Garden City, N.Y., 1965) and The Critical Meaning of the Bible learning but heartened by his position. (New York, 1981). But when attempts are made to influence legislation that 10. This is stated specifically in the Westminster Confession, section IX. I affects the entire society on the basis of biblical authority have used the text printed in Philip Schaff's Creeds of Christendom (Grand (and I might add upon but one type of biblical inter- Rapids, 1977). First printed in 1877. pretation), the limits of authority are overstepped. Yet that is I1. See, for example, the Westminster Confession, section IV. 12. Accounts of this movement are available in all standard introductions precisely the platform of the so-called New Religious Right to the 0ld Testament. The books cited in note 7 are appropriate. and of many other religious bodies. Issues ranging from abor- 13. I have used the Everyman's Library edition of the Leviathan. The cita- tion (right-to-life) to gun control (right-to-death) are sup- tion is found on p. 203 of that edition. ported with the confident assertion, "The Bible says!" Based 14. Ibid. p. 207. upon their theories of inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy, 15. Ibid. pp. 207 f. 16. I have used the edition, A Theologico-Political Treatise, translated by these groups, many of them at least, affirm that the Bible R.H.M. Elwes (New York, 1951). The quotation is found on p. 103. means the same thing to all people, in all places, and at all 17. Idem. times. Another quotation from Lowell is in order: 18. See note 16. •

Summer, 1982 19

How the Gospels Tell a Story

Randel Helms

Each of the four Gospels is religious proclamation in the form he is even farther removed in time from those who wrote on of a narrative, largely fictional. My purpose is to clarify what the basis of traditions handed down from the days of I mean, with regard to the Gospels, by these terms "fictional eyewitnesses. He is at the next remove, retelling the story on narrative," and "religious proclamation." the basis of what others had written who were themselves Jesus of Nazareth was almost certainly a historical figure repeating traditions; Luke is, in other words, a third- who died about A.D. 30. Within a generation after his death generation Christian. As Luke continues: "and so I in my he had become matter for legend, and, within a century or so, turn ... as one who has gone over the whole course of these the object of numerous books of religious fiction. We still events in detail, have decided to write a connected narrative" possess, in whole or in part, such works of this sort as the (Luke 1:3 NEB). Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Philip, The earlier accounts of Jesus' life were, for whatever and such anonymous gospels as those according to the reason, unsatisfactory to Luke. They needed supplementing, Hebrews, the Egyptians, the Ebionites, and so on. Christians correcting, or completing; if the earlier accounts had been have never been reluctant to write fiction about Jesus, but sufficient, Luke would have had nothing to add. Notice he they have often been reluctant to present their works as uses the phrases "connected" narrative (kathexos) and "in fiction. detail" (akribos, literally, accurately), with their implication Most of the accounts of Jesus from the first two cen- that earlier accounts were either incoherent or inaccurate. turies of our era have, explicitly or silently, presented What were those earlier accounts Luke so carefully studied? themselves as improvements upon earlier books about or We can identify for certain only two of them, the Gospel of earlier memories of Jesus. The implicit and strangely Mark and the source (also used by Matthew) that scholars call paradoxical notion has thus been: the farther removed one is Q (from the German word Quelle, source). from Jesus in time, the more accurate is one's understanding It is now all but universally accepted that the Gospel of of him. Thus, it was not first-generation Christians who Mark was a major written source for the authors of both Mat- wrote gospels but those of the second, third, and fourth thew and Luke, and perhaps also of John. In other words, generations. First-generation Christians were convinced that though Luke is the only evangelist who admits he was not an history was coming to an immediate end — and, besides, they eyewitness, neither were Matthew and (one suspects) John, had had contact, direct or indirect, with those who claimed and, as we shall see, neither was their source, the author of personal experience of Jesus; they had no need to write books the Gospel of Mark. about him. I want now to look at some practical examples of what I The contrary view of the third generation is best express- mean. I have chosen the accounts of the baptism and two ed by the author of the Gospel of Luke, which was probably miracles to illustrate the evangelists' use of their sources to written within a decade of A.D. 90: "Many writers [says create fictional narratives. Luke] have undertaken to draw up an account of the events Mark was the first of the canonical Gospels to be written. that have happened among us, following the traditions hand- It was probably composed about forty years after the ed down to us by the original eyewitness and servants of the crucifixion, right at the end of the lifetime of the generation Gospel" (Luke 1:1-2, NEB). of Palestinians who could have seen Jesus — a privilege the Luke writes from a time of flowering of literature about author of Mark, who was not a Palestinian, never had. In- Jesus; "many" have already written, and were themselves deed, we can almost date the Gospel of Mark on the basis of already writing on the basis of "traditions" — the time of Mark 9:1, where Jesus is reported to have made the following eyewitnesses was already over. Indeed, as Luke makes clear, remarkably inaccurate prophecy: "There are some of those

20 standing here who will not taste death before they have seen ing of Mark's account of the baptism: "In the prophet Isaiah the kingdom of God already come with power." Clearly the it stands written: 'Here is my herald whom I send on ahead of kingdom has not yet come with power, but just as clearly, you, and he will prepare your way. A voice crying aloud in the when Mark wrote this, Jesus was not so far in the past that it wilderness, "Prepare a way for the Lord; clear a straight path would seem ludicrous to record it — that is, Mark didn't write for him." ' And so it was that John the Baptist appeared in in, say, A.D. 120. Anyone Jesus' age in the year 30 would the wilderness ... " (Mark 1:2-4 NEB). have been about seventy-five in 70; most of Jesus' contem- Mark is clearly unaware that half of his supposed quota- poraries would, in other words, have already passed their tion from Isaiah is not really from Isaiah at all, but rather three-score years and ten and died. Only a few would make it from Malachi 3:1 (and a misquotation at that). In other to four-score and their deaths could be but a handful of years words, Mark has not himself composed this pericope by refer- away. ring to the Old Testament but has repeated what has come to Nor would Mark have recorded such a saying in, say, 45, him without checking its source. when most of Jesus' auditors would still be alive and that Those early Christians who formed and passed on the word some would have no force in a document stressing the traditional pericope about the baptism knew that Jesus had imminence of the Kingdom. The early seventies are just right been baptized in the Jordan by John, but they possessed few for the greatest meaningfulness of such a saying, when Jesus' if any details about the event. In order to find out those generation is rapidly passing. details they adopted a typical research method of the ancient Just as Luke very astutely points out, a writer like Mark world — they went to authority, to books. Modern research would have gathered together traditions about Jesus handed methods, even the current method known as oral history, down from the earlier time of eyewitnesses, and again, just as were unknown, and there is no point in our being upset by or Luke implies is the case, those traditions were not necessarily critical of this. They believed that ancient books predicted the connected narrative. In fact Mark had no connected narrative future, and if the ancients predicted it, then it must have hap- outline of Jesus' life. Indeed, Mark knows nothing at all pened. What did their research reveal about the events at the about most of that life, possessing traditions about only the baptism? "When [Jesus] came up out of the water [says Mark last few months, and these in no chronological order; Mark 1:10], he saw the heavens torn open, and the Spirit, like a makes up his own fictional order. Any attentive reader of dove, descend upon him. " Mark can grasp this by looking at the transitions between episodes: "Christians have never been reluctant to write fic- 2:1 When after some days tion about Jesus, but they have often been reluctant 2:13 Once more 2:15 When to present their works as fiction." 2:18 Once, when 2:23 One Sabbath 3:1 On another occasion How did the authors of the pericope know this? They 4:1 On another occasion found it predicted in the second-century B.C. religious work 4:10 When he was alone known as the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. This book 4:35 That day did not make its way into our Bibles, but it was widely read in 6:1 He left that place the first century by both Jews and Christians, and read in an 6:6 On one of his teaching journeys oracular fashion, as predicting the future. In one of its sec- 7:14 On another occasion tions, the Testament of Judah, this work declared that "the 8:1 There was another occasion about this time heavens shall be opened unto him to pour out the Spirit" 8:27 Jesus and his disciples set out (24:3). They found this account supplemented by another sec- 9:30 They now left that district 10:1 On leaving those parts tion, the Testament of Levi, which says that "the heavens 10:17 As he was starting out on a journey (NEB) shall be opened, and from the temple of glory shall come upon him sanctification with the Father's voice" (18:6). Only after the tenth chapter, when Jesus enters What did the Father say to him? The Testament of the Jerusalem to be arrested and crucified, does Mark present a Twelve Patriarchs doesn't say, so numerous early Christians circumstantial chronology, and it appears likely that the went to another authoritative source, the Book of Psalms, reason for this is that he possessed an already written account which they also read in an oracular fashion. There they found of the passion which he placed in his own Gospel. For the that on the day of his anointing as Messiah of Israel, the king rest, Mark had what has been called a handful of unstrung is told by God, "Thou art my son; this day have I begotten pearls that he proceeded to string together according to his thee" (Ps. 2:7). Thus at Jesus' baptism, according to Mark own fictional outline. The pearl Mark put first (biblical 1:11, "a voice spoke from heaven: 'Thou art my Son."' scholars call these units pericopes, from the Greek word for We can get a good idea of how this kind of fiction was paragraph) was the story of the baptism. written if we look at another gospel that tells the same story, This pericope came to Mark already worked out, having the noncanonical Gospel of the Ebionites. This gospel, pro- achieved its form in the oral tradition during the forty years duced by a Christian group of the first and second centuries, or so between Jesus and Mark. We know this from the open- the Ebionites, survives only in fragments and was not ac-

Summer, 1982 21 cepted into the orthodox canon of Scripture. It was written in already, but to the bystanders: "Heaven opened," says Mat- much the same way as Mark's and Matthew's Gospels and thew, "and a voice from heaven was heard saying, 'This is my may even have been dependent upon them. Its description of Son"' (Matt. 3:17). Matthew felt free to write fiction, turning Jesus' baptism is as follows: a private revelation into a kerygmatic announcement, because for him, as for all the evangelists, the Gospels are not so much As he came up from the water, the heavens were opened, and history as kerygma. he saw the Holy Spirit descend in the form of a dove and enter I can now clarify what I mean by calling the Gospels into him. And a voice from heaven said, "Thou art my belov- religious proclamations. Biblical scholars' term for this is the ed son, with thee 1 am well pleased," and again, "Today I Greek word kerygma, which means "proclamation." The have begotten thee." [Epiphanius, Against Heresies, xxx, best statement of the kerygmatic purpose of a Gospel is to be 13.7-8] found in John 20:30-31: "There were indeed many other signs that Jesus performed in the presence of his disciples, which In other words the author of the Gospel of the Ebionites went are not recorded in this book. Those here written have been also to the Old Testament for what was said to Jesus at his recorded in order that you may hold the faith that Jesus is the baptism, but quoted the entire verse from Psalm 2, as Mark's Christ, the Son of God, and that through this faith you may source does not. possess life by his name" (NEB). It is interesting, in this context, to compare yet another In other words, a Gospel exists not so much to give an ac- fictional account of the baptism of Jesus, in yet another non- count of the past as to affect the present and the future. The canonical Christian gospel, the Gospel of the Hebrews: Gospel writer did not consider himself a biographer or a historian. For the Gospel writer, the past, or the supposed When the Lord ascended from the water, the whole fount of past, is a tool, a means, not an end in itself. If the Gospel ac- the Holy Spirit descended and rested upon him and said to count causes faith in Jesus, it has done its job in the writer's him: "My son, in all the prophets 1 was waiting for you, that intention. Whether it in fact describes what a modern might you might come, and that I might rest in you. For you are my call (perhaps naively) the actual past is not the issue in the rest; and you are my firstborn son, who reigns forever." [Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah, 11:2] mind of the evangelist. We find a good example of this attitude in Matthew's use of Mark's account of the healing of the blind man at Jericho. Thus we can amply see that fictional descriptions of Jesus' First Mark: baptism were widespread in the ancient Christian world. To get back to Mark's fictional account, we find that the They came to Jericho; and as he was leaving the town, with his disciples and a large crowd, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a divine speech continues after Jesus comes up from the water: blind beggar, was seated at the roadside. Hearing that it was "Thou art my Son, my Beloved, on thee my favor rests" Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, "Son of David, Jesus, (Mark 1:11). God's speech at the baptism in Mark is in fact a have pity on me!" Many of the people told him to hold his combination of the middle part of Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1, tongue; but he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have pity in which Yahweh speaks of Israel as "my chosen one in whom on me." Jesus stopped and said, "Call him"; so they called I delight." the blind man and said, "Take heart; stand up; he is calling Now I have said that the Gospels often present you." At that he threw off his cloak, sprang up, and came to themselves as corrections of earlier accounts of Jesus. This is Jesus. Jesus said to him, "What do you want me to do for especially true of the Gospel of Matthew, which is an enlarged you?" "Master," the blind man answered, "I want my sight and corrected edition of the Gospel of Mark (606 of Mark's back." Jesus said to him, "Go; your faith has cured you." 661 verses appear in Matthew, either word for word or with And at once he recovered his sight and followed him on the deliberate changes). We find a striking example of such a road." [Mark 10:46-52] change in Matthew's story of the baptism. Mark does not have a conception and birth story of Now Matthew: Jesus; Matthew does, and he has obviously used a source other than Mark. Matthew presents Jesus' mother as being As they were leaving Jericho he was followed by a great crowd impregnated by the Holy Spirit; thus Matthew's Jesus is quite of people. At the roadside sat two blind men. When they heard literally the Son of God, something Jesus knew. Mark, on the it said that Jesus was passing they shouted, "Have pity on us, Son of David." The people told them sharply to be quiet. But other hand, has Jesus learning, at the time of the baptism, they shouted all the more, "Sir, have pity on us; have pity on that he is the Son of God: "Thou art my Son." us, Son of David." Jesus stopped and called the men. "What Matthew would obviously regard such a saying as quite do you want me to do for you," he asked. "Sir," they superfluous; it is not Jesus who needs to be told who he is, it's answered, "we want our sight." Jesus was deeply moved, and the rest of the world. So Matthew quite deliberately sets about touched their eyes. At once their sight came back, and they changing Mark's account. Whereas Mark has it that Jesus followed him. [Matt. 20:29-34 NEB] "saw the heavens torn open," and heard a voice speaking directly to him, "Thou art my Son," thus implying that this is These are obviously the same story; yet, strangely, Matthew a private revelation to Jesus, Matthew presents this as a has changed Mark's one blind man into two blind men. Why public revelation, addressed not to Jesus, who knows it has he done this? Part of the answer lies in Matthew's

22 characteristic (and fictional) heightening of the miraculous "predicted" must of course have happened, unlikely though element in his reporting of acts ascribed to Jesus: thus he has it might be. Did you ever wonder, for example, how Jesus Jesus' touch doing the healing, rather than the faith of the could sleep in a small boat in the middle of a violent storm? blind man. The reason why is to be found the the book of Jonah (1:4-5): This heightening of the miraculous is also apparent, for "The Lord let loose a hurricane, and the sea ran so high in the example, in the cursing of the fig-tree pericope. Mark has the storm that the ship threatened to break up. The sailors were withering of the tree only evident the day after Jesus speaks to frightened ... Jonah had gone down into a corner of the it, whereas Matthew has it that the "tree withered away at ship and was lying sound asleep." The rudeness of the once" (Matt. 20:19). Likewise Matthew turns Mark's one disciples' statement to Jesus ("Master, we are perishing! Do Gadarene demoniac into two demoniacs (compare Mark 5:2 you not care?") comes from the ship captain's statement to and Matt. 3:28). But there is more to it than this. Look at Jonah: "What, sound asleep?" he said. "Get up ... " Matthew 9:27-29: (Jonah 1:6).

As he passed on Jesus was followed by two blind men, who cried out "Son of David, have pity on us!" And when he had gone indoors they came to him. Jesus asked, "Do you believe I "A Gospel exists not so much to give an account of have the power to do what you want?" "Yes, sir," they said. the past as to affect the present and the future. The Then he touched their eyes, and said "As you have believed, Gospel writer did not consider himself a biographer so let it be"; and their sight was restored. or a historian ... If the Gospel account causes faith in Jesus, it has done its job in the writer's in- This pericope is found only in Matthew; it looks very tention. Whether it in fact describes what a modern much like another version of the same piece of tradition Mark might call (perhaps naively) the actual past is not used in his story of the healing of the blind man at Jericho, though Matthew treats the two as separate incidents. Yet the the issue in the mind of the evangelist." earlier tradition has force over Matthew's memory, for it con- trols his retelling of Mark's account of the miracle at Jericho. Mark's Jesus says to the blind man that "your faith has made Mark apparently was unaware that his story was based you well," but Matthew liked better the earlier method that on an account in the Book of Jonah, but Matthew, knowing he had used in chapter 9, where Jesus "touched their eyes" to that it was, went back, through Mark, as it were, to the Old heal them; and he uses the same detail again in chapter 20, Testament for his justification for changing Mark's account. bringing with it the other detail, that the two blind men are in- Matthew was unhappy with the disciples' lack of respect for volved. Obviously for Matthew the important thing is not Jesus in their outcry "We are perishing! Do you not care?" what actually happened, for this can clearly be manipulated So he changed the statement to "Save us, Lord. We are at will by the evangelist; what matters is the assertion of the perishing" (Matt. 8:25). power of Jesus and the effect this assertion will have on the If we look at the Septuagint Greek translation of Jonah, uncritical reader. the version the author of Matthew used, we find the reason he I have asserted that much of what is in the Gospels is felt justified in changing the words in Mark's account. Mat- presented as a correction or retelling of an earlier tradition or thew saw that the source of part of the disciples' sentence in story about Jesus. But how was the original tradition compos- Mark was the speech of the sailors in the Book of Jonah: ed? It too was presented as a retelling of an earlier story. A "Forbid it, Lord. Let us not perish" (medamos, Kyrie. Me good example of this sort of composition is the pericope of apolometha — Jonah 1:14 LXX), just as the disciples say to the stilling of the storm. The story appears first in the Gospel Jesus, "we perish" (apollumetha, Mark 4:38). But Matthew of Mark. We find Jesus' disciples ferrying him across the Sea also observed that the ship's captain says to Jonah: "Call of Galilee in the open fishing-boat from which he had earlier upon thy God, that God may save us, and we perish not" preached at the lakeside: "A heavy squall came on and the (hopos diasose ho Theos hemas, kai ou me apolometha — waves broke over the boat until it was all but swamped. Now Jonah 1:6 LXX). Thus Matthew takes the key words from he was in the stern asleep on a cushion; they roused him and Jonah — "Lord," and "save us," and "perish," to rewrite said `Master, we are perishing! Do you not care?' He awoke, Mark's account: "Save us, Lord, we perish." Matthew's ver- rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, `Hush! Be still!' The sion of the stilling of the storm is a fictionalized correction of wind dropped, and there was a dead calm" (Mark 4:35-39). Mark's fictional account, each based in its own way on the Where did this story come from, how was it written? Book of Jonah. Matthew, who retells it and corrects it, knew that it came The short narratives I have examined were written, I from the Book of Jonah. But in his first-century way, Mat- think it is clear, to move the uncritical reader to believe, as thew regarded the Jonah story not as the source of a fiction John says, that "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God," and to but as a prophecy awaiting fulfillment in Jesus. cause faith in him as a figure of saving power. That such Many stories in the Gospels were in fact retellings of stories might have a different effect on the critical reader, one things in the Old Testament regarded by early Christians as who looks at narrative methods and narrative sources, did not predictions of events in the career of Jesus. And anything occur to the evangelists. •

Summer, 1982 23

Part Two DARWIN, EVOLUTION AND CREATIONISM

PHILIP APPLEMAN is Distinguished Professor of English WILLIAM V. MAYER is director of the Biological Sciences at Indiana University, Bloomington. He edited the Norton Curriculum Study in Boulder, Colorado. He is the author of Critical Editions of Darwin and The Origin of Species, and is more than two hundred books, research articles, and reviews the author of Darwin's Bestiary, among other books. about biology and education.

H. JAMES BIRX, chairman of the Anthropology GARRETT HARDIN is the chief executive officer of the /Sociology Department at Canisius College, is writing Environmental Fund (Washington, D.C.) and professor Theories of Evolution, which will be published by Charles C. emeritus of human ecology at the University of California, Thomas to commemorate the 1982 Darwin centennial. Santa Barbara. He is the author of the well-known essay "The Tragedy of the Commons," Promethean Ethics, and ANTONY FLEW is professor of philosophy at the Universi- many other books. ty of Reading in England. His most recent book is The Politics of Procrustes. SOL TAX is professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago. He edited the book Evolution After Darwin, which CHARLES CAZEAU is professor of geology at the State commemorated the one-hundreth anniversary of the publica- University of New York at Buffalo. His Encyclopedia of the tion of The Origin of Species. Paranormal will be published next year.

Antony Flew, William Mayer, and Robert Alley Clyde Herreid, chairman, as Charles Dar- win

George Tomashevich and Sol Tax

24 Darwin and Literature

Philip Appleman

In the year 1834, the polymath Samuel Taylor Coleridge died tionary theory to support or interpret notions in the areas of thinking that the science of zoology was in danger of falling philosophy, economics, theology, historiography, apart because of its huge mass of uncoordinated factual in- metaphysics, aesthetics, and so on. So we have, on the one formation. That was just four years before Darwin picked up hand, Andrew Carnegie invoking nature's "law of competi- Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population and was in- tion" in order to disparage socialism and, on the other hand, spired with the great organizing principle that would for the Peter Kropotkin invoking Darwin on behalf of "Mutual Aid first time make a mature and coherent science of biology. and Mutual Support" as the natural order of things. We have It took Darwin twenty years of hard labor to convert an Teilhard manipulating evolutionary ideas to support a inspiration into a science, but after The Origin of Species was mystical theology, while fundamentalists insist that Dar- published in 1859, the conversion of other scientists to his winism is the Holy Writ of atheists. We have some an- theory was gratifyingly rapid, so that when Darwin published thropologists and sociologists proclaiming the Darwinian the sixth edition of the Origin, the last in his lifetime, he could value of aggression and others insisting instead on the sur- write: "I formerly spoke to very many naturalists on the sub- vival value of learning, variability, culture, and social justice. ject of evolution, and never once met with any sympathetic Because I am a member of an English department, I'd agreement ... Now things are wholly changed, and almost like to speak chiefly about my own departmental brand of every naturalist admits the great principle of evolution." Darwinisticism. In this case the influence has all too often ap- From 1859 to the present, Western civilization has experienc- peared to be negative, a case of sustained antagonism. ed a collective intellectual adventure, slowly (and sometimes You may remember that Robert Benchley once said that painfully) adapting to a radically new perception of how there are two categories of people: those who divide people human beings understand and relate to the world. That into two categories and those who do not. Well, it would ap- adventure continues today, and it is often reflected in pear that there is a category of "scientist" and a category of microcosm in our individual lives. "writer," and that the two are mutually hostile: writers Of course Darwin's influence has not been restricted to distrust scientists, and scientists are (at best) indifferent to the sciences. The concept of evolution has instructed thinkers literature. No less an authority than T. S. Eliot dissected the in all fields and has created a wide range of what Morse cadaver of the science-literature relationship and pronounced Peckham calls "Darwinisticisms," the application of evolu- it dead of a terminal "dissociation of sensibility" that occur-

Summer, 1982 25 red back in the seventeenth century — a dissociation that per- poetic. Here's part of the famous last paragraph of The manently segregated the two activities into intellectual ghettos Origin of Species: more recently described as "the two cultures." Literature disables a person for science, and science immunizes a person It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, closed with against literature. many plants of many kinds, with burds singing on the bushes, Exhibit A in such thinking is always the notorious case of with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling Charles Darwin, who grew up taking (as he said) "great through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and depen- pleasure" and "intense delight" in poetry but who gave dent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been himself to science so thoroughly that he later came to com- produced by laws acting around us ... Thus, from the war of plain, "My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which grinding general laws out of large collections of facts." The we are capable of conceiving, namely the production of the result was, he wrote in his autobiography, that "now for higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry; I have of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has dull that it nauseated me." That does sound like an open-and- gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so shut case, and it's interesting: Why all this antagonism? simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most As it now turns out, Darwin may not have been as wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. "anaesthetic" as his own remarks and those of subsequent commentators have led us to believe. His reading notebooks And these are the last words of The Descent of Man: have now been published in the Journal of the History of Biology, and Robert Stevens, a Texas professor of English Man, with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels working independently on the Darwin papers at Cambridge, for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not on- has categorized and tabulated his reading. In an article ly to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and forthcoming in Victorian Studies, Stevens establishes that constitution of the solar system — with all these exalted Darwin did not stop reading poetry as early in life as he later powers — Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible misremembered. According to his own notebook records stamp of his lowly origin. (which he kept until he was fifty-one), he went on reading quite a lot of very good poetry until the age of thirty-six The person who wrote those passages knew more than a little (rather longer, I imagine, than some other college graduates about metaphorical insight and about the rhythms of the who never studied biology); and he read fiction, drama, English language. literary essays, biography, and philosophy in substantial Contrary to the accepted notion, then, Charles Darwin, quantities at least as long as he kept his notebooks, and pro- the "anaesthetic man," appears in fact to have been a whole bably (certainly, for fiction) until the end of his life. He read human being, who for most of his life admired and enjoyed Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Gray, Wordsworth, Byron, nearly the entire range of literary and artistic experience. Shelley, and other poets (not as college requirements but "for Given that new understanding, we can reflect with some amusement," the way he read Malthus). He read Reynolds, satisfaction that, despite the hostility of some writers contem- Tocqueville, Bacon, Carlyle, and Emerson, He read a hun- poraneous with Darwin, others were fascinated with his work dred biographies, including those of Montaigne, Bunyan, and its humanistic implications. Tennyson, Browning, Swin- Byron, Scott, Johnson, Burns, Dryden, Goethe, and other burne, Meredith, Hardy, and later Jeffers and Bridges, writers. And he read Trollope, Dickens, Cervantes, among others, found in Darwinian evolution a legitimate Goldsmith, Austen, Swift, Defoe, Charlotte Bronte, source of poetic inspiration. Thackeray, and many other novelists. I take all that to be encouraging because it demonstrates That this reading was important to Darwin is clear from that, on occasion, scientists can be warmly interested in the quotations of these humanistic readings in his work. In literature and writers can be profoundly affected by science. I The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Dar- think it has been a misfortune for our literature, and it may win cites Shakespeare as an authority on human expression be, in the long run, a misfortune for our lives that many (eight times, eight different plays), and he cites Dickens and writers have lived, for two centuries now — ever since Blake four other writers as well. In The Descent of Man, he cites the and Wordsworth — in an adversary relationship to science, opinions of nine authors, including Tennyson. rather than in some kind of rewarding symbiosis with it. Would it even be fair, I wonder, not to give Darwin To the extent that art and literature have looked beyond credit for some literary talent of his own? We know from his personal relationships and have been informed by some larger persistent testimony that he labored hard on his writing, con- motive, that motive, in the past, has often emerged from stantly revising it and paying great attention to style. Of magic, myth, or ritual. We read that relationship in the ice- course much of his work necessarily attends to details and age cave paintings; we find it in Greek drama, in medieval schemata, and his prose is then clear though pedestrian. But painting, in Bach, in Herbert and Hopkins and Eliot — and whenever he stands back and half-closes his eyes to ponder right down to Ginsberg and Bly. It has often been a rewarding the larger meanings of his work, his writing takes on a alliance for the arts (though it also has to bear the respon- figurative quality that it would not be extravagant to call sibility for tons of dreary pap); but it has now, it appears to

26 me, run its course and has become mechanical rather than nourishing. If that alliance is no longer productive, what can replace it? I happen to think that poetry, fiction, and drama, although they often deal with very limited and personal sub- jects — and have every right to do so — also have another responsibility, and that is to engage the world around them in meaningful ways. So poetry should not be separate from politics — or, anyway, not always separate. It should not ig- nore social problems, or international diplomacy, or en- vironmental issues, and it should not ignore science. When it does, it risks becoming thin, energyless, self-indulgent, in- consequential, irrelevant. One reason poets are so rarely excited about science is that their scientific education has often been neglected. In part that is just bad luck and a measure of the imperfection of human beings and human institutions — like schools, for in- stance. But in the case of Darwinian evolution, more is in- volved than mere bad luck; it's often bad faith, too. I consider myself lucky, as a poet, to have been interested — in fact, fascinated — by Darwin as a young man; but that had nothing to do with my early schooling. As it turned out, it was (in a Shandean way) relevant to my experience of Darwin that I was conceived in the same month that John Thomas sense of overwhelming sanity that emerged from Darwin's Scopes was arrested and indicted by a grand jury for the crime clearly thought-out and clearly written propositions; the sense of teaching evolution to the schoolchildren of Dayton, Ten- of relief at being finally released from a constrained nessee; and that in due course I was born in the same month allegiance to incredible creation myths; the profound sense of that the legislature of the state of Mississippi duplicated the satisfaction in knowing that I was truly and altogether a part Tennessee anti-evolution law. of nature. By the time I learned to read, textbook publishers had For various reasons, I kept going back to that book, and already got the message: the word "evolution" and the name to Darwin's other books, until eventually they became a part of Darwin had been deleted from virtually all public-school of me — not only of my perceptions and understanding, but textbooks, and continued to be banned, partly by law and of my affective life as well. So, being primarily a poet, I soon partly by self-censorship, for four decades. The public found myself writing poems about Darwin and for Darwin, schools of my hometown were no different from most others and in some long quotations, partly by Darwin. This has been in America: in twelve years of education, which included a going on for years, and I've now collected a volume of these high school course in biology, I never heard the name of poems, which I propose to publish as a book sometime soon. Charles Robert Darwin. Across the nation, the invisible My experience of Darwin's life and work has been an in- government of church fathers and school boards had in effect tellectual and emotional adventure for me; and I hope it will abolished a natural law from the schools. It was, in seem appropriate to end with one of these Darwin poems. retrospect, a rather astonishing feat, the educational Clearly these poems could not have been written without the equivalent of, say, the Flat Earth Society abolishing gravita- shaping force of evolution in my consciousness, and perhaps tion. So my fifty-eight classmates and I, like many thousands in my subconscious mind as well. They represent one of the of our contemporaries around the country, graduated from ways that Darwin and Darwinism have shaped my percep- high school totally ignorant of one of the most basic facts of tions of my own past, and my sense of where, at this point, I life: the perpetual functioning of organic evolution. (It would have arrived. be pleasant to report that all that has now changed; but, alas, As you know, Darwin began his professional career on recent studies have indicated that even today evolution is ig- His Majesty's Ship Beagle, circumnavigating the globe, and nored in most high school biology courses.) observing the geology and biology of, mostly, South Almost by accident, I finally did get around to reading America. The Origin of Species, which I'd packed in my sea bag for a During the voyage of the Beagle, Darwin spent a lot of long trip in the Merchant Marine. I was the same age then as time ashore, riding across the pampas, climbing mountains, Darwin when he set out on the Beagle, and because of his and everywhere observing and taking notes. He was interested book my trip, too, was a voyage of discovery, a true adven- in everything; but the most dramatic things he found (I think) ture. When I recently looked again at the smudgy blue were the fossils of giant extinct beasts, with lovely, mouth- marginalia in that old Modern Library Giant, I was reminded filling names like "Megatherium" that are themselves a kind of the sense of exhilaration I had had in discovering Darwin of poetry, and which set Darwin to pondering the meaning of and in understanding evolution for the very first time: the biological extinction. Here's a poem about all that:

Summer, 1982 27 The Skeletons of Dreams

He found giants writing it down in italics in the earth; Mastodon, in the book at the back of his mind: Mylodon, thigh bones like tree trunks, Megatherium, skulls When a species has vanished big as boulders — once, from the face of the earth, in this savage country, treetops the same form never reappears .. . trembled at their passing. But their passing was silent as snails, So after our millions of years silent as rabbits: nothing at all recorded of inventing a thumb and a cortex, the day when the last of them came and after the long pain crashing through creepers and ferns, of writing our clumsy epic, shaking the earth a final time, we know we are mortal as mammoths, leaving behind them crickets, we know the last lines of our poem. monkeys and mice. And somewhere in curving space For think: at last it is nothing beyond our constellations, to be a giant — the dream nebulae burn in their universal law: of an ending haunts tortoise and Toxodon, nothing out there ever knew troubles the sleep of the woodchuck that on one sky-blue planet and the bear. we dreamed that terrible dream. Blazing along through black nothing Back home in his English garden, to nowhere at all, Mastodons of heaven, Darwin paused in his pacing, the stars do not need our small ruin.

Copyright © 1982 by Philip Appleman

The Legacy of Darwin

William V. Mayer

The topic of evolution was primarily an intellectual exercise sciousness was raised concerning evolution and its implica- from the time, roughly, of Empedocles to Darwin. Evolu- tions. Had Darwin written an esoteric, jargon-loaded tionary notions were not perceived as problems of either a manuscript it probably would have been argued within the theological or a societal nature. The Greeks discussed such halls of science with little impact on society. Instead, Darwin ideas without imperiling their gods. Saint Augustine reconcil- wrote a book that the average intelligent person could read ed religion and science for himself and his followers. The and understand. He wrote at a level and used examples that arguments of Lamarck and Cuvier were essentially of a scien- were within the comprehension of almost everyone, and his tific nature and seemed unrelated to theological concerns. logical presentation removed evolution from speculation Some 250 years of pre-Darwinian writing induced no great within the halls of science to discussion wherever thinking theological perturbations. But, with the publication of The people gathered. Darwin, in short, applied the match to the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in 1859, public con- public fuse of perception of evolution as an explanation for

28 VoGG Incat i organismic diversity at variance with the commonly accepted gradual approximations to shade off into unity." Genesis story. It is ironic that Charles Darwin, a man who In addition to providing four long-lasting prongs to the went out of his way to avoid confrontation with controversy, anti-evolutionist attacks, Wilberforce also provided the tac- should have left us an unintended legacy of 123 years of tics for such attacks when he pleaded that his case against biblical literalist animosity. evolution was purely scientific, not theological, saying: "Our Perception of controversy leads to seeking a forum for readers will not have failed to notice that we have objected to its adjudication. Within the scientific community — by obser- the views with which we have been dealing solely on scientific vation and accumulation of data, testing of hypotheses, grounds." But Wilberforce gave lie to his own arguments developing theories, and communication among scientists by when, as have all anti-evolutionists since his time, on the same publication and in meetings — there was a sufficient forum to page on which he indicated that his objections were only on deal with evolution scientifically. But, for the nonscientist, scientific grounds, he began a tirade as follows: "Now, we there was no suitable forum for confronting scientists with must say it once and openly that such a notion is absolutely the perceived outrage of theology and of selected societal incompatible ... with single expressions in the word of God segments. Confrontations were arranged. The Wilberforce- on that subject of natural science." Huxley debate of 1860 is a classic example. Wilberforce threw Since the time of Wilberforce, biblical literalists have down the gauntlet to science in general and evolution striven either to remove evolution from the corpus of specifically. In the Quarterly Review for July 1860, Wilber- knowledge or to mitigate its perceived contradiction of the force had anonymously written a review of Darwin's Origin Scriptures. The controversy has periodically surfaced in the of Species, and in it he laid down some strategies for dealing public press. The Scopes trial, which resulted in a no-win vic- with evolution that anti-evolutionists still use today. Wilber- tory for both sides but managed to heap media ridicule on force's four basic arguments were as follows: anti-evolutionists, was one example. Some states, such as 1. Evolution was not scientific. To quote Wilberforce: Arkansas and Mississippi, were induced to pass laws that "We think it difficult to find a theory fuller of assumptions; prevented the teaching of evolution, but these in turn were and of assumptions not grounded upon alleged facts in struck down by the Supreme Court. The most effective anti- nature, but which are absolutely opposed to all the facts evolution pressures have been at the community level, where we've been able to observe." school boards and teachers can be either influenced or 2. Variation and natural selection are inadequate dragooned into muting evolutionary coverage. Textbook mechanisms by which to create new species. Again to quote publishers, desiring to offend no one, had by 1960 developed Wilberforce: "We have already shown that the variations of high school textbooks in which the word evolution did not which we have proof under domestication have never, under even appear in the index. The anti-evolutionists had succeed- the longest and most continued system of selections we have ed quietly in expunging evolution without resort either to known, laid the first foundation of a specific difference but courts or to legislative actions. It can safely be said that in the have always tended to relapse and not to accumulated and fix- forty years between 1920 and 1960 evolution was barely men- ed persistence." tioned in American public schools. But it can also safely be 3. The insufficiency of mutation to provide the raw said that American science education during this period was material for natural selection. Although Wilberforce didn't essentially training students in scientific vocabulary. use the term mutation, his use of "variation" and It is a damning indictment that there was no great educa- "monstrosity" covers the principle well. He even laid the tional outcry against the textbook absence of the single most groundwork for the anti-evolutionist claim that all mutations significant theory within the discipline of biology, the one are harmful when he said: "All these variations have the theory without which the discipline collapses into a essential characteristcs of monstrosity about them; and not disorganized mass of names with no conceptual framework one of them has the character which Mr. Darwin repeatedly within which to deal with them. It would be the equivalent of reminds us is the only one which nature can select, viz. of be- taking the names and dates associated with historical events, ing an advantage to the selected individual in the battle for shaking them up, and pouring them out on paper at random life." and expecting them to tell a coherent story. Just as a time 4. Gaps in the fossil record make it unreliable as a source frame and the interactions of events make history mean- for organismic change through time. More than a century ingful, so a time frame and organismal interactions and rela- later, this is still the cornerstone of anti-evolutionist tionships make biology comprehensible. Biology without arguments. Despite the fact that the fossil record becomes evolution is like chemistry or physics without an atomic more and more complete within each decade, our mechanisms theory. for dating fossils more accurate, and the fossil record more It was to restore this centrality that the Biological unimportant for the theory of evolution, this is a much Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS), in its first experimental hammered-upon theme. As Wilberforce noted regarding materials produced in 1960, restored evolution to its rightful fossils: "Whilst they contain far too complete a representa- place following the dictum of H. J. Muller, who stated, "One tion of the past to be set aside as a mere imperfect record, yet hundred years without Darwin is enough." afford no one instance of any change as ever been in progress, Like a red flag to a bull, the reappearance of the word or give us anywhere the missing links of the assumed chain, or evolution caused the anti-evolutionists to charge. Early in the the remains which would enable now missing variations, by sixties the BSCS was attacked for its use of the term evolu-

Summer, 1982 29 tion. But the attacks were scattered and disorganized. The been able to solve. John A. Moore stated it well when he complaints came largely from individuals or individual noted that the strict creationist rejects the statements and pro- groups of biblical literalists. However, it was soon perceived cedures of the scientist because he feels they do not lead to that anti-evolution was once again a viable cause, and a series God.2 The scientist rejects the statements and procedures of of organizations sprang up: the Bible Science Association the creationists because they do not lead to a scientifically ac- headquartered in Caldwell, Idaho; the Creation Science ceptable understanding of nature. The resort to inerrancy is Research Center; and the Institute for Creation Research in implicit in all creationist writings. Henry M. Morris, director San Diego. These organizations were able to pass the hat in a of the Institute for Creation Research, states, "It is impossi- drive to eliminate "atheistic" evolution from the curriculum. ble to devise a legitimate means of harmonizing the Bible with The study of this phase of the anti-evolution movement evolution," and follows this with "It is more productive to should be worth a doctorate somewhere, since these organiza- take the Bible literally and then to interpret the actual facts of tions combined and split in an apparent never-ending se- science within its revelatory framework."3 The following quence of incestuous relationships. In 1963, the Creation statement summarizes his attitude toward evolution: "Thus, Research Society split off from the American Scientific Af- evolution is biblically unsound, theologically contradictory, filiation, and in 1970 the Creation Science Research Center and sociologically harmful."4 split off from the Creation Science Research Society, and in With these positions clearly defined, the creationist is 1972 the Institute for Creation Research split off from the back in the box of the First Amendment protections that pre- Creation Science Research Center. The creationist movement vent Christian fundamentalism from becoming the state is not monolithic by any means. It is sundered by both religion by granting an access to public schools allowed no philosophical and fiscal differences. Even so, the director of other theological position. Morris continues to make such one is on the board of another, and a consultant to a third, statements as: "The Bible account of creation can be taught and so on, so that a very tiny corpus of individuals constitutes in the public schools if only the scientific aspects of creation the core of the organized anti-evolution movement in the are taught, keeping the Bible and religion out of it all United States. together." How one teaches the biblical account of creation without mentioning the Bible is unclear. The implication "Creationists present no meaningful evidence of seems to be that if you don't mention the Bible, then the their own, do no significant research, and feel they biblical account of creation becomes scientific, even though it still remains a biblical account of creation. The best evidence do not need any background in science or evolution that creationists have not been able to keep either God or the to make their case, which is essentially one of ex- Bible out of their explanation of origins is an examination of amining the literature of evolution and distorting it some of their own materials, which show constant references for their own purposes." to God and misinterpretation and ridicule of the theory of evolution, as well as some not so well hidden prejudices Attributing almost every societal ill, from teen-age against other theological positions. pregnancy and disciplinary problems to Prussian militarism, The current thrust of the anti-evolution movement is to communism, and crime, to the teaching of evolution, the mandate the teaching of creation whenever evolution is in- anti-evolutionists attempt to make evolution an atheistic troduced. Various proposals have called for equal time, villain. Strangely enough, the technique works rather well. money, and text materials to be devoted to the anti-evolution The scientifically naive see evolution as a proper bogeyman position. However, in requesting the mandating of equal and contribute money to its downfall. Hundreds of thousands time, anti-evolutionists conveniently ignore the fact that the of dollars a year pour into the coffers of the anti-evolutionists teaching of evolution itself is not mandated. Evolution, as to maintain well-funded full-time staffs whose sole purpose is part of biology, grew out of the discipline in the same way the deprecation and ridiculing of the theory of evolution. that scientific theories are always developed. The cell theory, Having failed to expunge the word evolution from the the germ theory of disease, the chromosome theory of in- vocabulary of science and being prevented from so doing by heritance within biology, and the atomic theory in physics are Supreme Court decisions such as Epperson vs. Arkansas, not mandated inclusions but rather intrinsic parts of the which struck down anti-evolution laws, the creationists discipline. Unfortunately, the perceived controversial nature developed a common political thesis: "If you can't lick 'em, of evolution has ensured that it receives a most cursory treat- join 'em." If evolution can't be removed it must be countered ment and generally is taught poorly in public schools, if at all. within schools by Christian fundamentalist dogma to be inter- Darwin's magnificent explanation of organismic diversity is calated as an alternative scientific view called for whenever most often bowdlerized, muted, or ignored, with neither evolution or origins is discussed in any subject or at any grade teacher nor student having sufficient background to under- level. Thus was born creationism, or scientific creationism, or stand the majesty and ubiquity of the concept of natural creation science. The vocabulary is changed and polished selection. It is a crime that the golden legacy of Darwin has through the exigencies of use. been tarnished by the hand of ignorance. Despite the Madison Avenue polish that money brings to It has been my fortune, or misfortune, the last several the cause, the problem of presenting Christian fundamen- years to confront creationism at a variety of legal levels within talism as science has been one that the creationists have not the United States. In the past two years, I have been witness

30 and consultant for cases in South Dakota, California, and on the deprecation of scientific evidence and ignores all data Arkansas, and have come to understand more and more the that point to the age of the earth as much more than 10,000 lengths to which creationists will go to reach their goal. In the years, as well as of twentieth-century evidences from beginning, I was naive enough to think that these were simply biochemistry, molecular genetics, and similar modern fields uninformed people who, when presented with the facts of the case, would see their position as untenable. It did not take long to see that I was dealing with a group refractory to fact. "Scientific content is not decided by debate, vote, The argumentation is not from the eyebrows up but from the or legislation. If it were to be, it would degrade diaphragm down. To paraphrase a Watergate figure, "If you American science as much as genetics was held grab them by the guts, their hearts and minds will follow." back in the Soviet Union by the political mandating Creationist argumentation is primarily of a visceral nature and is capable of ignoring data that disagree with their posi- of Lysenkoism as the official party line." tion, making knowingly false statements, misleading, misrepresenting, and quoting out of context. It is discourag- that have further buttressed evolutionary theory. It demands ing for a scientist, to whom observation and data are legislative interference in the affairs of the classroom and a guideposts to follow, to try to thwart pseudoscientists who unique mandating of subject matter, together with the re- start out with a foreordained conclusion and then warp quirement to purchase materials almost exclusively in the the facts to fit. hands of anti-evolutionists. It seeks to introduce as science A favorite creationist tactic is to resort to reductionism, materials that have not met the scientific criteria operative where the argument is degraded to two polarized positions. throughout the discipline. Creationists say that there are only two explanations, their Scientific content is not decided by debate, vote, or view of origins and that of evolution. Their pitting of creation legislation and, if it were to be, it would degrade American and evolution as apparently equal explanations is akin to science as much as genetics was held back in the Soviet Union teaming an elephant and a mouse; but to the lay public, crea- by the political mandating of Lysenkoism as the official party tionism and science seem equal. Once one admits that there line. are only two explanations, then the creationists are home Darwin was content to have natural selection defended free, in the sense that, if you only have A and B from which to by such respected biologists as Thomas Henry Huxley; and choose, anything that deprecates, degrades, or ridicules B although the scientific community now treats evolution as a serves to support A. This is why creationists present no mean- fact, there has been no single decisive impact on the lay ingful evidence of their own, do no significant research, and population that has resulted in their rejection of biblical feel they do not need any background in either science or literalism as a scientific explanation. The Darwinian legacy of evolution to make their case, which is essentially one of ex- a perpetuation of the perceived controversy between science amining the literature of evolution and distorting it for their and religion will not be resolved until we do a far better job of own purposes. In so doing, they prostitute Darwin's legacy explicating the nature of science as a process of knowing specifically, and science in general. about the world. Until larger numbers of people understand The reductionist two-model approach, of which the crea- the structure of knowledge, the muddying of intellectual tionists are inordinately proud, is based on a seriously flawed waters by special interest groups will continue. Reasoned ac- thesis presented for a doctorate of education from what is commodation among ways of knowing is not only possible essentially a Florida diploma-mill. The study's conclusions but has been achieved in such fields as astronomy, physics, were never borne out by the study's data, but are widely and chemistry. Because biology deals with the human state quoted to substantiate the mind-expanding virtues of con- and makes statements about the world and its organisms that sidering two approaches, but only two, in the study of science run counter to certain beliefs, it is the discipline most fre- or, indeed, any topic. Reductionism as a process, however, quently attacked by those who regard some of its conclusions simply ignores any alternative explanations on either side, as offensive. But, despite these attacks, the Darwinian legacy and is thus mind-constricting rather than mind-expanding. of an intellectually satisfying, synthetic state-of-the-art ex- While citing the early work of Karl Popper in support of planation of organismic diversity stands immune in the minds their position, they reject his thesis when it is pointed out that of those who know from the attacks of the know-nothings. their own position has been frequently falsified. The ad Our task is to prepare more minds that know. hominem argument of the anti-evolutionists that, because some "scientists" espouse a creationist cause, the opinions of Notes these few should be sufficient to sway a decision in their favor regardless of the weight of evidence to the contrary, is tanta- 1. H. J. Muller, "0ne Hundred Years Without Darwin Are Enough," mount to voting on the issues of science. School Science and Mathematics, March 1959, p. 304. The anti-evolution movement is on no firmer ground in 2. J. A. Moore, "Creationism in California," Daedalus 103 (3) (1974), 1982 than it was in 1859. It still bases its opposition to evolu- p. 173. tion on a perceived contradiction between the facts of science 3. H. M. Morris, Evolution and the Bible, ICR Impact Series Number 5 (undated, unpaged). and the King James biblical Genesis account. It demands ac- 4. H. M. Morris, quoted in H. P. Zuidema, "The Scientific Creation- ceptance of supernatural explanations as scientific. It depends ists," Liberty, September/0ctober 1975, p. 3. •

Summer, 1982 31 Geology and the Bible

Charles Cazeau

In the role of the geologist, I shall comment first on without the assistance of the sun. In fact, they will not grow geological events as described in the Old Testament of the Bi- at all. The angiosperms, which we are talking about here, first ble. Second, I shall say a few words about the fossil record. appear in the geologic record during the Cretaceous Period, The concept of evolution depends heavily upon it because it coinciding with the decline and eventual extinction of the provides the dimension of time, and time is necessary to ac- dinosaurs and the corresponding rise of mammalian life, complish evolution. Third, I would like to make some obser- which fed upon the angiosperms. It would seem that grass, vations about creationism in my role as an educator. fruit and herbs should have been made sometime after the The focus of geology is on the earth — its physical fourth day of Creation. Fundamentalists I know have dodged nature, history, and development. Geology also addresses the this issue by pointing out that on the first day God said "Let progression of life on this planet, as contained in the fossil there be light." This light kept things going, as it were, until record. The story of this planet that geology tells us is derived the sun took over. Science has no answer to this because the from the evidence of the rocks of the earth's crust — a book only natural light we know of is that of the sun with feeble of ancient sediments, layer upon layer, from oldest to contributions from distant stars. youngest, that stands as an impartial witness to physical and Returning to the biblical account, on the fifth day birds, biological events extending back at least 3,500 million years. whales and fish were created. This is a strange and This record has been studied by thousands of trained chronologically incompatible group. The first fish appear geologists in many lands, and encompasses every continent as during the Ordovician Period, about 520 million years ago. well as the ocean floor. These investigations have been going Then you must wait 350 million years before birds appear on on for more than two centuries. The data amassed are im- the scene, and whales even later than that. We might also note pressive. The broad picture that emerges is that of a dynamic that fish appear in the geologic record long before life of any earth that is undergoing continual change. Even the con- kind, plant or animal, exist on land. tinents do not stand still. They shift and collide and take on On the sixth day, cattle, creeping things, and Man were new configurations. We see life forms appearing and disap- created. We assume creeping things to include snakes, but pearing as if they were actors on a stage. Actors with increas- fossils of snakes predate the advent of Man by more than 70 ing abundance and diversity, struggling to adjust to changing million years. and often hostile environments. Sometimes the adjustments The only scientifically correct part of Genesis is the asser- are successful and lead to new forms; sometimes they are not tion that Man was made on the last day of creation and so successful, for many reasons, and lead to extinction. therefore during the time of most recent life. Contrasting with this general picture, which is buttressed We conclude at this point that the order of creation as by thousands of facts, is the story presented by the Bible. told in the Bible is woefully incorrect and violates even the When you turn to the first page of Genesis, there is a brief most simple and obvious rules of natural science. and simplistic account of how the earth was made and how Another example of a geologic nature as related in the life unfolded. It took six days. Old Testament is that of Noah's Flood. This flood encom- There has been quibbling over how long these days were. passed the entire world, submerging even the highest moun- Some people stick to a twenty-four-hour period. Others, tains. This would require a rise in sea level of about 5.5 miles mindful of the true age of the earth, claim that each day was — more than one billion cubic miles of water would have to in reality a period of time measured in millions of years. Be be added to the oceans. In contrast, note that if all the ice in that as it may, it is the order of creation that is of geological Greenland and Antarctica were to melt, sea level would rise interest. After the first two days of making heaven and earth only about 200 feet. Where would one billion cubic miles of and dividing waters, the Creator on the third day made grass, water come from and where would it return after such a fruit, and herbs. On the fourth day, the sun, the moon, and flood? Science has no answer to this except to invoke the the stars came into existence. miraculous, and if you do this, then anything is possible. Now, grass, fruit, and herbs do not grow very well Some flood believers, in an attempt to be scientific, point

32 Fzrtee c~Ltirs/ to sedimentary rock layers around the earth as the sediment While the fossil record of the primates is not abundant, laid down at the time of Noah's flood. However, some of neither is the fossil record of any land-dwelling animal. The these rock layers contain dinosaur bones. In which case we land, as opposed to the sea bottom, does not favor great would be forced to conclude that dinosaurs existed at the time abundance of fossils. Herds of buffalo by the thousands of Noah and several pairs of dinosaurs should have been darkened the western plains not much more than a century passengers on the Ark. ago. Buffalo hunters killed them indiscriminately and left the At this point we must make some kind of assessment of skeletons behind. Where are these skeletons now? Mostly the Bible. Certainly it is a history. From Adam and Eve on- disintegrated by weathering. Or take the dinosaurs. They ward, there is a lengthy genealogy. After that, we see the dominated the earth for more than 150 million years. Yet movement and contacts of peoples interspersed with a history complete dinosaur skeletons are relatively rare. of slaughter and conquest. It seems to us on scientific and Man and his immediate ancestors have not been around logical grounds that the Bible represents an attempt to record nearly as long as 150 million years. It takes more than two or the history of a people by writers such as Moses, equipped three million years to develop any kind of fossil record. with the knowledge of their times. Ever since Man developed civilization and the means to communicate by word and in writing, the desire to record "Noah's Flood ... encompassed the entire world, events, present and past, has been a prime objective. Even to- submerging even the highest mountains. This would re- day, small villages and towns have — officially or unofficially quire a rise in sea level of about 5.5 miles — more than — a Town Historian. Our history is an essential part of us. one billion cubic miles of water would have to be added If those who accept the literal interpretation of the Bible to the oceans...If all the ice in Greenland and Antarctica as the inspired word of a Supreme Being wish to do so, were to melt, sea level would rise only about 200 feet. science has no quarrel with that. Whether the Bible is con- Where would one billion cubic miles of water come strued as history or inspired word, or both, the one thing it is from and where would it return after such a flood?" not is a scientific text.

The Attack on Evolution Contributing to the lack of abundance of humanoid fossils is the probability that early Man was too smart to get Turning to the fossil record, I would like to make a few obser- caught like other animals in such traps as quicksand and tar vations about this body of evidence so important to the con- pits. For example, the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles, cept of evolution and to reply to some of the anti- California, hold hundreds of dire wolves and other animals. evolutionary arrows directed against it. Yet only one human skeleton has ever been recovered, and the To be sure, the fossil record is not perfect. Normally only evidence suggests that she — it was a woman — was thrown creatures possessed of hard parts, such as shell and bone, into the tar pit deliberately! stand much chance of survival as fossil, and quick burial after To sum up, the fossil record is not perfect. But the data is death is another requirement. Soft parts are rarely preserved impressive to those who will look at it. Many will not bother. in the rock record. Doubtless, there are entire groups of soft- In my experience, those who are the most vehement in attack- bodied forms that arose on the earth and passed on to extinc- ing evolution seem to know the least about the evidence that tion without leaving a trace. Yet millions of fossils have been science offers. evaluated, particularly those formed over the past 600 million For example, there is the misconception that evolution years. teaches that Man came from monkeys. Anti-evolutionists When creationists attack evolution, they seem to forget distribute pamphlets showing chimpanzees dressed up in that the scope of the evidence is broader than just the fossil business suits, usually wearing glasses and perhaps smoking record of Homo sapiens. They ask, Where are the missing cigars. They seem to prefer this type of argument rather than links? There are plenty of them, if one will look at groups to take the trouble to dispassionately examine the real other than Man. There are intermediate forms between fish evidence of evolution. Ridicule and sarcasm may win and amphibians; between amphibians and reptiles — in fact, misguided converts, but they do little to advance truth. the intermediate form Seymouria is classified by taxonomists Recently, I noticed that evolution is being discounted as both a reptile and an amphibian. There is also ar- because it violates the idea of entropy. This is a specious con- chaeopteryx, the link between reptiles and birds — a delicate- tention. While there is a tendency in the universe toward in- ly preserved creature that would, with its skeletal structure creasing entropy, it should not be applied willy-nilly to every and teeth, have been classed as a reptile if it weren't for the process one encounters. If one follows that logic, then we feathers. must also conclude that an embryo culminating in adulthood More and more fossil evidence is accumulating to following birth is also a violation of entropy. establish the link between reptiles and mammals, and there Another tactic favored by anti-evolutionists is to point to seems little doubt now that some of the reptiles on the road to scientists' arguing over evolution and disagreeing. They say: being mammals were warm-blooded. Fossil nests of baby "See, scientists cannot agree among themselves that evolution Hadrosaurs suggest that the mother cared for and fed the exists." Of course these arguments are not over whether young in mammal-like fashion. evolution happened, but how it happened. For instance, there

Summer, 1982 33 is the present debate going on between gradualism and punc- tinental drift. There was insufficient evidence. Then, and with tuated equilibria. Does a new species evolve gradually — bit great swiftness, evidence began to mount from paleomagnetic by bit — or does it come about fairly rapidly, say, within and other data that the continents had indeed shifted inde- 100,000 years, and then remain stable for long periods pendently of each other. The result was the concept of global without significant change? tectonics, a great unifying principle to explain the nature of Actually, such debate is the life blood of science and is the earth. proof that we are dealing with science. Creation science is not Such an advance in the earth sciences could not have science, because it cannot change. Evidence cannot sway it to taken place if evidence was rejected without study and the alter its view one iota. On the other hand, science changes as belief in fixed continents was accepted as Holy Writ, evidence dictates. I can't think of a more dramatic recent ex- something infallible and immutable. ample of this than one in the field of geology. In the years Fortunately for Man's understanding of nature and the following the Second World War, there was hardly a universe, nothing in science is sacred or can be perceived as geologist in the United States who believed in the idea of con- Holy Writ — unless it be scientific method. • Charles Darwin and Fossil Man

H. James Birx

In his major work, On the Origin of Species (1859), the ever- cautious Charles Darwin was reluctant to extend his own the purpose of presenting and defending the evolutionary theory of biological evolution to account for the emergence view of life. Within its pages, the author argues that the and natural development of the human species itself. In the human species originated and slowly descended from an conclusion of the book's first edition, the brilliant scientist orangutanlike hominoid form. Although a simplistic and merely wrote: "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and specifically incorrect interpretation of hominoid evolution, it his history." was nevertheless a bold and, in a general way, intuitively in- It is puzzling that Darwin refrained from including in sightful hunch anticipating later and better-documented views this, his principle scientific statement, a section on the evolu- on this still supremely delicate subject. tion of the human animal. Those who actually read this In Germany, Arthur Schopenhauer developed a process pivotal volume must easily have seen that the very same metaphysics that saw man as the apex of a pyramidally struc- evolutionary principles used to account for the appearance tured terrestrial evolution. He held that our species had a si- and organic history of the plants and other animals could also mian origin in the Old World tropics: the first human beings be extended to explain the origin and development of our were suddenly born from the chimpanzee in Africa and the zoological group as well. In fact, one may safely argue that orangutan in Asia. the controversy over the Darwinian world-view was essential- Correctly imagining how controversial his theory of ly due to the theoretical implications and physical conse- evolution would be to most philosophers and theologians as quences it held for a factual understanding and rational ap- well as scientists, Darwin hesitated about writing an explicit preciation of the place of humankind within the process of account of the emergence and evolution of the human animal nature as a whole. in On the Origin of Species (his first book devoted specifically In his major work, Zoological Philosophy (1809), to the general organic history of life on earth). Certainly the published in the year of Darwin's birth and exactly fifty years human fossil record at that time was so meager that one could before the appearance of On the Origin of Species, the French almost excuse Darwin's avoidance of the whole subject. Only naturalist Lamarck presented the theory of evolution to the a few Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon skeletons with some scientific community. His book was the first written solely for paleolithic tools and weapons had been found up to that time

34 to suggest the possibility of a prehistoric origin for our species Regrettably enough, most of the major fossil evidence to from some earlier anthropoidlike form. support human evolution was discovered after Darwin's As "Darwin's bulldog" in England, the courageous death: Java Man (Pithecanthropus erectus) was found in the Thomas Henry Huxley not only defended the theory of evolu- early 1890s, the Taung juvenile skull (Australopithecus tion against the misguided and unfortunate attacks of Bishop africanus) in 1924, and Peking Man (Sinanthropus pekinen- Wilberforce but also was the first to write a book for the pur- sis) in 1926. pose of extending the Darwinian framework to include the The year 1959 not only marked the centennial celebration human zoological group. Huxley's first book, surprisingly of the appearance of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of also entitled On the Origin of Species (1863) in the American Species, a major intellectual event organized by an- edition of 1881, defended Darwin's theory of "descent with thropologist Sol Tax and held at the University of Chicago,2 modification" primarily due to natural selection. His but also represented a crucial turning point in paleoan- Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863) argued not only thropology. In July of that same year, Mary D. Leakey had that the human animal evolved from a common ancestry discovered a hominid skull in Bed I of Olduvai Gorge in Tan- shared by the great apes, but also that man's difference from zania, central East Africa, thus ending a thirty-year search for these pongids was merely quantitative rather than qualitative early man in this area of the world. This find — at that time (i.e., man is closer to the higher apes than the apes themselves the oldest known human fossil remain — was analyzed, are to the lower monkeys). In short, it was Huxley, not Dar- described, and interpreted by the late Louis S. B. Leakey and win, who first placed humankind squarely within organic was classified as Zinjanthropus boisei but mistakenly held to history. be the maker of the Oldowan pebble tools/weapons found in In 1863, Sir Charles Lyell also wrote about the antiquity the same rock strata. The use of the potassium/argon of man. Unlike Huxley, however, the father of modern radiometric dating technique determined the prehistoric geology was reluctant to embrace the evolutionary framework discovery to be about 1.75 million years old. The Leakeys and certainly never accepted the truth of human evolution. had, in fact, made an enormously significant breakthrough. Darwin had been greatly influenced by the geological writings The worldwide publicity and scientific attention given to the of Lyell as well as fully familiar with those of James Hutton. Zinjanthropus specimen resulted in increasing funds being Yet he could not convince Lyell of the truth of his biological made available for the continued research by these and other theory of organic history and its implications for our own professional anthropologists in quest for more empirical species. evidence capable of factually documenting the beginning and Finally, in 1871, Darwin published his still more pro- early evolution of these apparent ancestors of our species. vocative and controversial volume, The Descent of Man. By Only two short years later, in 1961, Dr. Leakey himself this time, however, both Huxley and Haeckel had written discovered an even more hominid fossil skull from Olduvai about the evolution of the human animal. Darwin himself Gorge which he classified as Homo habilis. This specimen is now wrote that man and the apes shared a common remarkably hominid (far more humanlike than all the prehistoric ancestry, that this hominoid group would be previously discovered australopithecine material), had a found on the continent of Africa, and that man differed from cranial capacity of about 750 cc and was the actual maker of the pongids merely in (admittedly significant) degree. He saw the paleolithic artifacts associated with the Oldowan culture. the essential difference between man and the great apes in the The significance of the Zinjanthropus find, now adjudged to moral potential of the former, which simply does not appear be only a specimen of the Paranthropus robustus form, faded in the latter (recall that Kant had been impressed by the starry into the background, but remains a reminder to prehistorians heavens above and the moral law within). not to make hasty and premature decisions about the im- As a rigorous evolutionist, Darwin held that all the pre- mediate taxonomic and biosocial importance and the implica- sent complex aspects of the human animal had evolved from tions of a particular fossil hominid discovery before sufficient earlier, simpler beginnings (including not only the biological, evidence is in. but also the psychological and sociocultural ones). Following in his father's footsteps and rewarded with Unlike Huxley and Haeckel, however, Darwin was not early success, Richard E. Leakey took the ongoing quest for eager to consider the philosophical and theological implica- the origins of humankind in central East Africa to the Koobi tions of his mechanistic/materialistic interpretation of Fora site at Lake Turkana. There, in 1972, he discovered organic evolution. Despite passages dealing with these sub- fossil evidence of Homo habilis (including the now famous jects in his early metaphysical notebooks, Darwin kept his Skull No. KNM-ER-1470, recently dated to be 1.9 million personal thoughts on such sensitive topics almost exclusively years old, although first thought by Leakey to be con- to himself. Huxley coined the term "agnostic" to refer to his siderably earlier). own position, which echoes Herbert Spencer's episte- In light of all the cumulative fossil evidence, the early mological conclusion about an Unknown and a supposed Pleistocene hominids of the Villafranchian time represented Unknowable as elements of his metaphysics of cosmic evolu- at least three different genera: the robust Paranthropus form, tion. As a monist, Haeckel adopted the position of a the gracile Australopithecus type, and Homo habilis himself, materialist pantheism. The shy, sensitive, and always tactful the most hominid of the group. Yet there still remained the Darwin was at least an agnostic, although certainly never an need to unearth the skeletal fragments and concomitant other aggressive and militant atheist. traces of the ancestors of these earliest hominids.

Summer, 1982 35 In 1974, paleoanthropologist Donald C. Johanson later date for the pongid-hominid divergence based on a com- discovered "Lucy" (Australopithecus afarensis) at the Hadar parative study of the postcranial anatomy and biochemistry site in the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia. This partial Pliocene of modern human populations and the living African apes. fossil skeleton of a single hominidlike female is about 3.5 Of course, in this complex history of the hominoids, there million years old and, according to its discoverer, represen- were probably numerous unsuccessful major lines of evolu- tative of the small-brained but erect-walking ancestors of tionary descent as represented by the extinction of the humankind. In fact, the Lucy skeleton is hominidlike in every pongids Gigantopithecus and Oreopithecus before the coming general anatomical feature except for its primitive skull and of Homo erectus about 1.5 million years ago. dental characteristics as well as small cranial capacity (these Yet, as in the case of other great thinkers, Darwin's aspects are more hominoidlike than hominidlike). Dr. Johan- speculations on human evolution were not always either son's team has also found a "First Family" as old as Lucy, as theoretically or factually correct in every detail. He was in er- well as related Plio-Pleistocene hominid materials (including ror in holding that the modern cranial capacity of about jaws and a knee joint) close to four million years old. This 1500 cc was reached in our prehistoric ancestors before they evidence from Ethiopia is helping to shed light on the origin acquired an erect posture and made stone implements for of the whole human zoological group.3 defense. As one can see today, the fossil evidence clearly in- As if Johanson's awesome luck was in itself not enough dicates that just the opposite was the case: the human cranial to increase excitement in the science of physical an- capacity did not start to expand greatly until about half a thropology, in 1978 Mary D. Leakey had the astounding good million years ago. Although the neurophysiological complexi- fortune to unearth three tracks of hominid footprints about ty of the early hominid brain must be taken into consideration 3.6 million years old from Site G at Laetoli in Tanzania, near as well as its sheer size, a sufficient explanation for the Lake Eyasi south of Olduvai Gorge.4 The Pliocene Laetolil relatively rapid expansion of the human cranium is still forthcoming. Despite the fact that there is still no universal consensus among anthropologists as to the specific classification of all "The shy, sensitive, and always tactful Darwin was the hominid fossil material (not to mention the lingering so- at least an agnostic, although certainly never an ag- called Neanderthal problem), a general outline of human evolution does, nevertheless, emerge. With the extinction of gressive and militant atheist ... His intellectual the lesser hominid forms like Australopithecus and Paran- legacy remains as intriguing as it is rich, cosmic and thropus, it is the australopithecine Homo habilis that seems indispensible." ancestral to the pithecanthropine or Homo erectus stage (e.g., Java Man and Peking Man), to be followed by the Neander- thal phase or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. The subse- quent emergence of Cro-Magnon Man preceded the ap- Beds have also yielded numerous hominid fossils, chiefly pearance of modern man (both referred to as Homo sapiens lower jaws and teeth, as well as a wide variety of nonhuman sapiens) with a hunting/gathering life-style, which was soon animal remains (as yet no stone tools/weapons have been to be replaced by the coming of agriculture, metallurgy, and found at Laetoli). Johanson suggests that both these foot- finally civilization. prints and his own Pliocene findings from the Hadar site In his theory of biological evolution, Darwin was unable belong to the same distinctive hominidlike form to give a scientific explanation for the sudden chance ap- Australopithecus afarensis (although this model and inter- pearance of those beneficial, because useful, physical varia- pretation of early hominid phylogeny is not shared by the tions that represent the raw materials for the process of Leakey family). Yet one significant generalization can safely natural selection. To all appearances, he never read Mendel's be made: these incipient hominids stood erect and walked ful- monograph Experiments in Plant Hybridization (1866) and ly upright with a free-striding human bipedal gait long before therefore unfortunately missed the wondrously helpful im- using, and later making, paleolithic tools/weapons and subse- plications for his own incomplete theory of this already quently acquiring a very large brain concurrent with speech. available pioneering introduction to the science of genetics In light of our growing fossil evidence, Darwin was pro- free from Lamarck's use/disuse and the inheritance of ac- phetically right to select Africa as the cradle of humankind. quired characteristics. Instead, for whatever reason, Darwin (Haeckel had thought Asia to be the birthplace of our himself did not appreciate the mathematical significance of species.) Comparative studies of the Miocene hominoid cra- his own experiments with plants and animals in order to nia and teeth of the African dryopithecinae complex point to understand the transmission of physical traits from genera- a major separation that occurred more than 12 million years tion to generation. His own particulate theory of pangenesis ago within this large and diversified group of higher primates: was a reluctant attempt to see inheritance in Neolamarckian one line represents the pongidlike dryopithecines which are terms (Darwin had unsuccessfully attempted to account for ancestral to the present living apes, while another line consists all of organic evolution within a geological context that great- of the hominidlike ramapithecines directly antecedent to the ly underestimated the true age of our earth). later true hominids and eventually conducive to Homo sa- In modern science, one speaks of the synthetic theory of piens sapiens of today. Some anthropologists claim a much biological evolution grounded in the Darwin/Wallace ex-

36 planatory concept of natural selection as amended by the pose that this more comprehensive view be called punctuated Mendelian principles of heredity and supplemented by our in- gradualism, partaking of the partial truth of each of the op- creasing comprehension of the mutation theory, DNA/RNA posed positions. molecules, and population genetics. The ongoing biochemical As a scientific naturalist, rational humanist, and ethical- research into the origin of life on earth is an area of scientific ly perplexed and morally concerned philosopher of evolution, speculation that Darwin chose not to delve into seriously. His I see Darwin's lasting influence as residing in at least two grandfather Erasmus Darwin had held that life appeared quintessential contributions to rigorous critical thought: (1) from a single original organic filament in the primeval oceans the scientific fact of biological evolution and (2) the of our planet, thus strangely and inadvertently anticipating awareness that the human species is also a product of, and the current "primeval soup" theory associated with Oparin totally within, organic history. There is a need for all living and others in this century. forms to be able to adapt to changing environments if they If Darwin were with us today, it is tempting to speculate what the scientific father of biological evolution would think of the several new areas of empirical research: comparative primate ethology, altruistic and cooperative group behavior "As a scientific naturalist, rational humanist, and (first studied by Peter Kropotkin in his Mutual Aid: A Factor philosopher of evolution, I see Darwin's lasting in- of Evolution of 1902), sociobiology and genetic engineering, fluence as residing in at least two contributions: (1) apparently and at least temporally neutral genes, and at last the scientific fact of biological evolution and (2) the the emerging science of exobiology.5 His own open-minded awareness that the human species is also a product and open-ended naturalist standpoint is broad and tolerant of, and totally within, organic history." enough to incorporate all the positive findings of the physical and social sciences within an evolutionary context both ter- restrial and celestial. Recently, the Eldridge/Gould hypothesis of punctuated are to survive and reproduce, thereby contributing to the fur- equilibria has reintroduced into the synthetic theory of ther evolution of life as we know it. This need for a con- biological evolution the possibility that new plant and animal tinuous adaptation to new challenges and opportunities un- species appear more or less "suddenly" and dramatically doubtedly applies to the evolution of the theory of evolution throughout organic history, as is alleged to be documented in itself, which must keep developing ever further beyond Dar- the admittedly incomplete fossil record.6 However, Darwin win but certainly never without him. argued in favor of a slow, incremental, and continuous evolu- In the final chapter of The Voyage of the Beagle (1839), tion of life on earth. Thus, he maintained that a new species Darwin, while walking through the dense, wild, and luxuriant emerges as the result of the gradual accumulation of slight, splendor of a Brazilian tropical rain-forest in early August, favorable chance variations over long periods of time. His in- wrote the following words: "How great would be the desire in terpretation of biological evolution did not allow for the sud- every admirer of nature to behold, if such were possible, the den appearance of major alterations or saltations in the scenery of another planet! "7 There will probably be those assumed historical continuity of living things. future naturalists who will one day study life forms, if not Of course it must be pointed out that Darwinian phyletic even intelligent beings, on other celestial bodies elsewhere in gradualism and the Eldridge/Gould hypothesis of punctuated the physical universe. One exciting result of such activity equilibria are not necessarily mutually exclusive conceptual would be the science of comparative evolution. From this frameworks to account for the historical emergence of new awesome perspective, Darwin's intellectual legacy remains as flora and fauna throughout organic evolution. Likewise, the intriguing as it is rich, cosmic, and indispensable. appeal to sudden leaps in biological history does not necessarily argue for a supernatural or creationist interpreta- Notes tion of the process of organic evolution. Clearly, there is a profound difference between the postulated material leaps of 1. C. Darwin, The Origin of Species (New York: Pelican Classics, 1981), punctuated equilibria and the traditional metaphysical leaps p. 458. The sixth and last edition appeared in 1872. of religious blind faith. 2. Cf. S. Tax, ed., Evolution After Darwin, 3 vols. (Chicago: University For the paleontologists Eldridge and Gould, the presum- of Chicago Press, 1960). ed equilibrium or relative stasis of a small population is 3. Cf. D. C. Johanson and T. D. White, "A Systematic Assessment of followed by a more or less dramatically punctuated jump Early African Hominids," Science 202 (4378): 321-30; D. C. Johanson and M. A. Edey, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind (New York: Warner resulting in an event of rapid speciation. In a manner reminis- Books, 1982). cent of the once heated dispute between the catastrophists and 4. Cf. R. L. Hay and M. D. Leakey, "The Footprints of Laetoli" the uniformitarians in historical geology (not to forget the Scientific American 246(2):50-57, 170. earlier conflict between the Neptunists and the Vulcanists), 5. Cf. H. J. Birx and G. R. Clark, "The Cosmic Quest," Cosmic Search the truth in the above-mentioned controversy most probably 4(1):29, 38. 6. Cf. S. J. Gould and N. Eldridge, "Punctuated Equilibrium: The also lies somewhere in a dynamic and synthetic middle posi- Tempo and Mode of Evolution Reconsidered," Paleobiology 3(2):115-51. tion bridging, reconciling, and transcending gradualism as the 7. C. Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor thesis and saltationism as the antithesis. May I therefore pro- Books, 1962), p. 494. •

Summer, 1982 37 Grounded Reason vs. Received Formulas

Garrett Hardin

If the wording of the title strikes you as quaint it is because it even more influential Henry Ward Beecher said: "If it be comes from a definition of received, as in "received beliefs," evidence of design in creation that God adapted one single in a passage written way back in 1542: "Procedynge by no flower to its place and functions, is it not greater evidence if grounded reason, but only by a received forme."' Forty years there is a system of such adaptations going on from eternity later "forme" was turned into the more familiar diminutive, to eternity? Is not the Creator of the system a more sublime "formula." In the Oxford English Dictionary, "received" is designer than the creator of any single act?"4 I have added defined as "a set form of words in which something is defin- italics to call attention to Beecher's judgment that a continu- ed, stated, or declared, or which is prescribed by authority or ing process of evolution is superior in some important way — custom to be used on some ceremonial occasion." This religious? aesthetic? ethical? — to a momentary and unique definition exactly conveys the approach to reality that I shall act of creation. advise against, the ceremonial approach in which a set for- Only a minority of committed religious people today op- mula substitutes for thought. pose Darwinism. These are the people called the fundamen- Those who have read extensively in Darwin's books and talists. What is it they oppose? The idea that the age of the letters know that purely ceremonial language plays only a earth is vastly greater than 6,000 years? That creation is a small role in his exposition; the reasoning is at all times firmly continuous process, not confined to one moment in time? grounded in the phenomena of nature. Most human beings That man is kin to the apes? On the surface, these seem to be most of the time are unable to escape what Giordano Bruno the principal points of dispute, but I think we should doubt and Francis Bacon called the "idols of the marketplace," the that this is all there is to the story. Whenever a dispute goes on ceremonial language that is simultaneously a lubricant in for more than a century, as this one has, we should suspect social interactions and sand in the creative thinker's mental that the real grounds for the dispute have not been laid bare. machinery. Darwin, a notably solitary worker, saw things for We should suspect that we are dealing with symptoms rather what they were and used unceremonial language to describe than cause. As Alan Wood has said, "The reason why great what he saw. His vision has disturbed people in the past; it intellectual advances often arouse violent opposition ... is will continue to disturb people in the future. that they do not challenge what everybody is thinking at the Though many of the most colorful opponents of Dar- time. They challenge ideas which are assumed so unthinkingly winism have been men of religion, it is a mistake to see the op- that people do not even realize that they are assuming them. ponents of grounded reason as being only, or even principal- The supremely difficult task is bringing this subconscious ly, from the religious camp. The careful studies of Neal assumption into consciousness."5 Dorothy Nelkin, author of Gillespie and James R. Moore amply establish this conclu- Science Textbook Controversies and the Politics of Equal sion.2,3 Some of the most eminent ministers of the nineteenth Time, has tried valiantly in numerous articles and addresses century saw as much beauty in the evolutionary view as in the to get Darwin's defenders to see that the real causes of distress creationist one. In England, Charles Kingsley wrote: "It is among the creationists are very deep and very subtle. Exactly just as noble a conception of Deity to believe that He created what these causes are will no doubt be a matter of dispute for primal forms capable of self-development ... as to believe some time to come, but I suggest two. that He required a fresh act of intervention to supply the The first is the fear that Darwinism undermines the idea lacunas which He Himself had made." And in America the of God. Scientists may protest that science has nothing to say

38 about the existence or nonexistence of a supreme being. Their protests will be in vain because fundamentalists perceive, "The anti-rationalist opposition to Darwinism will more or less dimly (but quite correctly), that a basic pattern of scientific thinking is difficult to reconcile with a belief in their probably continue; the most we can do is contain sort of god. An essential part of the discipline of science is the the threat ... The god who is reputed to have unqualified rejection of what has been called the "waterproof created fleas to keep dogs from moping over their hypothesis" — that is, a hypothesis that purports to explain situation must also have created fundamentalists to all things. More informally, Karl Popper has said that the keep rationalists from getting flabby. Let us be du- structure of science admits falsifiable hypotheses only.6 ly thankful for our blessings." Outside the camp of the fundamentalists, most men of religion see no difficulty in accepting rational science while still holding to the idea of a creator to explain the existence of elsewhere. (This ability may not be confined to the world. After all, the basic fact of existence is beyond the nonacademics.) I do not defend compartmentalization, explanatory power of science. But the idea that any particular neither do I recommend it. I merely note it, and urge that we document, e.g., the Bible, must be divinely inspired and iner- not panic. rant is an idea that is peculiar to the fundamentalists and has Viewing the progress of human thought over the past few no necessary connection with the idea of a divine, nonscien- centuries we rationalists are generally inclined to take a view tific first cause. This logical point apparently escapes fun- of history that can only be described as melioristic. In the damentalists. Though they do not express their objections fluctuations of public opinion we think we detect an over- clearly, it seems highly probable that they are afraid that the riding upward trend in rationality. Yet an argument can also policy of rejecting waterproof hypotheses threatens the idea be made for a pejoristic view of the confused facts.? We in the of God. Subconsciously they must suspect that their concep- United States like to think of our country as an "advanced" tion of God is based on a waterproof hypothesis. If God is the country. Perhaps it is, but if so, it is rather shocking to be cause of all that happens in the world, there is no way to reminded by Douglas R. Hofstadter that the blatantly sensa- devise an experiment to test whether God exists. Therefore — tional National Enquirer, balmy as the state of Florida where and I think this is the intellectual path the fundamentalists un- it is published, has a circulation in the millions, whereas the consciously follow — since the discipline of science rejects Skeptical Inquirer, rigorous as the climate of Buffalo, New waterproof hypotheses in the scientific realm, it must reject York, where it comes from, has a circulation of only 9,000.8 all waterproof hypotheses in whatever realm, and that in- Is there anyone who will bet his own money that the ratio of cludes the hypothesis of God-the-cause-of-all-things. I may the two will be reversed ten years from now, fifty years from be mistaken in this imputation, but it seems to me highly now — or even two centuries from now? probable. The anti-rationalist opposition to Darwinism will However unclear a person's rhetoric may be, I get the probably continue; the most we can hope to do is contain the very distinct impression that each human mind is in the nature threat. Its banner was "fundamentalism" in the 1920s; now it of a highly powerful though unself-conscious computer. This is "scientific creationism." No doubt new titles will be coin- human computer generally runs ahead of rhetoric and argu- ed from time to time. The god who is reputed to have created ment, often hastily putting up a "No Trespassing" sign long fleas to keep dogs from moping over their situation must also before the conscious part of the mind rounds the corner and have created fundamentalists to keep rationalists from getting perceives the reality that threatens its cherished beliefs. The flabby. Let us be duly thankful for our blessings. unconscious runs faster than rhetoric. Obviously this picture I More important, let us look inward and ask whether ra- have drawn is itself a sort of waterproof hypothesis. I can do tionalists themselves thoroughly understand and accept the no more than recommend it to your consideration. I cannot full implications of Darwinism. "Liberalism" is a word of prove its truth, but I find that when I keep this hypothesis many definitions and I will not contend that there is a "cor- firmly in mind I am more tolerant of what seem to me to be rect" one; but, however it is defined, I think there is a the errors perpetrated by others. Tolerance is at least a minor widespread assumption that liberalism is congruent with ra- virtue. tionalism, and hence (in the view of rationalists) with truth. I "No Thoroughfare," "Keep Off the Grass," "Don't will admit that there is a considerable measure of congruence Trespass," "Dead End" — the intellectual equivalent of between the two, but (as a Darwinian biologist) I think I see these signs plays, I believe, a much larger role in the life of areas where the match is less than perfect. What I am about to nonacademic people than most academicians realize. point out will disturb some of my colleagues. To them I Newspapers inform us that President Reagan, who dismissed repeat what Oliver Cromwell said to his comrades: "My evolution as an unproved theory, takes his horoscope serious- brethren, by the bowels of Christ I beseech you, bethink you ly. To academicians his attitude toward truth bodes ill for the that you may be mistaken." Some of the received doctrines of rational analysis and treatment of great national problems. those who identify themselves as liberal rationalists are not The fears of academicians may be excessive however. compatible with the grounded reasons of Darwinism. Nonacademic minds are quite often successfully compart- Let me begin with a phrase that has befuddled the think- mentalized. Nonacademics can often deal competently and ing of many excellent biologists during the past century, rationally with part of the world while abandoning rationality "adaptation for the good of the species." People who take

Summer, 1982 39 this expression at face value fail to appreciate an important "enlightened self-interest" instead. The people who believe in logical paradox. Although each established adaptation of a pure altruism — and want to believe in it — are those who in- species must indeed operate for the good of the individuals habit ivory towers, whose daily needs are met by social who possess it, there is no way that the process of natural mechanisms that do not depend on their correct perception of selection can, in the first instance, select "for the good of the social motivations. species." Darwin understood this, and so did a few biologists Another example of a widespread belief that must give who followed him, but the point is sufficiently subtle that it way before Darwinism is the belief, or faith, in escaped many textbook writers until Richard Dawkins in 1976 equalitarianism. There is no more certain biological forcibly called it to people's attention in his book The Selfish generalization than this, that no two animals of a species are Gene. ever exactly equal. (In passing, we note that identical twins begin as exact genetic equals, but even by the time of birth the slightly different uterine environments of the two have "Some of the received doctrines of those who iden- brought into being some inequalities. These inequalities are likely to become exaggerated by other environmental factors tify themselves as liberal rationalists are not com- as the individuals mature. Maturation does not create genetic patible with the grounded reason of differences, of course. However, identical twins are a side Darwinism ... a widespread belief that must give issue and can be ignored from here on.) way before Darwinism is the belief, or faith, in Many forces operate to prevent the recognition of the equalitarianism." biological fact of universal diversity. These forces are par- ticularly strong among Americans, whose minds are saddled with a sacred document that asserts that "all men are created equal." When people who thoughtlessly accept the language Although each adaptation of a species must benefit the of the Declaration of Independence are challenged, they give species, it is not selected for that reason. For instance, various responses. First they may say that the sacred wording behavior that results in the self-sacrifice of one member of the is merely ceremonial language, not to be taken seriously. In species to save other members would certainly be for the good other words, they defend hypocrisy. But hypocrisy is of the species, but there is no way in which selection can favor dangerous, because those who fail to see through a behavior that benefits only individuals other than the actor. hypocritical statement may embark on actions that prove There is, and always will be, variability in behavior. Con- disastrous. sidering only the genetic component of these behavioral dif- Another line of defense for the statement from the ferences (the nongenetic component can safely be ignored), Declaration of Independence is this: the assertion of equality those individuals who are genetically programmed to be less is not a statement of fact, but a statement of the policy society sacrificing will have a competitive advantage over those who should follow. People should be equal before the law. This is are more self-sacrificing. Statistically speaking, the selfish a highly defensible position, but if this is all that the Declara- ones will produce and raise more children than will the tion of Independence means it should be worded in a different unselfish ones. In the long run, their behavior may benefit the way: "All men are hereby defined as equal before the law." species, but it does so by benefiting their own germline in the Or, it might say: "All people have equal rights in society." If short run. There is no way for natural selection to act in a this is what we mean, why do we not say so, Clinging to the contrary fashion. Summarized simply, adaptations that are original wording of the Declaration of Independence has good for the species are selected because they benefit the created endless trouble. germlines in which they occur. The benefit to the species is, in Curiously, the trouble could have been avoided had a logical sense, almost an accidental fallout from germline Thomas Jefferson adopted the language used by George selection. Mason in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, adopted less The principles just revealed can be verbalized in another than two months before the Declaration of Independence. way: pure altruism is impossible. Many liberal rationalists "All men," wrote Mason, "are by nature equally free and in- find this conclusion repugnant. The Darwinian analyses of dependent." 12 This is sufficiently ambiguous to be Robert Trivers and W. D. Hamilton have shown with crystal unassailable. At the moment of birth we are far from being clarity that only discriminating altruisms can persist.9. lo, Il free or independent — but at least we are equally unfree and Familialism — altruistic behavior confined to the members of equally dependent on parental care. Whatever freedom we one's own family — can have survival value even if the in- later have must be granted us by society, or be earned by our dividuals who exhibit it make real personal sacrifices. The own efforts. It was a sad day for rational discussion when necessary condition for the survival value of such behavior is Mason's "equally free" was converted into Jefferson's that it should increase the total frequency of the shared genes "equal." of the family in the future, as compared with the genes shared But we cannot remake history; we must accept the wor- by other individuals who act in a more egotistic way. The ding of the Declaration of Independence and wrestle with the "man in the street" does not find this conclusion at all shock- word "equality" as it has come down to us, with all its am- ing, since his daily life is based on the assumption that ab- biguities and uncertainties. Simplifying history — not too solute, pure altruism almost never occurs; he speaks of much, I hope — we can say that the meaning of equality has

40 passed through the following four stages: to science will, I think, come when the accumulation of the results of human genetics demonstrating what I believe to be Literal, biological equality the fact of innate human inequality becomes important."14 Equality before the law As everyone knows, the U.S.S.R. failed to pass that test and Equality of opportunity is only now recovering from the devastation of the failure of Equality of results. Soviet genetics. Ironically, Haldane also failed to pass the very test he laid out: once he became a committed Com- The first two we have already discussed. The third stage munist, he was compelled to be a jesuitical defender of the in- developed as our understanding of the subtleties of social defensible Stalinist position — until in desperation he left the phenomena grew, with the development of the disciplines of Communist party. The corruption and agony of this great anthropology and sociology. We came to realize that, ir- liberal mind was a tragedy that should move all people of respective of genetic differences, all people do not start off good intentions to reexamine the foundations of their life with equal social advantages. Recognizing this, the ideal beliefs. of equality was restated to mean equality of opportunity. This As we continue to carry out the exhausting but often ex- was not regarded as a fact, but as a commitment to a policy. hilarating work of correcting our fundamentalist brethren, let Much of the legislation of the first century and a half of the us not suppose that all the opposition to Darwinism is confin- existence of the United States can be understood as an at- ed to their camp. The test of the essential but undefined spirit tempt to put this policy into effect. of liberalism will come when it has to face the inherent con- In the most recent half-century, as it became clear that tradictions between the radical individualism that has become our most valiant efforts to create equality of opportunity received dogma and the incontrovertible facts of biological were not bringing about the world we wanted, a new policy individuality. The political word "equality" represents not a was put forward: Equality of results should be the policy fact but an enigma. "We get what we reward for" — this is goal, reformers said. This policy justified writing into law the supra-Darwinian principle that compassion dare not ig- mechanisms that ensured the unequal distribution of goods, nore. In a world of competing groups of people, some of rights, and powers in order to compensate for the observed whom embrace Darwinian thinking while others do not, only inequalities of results. This political movement sprang from Darwinian societies will, in the long run, survive in a universe what are commonly regarded as the nobler impulses of whose machinery is inescapably Darwinian. This is the humanity — pity, charity, and the like. grounded reason before which all counterproductive for- The question we must now ask seriously is this: Will mulas, however nobly worded, must give way. nobility of impulses ensure noble results? It is impossible for a Darwinian to agree that they will. Affirmative discrimina- tion laws, coupled with punitive sanctions, have injected Notes counter-Darwinian selection into society. If such discrimina- tion has no selective effect at the genetic level, the worst it will 1. The Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), vol. do will be to waste community resources to an ever-increasing 8, p. 234 under "received." 2. Neal C. Gillespie, Charles Darwin and the Problem of Creation degree. Social behavior is determined by social rewards — (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979). this is the larger principle of which historic Darwinism is 3. James R. Moore, The Post-Darwinian Controversies (Cambridge: merely a particular example. If we reward people for Cambridge University Press, 1979). demonstrating inequality of results (poor results being 4. Quoted in Garrett Hardin, Nature and Man's Fate (New York: rewarded the most) then people will produce poor results, Rinehart, 1959), p. 105. 5. Alan Wood, Bertrand Russell, the Passionate Sceptic (London: because it is to their personal advantage to do so. Quite aside Unwin, 1963), p. 57. from any genetic component, it is difficult to see how a socie- 6. Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Basic ty that rewards for poor results can survive in competition Books, 1959). See also his Letter to the Editor in the New Scientist, 21 August with societies that reward for good, in the time-honored 1981, p. 611, which answers the charge that evolution theory cannot be part manner. of science because it refers to historical events. 7. Garrett Hardin, "Pejorism: The Middle Way," in Stalking the Wild It is also possible that counter-Darwinian discrimination Taboo, 2nd ed. (Los Altos, Calif.: William Kaufmann, 1978). will have effects at the genetic level. If this is so, then a society 8. Douglas R. Hofstadter, "Metamagical Themas," Scientific American that follows such a policy will find its plunge toward disaster 246: 18-26 (February 1982). ever further accelerated by the "Baldwin effect."13 9. Robert Trivers, "The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism," Quarterly If liberalism necessarily involves substantial investment Review of Biology 46: 35-37 (1971). in failure, rationalists should seriously question whether a 10. W. D. Hamilton, "Altruism and Related Phenomena, Mainly in Social Insects," Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 3: 193-232 society committed to this brand of liberalism can survive in (1972). competition with others less liberal but more rational. 11. Garrett Hardin, "Discriminating Altruisms," Zygon (in press). Perhaps "liberalism" stands in need of redefinition. 12. The Staff, Social Sciences I, The People Shall Judge (Chicago: We should never forget the sequelae to a comment made University of Chicago Press, 1949), vol. 1, p. 205. 13. Garrett Hardin, "Genetic Consequences of Cultural Decisions in the by Haldane in 1932, before he became a Communist and Realm of Population," Social Biology 19: 350-61 (1972). before Lysenko destroyed genetics in the Soviet Union: "The 14. J. B. S. Haldane, The Inequality of Man (London: Chatto and test of the devotion of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Windus, 1932). •

Summer, 1982 41 Creation and Evolution

Sol Tax

This paper has had a long history. If there was a beginning, it was in 1928 when at the University of Wisconsin I took a least some magical or supernatural phenomena. I did not feel course in biological evolution that emphasized the varieties of proud or superior; and since then I have occasionally felt evidences — of embryology, comparative anatomy, and ashamed of my inability to treat wondrous things as more paleontology — that are impossible to explain unless one ac- than metaphors. cepts evolution. I had no personal problem with this, but it But I must report another fact about myself. In my se- was a challenge to think of a contrary hypothesis that could cond or third year of high school I came logically to a convic- also embrace the facts. So I imagined a supernatural creation tion that I had to choose relativism over absolutism as a that would include fossils in the places where they are found. guiding principle. The opposition seemed to me to pose an in- The time was of course a problem until my wandering im- soluble dilemma that forced one to deny the truth of either, agination hit upon the hypothesis that the creation has just itself a relativist position. Rightly or wrongly, I have since now happened — no, not when I said that, but now as I think then bypassed the problem and moved directly into substan- it. All of us walking down the Hill in Madison, and the pro- tive issues. This has seemed to me useful; but the point is that fessors and their theories, and the books in the library — in- my belief in naturalistic evolution is like everything else only cluding the Bibles — and all the churches and the preachers, relatively an external truth. Like everybody else, I have had and the recapitulation of evolutionary changes in every em- many beliefs, some more frivolous and lightly held than bryo, and all the living and the fossil species of plant and others; the one concerning naturalistic evolution is a profes- animal life — all have just now been created. None of the sional belief based on considerable knowledge and shared evidence we had discussed in class could contradict this. with professional colleagues whom I greatly respect. But I Many years later I heard of the Chinese philosopher who know that other wise and knowledgeable people have serious dreamed he was a butterfly and thereafter could never be sure beliefs that differ from mine. Some of these beliefs are shared he wasn't really a butterfly dreaming he was a man. Without with even more colleagues in learned professions older than knowing the relevant philosophical literature, walking down my own that just as firmly assert the possibility of super- the hill that afternoon, I was positing a universe that was natural intervention in the history or operation of otherwise similarly a product of my imagination, which should have naturalistic phenomena. Since nobody has ever asked me to pleased my youthful ego. It did in fact establish for me the ab- accept that view, I have never had to consider it. I am an an- surdity of a supernatural alternative to naturalistic evolution. thropologist, immersed in interpretations of ideas in cultures Needless to say, that was easy because I had never entertained all over the world from the earliest times. I have done field a contrary belief. work in depth among several groups of American Indians for To me it is a fact that man is a product of a purely whom the supernatural is real and ever-present, and in- naturalistic process of evolution that accounts for all species teresting. In each place I appreciated the ideas and ways of of plants and animals that have existed on earth. Whatever my friends — as I think they did mine — but I do not recall a differences exist among scholars concerning the processes suggestion or a temptation to change our respective views of themselves, I am confident that nothing supernatural has ever the world. I do not know when I first realized that they were, been part of those processes. I am reporting this conclusion as like me, pluralistic and that it might be a special characteristic a fact about me. I began it with the phrase "To me it is a fact of our Western society to make judgments about differences ... " and that is the truth. I do not remember a time when I and to think it a duty to mold others in our image. And I believed in anything supernatural. I do remember coming finally adopted for myself an absolute value that is expressed upon W. E. H. Lecky's History of Rationalism in Europe and in phrases like "live and let live," "freedom and self- wondering at his information that two or three centuries ago determination for all," and "equality and justice." To live by everybody — even in the universities — took for granted at these phrases is also to deny the legitimacy of power; to

42 achieve order by negotiation and consensus; to respect and We believe that at the instant of creation, 18 billion years ago, protect persons, their values, and their identities. all the forces of nature and the substance of the universe were In 1959 I had the honor to preside over the celebration of one. But less than a trillionth of a second later, things went the centennial of the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin their separate ways, and bewildering complexity was born. To of Species. Some three thousand participated for most of a understand how today's universe is constructed, we're trying week at the University of Chicago. Emphasis was on evolu- to look back at the early simplicity of it all, re-creating energy tion itself, from the origin of life to the higher cultural conditions as they were in the first fraction of a second of achievements of humankind. But we also had an institute for universal existence. teachers of biology and special sessions on the conflict of Here there is ambiguity as to the meaning of the term "crea- science and religion. There was wide media coverage in which tion." That this could imply for some people a natural pro- these issues were freely discussed, including a several-hour cess and for others a Creator is evident. In a letter to Science television talk-show that was re-run in the years following. (March 5, 1982, p. 1182) another scientist, W. H. Hildemann, Participants included Sir Charles Darwin, the astronomer- discusses biological evolution in the wake of the Little Rock grandson; Sir Julian Huxley; Adlai Stevenson (the father, of court case, and proposes for textbooks a published statement course); Harlow Shapley, the astronomer; and Herman that satisfies him both as Christian (his term) and as scientist. Muller, the geneticist. Julian Huxley was anxious to bring his Note that the last sentence again leaves "creation" am- message to America, where evolution seemed to be still an biguous, issue rather than the established fact we proclaimed it to be. A few scientists believe in a relatively recent inception of the One hundred years with Darwin were enough, we said. But earth and living organisms by sudden creation of the universe, Huxley felt he had to make another point, that he was an energy, and life from nothing. Most scientists, however, atheist, unlike his famous grandfather who had hedged the believe that the earth and all forms of life gradually evolved issue, calling himself agnostic. Julian thought that in this cen- over several billion years. Evolution can be viewed as a creative tury he could proclaim his atheism. Others on the panel were process continuing over a long period of time. Students should taken aback: Stevenson cringed exaggeratedly, as if to in- be aware at the outset that the extensive evidence of evolution dicate that the company he shared might pose a threat to his is not necessarily in opposition to religious concepts of crea- political career; Shapley, who had just joined us from a tour tion by a supreme being. Note that the causative beginning or of colleges where he had spoken positively on religion in an primeval appearance of matter or life in our universe, the in- age of science, quickly denied that there was a conflict or that ception of something from nothing, is not at issue. any scientist need be an atheist. At the next commercial break Evidently scientists generally distinguish the origin of matter, I suggested to Huxley that in the United States there was an or of life, from their subsequent evolutions; the origin of mat- association of "atheist" with "communist," and that he ter, or life, could be due to supernatural or natural creations. should not wonder that school boards preferred to be tarred For fundamentalist creationists, the origin of man might be with neither. another beginning. Both a believing theist and a believing Needless to say, Sir Julian continued to express himself atheist can give their respective meanings to the word "crea- as he preferred. In the next days and weeks I found myself be- tion" and accept it as occurring so early in time that ing asked by reporters, and directly on radio programs, everything else that exists in the universe has had ample time whether I believed in God, and I experimented with defensive to develop "naturally." But of course each may be high- evasions that would permit me to answer safely yet truthfully principled enough to fight to the death for his meaning of the as I thought. I found myself saying that it depended on how word. The distance between the two is clearer when the theist one defined God. I believed both that the universe is believes not only that the first creation was supernatural but marvelously ordered and that men are infinitesimally small, also that the Creator continued with numerous further acts of powerless, insufficient, and needed something much larger creation. than themselves to live properly, and perhaps that could be But let me return to my narrative. By the time of the Dar- called God. I was anyway always conscious of a need to win Centennial, I had been fully involved in academic an- behave as if my every action were being noted and judged; but thropology for thirty years. It is difficult to believe that I had my word for this was conscience, which punished my never been faced with persons of fundamentalist belief, who I transgressions as I went along. suppose represented a large segment of the American popula- I suppose that I would not have equivocated if I had been tion. In Guatemala we had friends among American mis- asked if I believed in the Creator, and it became evident that sionaries who were of that persuasion, but we talked about the point was not my personal philosophy but only whether I problems in Guatemala and occasionally about the religion of believed in Bishop Ussher's interpretations and the dating of the Indian people. In the universities back home, friends and the genesis of the universe as described in the Hebrew Bible. students who were theologians were of liberal persuasions or God in the abstract is for many reconcilable with any scien- accepted anthropological knowledge, or both. It wasn't until tific history; but God specifically as Creator would have the 1960s that I came into personal contact with other seemed to me more difficult. Perhaps not, however; the Americans. I was asked to speak about evolution at a large Chicago Sun-Times recently quoted the physicist Leon Leder- Negro fraternity (this was before Negroes became Blacks) in man, head of Fermilab, as follows (Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago. They were mainly educated, upper-middle-class March 21, 1982): men and women who did not disclose their religious views;

Summer, 1982 43 but they seemed to have been deeply hurt by the racist myths lower forms of life. Since little in daily life depends on the that were thought to be associated with Darwinism and which answer, why should they not choose the prettier story, had spread through the American population long before an- associated with their forefathers and with presumed good-old- thropologists had begun to refute them. On another occasion days of reliable mortality. Those of us who teach an- I was invited to a western Pennsylvania college to give an thropology must follow the evidence we know of how our evening lecture for the whole student body, and I was species evolved; and our pluralistic philosophy does not extend dismayed to learn that my anthropologist colleagues found to accepting as equivalent any creation myth, even when it is their greatest teaching obstacle in student resistance to the regarded by the largest segment of our society as Revealed teaching of evolution, which they thought violated values that Truth. they and their parents held. This short essay offers a way in which we can present the On still another occasion I was asked to participate in a issue in a manner that violates none of our scientific liberal arts college program on American Indian education. knowledge, yet explicitly respects the backgrounds of those who accept the Bible as revealed truth. Perhaps I should inter- One panelist was an American Indian, who near the end of ject here that I come from a line of Rabbis, was brought up in the program, when audience discussion lagged, innocently an orthodox Jewish home in which I was happy, and for which asked me to explain why anthropologists said that American I am nostalgic; and keep our own home as kosher as possible. Indians had originally populated this continent from Asia, Yet by some chance I do not remember ever "believing" the crossing over the Bering Strait. I recognized this at once as a Bible; and since early high school days, at least, have been difficult question to answer, since American Indian nations thoroughly secular-minded; but I was also explicitly have their own myths of origin near their own historic loca- relativistic, so that I thought nobody "wrong" whose outlook tions. Our Bering Strait story is based on our knowledge that was different. all living peoples are closely related members of the same I think 1 was always a student of human behavior and species whose evolution occurred in the Eurasian-African culture. When I became professionally interested in how in- land mass. At some time relatively recently the Indians stitutions became formed and changed, I soon became involv- ed in trying to change them for the better. And I came to sense migrated from the old world to the new. By a process of the significance of the problems of good and evil with which eliminating all other possibilities the Bering Strait route long religion as well as great literature wrestled. God and the Devil ago appeared to be the most probable, and biological, ar- became useful metaphors; but somehow only God became a chaeological, and linguistic evidence has continued to support model that I could use. Despite such horrors as Hitler and it. But I realized as I began to answer him that my explanation racism, somehow I have always remained optimistic; evil was depended upon a belief in biological evolution rather than in an aberration to be conquered rather than lived with. special creations. And of course I was aware that American It happened that I was given the task of organizing a Indians value their own myths. I found myself therefore worldwide community of scholars and over several years presenting the fact of evolution as a part of our scientific traveled extensively to discover how scholars in different coun- culture to be respected like their own myths! As I wrote later tries and of different specialties thought we could best learn from one another. Eventually the answer came in maintaining (Human Organization 36, no. 3,. Fall 1979, p. 230), a free market of ideas and information; and I learned through "Although of course I believe that biological evolution is a experience that this required an organization that provided in- more probable explanation of the distribution of species than dividuals opportunities without limiting their choice: an that each American Indian tribe was specially created accor- organization with a center but no head, able to keep thousands ding to its own mythology, I find it difficult to persist in this of individual scholars in communication without being able to view, since the Indian's explanation is for him 100 percent edit what they wanted to say. It required a person who would true!" On the same page I ask myself whether I could apply deliberately renounce power, taking it as his special "thing" the same pluralistic standard to people who demand that to learn how to do this in practice. This task fell to me, and for public schools teach the Book of Genesis together with 14 years I worked at it. In the course of doing it there emerged natural selection, even though they are the same people who in my mind a somewhat contrary picture of the God of my want to legislate their private preferences in any matter. I fathers. He is omnipotent, of course, which means that He can — if he chooses — renounce any or all of his power for any could not answer the question and left it as a problem. period of time. Posit now that He created the universe as When Little Rock "creation science" began to occupy Genesis describes; in doing so, he undertook a significant ex- public attention, I strove harder to come to some conclusion, periment, to give to man the power to make his own decisions. and one night was inspired to write the following piece from If man was to be made in His image, he needed the ability to which is omitted only a portion, which I have used above: make choices. How theologians explain this, or whether one may not question God's motives, I do not know; but it seems The issue before the courts is whether the states can re- as though He has generally let us play this out, with a variety quire that "scientific creationism" must also be taught where of exceptions, including the supposed flood. If man was made biological evolutionism is taught. The testimony is at cross- in God's image, I presume that God likes occasional ex- purposes, the state arguing that it is an alternative theory, the periments like this. He gave us, generally, the power of A.C.L.U. that it is religious doctrine masquerading as science. thought, of communication with others and of learning, and But even when the courts eventually decide against this use of of conscience, as bases for decision making and apparently in- government, the issue will remain in the minds of people who, tended us to develop our powers through time. If this was in- as in Bishop Wilberforce's time, prefer to think of themselves deed a kind of experiment on His part, did He then refrain as descendants of Adam and Eve rather than as evolved from from knowing what the future would bring?

44 But if God posed problems like this for himself, what Sapling prepared the world for the coming of humans, then reason is there to think that he posed his first problem with created the first man out of red clay. He then entered into a respect to Homo sapiens, the last (or latest) of his creations, on contract between people on Earth and those of the Sky the sixth day? True, He has not revealed to us much about His World. Earth people should continue the creation themselves, earlier experiments in the five previous days; but one must making life here in the image of life there. Said Sapling: "I assume that he only revealed in the Bible what was relevant to have made you master over the earth and over all that it con- man. Perhaps also He expected man to use his own powers to discover what had happened in those pre-human times, just as tains. It will continue to give comfort to thy mind. I have we are permitted to explore for ourselves what He created in planted human beings on the earth for the purpose that they the rest of the universe, before or after He created man. shall continue my work of creation by beautifying the earth, With this conception of God, I do not think, as in by cultivating it and making it more pleasing for the habita- undergraduate days, that to reconcile evolution with creation tion of man." Blanchard's unpublished account of the crea- one has to posit "creation now" of the universe with all the tion as told to him by Jack Norton, an old Mohawk from evidences of past evolution in place. It is more economical to Akwesasne, concludes with the explanation that "there is no hypothesize that the universe was created whenever the end to the creation epic for the Iroquois. Sapling returned to astronomers' evidence shows, and that is when God began the earth and gave the human beings their clan system. He return- series of creations described in Genesis. God expects us to con- ed to institute the ceremonies of Thanksgiving. He sent clude in our studies the actual length of each day so briefly Dekanawide to institute the Great Law of Peace. The Iro- summarized in the first chapters. He will be interested in seeing if we can discover the time and place of His first creation of a quois believe that they are made of the stuff of the Sky World living thing from which developed through time all of the and so have the ability and the responsibility to change the forms of plants and animals that were to be relevant to, and world, always making it 'more pleasing for the habitation of hence revealed to, man. God will watch as we uncover the man.' This process continues today." methods by which He ordained the creation of the Orders, the Families, the Genera, and the species of all plants and animals — those that became extinct and those that survived into "To me it is a fact that man is a product of a purely human times. And he probably notes with some amusement naturalistic process of evolution that accounts for that we can go to court to dispute the sense in which Homo sa- all species of plants and animals that have existed piens came into being on the 6th day. on earth. Whatever differences exist among A few days later I showed the piece to two younger col- scholars concerning the processes themselves, I am leagues, who thought it should be published lest parts be confident that nothing supernatural has ever been quoted out of context that would make me appear a Crea- part of those processes." tionist. Although I thought I could protect myself, I put the paper aside because I saw that I had not said anywhere how anthropologists might use it in teaching students resistant to It is through dreams that from the beginning of time the evolution. I did not know. Two or three weeks later came an Iroquois nations continued to receive ceremonies, social in- invitation to participate in the conference on "Science, the Bi- stitutions, the Confederacy, and guidance in policy. It was ble, and Darwin," sponsored by FREE INQUIRY at the State through a dream that the Seneca prophet Handsome Lake in University of New York at Buffalo. It seemed to me a for- 1799 learned that they should no longer follow dreams. The tunate coincidence — a religious person might say a sign — teachings of the prophet were adopted by most Iroquois and I quickly accepted the invitation on the assumption that, (A. F. C. Wallace, Life and Death of the Seneca, 1971) with given this deadline, answers would come to me. the exception of these northern Mohawks, who continue to Almost at the last moment a solution did indeed appear, accept instruction through dreams from the Sky World, and thanks to two circumstances. First, on reviewing what I had self-consciously keep up their half of the contract. so far written, I saw that for an avowed secularist I appeared Lessons have long been learned from mythologies of to be associating a great deal with religious ideas, especially peoples all over the world; see, e.g., Mircea Eliade's recent foolish in a paper to be heard by people much more two-volume History of Religious Ideas (University of knowledgeable in these matters than I can ever be. But then it Chicago Press, 1982). But the Iroquois creation legend sug- occurred to me that to deal with students emotionally com- gests a comparative study in which students could well be in- mitted to religious premises might well require more rather terested in participating, and which might have surprising than less acceptance of them, as in a Socratic dialogue. consequences. If indeed the universe was supernaturally The second circumstance is that important new field created, it must have been by a single Creator who revealed work is being reported by David Blanchard on the religion of himself in different ways. If our comparative religionists the northern Mohawk Indians. These Indian communities, on could establish criteria and identify the cases, they might both sides on the New York-Quebec border, have continued perhaps also be able to make a concordance and develop in- more than other Iroquois the panoply of practices based on terpretations based on the whole corpus of evidence. The the Iroquois origin myth. And it appears now that it is their result could very well support the view (or increase the pro- orthodoxy that accounts for their adaptive survival through a bability) that the universe was indeed created and there is a series of historic crises. The Iroquois origin legend tells that universal God, perhaps of a character different from what after the earth was created by the people of the Sky World, most Western theologians have imagined. •

Summer, 1982 45 Darwin, Evolution and Creationism

Antony Flew

1 maintained that "there is no contradiction in affirming that a thing is created and also that it was never non-existent." His I shall begin, as does the Bible and maybe also the universe, point was that the absolute and constant dependence of every with Creation. One fundamental distinction seems to have creature upon its Creator, which is an essential of theism as surfaced, first in Aristotle's criticism of the cosmology in opposed to deism, no more entails that all actual created Plato's Timaeus. It is a distinction upon which St. Thomas things must have had a beginning than it entails that any such Aquinas was later to insist, even against murmuring charges things have had, or will have to have, an ending. That the of heresy. Because the whole story shows Thomas as universe is in this sense God's creation can be proved, something different from, and better than, the excruciatingly Thomas held, by arguments of natural reason, and without orthodox Vatican apparatnik he has too often been presented appeal to the Christian or any other putative revelation. as since the encyclical Aeterni Patris, I shall develop this first Without God as the sustaining First Cause, all things would distinction in that context. — in the memorable phrase coined by Archbishop William a. Most of us, when we hear the word creation, recall the Temple, a sometime British Primate — "collapse into non- first sentence of Genesis, Chapter 1: "In the beginning God existence." created the heaven and the earth."' Some know, too, that That the universe was in fact created out of nothing "in Christian theologians have traditionally insisted that this was the beginning" was something that Thomas also believed. But not supposed to be just any kind of transformation, but a this he believed as a matter of his faith in the supposedly creation out of nothing. The second verse thus describes not revelatory teachings of the Catholic church; just as he believ- the materials for, but the product of, that original creation: ed on the same grounds that there are some creatures from "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness whom God will never in fact withdraw his existential support. was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." 2 b. Thomas, however, in the pamphlet Concerning the Eternity of the Universe, against Murmurers and elsewhere, The second fundamental distinction relevant to us is between

46 the creation of the entire universe and special creations within 3 it. It is to claims about the latter rather than the former that Darwin's work in evolutionary biology is most directly But now, having taken this point, or, if you insist, having relevant. conceded it, we must be firm to put down any too comfor- a. What is directly relevant to the former, in the initiating table dismissals of the very possibility of conflict between rather than the sustaining sense of `creation', is scientific (true) science and (true) religion. For it is a sign not so much cosmology. For, while cosmological science could scarcely be of high sophistication as of deeply sheltered ignorance to expected to establish that the universe had any beginning at adopt as "the standpoint of twentieth century orthodoxy the all — much less that it was that beginning created by God out claim 'that — Science being descriptive, Religion normative of nothing — it might very well turn out to suggest very — the apparent conflict between them sprang always from strongly indeed that it did not, and was not. Certainly it seems confusions,' "4 Whatever may have been true of a few rare today that the majority of those best qualified to speak are spirits in the past, or even of one convert contemporary once-and-for-all "Big Bangers." Yet some steady-state Kingsman, it is a grotesque falsehood to suggest that the theory on the lines of what Hoyle and Bondi so misleadingly religion of the Saints and of the Fathers, of the Popes and of described as their "continuous creation hypothesis" might the Councils, either was or is altogether barren of descriptive have survived all attempts at falsification. And it is, I sup- intention.5 (Even Liberation Theology, which has precious pose, still entirely possible that someone will contrive to show little to do with either God or liberation, still embraces the that the Big Bang was not once and for all but only the latest allegedly factual elements of Marxist Leninism.) in a cycling series of explosions and implosions, without end There are several regions in which conflicts arise between and without beginning. As James Hutton so famously put it, evolutionary biology, on the one hand, and the Christian and "No Vestige of a Beginning — no Prospect of an End." kindred religions, on the other. Some of these conflicts are, I b. Darwin's work has indirect relevance to claims that believe, capable of some more or less acceptable diplomatic the universe is created, in the sustaining sense of `creation', in resolution. Others, surely, are not. I want to make remarks two ways. (1) It would be wildly eccentric, though perhaps about these conflicts in three regions. (1) There is the threat to not necessarily inconsistent, for someone to accept that some the revelations of the early chapters of Genesis — construed or all species were separately created, while denying that as the textbook of what it is now fashionable to call "crea- everything is always dependent on God as the indispensable tion science." (2) There is the matter of The Descent of Man and sustaining First Cause. (2) Darwin's discoveries, like all — the more than Copernican challenge to the assumption of other discoveries of regularity and order within the universe, the central and peculiar position of Homo sapiens in the may be taken as premises in the sort of Argument to Design economy of the universe. (3) There is the insidious undermin- that Thomas deployed as his Fifth Way: "We observe that ing of what has always been for most ordinary people, as well things without consciousness, such as physical bodies, as for many far from ordinary, the most persuasive part of operate with a purpose, as appears from their cooperating in- the case for theism, an Argument to Design. variably, or almost so, in the same way in order to obtain the best result. Clearly, then, they reach this end by intention and 4 not by chance. Things lacking knowledge move toward an end only when directed by someone who knows and What is nowadays presented as "creation science," essential- understands, as an arrow by an archer. There is, consequent- ly involving the special creation of fixed species of animals ly, an intelligent being who directs all natural things to their and plants, just is not, as the expert witnesses at the recent ends; and this being we call God."2 trial in Arkansas so crushingly demonstrated, science. It is Let us for the moment waive all objections to this grati- religion — and, especially in that essential aspect, an eminent- fyingly succinct argument, merely noting for future protest ly old-time born-again religion. Duane Gish provides the ideal the cosmic complacency of the characteristically Thomist epitome in his best-selling Evolution — The Fossils Say No!: assumption that all things invariably, or almost "By `creation' we mean the bringing into being of the basic invariably,work together for the best. The point to seize now, kinds of plants and animals by the process of sudden, or fiat, and to seize without prejudice to all questions of the ultimate creation described in the first two chapters of Genesis. Here validity of this form of Argument to Design, is that all scien- we find the creation by God of the plants and animals, each tific discoveries, not excepting those showing that what might commanded to reproduce after its own kind, using processes have appeared to be products of design could or must have which were essentially instantaneous. "6 come about without any design, so to speak, within the a. One distinction upon which it is necessary always to universe, can be made to serve as premises in an argument insist contrasts, on the one hand, evolution as opposed to proposed to show that as a whole the universe is a designed special creation with, on the other hand, any theory of the Creation. Presumably this was the point being made by a hypothesized mechanisms of such evolution. In this leading American supporter — the botanist Asa Gray — understanding, the principle of evolution is as essential to any when he mischievously thanked Darwin "for his striking con- scientific biology as uniformitarianism is essential to any tributions to teleology ... knowing well that he rejects the scientific geology. Not for nothing is Sir Charles Lyell's idea of design, while all the while he is bringing out the classic The Principles of Geology subtitled "An Attempt to neatest illustrations of it."3 Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface, by

Summer, 1982 47 Reference to Causes Now in Operation." There is similar but by a hasty press as being this — that God hid the fossils in the contrary significance in the fact that Duane Gish proceeds: rocks in order to tempt geologists into infidelity. In truth it "We do not know how God created, what processes He used, was the logical and inevitable conclusion of ... accepting, for God used processes which are not now operating literally, the doctrine of a sudden act of creation; it emphasiz- anywhere in the natural universe ... We cannot discover by ed the fact that any breach in the circular [cyclic] course of scientific investigations anything about the creative processes nature could be conceived only on the supposition that the used by God."7 object created bore false witness to past processes, which had b. In terms of this important yet too often neglected never taken place." The argument applies and was applied distinction, we may sum up Darwin's achievement as having not only to organisms but also to rocks, whether fossil- strengthened the case enormously for biological evolution by bearing or not, as well as to heavenly bodies and to every displaying a mechanism that is not only now operating but other item in the inventory of the universe. In the case of the also must always have been operating to produce the right organism Homo sapiens: if Adam is to be perfectly and sort of, although not necessarily sufficient, biological change. authentically man then he "would certainly — though Evolution in this most general and unenriched understanding Thomas Browne denied it — display an `omphalos,' yet no would be decisively refuted were paleontologists to discover umbilical cord ever attached him to a mother."8 the fossil remains of creatures morphologically in- distinguishable from the higher mammals in rocks that are 5 much too old. (J. B. S. Haldane boldly used to specify human remains in a coal seam.) The importance of finding a suitable The Origin of Species refers only once to the topic of The mechanism or mechanisms becomes clear when we notice Descent of Man. Michael Ruse notes nicely that this "cryptic that, because of the lack of these in such pre-Darwinian brief remark must qualify as the understatement of the cen- evolutionary works as Robert Chambers's Vestiges of the tury."9 For Darwin was modest and discreet: "Light will be Natural History of Creation and J. B. Lamarck's Zoological thrown on the origin of man and of his history." Yet Bishop Philosophy, even Lyell was inclined to deny the reality of the Wilberforce — T. H. Huxley's opponent in that notorious progression that such a discovery would falsify. (He saw it as confrontation at the 1860 Oxford meeting of the British inconsistent with uniformitarianism.) Association — was right to detect here a threat to much more c. Next, I must refer to an article on "The Erosion of than some mere Neanderthaler literalism in reading Genesis I Evolution: A Treason of the Intellectuals." Appearing in the and II. For evolutionary biology cannot but menace all tradi- Spring 1982 issue of FREE INQUIRY, this warns of the tional assumptions about the privileged status of our own obscurantist use that is being and will be made of various most favored species; and, above all, the peculiar notion — a fashionable bits of bad history and bad philosophy of science. notion common, surely, to all three branches of Mosaic Duane Gish often quotes a statement from the Introduction theism — that this species is the particular concern of the to the 1971 Everyman edition of The Origin of Species. Creator of an infinite universe. L. Harrison Matthews, as both a scientist and an evolutionist, a. Thus Wilberforce, it will be remembered, asked there concludes: "Belief in the theory of evolution is thus ex- whether it was on his mother's or his father's side that Huxley actly parallel to belief in special creation — both are concepts claimed descent from a monkey. (This same Wilberforce, by which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, the way, is not the same as the great emancipator, who could has been capable of proof." without lapsing into any arcane political code have made an There are two things here about which no scientist, nor honest claim to be a liberation theologian!) Certainly we can any historian or philosopher of science, has any business to be in consistency, as in truth we should, both reject the idea of a either shy or defensive. (1) Any philosophical account of the special creation of Homo sapiens and insist that our species is nature of scientific theory that requires us to rate the present nevertheless in many respects unique. epistemological position of "belief in the theory of It is as wrong as it is common to argue that to take a Dar- evolution" as being "exactly parallel" with that of "belief in winian view of The Descent of Man is to be committed to say- special creation" must, if through that implication alone, fall ing that there can be no essential differences between (some or into total discredit. (2) If "any system of religion" — as most) people and (any of) the brutes. For to say that this Hume would have held it — really does entail both the literal evolved from that, since it presupposes that this is not iden- truth of the first two chapters of Genesis and the special crea- tical with that, is precisely not to say that, really or ultimately, tion of all species, then we can surely know, and not merely this must be that, and nothing but that. It is no kind of evolu- make an ingenuous claim to know, that that system as a tionary biological insight to maintain that oaks are, in the last system is neither more nor less than false. analysis, acorns. In defense of this aggressive stance against "creation b. Certainly too there is room for a Cartesian com- science" I here confine myself to one wry and oblique promise, such as that expressed by Pope Pius XII in his 1953 reference to the contrary evidence — a mass ever more exten- encyclical Humani Generis: "... the teaching of the Church sive and overwhelming. Discussing the reception of his leaves the doctrine of evolution an open question, so long as it father's fastidiously honest and clearheaded book Omphalos, confines its speculations to the development, from other liv- published two years before The Origin of Species, Edmund ing matter already in existence, of the human body"; never- Gosse wrote: "The theory, coarsely enough, ... was defined theless, "that souls are immediately created by God is a view

48 which the Catholic faith imposes on us.lo works of nature."11 Providing always that we take care to stipulate that such For the campaigns against design arguments distinguish- souls are to be undetectable by the vulgar methods of em- ed as being of this kind Darwin brought up the massive and pirical inquiry, all the actual findings very likely can be crucial reinforcements. Without such reinforcement the posi- rendered formally consistent with Roman Catholic and other tion of the Humean skeptics was still weak and exposed. They religious requirements. No doubt, too, it remains and could only stress and stress again Hume's great insight that will continue to remain possible, while dispensing with that we do not and cannot a priori know that any thing or any sort particular and peculiar doctrine, to accept all the present and of thing either must be or cannot be the cause of any other future findings of biological science, and yet to maintain with sort of thing, perhaps adding some reference to the work of strict consistency and coherence that cosmic and biological Hume himself and of the other Scottish Founding Fathers of evolution was God's chosen way of producing one particular social science, as showing how, in that sphere, what look so species, a species intended to have a unique and focal status like products of some Master Plan are often in fact the within the entire Creation. Nevertheless, Darwinism was from unintended by-products of intended action. This is an the beginning, and today remains, a challenge to all such altogether different play from that of the contestant who can geocentric religions, not because it promises formally to answer Paley by citing triumphs of natural selection on his falsify the old special status assumptions, but rather because, own chosen ground of biology. for ever more people, it makes these plumb unbelievable. The other kind of Argument to Design — the kind that we can, without an excess of sympathetic imagination, find to be represented by Way Five in Thomas — was once and for "Darwinism was from the beginning, and today re- all and definitively refuted by David Hume. The nerve of any mains, a challenge to all geocentric religions, not argument of this kind is the contention that the regularities or because it promises formally to falsify the old the existences that provide its premises cannot be intrinsic, special status assumptions, but rather because, for but must instead be all the time imposed upon the universe by ever more people, it makes these plumb an outside Orderer "which all men call God." unbelievable." Hume responds with a statement of what he liked to call — following Pierre Bayle — not Stratonian but "Stratonician atheism." Let us throw down that unanswerable challenge as 6 a somewhat complex question: "Whatever natural and unrevealed warrant could we have, or could there be, that the There has, finally, to be a brief word on Darwin and sheer existence of the universe — which is necessarily the only Arguments to Design. Notice first that I call these always one we either do or could know — and any order that we may Arguments not from but to Design: the move from admitted discover in it, is not intrinsic, as it appears to be, but external- design to a designer or designers would be deductive, and ly and even precariously imposed?" valid; whereas these proceed to Design from what, it is alleg- ed, could not in fact have come about save by Design, and they are all, I maintain, unsound. Notice second, and this is important, that we have to apply to Arguments to Design a Notes distinction made earlier with reference to doctrines of Crea- tion. Thomas's Way Five is an Argument to Design applied to 1. Here and hereafter I quote only from the King James Authorized Ver- sion — a living falsification, come to think of it, of the perennial cynic's com- the universe as a whole. The arguments of Archdeacon plaint that nothing great was ever achieved by a committee! William Paley were deployed primarily, if not exclusively, in 2. Summa Theologica, I (ii) 2. order to explain the presence of particular sorts of things 3. Quoted in S.E. Toulmin and June Goodfield, The Discovery of Time within the universe rather than the existence and general (London: Hutchinson, 1965), p. 226. The authors refer us to Asa Gray, by A. character of that universe. Hunter Dupree. His Natural Theology is a classic presentation: if from 4. Toulmin and Goodfield, loc. cit., pp. 226-27. 5. The reference in the second clause of this sentence is to R.B. the observation of a watch we may infer the existence of a Braithwaite's An Empiricist's View of the Nature of Religious Belief (Cam- watchmaker, so surely, by parity of reasoning, from the bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955). Compare my The Presumption observation of mechanisms so marvelous as the human eye we of Atheism (London: Elek/Pemberton; Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1976), must infer the existence of a Great Designer — God. Paley chapter 12 ad. fin. repudiates as an alternative any suggestion "that the eye, the 6. D.J. Gish, Evolution — The Fossils Say No! (San Diego, Calif.: CLP Publications, 1973), p. 24. animal to which it belongs, every other animal, every 7. Ibid., p. 25 italics added. plant ... are only so many out of the possible varieties and 8. Edmund Gosse, Father and Son (London: Landsborough, 1958), combinations of being which the lapse of infinite ages has chapter 5, p. 65. Omphalos is Greek for navel. brought into existence: that the present world is the relic of 9. In "Darwin's Legacy," a contribution to one of what will doubtless that variety; millions of other bodily forms and other species be several centennial volumes. The "cryptic brief remark" itself is on p. 458 of the Pelican Classics reprint of the first edition. having perished, being by the defect of their constitution in- 10. H. Denzinger, ed., Enchiridion Symbolorum, 29th rev. ed., capable of preservation . . . Now there is no foundation (Freiberg-in-Breisgau: Herder, 1953), Section 3027. whatever for this conjecture in anything we observe in the 11. Works (London, 1838), vol. 1, p. 32.

Summer, 1982 49 Part Three ETHICS AND RELIGION

JOSEPH FLETCHER was professor of pastoral theology RICHARD TAYLOR is professor of philosophy at the and Christian ethics at the Episcopal Theological School, University of Rochester and Adjunct Levitt-Spencer Pro- Cambridge, and taught medical ethics at the University of fessor of Philosophy at Union College. He is the author of Virginia Medical School. He is the author of Humanhood: Freedom, Anarchy, and the Law; Action and Purpose; Good Essays in Biomedical Ethics and Situation Ethics, among and Evil; and many other works. other books.

PAUL BEATTIE is president of the Fellowship of Religious KAI NIELSEN is professor of philosophy at the University Humanists and minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in In- of Calgary, Canada. He is the author of Ethics Without God; dianapolis. Reason and Practice; An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion; and other books.

Paul Beattie and Joseph Fletcher Question-and-answer period

Kai Nielsen, Lee Nisbet, Richard Taylor, Paul Beattie, and Joseph Fletcher Joseph Fletcher and panel

50 Why Ethics Should Avoid Religion

Joseph Fletcher

Soon after the First World War, James Truslow Adams wrote believe that all men are inheritors of original sin from one in the Atlantic Monthly (1926) that, even though the modern man, Adam — actually, not metaphysically. This throws world has pushed Christian morality into the dock to question aside biology's theory of human species as polygenic and its commandments, that of itself is no reason to think we have asserts a monogenic doctrine; it also proclaims the inheritance "all received a hypodermic injection of new original sin." of acquired characteristics and thus flatly contradicts Darwin- Adams argued that we Americans cannot explain away ethical ian evolution by natural selection. changes, as the Moral Majority tries to do, by blaming it on As we all know nowadays (even though there are some "the younger generation" or the modernists. who still pull and haul against acknowledging it), the historic Let me take a longer quotation from his essay, because it Christian faith has gone down the tube — except, of course, points to most of the ground I propose to cover in this essay for some sincere or insincere spokesmen for the smalltown about ethics and religion. power structure in the Bible Belt. In the more sophisticated churches of the big-city and suburban populations there is, to The decay in belief in the Christian theology, the loss of be sure, a kind of stubborn vestigial effort still made, more religious sanctions for ethics, the development of such com- pro forma than anything else, to remain loyal to Christian parative studies as religion and anthropology, the pragmatic theology, but it is now admittedly "reinterpreted" as philosophy, the Freudian psychology of inhibition and com- "metaphorical truth" rather than actual or historical fact. In plexes, and the various scientific and mechanical discoveries theological circles this is called "dehistoricizing" or which have transformed the world, have all been the work of "demythologizing." the older generation. What I mean to suggest is a gloss on the Adams quota- tion. It would, I think, be better to say that since there has Out of this pithy summary I choose only the first two been this "decay in the Christian theology" a consequence is items for comment — what Adams calls "the decay in belief the "loss of religious sanctions for ethics." It is, perhaps I in the Christian theology" and what he calls "the loss of should say, a loss of Christian doctrinal sanctions — even religious sanctions for ethics." though a small number still hangs on to being "religious" in There was a time, not so long ago, when it was a fair some generalized or undefined sense. assumption that practically everyone in our society was a The point is, though, that Christian doctrines no longer Christian or a Jew, at least nominally. The essentials of the provide morality with a believed and therefore effective back- Christian theology were exactly what the fundamentalists of up. In a discussion of a problem about a physician's moral today say they should be: the inerrancy of Scripture, the deity obligation, in a case where the right thing to do was of Jesus, the virgin birth, a substitutionary atonement problematic, a student said the right thing to do was what the (i.e., eternal salvation won by the Roman soldiers' execution Bible tells us to do and to trust in God's approval either in this of Jesus), Jesus' physical resurrection from death, and a visi- life or the next. Poor fellow, his opinion brought only gales of ble second coming. This fundamental faith of Protestantism laughter. was also proclaimed anew in a papal Syllabus of Errors issued There is no point here in going into the issue as between by the Vatican in 1864. ethical autonomy and ethical heteronomy. Let's put it this Some of these belief propositions are of a factual kind way: a majority of philosophers and of legislators and, I and therefore vulnerable to empirical or scientific verifica- should add, even many moral theologians, now look at tion; hence their loss of credibility. They are like Pius XII's ethical analysis and appraisal as something we can do without bull Humani generis in 1950, which said that Catholics must any religious sanctions at all.

Summer, 1982 51 We are agreed that an atheist is a moral agent, and socie- pretension to historicity or to textual authenticity in their ty accordingly holds that an atheist is just as answerable Scriptures; his plea was for a "demythologization" of the morally for what he or she does as a religious believer is. If virgin birth, the empty tomb, the incarnation, resurrection, you happen to hold Christian beliefs (or at least say that you ascension, and second coming, and for treating them frankly do) your moral judgments lie in the forum of conscience, as as myths with subjective religious meaning or significance. such; they need no support in one notion or another of In this way the mainstream Christians acknowledge that transcendental or supernatural standards. the Bible consists of myths and legends, but to the right wing, To be blunt about it, Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth the fundamentalists, and the self-styled Moral Majority, century built an epochal case against the very idea of things like the creation story in Genesis, the flood and Noah's "religious knowledge" and any ethics alleged to be derived ark, or even Jonah and the whale, are still back at the stage from it; indeed, he turned things around and showed how when Thomas Huxley and Bishop Wilberforce slanged each belief in God might be derived from autonomous ethics — ex- other. actly the reverse of the medieval claim that ethics is derived A third phase of the retreat is doctrinal. We can put it from God. this way. If the Bible's revelation consists of myths that are The mainstream of theological moralists — Augustine, meaningful for believers but not factual, then the doctrines of Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Hooker, Maritain — have simply the faith are only tenable as metaphors. I recall a young rejected Kant's showing that religious ethics imprisons the minister in a Midwestern city some months ago telling me, moral agent (i.e., us human beings) in a perpetual state of stoutly, that he still believes in God, but only "as a metaphor, childishness or immaturity; they undermine the moral agent of course." Less than a year ago a young theologian publish- ed a book, The Case for Liberal Christianity (Harper and "The historic Christian faith has gone down the Row, 1981), in which he defends calling himself a Christian tube.... Christian doctrines no longer provide the on the basis of halfway believing it. He speaks (now I quote) morality with a believed and therefore effective of "enigmas" or "symbolic forms" and "poetic structures," backup.... A majority of philosophers and not actually true but yet "glimpsing the eternal verities" — so legislators, and ... even many moral theologians, now that "for all its hypocrisy the church is a worthy object of look at ethical analysis and appraisal as something we troubled commitment." Here in a nutshell is the third phase can do without any religious sanctions at all." of the retreat; what we may call the "detheologization" of theology. by keeping him in servitude rather than recognizing him as a To return to the ethics that emerge in the context of free value-chooser and decision maker. Christian belief, last year the Erie County (New York) William James, I am sad to say, waffled. He agreed that Medical Center tried to open a clinical program of in vitro ethics is or can be autonomous — that is, human. But he also fertilization for patients who needed medical assistance with contended that religious beliefs lend our sense of obligation conception and implantation. They had eighty-three applica- greater intensity. In fact, there are no empirical data to show tions. Dr. Lippes, professor of obstetrics and gynecology in this, although some psychologists have thought so, and or- the state university's medical school, was to be director. dinary observation of Christian conduct puts it very much in The bishop of the Catholic diocese condemned it, in spite question. Dostoyevski's famous rhetorical cry, "If there is no of the obvious human benefit, and it was closed out of fear of God anything is permissible" is simply not the case. political reprisal. When asked for his reason the bishop made Those of us who are humanists and/or naturalists can the mistake of giving one; he said that discarded blastocysts find some legitimate satisfaction in what I think of as the are "human beings" and therefore the procedure involves Christian retreat. One phase of it I have already mentioned — murder. He made a mistake, all right, since all conceptuses the admission by non-fundamentalists that ethics is a tub that can be implanted, and in any case far more primitive embryos stands on its own bottom. Another phase is the retreat of are lost in natural conception than in in vitro biblicists who used to rail against science whenever it con- conception. flicted with Scripture — and again I must say "except for the Jerry Falwell, leader of the Moral Majoritarians, was fundamentalists." smarter. Falwell, in a mode typical of religious ethics, con- Coleridge called it a case of "divine ventriloquism" demned the opening of the IVF clinic in Norfolk, Virginia when Matthew Arnold said, "Every verse of the Bible, every (which ignored him). But Falwell was craftier; he gave no word in it, every syllable of it, every letter of it, is the direct reason at all, thus avoiding being discredited. He simply said utterance of the Most High." That literalism made the Bible it was "delving into an area that is far too sacred for human and its expositors fatally vulnerable to Darwinism and only beings to be involved in." This was an objection without a the fundamentalists still dig their heels in. reason; there was simply no way we could take hold of it. In this century, the retreat has been engineered by Karl Here we have a paradigm of religious morality. It is Barth and Rudolf Bultmann — two theologians who set the either mistaken as to the facts, or it takes care to ignore fac- tone. Barth contended that the Bible contains the word of tual data altogether. Like the religious presuppositions it is God not literally but essentially, and believers know it to be based on, it makes moral judgments that are neither verifiable true because they "read it with the eyes of faith, hear it with nor falsifiable. For most people, I am happy to say, that kind the ears of faith." Bultmann urged believers to scrap all of ethics is unethical. •

52 Religion vs. Ethics

Richard Taylor

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment own kind. The current term ethic preserves exactly that mean- by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. ing. And ethos, similarly, meant to the Greeks the customs of — Justice Louis Brandeis people of one's own kind. Ethics, accordingly, meant originally nothing more pretentious than the customary Religion is popularly thought of as both the source and the behavior of this or that culture, and it is inherent in its mean- foundation of ethics. People automatically think of church- ing that it is relative to, and varies with, such cultures. men as moral, and of skeptics as suspect. Actions that In its alliance with religion, however, it is changed into would be treated as crimes if committed by others tend to be something quite different, and the paradoxical result is that regarded as mere lapses when done by a cleric. And the pro- religion then turns out to be, not the foundation of ethics at nouncements of the clergy in matters affecting morality are all, but its actual foe. This is made the more insidious by the likely to be treated, by their audience as well as by themselves, fact that what thus becomes the enemy of ethics, namely, as self-authenticating. A clergyman needs only to proclaim religion, is everywhere mistakenly seen as its ally. And it is some sweeping moral dictum for it to be taken seriously. sad indeed to see decent, conscientious, and well-meaning Actually, religion is neither the source nor the founda- people defending, in the name of religion, what they quite tion of ethics, and it never has been. The role of religion has sincerely take to be the aims and ideals of ethics, when in fact been that of gaining respect, on the part of the multitude, for they are often, unbeknown to themselves, undermining the purely conventional mores of the culture. Religion thus ethics, most effectively. rests upon ethics, rather than ethics upon religion.' This It is this seemingly paradoxical thesis that I shall now il- becomes particularly obvious when we find church leaders lustrate and defend. In doing so it is not my intention to at- abandoning the perfectly clear moral pronouncements of tack religion as such, with which I have no quarrel, but rather their sacred literature — such as humility, poverty, and to put ethics in the proper perspective. We shall then be able pacifism in the case of Christianity — in favor of the op- to see, I hope, how ethics might again be what it originally posites, which have meanwhile emerged as the conventional was, namely, a means of fostering well-being and reducing values. conflict and suffering. Ethics has its source in common human needs, most generally in the needs for safety, freedom from injury, living Convention and Nature in peace, and cooperating in common pursuits. These things are not possible without rules, and the rules are worthless if Let us begin with the idea of convention (nomos) as it was not heeded. Religion, accordingly, is enlisted to secure obe- understood by Greek philosophers and sophists of about the dience to these rules, which become more or less fixed as fourth century B.C. Convention, according to this original custom. Thus what were originally practical rules for achiev- sense, stood for man-made truth and was contrasted with ing important practical ends become, at the hands of clerics, nature (physis), which was the name for the entire body of absolute requirements of ethics, and in order to give them fact that is not man-made and, normally, not alterable by authority the myth is created that they emerged from the will man either. Thus it is a fact of convention that a given man is of a god. Their obvious origin in the practical intelligence of a slave, or a ruler, or a husband, or a warrior, these roles be- fallible human beings thus becomes obscured, and the emo- ing of human origin. But it is a fact of nature that a given per- tions evoked by religion become attached to conventional son is female, or black, or intelligent, and that all persons are ethics. mortal. It is, I think, worth reminding ourselves that the word Now the philosophers of this period took for granted, as ethics comes from the Greek ethnos, meaning people of one's it had always been taken for granted, that the rules of justice

Summer, 1982 53 and morality are merely conventional, or man-made, that fixed and eternal principles of justice, and even supposed that they in fact consist simply of those customary rules and prac- these could be known by reason. His philosopher kings were tices that have evolved with this or that culture. Such was, as the embodiment of that reason, and the laws laid down by we have noted, the very meaning of their word ethos. This them for the governance of the republic were therefore conventionalist conception of ethics was by no means novel to guaranteed to be the true ones. They would not, he thought, the sophists of that period. So far as I know, it had never oc- be the mere expressions of the will of a tyrant or, even worse, curred to any important philosopher prior to Socrates that the expressions of the passions and appetites of the masses, morality could be anything other than conventional, or that which is all a conventional justice could be. They would in- there might be a natural morality or justice.2 stead be the expressions of what is truly just — or, in other Thus Gorgias, the rhetorician, casually noted that if words, what is just by nature. students came to him ignorant of justice then he would teach When the Stoics, the enduring spiritual descendents of it to them, along with the art of persuasion, which was his Socrates, encapsulated their stern and rigid morality into the specialty. To us it sounds either outrageously presumptuous slogan "Live according to nature," they were consolidating or childishly simple-minded that anyone could so blithely pre- the conception of a pure, abstract, and unalterable morality tend to know the principles of justice and injustice, and to enunciated by Socrates. For they meant by nature, not the teach them as one might teach etiquette. But of course to Gorgias it was but the most ordinary common sense. Every educated person knows justice, he assumed — for he was "Moral zealots ... who speak most confidently thinking of justice as being simply the conventional practices and forcefully in the name of morality, deriving of the Athenians with respect to trade and commerce and get- their confidence and force from the support of ting along with each other. religion, are in fact the ultimate enemies of morali- Protagoras, similarly, when asked by Socrates to identify ty." the teachers of justice and morality, replied that everyone is a teacher of these things, that the young learn justice and primitive, but almost the very opposite, namely, that which is morality the same way they learn their native language, by ab- truly good and noble and discoverable by reason. Nature, sorption. Again, he was taking for granted the conventional therefore, was represented by them as true or natural justice character of ethics, while Socrates, inspired by nothing more and goodness, to be contrasted with the kind of man-made than a philosophical love for abstractions, was presupposing justice that is embodied in customs, laws, and traditions. The some natural justice, as invariant as the axioms of geometry. Stoics, who carried this philosophy into the Roman world and It is worth noting that, while Protagoras assumed that the even converted an emperor — Marcus Aurelius — to its prin- rules of justice and morality vary from culture to culture, and ciples, laid the groundwork in Roman culture for the idea of that no such rules are accordingly any more "true" than any natural law in Roman jurisprudence. This was (and still is) others, some are nevertheless better and some worse. This thought of as a kind of law that transcends the laws of the distinction, in turn, was based on the observation that some Caesars and of all fallible men. It comprises the ultimate prin- such rules serve better than others to meet the needs of those ciples of justice, or of right and duty, takes precedence over who live under them. What a pity it is that Protagoras, this every human law or rule of ethics that contravenes it, and is great thinker and author of the dictum that man is the known, in Seneca's words, by "right reason." measure of all things, should be remembered only as the ar- The ground was thus prepared for the amalgamation of chetypal sophist, while Socrates, who did more than anyone Platonic and Stoic absolutism with the dogmatism of the else in philosophy to corrupt that clear and pragmatic vision, young and vigorous church. Ethics was no longer what it had should be idolized as the profoundest and noblest always been assumed to be by the Greeks prior to Socrates philosopher! and the Socratic schools, namely, the body of man-made customs and rules governing the conduct of this or that The Assimilation of Natural Law by the Church culture. It was thought to consist of abstract and invariant principles of justice. The identification of those principles Of course Socrates' metaphysical conception of justice was with the commandments of God seemed so obvious to every slow in gaining a foothold, being at odds with what seemed to church father that it was never even questioned. Morality every educated person the plainest common sense. We even became obedience to law — not, of course, merely to the laws find Aristotle saying that it would be absurd to ascribe justice of human law-givers, which are, after all, conventional (by to the gods. To us this sounds strange indeed, but that is the very definition of the term), but to the laws of God. These because we have, with the help of religion, come to accept the are not conventional, i.e., man-made, nor need they be Socratic conception of a kind of justice that is true, thought of as arbitrary expressions of the divine will. They changeless, and absolute, or what the ancients came to call are, instead, commands to heed what is by the very nature of natural justice or, later, natural law. Aristotle was still think- things right and dutiful. A truly just and moral person thus ing of the conventional justice that governs the exchange of became much more than merely one who has imbibed the goods and commerce generally. customs and usages of his culture. Indeed, it was thought that Plato, of course, who exceeded Socrates in his love for true justice and morality might sometimes require one to abstractions and absolutes, took over the Socratic notion of repudiate those customs and usages. Similarly, immorality

54 and injustice were no longer thought to be the mere violations not our purely human customs and laws, can make any action of custom or convention, which under this view might right, wrong, dutiful, or permitted? God? Nature? Kant's themselves be immoral or unjust. Immorality became sin, or vaunted Reason? Or what? the violation of the principles enunciated by God. What actually happens in contemporary ethical thinking is this. In response to common and sometimes fairly universal Reason and Ethics human needs, certain norms emerge, and with them certain customs and rules, appropriately called ethical. Examples of This idea of natural or absolute justice still persists, of course. such norms are the ideas of human dignity, human rights, the The great figures in the development of jurisprudence, such sanctity of life, and so on. The rules that emerge and are as William Blackstone and John Austin, did not hesitate to transmitted by custom are simply the rules that are thought to identify natural law with the commands of God, i.e., with promote and protect those values. Their human origin and Christian ethics as disclosed in the Bible. It seemed to them their relationship to perfectly human needs and desires are that there must be principles of justice more authoritative quite obvious. than the commands of this or that man, and the commands of In order to secure respect for these norms and rules, God expressed in Scripture seemed the obvious source of however, they come to be represented as having a higher them. But, more significant, people still think of morality in source. The church represents them as having a divine source, these terms. Even enlightened philosophers, whose thinking and philosophers speak of their somehow being grounded in rests upon no religious presuppositions whatsoever, still use "nature" or, which is really the same thing, in reason. such notions as duty and justice and right as if they could be That step having been taken, however, the norms come to be expressed in absolute principles, or as if there were certain looked upon as absolute, and the rules of ethics as moral principles of justice or morality that are not mere human con- laws, that is, laws that admit of no exceptions. And, at ventions. The assumption among philosophers is that those precisely that point, religion, and dogmatic philosophy as principles are discoverable, not through faith, but through well, become the enemies of ethics, by robbing of its real and reason.3 conventional foundation. Natural and conventional morality Immanuel Kant no doubt stands as the model of such have never harmonized — something that was perfectly ob- thought. Duty, he insisted, does consist of obedience to com- vious to the sophists, who were aware of the distinction, with mand — exactly as taught by the church. But, he claimed, the exception of Socrates. When, accordingly, conventional these commands do not come from God or from the will of ethics is elevated to a kind of natural ethics, as is everywhere any king or other merely human being. They are enunciated, done by the church, then it comes to be at war with itself. And he said, by reason. Thus did Kant unite the two extremely that is the basis of the claim I made at the outset, namely, that diverse and seemingly incompatible traditions of ethics into religion, far from being the source and foundation of ethics, one simple system. Morality, he claimed, must rest upon is actually its foe. reason — the presupposition of virtually all of Western philosophy after Socrates. And it must also, he claimed, con- The Forms of Conventionalism sist of obedience to command — the presupposition of religion. At the same time he was able to avoid the conven- Now I am going to illustrate these remarks by concentrating tionalism of the ancients by denying that such commands more closely on conventional morality and the ways that it issue from human rulers, and the fideism of the church by de- finds expression in contemporary life. It will be seen, I think, nying that they issue from God. Reason, in Kant's system, that the effects of conventional morality are baneful and took the place of both the divine and the human king in destructive to precisely the degree that it becomes absorbed becoming the source of morality. into the absolutism either of dogmatic philosophy or of religion, which must by its very nature be dogmatic when it Ethical Absolutism Today addresses itself to matters of ethics. There are, I think, three kinds of conventional moralists, which I shall call (1) Western culture seems incapable of shaking off these ideas, the moral conservative, (2) the moral pedant, and (3) the especially, as in our own culture, where conventional values zealot. Some persons manage to be all three. Indeed, each of are treated with deadly seriousness. We suppose that there are these classifications tends to include those above it, so that, such things as human rights. We suppose that they exist by for instance, zealots are usually pedants and conservatives as nature and are quite independent of those conferred by law, well; but the three are nevertheless easily distinguishable. that is, by convention. We imagine that those rights are The conservative. The moral conservative is relatively possessed by persons in totally different cultures living under harmless, his chief faults being that he is boring, completely different laws. They must, therefore, not be con- unimaginative, dull, and self-satisfied. What distinguishes ferred by human laws. Then by what? By God? Or by nature? this person is that he takes all the rules of conventional Or by reason? Or what? morality, which are numerous, and mindlessly treats them as Similarly, we imagine that some things are by their very fixed principles. Thus he is as fastidious about his dress, nature morally right, others wrong, and that our positive laws speech, and manners as he is about, for example, the and purely human customs are simply the imperfect formula- avoidance of cruelty — or indeed even more so, since devia- tions of those higher moral rights and wrongs. But what, if tions in matters of dress, speech, and manners are perhaps

Summer, 1982 55 less customary than departing from the rule of kindness. Such kind of conventionalist, the zealot, who almost always aligns a person, for example, while he might never be found in himself with religion and, protected by this impenetrable church without a necktie, or might never utter an obscenity, is shield, spreads nothing but misery everywhere he goes, likely to feel no pangs of conscience in drowning unwanted always, paradoxically, in the name of morality itself. kittens or eating veal that he knows has been produced at the What distinguishes the zealot is that, unlike the moral expense of great suffering on the part of the calf. conservative, his moral principles need not be numerous, and A moral conservative, therefore, is distinguished by the he differs from the mere pedant in that he does not just sheer numerousness of his rules, which, being so numerous, enslave himself to some fixed principle but tries to enslave tend also to be petty. The path they mark is a straight and everyone else to it too. The conservative, we noted, walks a narrow one indeed, and is commonly described in just those very straight and narrow path, bounded by his innumerable words. Its straight and narrow character is seen by the moral moral principles. But he doesn't try to force everyone onto conservative as its great beauty and comfort, that comfort that path; so, while he is an unimaginative bore, he is a arising from the fact that anyone following this path, hedged relatively harmless one. And the pedant, we noted, anguishes at every step by numerous rules of morality, can actually feel over his moral choices, being incapable of treating his moral himself to be utterly and incontestably moral. And his principles as mere rules of thumb to be discarded as condi- behavior is also, of course, quite predictable, and predictably tions may require; but he doesn't treat those principles as safe. Such people, however, resemble nothing quite so much unexceptional for other people as well. The zealot, however, as clockwork, and the true pity is that, their lives being quite declares, with perfect logic, that if something is morally safe and, as is correctly said, "beyond reproach," these peo- wrong, then it is always such, under all circumstances, and ple are very numerous. hence wrong for everyone. The pedant. The second type of conventionalist, whom I It is in this that the zealot finds his natural support in in- have labeled the moral pedant, is distinguished, not by the stitutionalized religion; for religion, too, enunciates rules of multiplicity of his rules, but by his inflexibility with respect to morality as fixed principles, pretending that they are ground- just one or a few of them. He will, for example, agonize ed in an authoritative and infallible source, and declares them about the morality of some harmless lie, split hairs to con- to be, therefore, applicable to all. Examples of such zealotry vince himself that his infidelity is not really adultery, or, if a are easy to find, but what is particularly striking about some vegetarian, he will tax his brain over the morality of eating of them is their perfectly obvious source in human needs and eggs or fish. The clearest examples of moral pedantry lately purposes — obvious, that is, to everyone except the zealot have been the discussions emerging from what is pretentiously himself — and the representation of them as being just the called "bio-ethics." Here fine distinctions are sought, and the opposite. desired "moral principles" secured, with respect to such con- The causes promoted by zealots change from one age to cepts as "human," "living," "person," and so on. another, and sometimes appear unbelievably silly in This bizarre phenomenon of moral pedantry is quite ob- retrospect. One fairly recent such cause, for example, was viously the misbegotten offspring of religious morality, on sobriety, misleadingly called temperance. It originally arose the one hand, with its emphasis on inflexible rule, and the from the obvious evils of alcohol on the American frontier. necessity of taking into account obvious human needs and Protestant churches, however, converted the practical goal of purposes, which is the real basis of all conventional ethics, on moderation in the use of spirits to an absolute prohibition, the other. The aim of moral pedantry is to make some accom- and even succeeded in making this, for awhile, the law of the modation for those human needs and purposes without ap- land, not just for themselves but for everyone. And this in pearing to abandon a fixed rule or moral principle. Thus, to spite of the fact that the first miracle of Jesus recorded in cite a very common example, it is often thought necessary or Scripture was the conversion of water to wine! desirable to somehow "justify" performing an abortion in Moral zealotry is always an evil and a danger, however, the face of the norm that human life is somehow "sacred" even in the pursuit of what is essentially silly, as in the exam- and of the rule that prohibits its wanton destruction. The ple just given. Zealots are always at war with genuine ethics, moral pedant addresses himself to this by appearing to and for this reason: the human needs and purposes upon preserve the norm and the rule — perhaps by appeal to some which ethics and morality must necessarily rest, and have higher norm or, more commonly, by drawing metaphysical always rested, are in fact defeated by zealotry. It is paradox- distinctions that will enable him to pronounce the act itself, of ical indeed that the very voices that are most shrill and un- aborting a fetus, as morally permissible. To many — I think compromising in the name of morality are voices belonging to to most — persons it seems quite natural to drift into this pat- the most dangerous enemies of morality. It is as if, in the tern of thinking when addressing themselves to certain ques- name of God, one were to promote the worship of Satan, or tions that are by tradition deemed "ethical" questions. They under the banner of the sanctity of life attempt to destroy the fail to see that the "moral dilemma," as they like to call it, world, or in the professed quest for sobriety undertake to simply arises from a felt need to heed a rule in order to protect create a universal intoxication. certain human needs (which is the source of the rule in the The forces of zealotry today are concentrated on such first place), together with a felt need to violate it for precisely issues as abortion, saying prayers in school, and denigrating the same reason. biological science. Some of these issues do of course have a Moral zealotry. And finally, let us consider the third source in actual human needs. Indeed they all do, one way or

' 56 ! another, else they never would have come to be thought of as their confidence and force from the support of religion, are in moral. Thus the intense feelings about abortion are in part, at fact the ultimate enemies of morality — not simply because least, related to the moral rule forbidding homicide as well as we may happen to dislike what they want to promote, but for to conventional rules concerning sexual intimacy. And those a deeper reason. Morality rests upon human needs. It exists in rules are based upon obvious human needs. Even the fury order that those needs may be met, or at least not needlessly that arises over school prayer has its source in human need. frustrated. Cultures have, in their gradual creation of custom School prayer is perceived as strengthening institutionalized and law, thereby created ethics, and for no other reason. And religion, and that, in turn, is seen as a protector of conven- religions have traditionally been enlisted to support such tional ethics. It has even been claimed, in the halls of Con- purely conventional ethics in order to gain the obedience that gress, that numberless evils, including poverty and war, is obviously essential if ethics is to function at all in its promo- would disappear if we but forced our children to say prayers tion of these human values. It is therefore not merely in school! paradoxical, but unspeakably sad, when perfectly well- meaning and conscientious persons, speaking in the name of The Incompatibility of Religion and Ethics morality, become in fact the voices of immorality. They im- agine that ethics has some other source, usually represented as When any issue comes to be treated as having but one solu- "higher," and then, in the name of that source, unwittingly tion, as a matter of fixed and inflexible principle, then work to destroy what is the real basis of ethics. religion, which is invoked to support the inflexibility of such Notes principle, becomes the enemy of ethics. For a principle that does not admit of exception will still be permitted no excep- 1. The word religion in this discussion refers to institutionalized religion, and especially the popular teachings of the church. I am not using it to refer tion when its application defeats the human needs and pur- to the religious reflections of a Buddha or a Spinoza. poses which constitute the real foundation of ethics. Logical- 2. The word natural is used in this discussion in its original sense, to refer ly, it is as simple as that. The attempt to apply unexcep- to what is the same everywhere, in contrast to the man-made, or conven- tionable rules to such matters as abortion, the relations of the tional. It is not used here in contrast to supernatural. sexes, and various alleged human rights, provide examples. 3. 1 use the word reason in this discussion in its philosophical sense, as something contrasted to sense and observation. It is therefore not used in its Paradoxically, then, we find that those who speak most popular sense of what is based upon experimental science or what can be confidently and forcefully in the name of morality, deriving known empirically. •

Ethics without Religion

Kai Nielsen

In his Letter Concerning Toleration John Locke remarked: totally alien. David Gauthier, commenting on this passage "Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a from Locke, remarks: God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking The supposition that moral conventions depend on religious belief has become alien to our way of thinking. Modern moral away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all." philosophers do not meet it with vigorous denials or refuta- When we read this now we feel the cultural distance between tions; usually they ignore it. If the dependence of moral con- ourselves and the seventeenth century. Even such a pro- ventions on religious belief was necessary for Locke, it is gressive and reasonable thinker as Locke is, in this respect, at almost inconceivable to us. a very great distance from us. There are undercurrents of this kind of Neanderthal thinking in North America — indeed, at Is this just a shift in the Weltgeist or does it have rhyme or present, very vocal and powerful such undercurrents — but reason? Does the taking away of God or the thought of God among the intelligentsia, both religious and nonreligious, it is — the sincere belief in His existence — dissolve all, as Locke

Summer, 1982 57 thought? If it does that would indeed, to understate the mat- shown that such exploitation would not be wrong and that ter, make belief in God central to any acceptance of morality. such tolerance would not be good even if the atheist were But is there a morality where belief in God has a central right and God did not exist. place? If the stance of the religious apologist is to be made out, Suppose we try to say that it is God's commanding or or- he must give us some reasonable grounds for believing that in daining something that makes something good. Without His a world without God nothing could be good or bad or right or ordaining it, it is claimed, it could not correctly be said to be wrong. If there is no reason to believe that torturing little good. There is no goodness without the commandments of children would cease to be bad in a Godless world, we have no God. Indeed, it is the very reality of its being commanded by reason to believe that, in any important sense, morality is God that constitutes its goodness. dependent on religion. But God or no God, religion or no However, this plainly could not be true, because even in religion, it is still wrong to inflict pain on helpless infants a Godless world kindness still would be a good thing and the when inflicting pain on them is without any rational point. torturing of little children would still be vile. Even if we do John Locke, whatever anxieties he may have felt about believe in God, we still would recognize, if we will reflect on Thomas Hobbes' anthropocentric viewpoint, is mistaken; the the matter and if we have any moral understanding at all, that taking away of God does not dissolve all. such acts are wrong and that kindness and decency are good. Moreover, It is a dream of an otherworldly spirit-seer to Reflective people who believe in God and have an ordinary think that a theory of morality can be constituted and ra- pre-theoretical understanding of morality will come to tionally defended in which we have a system of moral laws recognize, if the matter is put to them forcefully, that even if and precepts, binding upon all rational creatures, with a form there were no God, torturing people just for the fun of it still and a content that all normal humans — if only they will would be intolerable. Moreover, the religious believer study it closely — will acknowledge is simply required by himself, if he carefully reflects, will appreciate that, even if reason. A secular morality need not and should not seek to that in which he places his trust and on which he sets his heart ground itself in such a pale imitation of the old religious did not exist, keeping faith with his friends would still be a moralities. With the death of God, we should not, seeking a good thing and caring for his children would still be substitute, make a God of a reified conception of Reason. something that he ought to do. Neither can we get nor do we need such systems of general So the goodness or badness, the moral appropriateness principles and truths as ethical rationalism tenders. We do not or inappropriateness of these acts cannot be constituted by need, and indeed cannot have, such an appeal to pure prac- their being commanded by God or ordained by God. Certain tical reason to back up morality or to reconstitute something moral realities would remain just as intact in a Godless world of a lost shared morality. Our social world would have to as in a world with God. rather extensively change for a shared morality to extend To the old conundrum, "Is something commanded by beyond a few moral truisms — truisms that it could God because it is good or is it good because God commands nonetheless be worthwhile to assert in certain social contexts. it?" it should be responded that whatever way the religious To make sense of our moral lives, we do not need to try moralist goes here he is in trouble. On the one hand, that God to make reason, divorced from sentiment and an appeal to commands something doesn't ipso facto make it good. We our considered judgments in wide reflective equilibrium, can come to appreciate this if we examine reasonably closely authoritative for morality. If we are informed about our our own considered convictions. If God, just like that, com- social world — if we have some sense of who we are, how we mands us to starve our children, that doesn't, just because got to be who we are, and some reasonable understanding of God so commanded it, make it morally tolerable, let alone the options for our collective future — and if we are cool- good. On the other hand, if God commands something headed and exercise our capacity for impartial reflection, we because it is good, then plainly its goodness stands in logical can trust our moral sentiments perfectly well in the absence of and moral independence of God. such grandiose normative ethical theories. None of us are Have I not missed, in arguing as I have, the perfectly evi- quite such paragons of reflective intelligence as was described dent consideration that if the God of Judeo-Christianity ex- above, but we can, in varying degrees, approximate that con- ists then everything is dependent on Him? He created the dition. We need neither God nor moral theory to make sense world and everything in it. Moral realities, like everything of our lives. We can have a sensible morality without moral else, are dependent on Him. philosophy. That the making sense of our lives eludes so God, let us for the moment assume, did create the world, many of us is not because God is dead and we are without but He could not — logically could not — create moral systematic ethical theory of the Kant/Sidgwick variety. Our values. Existence is one thing; value another. And it is no con- malaise has to do not with that, but with the conditions of our travention of God's omnipotence to point out that He cannot lives as social beings: it essentially has to do with the kind of do what is logically impossible. Moreover, to try to counter society in which we live. Our condition is such that, except for by asserting that nothing would be good or bad, right or a lucky few of us, no sober education is available to us and wrong, if nothing existed, is not to deny that we can come to the lives of the great masses of people are lives which are very understand, without reference to God, that it is wrong to ex- bleak indeed and, to add to the horror of it, unnecessarily so. ploit people in underdeveloped countries and that religious That nostrums abound in such circumstances is hardly sur- tolerance is a good thing. The religious moralist has not prising.

58 How Are Ethics Related to Religion?

Paul Beattie

Many people believe, even some who are not religious believe, This idea that religion is crucial for civil order is not only that religion is somehow the source and the motive power of common among politicians, the Moral Majority, and their morality. According to their line of reasoning, if religion is conservative friends — it is also held by large numbers of excluded from the public sector, chaos and immorality will churchmen, especially in the mainline denominations. follow! Many treat this assumption as a truism even when Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, especially the they themselves are not guided by religious principles. This more liberal in these groups, have drifted away from argument was essentially that of Edmund Burke at the time of theological belief and toward individual and social ethics as the French Revolution and of many conservatives since. the central affirmation of religion. This tendency has been Burke believed that the dethronement of religion and the en- observed in Unitarian Universalist circles and is the central thronement of the Goddess of Reason was one of the causes idea of Ethical Culture. All of these groups (at least the of the bloodbath that so quickly developed from revolu- leadership) assume that religious groups must provide society tionary ardor. This same fear, that without religion society with a moral or ethical perspective. This perspective is shared will plunge into anarchy, was held by Dostoyevski, who has by the Roman Catholic pontiff and is part of Roman doc- one of his characters say: "If there is no God then everything trine. It was also held by such obnoxious people as Martin is permitted." If there is no God, if there is no religion, all Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, and some of the most order, all moral standards fall! This fear is what the deist bloodthirsty of the Old Testament prophets — all of whom Voltaire had in mind when he said that, if God did not exist, were unable to conceive of a society that is not directed by a someone would have to invent him. Many intellectuals have religiously inspired and motivated morality. assumed that, even if it is not true, religion is essential for There is a sense in which all of those who take this view social order. are reactionary. For the unique development since the 1500s I wonder how many people will be able to guess which in the Western world, one which has made our civilization great American said: "Let us with caution indulge the sup- different from and, in my view, superior to others, has been position that morality can be maintained without religion. the extent of its secularization, which in part means the Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined educa- separation of church and state. Most people do not realize it, tion on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience but when the American Constitution was written, the first both forbid us to expect that morality can prevail in the exclu- truly pluralistic and secular society in all of history was sion of religious principle." I like the reference to "minds of begun. Only 18 percent of the American population at that peculiar structure" — some minds, those of religious liberals time held church membership, and the vast majority of the and humanists, may not need religion to be moral, but most Founding Fathers were deists. The Constitution itself did not do. Was the statement that "reason and experience both for- even mention God! For the first time in Western history a bid us to expect that morality can prevail in exclusion of society was going to function without any established religious principle" just a political statement or one of religious sanction. All along the way religion has been crying: belief? I think the speaker believed it. He himself was a deist. Stop! Let religion guide society. Don't loan money at interest, He did not often go to church. When he did, he went because that is usury, that is sinful. Don't look through telescopes and public office seemed to require it, and then, as he stated microscopes, that is subversive of the Christian view of man rather whimsically, he went to the Presbyterian church in the and the world. Don't dissect human bodies to understand morning and the "Romish" (Episcopal) one in the afternoon. their functions and impairments caused by illness; don't allow I am referring to our first president, George Washington. people to read the Bible in their native tongue; don't study While he kept a tenuous connection with traditional Chris- and enjoy human sexuality ... don't, don't don't! In the tianity, he was undoubtedly a rationalist in religion — that is religiously dominated mind the fear is always that reason and what Deism was, a rational religious perspective. Yet knowledge cannot provide adequate guidelines for human Washington thought of religion as necessary for morality. development. Yet most of the time these fearful religious cen-

Summer, 1982 59 sors have had very little that is positive to offer society, and so said, "By this men will know that you are my disciples, that progress (intellectual or material) is often made despite them ye love one another," or when the Bible proclaims, "Greater rather than because of them. A good case can be made that love hath no man than that he give up his life for another," much of the concern expressed by religion on moral issues is such statements are not creating morality, they are echoing simply its way of maintaining control and prolonging its own our mammalian inheritance. cultic existence. In effect, religion in the West has always said Far greater danger accrues to society when parenting pat- to people: Go out and live in the world, enjoy — so long as terns are disturbed than when prayer or Bible reading are you realize that what you are doing is not ultimate. We repre- removed from public schools. We are not only mammals; we sent ultimate commitments; so, when you are tired, bored, or are unique mammals, and some of our animal inheritance has fearful, come back to us and we will let you share a little, at been refined in an amazing way. I refer to the family, a se- least, in the ultimate reality — "the ground of being" that is cond source for morality. Quite early our ancestors became available only through our unique franchise. The fear, the bipedal and also probably pair-bonded; thus the nuclear superstition that society cannot be decent, morally sound, if family was born. Bipedal behavior probably developed as a it is not tied to religion, is terribly strong, deeply woven into means for carrying food back to a home base and pair- the tapestry of Western culture and perhaps even into that of bonding as a way of feeding just one's own offspring. The human civilization. nuclear family, more than any religion or religious cult, is the I want to examine the claim that religion is the source source of much of our ethical behavior. Even before our and motive power of morality. From a historical perspective ancestors were fully human, they had developed family units; it is apparent that there have been periods in human history only later did religion inveigh against adultery and divorce! when very creative societies have developed along secular The reason for pair bonding and living in families is not that lines. One thinks of ancient Greece, Confucianist China, an- religion demands it, but that most people find it the best way cient Rome, and Japan; while these societies sought solace to live. Doubtless, once injunctions against divorce are for- from various religions, religion itself does not seem to have mulated in religious terms and enhanced with divine threats, been a central cultural dynamic. All had state cults, but these they may reinforce a useful social pattern; but they also im- pale rites and rituals did not try to prophetically direct pede the gradual evolution of that social form. Thus for so government or society as have Judaism, Christianity, and many years divorce laws were quite irrational and unfair in Islam. These secular societies were above average in their most of the Western world. creativity and achievements and established, relatively speak- In addition to biology and the nuclear family, there is ing, good social moral order. From a slightly different social custom as a source for morality. We know that some historical perspective it is apparent that much of the time animals follow social patterns akin to our own: they defend religion adopts the moral codes of its surrounding society territory; they develop a social hierarchy in which those at the rather than creating a new morality. The God that Moses im- top often look out for the best interests of those at the bot- agined he represented did not initiate the Ten Command- tom; even altruistic behavior among animals can be observed. ments; they were a distillation of social norms that had Before our ancestors were human, they had social customs! developed in the Fertile Crescent over a 3,000-year period. Religion came later and was a rationalization for what existed They are a pale reflection of the earlier and much more exten- and seldom a guide to what might be. Interestingly enough, sive code of Hammurabi, who also claimed to have received religious ideas have not transcended cultural boundaries the his code from a God. (No doubt both Moses and Hammurabi way new technologies such as writing have. We borrow a believed, as did their people, that religion was the source and boat, a bow and arrow, or the use of iron from a tribe that motive power of morality, but to us it does not seem so.) has a religion different from our own much sooner than we When Yahweh demanded circumcision for his chosen people borrow their religious ideas. Our mammalian biology, pair- as a distinctive sign of their Jewishness, he was simply bonding, the nuclear family, and social custom far better ac- mimicking what the Hebrews had learned in Egypt, for cir- count for morality and the force it exerts than does religion. cumcision was an ancient Egyptian custom that had made the What is more, religion, once it formalizes moral structures, Hebrews feel inferior. often inhibits their further evolution. Thus moral philosophy While we will probably never be able to entirely or ethics (the science of choosing the good) often has been reconstruct the origins of morality, we are beginning to see hindered by religious belief, just as science and technology how it arose and how much more complicated was its have often been inhibited by religious dogmatism. development than the founding of religious cults. Every day Although many people still need the support of tradi- we are more knowledgeable about human evolution, and we tional religion, this need not preclude the development of a can reconstruct a very plausible picture of how morality arose civilization based in a widely shared philosophical stoicism, and of what its sources were. Let me suggest three sources. especially if humanitarian studies, social planning, family First, there is our biology. The nurturing of infants and the planning, and eugenic measures help us to build a slightly bet- long-term care given to a child by human parents is a central ter society with each generation. Furthermore, there is no basis for morality. It is not what we consciously teach our evidence that the disestablishment of religion need rob the in- children but their modeling upon parental behavior (our dividual of religious sustenance. Religion in America has been mammalian warmth, physical closeness, and play patterns) more successful and more widely shared than in Europe that provides the prototypic human relationship. When Jesus because of separation of church and state. Competition, self-

60 reliance, and participation in religion have been increased, ply the scientific method to moral choice and behavior. not hindered, by disestablishement. What we must do, then, The thinker who, more than any other, has presented the is all we can to maintain our pluralistic, secular society in most effective way around traditional morality is John which every person has a right to practice his or her religion Dewey. He believed that moral or ethical decisions are situa- but not to impose their views on others. We can have both tional. In making a moral choice, the best one can do is apply separation of church and state and religious solace for in- human intelligence, consider as many of the factors and im- dividuals who desire it by maintaining our unique tradition of plications as possible, and then act. Dewey put his "faith in pluralism and secularism. We must realize that accomplishing the power of intelligence to imagine a future which is a pro- this goal will not be easy, because those who wish to legislate jection of the desirable in the present, and to invent the in- their religious beliefs into public life are convinced that strumentalities of its realization." religion is the only source for morality. However, to date American history has shown that a majority of Americans do not want priests, ministers, and rabbis running their lives. "Religion, once it formalizes moral structures, Since the Declaration of Independence there has been what often inhibits their further evolution.... Ethics might be called a civic religion in America. Democracy and a patriotism committed to the American experiment in govern- often has been hindered by religious belief.... A ment of the people provide a mythos capable of inspiring democratic, pluralistic secular society needs a men and women to duty, even at times to heroism and self- good-humored spirit of acceptance of difference sacrifice. Thus, while we are all members of different chur- and a reasonableness that gladly leans toward ac- ches or of no church, a large majority of Americans are commodation when possible." patriotic in a good sense and feel some loyalty and sense of duty to their country. Such a civic religion need not stand in the way of a person's commitment to the religion of humanity or to a feeling on behalf of world citizenship. More recently, Joseph Fletcher has given us a popular While religion is not the source and motive power of version of this perspective in his book Situation Ethics and is morality, it is surely a comfort and help to many people. now writing a major treatise on the subject. Situationalism Recognizing this to be the case, let us occasionally give a pass- represents the best hope for an ethics applicable to the ing nod to the convictions of others, just as Voltaire once modern world. It represents a conscious reenactment in acknowledged the passage of a crucifix being carried in a decisive moments of the same sort of process every organism street procession. experiences in relation to its environment during the continu- A democratic, pluralistic, secular society needs a good- ing process of life, of change, of evolution. humored spirit of acceptance of difference and a The complexity involved in any situational decision is reasonableness that gladly leans toward accommodation astonishing! Constitutional factors, whether biological or when possible. When intellectuals go out of their way to genetic, past and present environmental factors, conscious spurn on every occasion both traditional and civil religion, and unconscious personality pulls, social expectations, they undermine the common good. The deist Benjamin cultural traditions, the different needs of the various in- Franklin used to contribute to preachers with whom he did dividuals involved, long and short term consequences, and not agree if he thought their plans for good works were of many other factors may all play a part in any situational value. Goodwill and a generous tolerance for and accom- equation. While such a configuration of factors seems almost modation toward religious views different from our own can overwhelming in its complexity, a more appropriate or useful have positive social results. Of course this accommodation ethical stance than situationalism is hard to find. In practice, ought to be reciprocal — and it sometimes is. When the of course, one always acts without being able to be certain Methodist Father Taylor was told that Ralph Waldo Emerson that one's ethical decision is the right one. More important, was going to hell, he replied that if Emerson went to hell he most decisions will not be between good and evil but between would be apt to change the climate there and turn migration the lesser of two evils or the greater of two goods. As a result, in that direction. The farther we walk into the modern age situational ethics does not offer the supposed guarantees of with tolerance, with our knowledge of human origins increas- traditional morality. It is neither omniscient enough to be ab- ing along with our scientific and technological skills, the solutely certain in each case of the consequences of one's acts, greater will be the possibility for improving the chances of nor can it generate the moral fervor that often accompanies human survival and of increasing human freedom and our traditional morality. This lack of fervor is good, because human potential. religious fervor tends to produce self-righteous, rigid Ultimately, the path to a brighter human future requires moralism. Situationalism is also an ethical system that is transcending our present moral structures, which can only especially compatible with democracy, because the happen if the pluralistic, secular, democratic society America democratic process attempts to make decisions by considering has pioneered is allowed to continue. When humanists say the relevant data shared by a community on a particular ques- ethics are autonomous, they are engaging in a new order of tion. In this sense, democratic situationalism is an analogue ethical dialogue that transcends past moral patterns of of the evolutionary process that functions continuously in all thought. The new morality is "new" in that it attempts to ap- life forms. •

Summer, 1982 61 Part Four SCIENCE AND RELIGION

MICHAEL NOVAK, Catholic theologian and philosopher, JOSEPH BLAU is professor emeritus of religion at Colum- is a resident scholar in religion and public policy at the bia University. His books include Men and Movements in American Enterprise Institute. His most recent book is The American Philosophy and Cornerstones of Religious Spirit of Democratic Capitalism. Freedom in America.

Panel discussion

Antony Flew at reception Michael Novak and Joseph Blau

James ("The Amazing Randi") Randi performing "psychic surgery"

62 VaGG

Science, Religion, and the New Class

Michael Novak

It seems odd to be still talking about science and religion in answers. Even scientists asking such questions (as many often 1982 as though there were some novelty in their conjunction. do) are usually aware of drawing upon a habit of mind Yet our nature as human beings is constantly illuminated by quite different from the one that they apply in their strictly the continuing perplexities of these two distinctive habits of scientific work. thought. The religious habit of thought, furthermore, is more I use this expression "habits of thought," Aristotelian as closely linked to action — to action concerning the way one it is, because it suggests that the person of science is not only lives one's daily life — than is the scientific habit of thought. using a method, scientific method, but also activating in Indeed, this dimension of the religious habit affords the ra- himself a certain way of looking at the world, and also tionale by which some religious persons deny that religion is nourishing those attitudes — of alertness and honesty, primarily a habit of thought at all. Such persons would prefer detachment and inquisitiveness — without which the method to define religion as a habit of will, decision, or commitment. by itself would be worse than useless. When any of us acts as "I would rather practice compunction than know how to a scientist, as often in the nature of many of our professions define it," writes the author of The Imitation of Christ. "Not we necessarily do, we are aware, or can become aware, of tak- by dialects are we saved," writes St. Augustine. Nonetheless, ing some pains with our own affections, predilections, and no religious person can fairly deny that the habit of religion purposes. We do so in order to address the data fairly — and, as we say, "objectively" — with the appropriate intellectual operations. When we do this successfully, we can expect that "The new class of college-trained professionals is any other person, similarly holding under guard his own quite creating special problems both for the scientific and different affections, predilections, and purposes, would come for the religious habit of thought. The conflicts bet- to an identical conclusion. The scientific habit of mind aims ween religion and science that we are currently ex- at the replicability of intellectual operations. The idiosyn- periencing are not quite like those of the crasies of the individual person should matter not at all; any past ... they are new conflicts with the new and all persons should be able to verify the same conclusions. Religion, too, is perhaps best understood as a habit of cultural sensibility of the new class." thought, although in a larger and finally more active sense. The religious habit of thought is larger than the scientific involves a way of seeing, a way of looking at the human habit of thought. For one thing, it takes up questions that are prospect, a system of perception and connection. Even those neither scientific in form nor amenable to scientific investiga- who wish to de-emphasize the merely academic, notional, and tion. Who am I? Who are we, we human beings, and what is conceptual aspects of thought must recognize that religion our destiny? What may we hope for? What ought we to do? always has something to do with learning how to see, with Are the intimations we sometimes experience of being in the study (like Bible study), with reflection, and with discipline of presence of God to be trusted? How are we related to God? the mind, the emotions, and the fantasy. Without such These are the type of questions that human beings in all reliance upon reason, the entire panoply of traditional cultures and at all times have felt obliged to ask. From a religious practices like the study of Scripture, preaching, scientific point of view, however, it is legitimate enough to teaching, meditation, reflection, contemplation, and the rest say that these are nonquestions; they are questions to which would have no point. While the religious habit of thought is the methods of science, although they may shed some light on always aimed at changing the thinker's way of daily living, as some relevant matters, are not designed to afford scientific the scientific habit of thought is not, it remains a habit of

Summer, 1982 63 thought. (Still, we should note, more than we usually do, that enterprise of science, are tone deaf to religion. They have even the scientist as scientist practices a certain change of life, never heard a sermon they admired; traditional rituals leave a disciplined mental preparation, and an ascetic ritual as he them uncomfortable, if not angry; and pious utterances readies himself for dispassionate inquiry.) scrape their minds like fingernails upon a blackboard. Some religious persons will disagree with me in em- Moreover, a person highly educated in religious disciplines phasizing as much as I do the intellectual component of the may have an infantile grasp of scientific habit, just as a per- religious life, the fact that the religious habit is a habit of son highly sophisticated in scientific habits may still remain at thought as well as of action. Those in the Catholic and Jewish an infantile level of religious sensibility. For such a person, traditions will perhaps more quickly nod in agreement, as well religion may seem to be reducible to primitive responses of as many in some of the classical Protestant traditions. Others, fear, want, and projection. Within each person, in short, of more charismatic, passional, evangelical, and fundamen- there may be considerable conflict between personality talist traditions, may well be worried that I have gone too far developments nourished by science and those nourished by in intellectualizing religion. With the latter, I do agree that the religion. religious habit of thought is measured for its authenticity This point should not surprise us. Not all religious per- both according to how one lives and according to how ac- sons have a highly developed aesthetic sense, nor do all scien- curately one understands. The learned monk who tists. It is not common for human beings to be equally highly understands orthodoxy thoroughly, while living a dissolute developed in aesthetics, athletics, ethics, science, religion, life, betrays the religious habit of thought. (A scientist politics, and commerce. Most of us are underdeveloped in vigorous in his work but dissolute in his private life does not, many respects. Popular stereotypes of the mad scientist and in the same way, betray the scientific habit of thought. In this the pious hypocrite, the heartless businessman and the bumb- the two habits are not alike.) On the other hand, religious per- ling professor, suggest how difficult full human integration is sons who value orthodoxy can scarcely hold that correct for every one of us. understanding is irrelevant to the religous habit of thought. On the other hand, generations of experience would by We are therefore driven to the conclusion that both science now appear to have demonstrated conclusively that multi- and religion are habits of thought, although of different tudes of individuals have been able to integrate into their own sorts. lives both highly developed scientific and highly developed At this point, I would like to introduce a further distinc- religious habits of mind. Among Nobel Prize winners in tion. Habits of thought have three quite different subjects: science are many religious persons; in nearly all religious com- they exist in the person, in institutions, and in the cultural munities one finds outstanding scientists. milieu. Consider science. It is clear enough that the scientific The rather more acute conflict occurs, or used to occur, habit of thought is rooted, first of all, in the person of in- between the institutions of science and those of religion. dividual scientists. Habits are settled dispositions of the in- However well individuals, even from the beginning, may have dividual person; a person, through years of hard study, ac- succeeded in integrating bath their scientific and their quires the requisite skills. On the other hand, a scientist religious habits of mind, many generations of persons in deprived of the institutions of science — of scientific papers, Western history experienced a severe institutional conflict laboratories, institutes, scientific societies, disciplinary between science and religion. During many centuries, specialties, colleagues, and sources of funding — is much religious institutions towered as the dominant institutions of diminished in his capacities. (Imagine Sakharov, the intellect, symbol, and story; more than others, these institu- physicist, in lonely exile in Gorky.) Furthermore, a scientist tions established the prevailing sense of reality, world-view, living in a culture that comes to despise science, or to hold it and sense of priorities. Within universities, as well as in com- as an enemy, or to mock its disciplines and its asceticism, is petition for the resources of the state, the newer institutions badly starred. Hemmed in by prejudice and hostility, such a of the budding scientific community had to struggle mightily forlorn scientist may personally and institutionally keep the against the far more entrenched institutions of the religious scientific habit of thought alive. But he will scarcely be insen- community. Scars of these institutional struggles remain to sible to the difference between science as a habit of thought this day. Memories are sometimes rubbed raw in departments welcome within the common culture and science as a habit of of philosophy, whose members discover that philosophy thought foreign to or rejected by the culture in which it books are stocked in the bookstore with books on religion. dwells. Some experience this as a historical outrage. In a similar way, religion as a habit of thought may be The contemporary college bookstore, however, is the said to have three locations: in the person, in institutions, and scene of a still greater outrage, at least as it is experienced by in cultures. The point of this distinction is that conflicts bet- some. Next to books on "physics" may come far larger, and ween science and religion occur at each of these three loca- more popular, shelves on "metaphysics, the occult, tions. Within each individual person, conflicts may arise bet- astrology." Thus we arrive at the third subject of the religious ween two different habits of thought, each of which has its and the scientific habits, the cultural milieu. Even when the own rules and follows its own rhythm of development. Some scientific habit of thought and the religious habit of thought person and in the conflict between the institutions of religion live at relative peace within individual persons and between and those of science. The new conflicts are, rather, conflicts their respective institutions, there remain potentially severe with the new cultural sensibility of the new class. conflicts on the part of one or both of them with the surroun-

✓ 64 F,jrtee InquLW" ding culture. It is at this location that the most serious con- in school, and so it is. We see today millions of college- temporary problem appears to arise. educated persons who are technically well trained, com- Here I must pause to adduce a new term: the new class. petitive, ambitious, and imaginative but nevertheless lack the By this term, I mean something of which all of us are aware, forms of culture on which even in the past generation we although often without discerning its full significance. In could confidently rely. The influence of that tacit culture of 1939, only about 900,000 Americans were attending colleges the home, neighborhood, and church, of which Alasdair or universities; by 1980, almost 13 million were doing so. In MacIntyre has poignantly written in After Virtue, that almost all the developed countries, a very large class of college- invisible yet powerful culture of the West, has been at- educated persons has emerged. Of these, a high proportion tenuated by the mass media of communication. Not as many are reasonably affluent and work as managers or profes- youngsters as formerly seem to be willing to undergo the sionals. Now it was long thought that such a "new class" strenuous asceticism of the scientific disciplines. Further- would be a boon to the general project of enlightenment, more, the prestige of science — whether because of nuclear would support scientific habits of thought, and would weapons or because of environmentalism — has been become followers of reason. In actual fact, however, diminished. The sturdy idea of progress, long dominant as an throughout the advanced nations, there are many evidences ideal of the West, has now been wounded. A hankering after that this new class is not turning out quite as expected. the primitive is manifest not only in clothing, manners, and Ironically, more among the more highly educated than among symbols but in rampant ideologies and movements. The the less so, there seems to be developing a distinctly anti- decline of traditional religion has not resulted, alas, in the scientific spirit. Interest in the occult, in astrology, and in decline of superstition, magic, totem, and the occult, but in primitivism of all sorts burgeons. Furthermore, general in- their new and powerful flowering. creases in mobility and in mental range seem to have diminished by some degree the authority of particular institu- tions, familial rootedness, and connectedness even to one's "The ethos of our major media fulfills neither the colleagues. (Many a professor teaches his classes while having ideals of scientific humanism nor those of our great as little to do with his fellows as possible.) Into this religious traditions. In the breakdown of the tradi- breakdown of local ties have rushed the new media of com- tional ethos, both the scientific habits of thought munication: television, cinema, rock (and other) music, the and the religious habits of thought suffer mortal newsmagazines, and various print and computer blows." technologies. A rather new cultural sensibility has arisen. It seems, then, that over the past two decades the domi- nant institutions in the United States have been neither the in- Thus many who care deeply about the culture of scien- stitutions of science nor those of religion, but those of the tific humanism have been deeply distressed by changes they trend-setting national media of communication. In my opi- observe even in the constituencies of the university. The cult nion, seven of these media are the most powerful: the New of unreason, the cult of the slogan, the upsurge of York Times and the Washington Post, Time and Newsweek, "movements" and passionate "causes," each one shorter- and the three major television networks, CBS, NBC, and lived than the other, speak less of a culture of science and ABC. Whether or not one adds one or two others to this list, reason than of a bohemian, romantic, irrationalist era. the point is that weakening local ties of communication have Simultaneously, those who care deeply about the culture resulted in the greater dependency of all of us upon certain of traditional religion, with its order, disciplines, and very broad symbolic networks, institutionally based and new- restraints, are similarly distressed by what they see in the ly powerful. Those most dependent upon these new institu- media and, inevitably, even in their own children. tions are those whose livelihood is national, professional, Because the new sensibility is so resolutely secular, some managerial, and thus closely linked to national trends. Trends in the religious camp are quick to blame it upon the "secular" in research and development, in funding patterns, in public impulse of scientific humanism. "Secular humanism" has opinion and taste, in preference and aspiration, are swiftly thus become a term of reproach. translated into public impact. Those most affected must pay Because the new sensibility is so resolutely passional, closest attention. This includes most of those who earn their fundamentalist, and irrationalist, some in the camp of scien- living from ideas and symbols. tific humanism are quick to blame it upon the errant "flight My thesis may now be unpacked rather swiftly. The new from reason" so typical, they think, of millennial religious class of college-trained professionals is creating special enthusiasm. The growth of primitive religions and the up- problems both for the scientific and for the religious habit of surge in prayer groups, meditation groups, saffron-clad and thought. The conflicts between religion and science that we head-shaved gurus, Buddhists, yoga-practicing, bead- are currently experiencing are not quite like those of the past, counting marchers, and protesters of every stripe evoke the which tended to be rooted in the problems of the individual cry: H. L. Mencken, where are you when we need you? "The person and in the conflict between the institutions of religion Sahara of the Bozart" seems to be everywhere. and those of science. The new conflicts are, rather, conflicts In an odd way, then, persons serious about the scientific with the new cultural sensibility of the new class. habit of thought and those serious about the religious habit of "A little learning is a dangerous thing," we once learned thought feel the conventional culture slipping away from

Summer, 1982 65 them. Each applauds certain developments in the new sen- ing cultural status. They are not properly foes of each other. sibility, while deploring others. They do not necessarily ap- Nor do even the most avid proponents of creationism ad- plaud or deplore the same things however. For example, per- vocate the replacement of evolutionary theory; they ask for sons of the religious habit of thought can scarcely avoid being "equal time" or, at least, for a nod in their direction. Clearly a little pleased that some of the more obviously false pretenses this is a plea for status, not for decision-making power. of some scientists of a generation ago seem to have been It is disturbing nonetheless that cultural status should pricked. There was, on the part of some, a hubris about enter the field of scientific or religious thought at all. Both science, progress, and happy-ever-after that deserved the have had some of their purest, most heroic moments precisely name scientism. Those who for generations have tried to say at times in which each lacked cultural status. Each can be that science offers a powerful method to human capacities, easily corrupted by unquestioned status. but is not and cannot be a sufficient philosophy of life or a I close with this thought. Those who care about substitute for religion, cannot help rejoicing a little in the new nourishing the scientific habit of thought would do well to modesty observable in the scientific community. confront the new power of the major media of communica- For their part, scientific humanists can scarcely be entire- tion. These are the institutions that most nearly have inherited ly displeased with the new tolerance for personal behavior, the power of the established churches of the medieval era. the new sexual openness, the growing modesty on the part of These are now the keepers of popular consciousness, the chief traditional religious leaders, and some of the other social tellers of stories, the main creators of image, symbol, and gains of recent decades. Not everything has been loss. word. These are the ones who today paint the frescoes on our Meanwhile, the new class has also revolutionized the minds through thousands of signals each day. conduct of the fundamentalist churches. Before World War A free society will not long survive the corruption either II, the Southern Baptists and others were far more likely to be of the scientific habit of thought or of the religious habit of poor, not college educated, and sharply separated from the thought. There is ample evidence that, in our society, both are "country club set." Today, by contrast, in very large being publicly, massively corrupted. Among other things, numbers they are college graduates, accountants, consultants, science is becoming — at least in the media — politicized. media professionals, salesmen, technicians, electronics ex- Scientific experts testify, campaign, lead protest groups. perts, oil drillers, chemists, geologists, and bankers. Many are Evidence is marshaled for political purposes. Since the state rich, competent, and ambitious. Correspondingly, the has become the main channel of funding for the sciences, ministers who lead them are many times better educated, competition for public favor has become severe. more highly polished, and more sophisticated than the famed Similarly, the habits of thought necessary to healthy Billy Sundays of the past. We have heard much about the rise religion are also being eroded. The ability of religious leaders, of the evangelicals since the day Jimmy Carter announced in parents, and communities to instill the traditional values of North Carolina that he had been "born again." We see Bill the West has been lessened by the new intrusive power of the Moyers as a commentator for CBS. The 'fundamentalist, dominant media. It is not universally true, for example, that evangelical churches have been revolutionized from within. poverty leads to disordered lives, violence, and personal On the one hand, then, many who spring from fun- mayhem. Most of the human race has long experienced cruel damentalist and evangelical roots are enjoying new cultural and biting poverty without such effects. Yet when the media power. On the other hand, many are disturbed because the of communication promote, or seem to promote, an ethos of major instruments of our culture, the major media of com- escapism, hedonism, relativism, and envy, a traditional munication, disproportionately neglect them and their values. culture begins to disintegrate. The effects of cultural They do not, I think, wish to turn the clock back. They know disintegration upon individuals is bound to be great. well enough how much better their world is in 1982 than it In my view, the weak link in our own culture lies in our was in 1932, or in 1952. What they now desire is some voice in relative lack of capacity to govern the ethos that we intend to this common culture of ours, some recognition of values they establish for it. Our ideal has long been a pluralistic ethos. still cherish and of a way of life whose strengths, mutatis Yet the effect of the new power of the media of communica- mutandis, they wish to preserve. tion has been to engender an unfamiliar and rather unlovely This is why, in my view, "creationism" suddenly became monism. The ethos of our major media, it seems to me, such a powerful symbol. It trades, on the one hand, on the fulfills neither the ideals of scientific humanism nor those of fallibility of science and the diminished public prestige of our great religious traditions. In the breakdown of the tradi- science. That evolution is a scientific theory no longer confers tional ethos, both the scientific habits of thought and the upon it quite the triumphant vindication of science over fun- religious habits of thought suffer mortal blows. More than damentalism it once suggested. Scientific theories change. our intellectual traditions have prepared us for, we face a The possibility that future scientific work may show that crisis of public morality. We lack a public ethos favorable to some view of the history of planet Earth is less sharply at those individual and institutional habits that embody our variance with the story told in Genesis is bound to excite in ideals. some the lust for cultural prestige once lost. I interpret the Both science and religion depend, for example, upon a lawsuits over "creationism" more as a conflict over cultural belief in the openness of history, the possibility of human status than as a conflict between science and religion. As mat- progress, the need for basic asceticism and discipline, an un- ters stand, both science and traditional religion have been los- breakable commitment to truth-telling and intellectual hones-

66 ty, a willingness to reject the casual relativism of "anything about the habits of thought necessary for creative religion goes" and "my values are mine, not subject to questioning by have much more in common today, and together face a more you or anybody else." Both science and religion make objec- powerful foe threatening to both, than they have reason to tive demands upon self, require discipline and method, and stress their perennial differences. Religious persons need to rigorously attack self-deception. know that secular humanism, far from being their enemy, is In the present crisis of culture, some who are committed in most important respects their intellectual ally. Humanists to scientific humanism work as allies with some who are com- who are not religious need to know that religious evangelicals, mitted to traditional Judaism or Christianity against the fundamentalists, and others who protest against the general tide of mindlessness and narcissism. I remember Paul decadence of the prevailing cultural ethos may also, with Goodman writing in his last days that what he had meant by wisdom, be approached as allies. In the present confusion, "liberation" was not at all what was coming to be celebrated too many in both camps are firing all guns in all directions, under that name. More than he had earlier thought, his sinking in the process friend and foe alike. The highest stan- primary intention had been conservative: to liberate energies dards of both religion and science require discernment. embedded in the best and deepest of Western traditions, not There is more than enough for all of us to do, and most to discard them. For intellect, whether secular or religious, of it is desperately needed by all of us equally: a rebirth of the makes its own demands upon persons, institutions, and spirit of honest inquiry, a commitment to human progress on cultures. Intellect is not compatible with just any values at all. every front, and the nourishing of those personal habits of Some values nourish its proper operations, its sense of hard work, discipline, self-criticism, and striving for perfec- discovery, its respect both for continuities and for discon- tion, without which neither the habits of science nor the tinuities. And some values cripple it. habits of religion have any purchase in real human beings. I conclude that those who care about the habits of Science and religion face a common cultural crisis, and they thought necessary for creative science and those who care need each other. •

New Thoughts (and Old) on Science and Religion

Joseph L. Blau

Alfred Loisy (1857-1940), in his autobiography called, in the The statement quoted above was originally published in English translation, My Duel with the Vatican, wrote: "It is 1924, less than a year before the Scopes trial took place in impossible to formulate a new hypothesis or conclusions on Dayton, Tennessee. The time was almost exactly half-way any important point of natural science, rational science, or between the flare-up of the controversy over the relations of historical criticism without finding across one's path the bar- science and religion that followed the publication of Darwin's rier of a theological opinion." I should remind you that Loisy two major works presenting his version of the evolutionary had been ordained a priest in 1879 and was a professor from theory, and the resurgence of the same question in our own 1881 to 1893 at the Catholic Institute in Paris. Suspected of time. Today many of us are deeply concerned about what heresy, he was removed from his professorship and was ex- may happen to the United States in the coming decades as a communicated in 1908. consequence of the manifestations of the resurgence of an

Summer, 1982 67 anti-science, anti-learning, anti-liberal attitude. 2 "One of the consequences of the `failure of nerve' Two concurrent, and possibly related, aspects of American and the coincident high level not merely of cultural life reinforce each other in making this season of unemployment but of unemployability in present- crisis one of special intensity. First, in the wake of every war day American life is that the middle of the educa- in the history of the United States a shudder of reaction tional spectrum is no longer its largest against "modern" ideas has come over the people. A reaction part ... There is a clustering at both ends of the of this sort against novelty is what Gilbert Murray, the British spectrum." classical scholar, called the "failure of nerve" in a society.' Murray's specific reference was to ancient Greece at of their prayers. the time of the conquest by the Macedonians, but the concept It is also the case that one need not be a primitive to hold has relevance today. One of the consequences of the "failure on to primitive ideas about religion. Many of our contem- of nerve" and the coincident high level not merely of poraries, attuned to more modern notions with regard to unemployment but of unemployability in present-day other fields, have neither read nor thought about their American life is that the middle of the educational spectrum is religion since their early years. Far into their mature life they no longer its largest part. As Yeats said, "The center does not have held on to the belief that they can manipulate the divini- hold." There is a clustering at both ends of the spectrum. ty by means of prayer. If their own prayers have not been There is a large group of well-educated people, highly trained answered, they believe they must somehow have alienated or in those areas in which rapid forward movement is taking offended their Heavenly Father. If the nation slips down a place, who are able to assimilate new ideas rapidly. There is notch or two in its standing, then God must be annoyed with another group, perhaps equally large, composed of those who them because prayers are not compulsory in the public quit on education and on training, and often on themselves as schools, or because abortions are provided for poor women well, quite early in the game. out of public (i.e., tax) moneys, or because the Constitution Second, perhaps even before World War II, but certainly does not proclaim the United States to be a Christian nation. immediately after it, the United States had become the Then of course there are those who believe that their par- economic bellwether of the flock of nations. Its position was ticular religious group has, or should have, a monopoly on soon challenged by those countries that had to rebuild their morality. Gary Potter has spoken for them in a short "Op- production systems after the war; for that very reason, these Ed" piece in the October 15, 1980, New York Times, entitled countries (with American help) were able to make an extreme- "A Christian America": ly speedy recovery. As the United States began to lose its lead to these economies, many of its people, and not a few of its First of all, there is the point that the majority of Americans leaders, sought the reason not in its failure to retool and are Christian — that is, ours is a Christian nation. ...Why rebuild its economy, as other nations — notably Germany should not a nation's laws, policies, and even public and Japan — had done, but rather in its loss of the "old-time ceremonies reflect the values, beliefs and principles of the ma- religion" that had led God to "shed His grace" on his hard- jority of its people? Those of such nations as Ireland and Israel working and faithful people. These patterns created the con- do. Ours used to. They should again. text in which the old problem of the relations of religion and Potter slipped up in his history in asserting that there was a science has once more become critical. time when the laws of the United States reflected the views of the majority of Christians as Christians. Some of the British 3 colonies had such constitutional provisions, but the Constitu- The text for the next part of this discourse is taken from Keith tion of the United States prohibited any such limitation; and Thomas's Religion and the Decline of Magic: every time an amendment to the Constitution to introduce such a provision has been proposed, it has been rejected. Nearly every primitive religion is regarded by its adherents as a medium for obtaining supernatural power. This does not pre- Mr. Potter continues his column with this thought: vent it from functioning as a system of explanation, a source Christian political activists ... have the idea that it is the of moral injunction, a symbol of social order, or a route to im- business of politics to ensure for men the freedom to do their mortality; but it does mean that it also offers the prospect of a duty. Every man's first duty is to win salvation. This is a way supernatural means of control over man's earthly environ- of saying that there are things that matter more than mere ment. [p. 251 politics and should precede them in importance. Good politics, like good economics, depend on good morals. Good morals This statement is, on its face, not applicable to Christian or depend on religion. Jewish theology, even though many sectarian groups within the two religions claim to be returning to their primitive form. And finally, you will be glad to learn that: But much of the membership of churches and synagogues is made up of adherents who are very much like primitives in Men who believe in nothing beyond themselves and their abili- respect to the magical qualities they believe to be subjected to ty to perfect the world are liberals by definition. It was in- their "control" over their "earthly environment" by means evitable that Christians should be in conflict with them. That is

68 not because Christians necessarily are conservatives, but could be re-examined and either verified or disverified by because liberalism is a sin. other competent researchers. No qualified scientist would assert any hypothesis as unqualified truth without this step of Perhaps these three sips at the fount of religious wisdom will open disclosure. The ideal of the laboratory is that hypotheses serve to remind you why, in that same issue of the New York are always open to disverification. They are accepted, after Times, a news item appeared announcing the publication of many observations under both identical and differing condi- the Secular Humanist Declaration, drafted by Paul Kurtz, tions, as tentative bases for further investigations. and endorsed by liberals in the United States and abroad. Sometimes this process of rechecking by others results in The question of propriety of such a religious invasion of the rejection of a hypothesis; very rarely, it brings down on politics, or the ipse dixit that liberalism is a sin, or that good the proposer of the hypothesis the most serious charge that morals depend upon religion is not, as such, the reason for can be made against a scientist, namely, that he has falsified calling into question either the column quoted or its author. his data in order to make it appear that his experiment work- What is primarily to be noted is that this series of utterances ed. At other times the results of the repeated checking process makes assertions with no support, no hard evidence; makes are sufficient to convince the community of scientists of the connections that are not logically necessary; makes need to make some revisions in the details of the previously statements that falsify historical data; and, in general, in the accepted theory. On some very rare occasions the results are name of Truth, plays fast and loose with truth. so conclusive that they lead to the overthrow of the regnant Within a few days of the "Op-Ed" piece by Potter, the theory. It is this process of verification, rather than the enun- New York Times published an editorial entitled "Private ciation of the hypothesis, that establishes the theory. For this Religion, Public Morality." It made no direct reference to reason, Peter Gay wrote, "the ideas of theologians are Potter's essay but did refer to a distinction phrased by Sidney refuted by their adversaries, the ideas of scientists are refuted Hook: by their followers. "3

As Sidney Hook has observed, democracy is moral even to "Sometime in the 1950s, the century of religious and those who do not believe in democracy. Murder or theft may political liberality came to an end ... The turning back offend both public and religious moralites, but plural marriage or human sacrifice may offend only one without offending the to the old-time religion ... has moved fast in the other ... In Mr. Hook's shrewd distinction it is one thing to United States.... We are now suffering the conse- propagate a religious faith but quite another to use the quences of our version of 'the failure of nerve.' ... We political process to proselyte. have returned to a new conflict of religion and science; whereas in the earlier period science was on the attack When Mr. Potter asserted that Christians "necessarily" are conservatives because liberalism is a sin (I assume that was his and religion was on the defensive, today the Religious meaning; it is not clearly stated) he violated the canons of Right is on the warpath." proper political discourse by a confusion of categories. "Sin" is a theological term, not an "ethical" term or a "political" In such sciences as geology, mineralogy, petrology, it is term. Such impropriety should not be condoned, even in the most frequently a new find that leads to novel conclusions. head of "Catholics for Christian Action...an independent na- Thus a recent report in the New York Times (February 27, tional laymen's political-education and action organization." 1982) told of an insect preserved in amber that had been found and studied by scientists at the University of California 4 at Berkeley. The insect was in a remarkably well-preserved condition, so that not only had its bones and hard tissue sur- In recent weeks there have been several announcements of vived, but also a good deal of its soft tissue was available for discoveries in both the physical and the life sciences. During study. The Baltic amber in which this female fungus gnat was the same period, there have also been a number of pro- discovered is fossilized resin from coniferous trees. By nouncements, some from accredited spokespersons for established geological tests of the rocks with which the amber religion, others from those self-proclaimed as such.2 Con- was found, the age of this specimen was determined to be ap- trasts between the announcements and the pronouncements proximately forty million years. Yet, we are told: "Preserva- are striking, both in content and in manner, and serve ad- tion of the insect specimen is so remarkably good, according mirably to illustrate Charles Sanders Pierce's distinction be- to the chief scientist involved, that a colleague hopes to ex- tween the Method of Authority and the Method of Science. tract some intact DNA . . . with the hope that it can be This is, however, a theme for another paper. My intention replicated, thus providing scientists, for the first time, with here is merely to suggest how the scientists carry on their work the chance to study the genetic material of an ancient and what can be said about the morality of the scientist and of creature" (p. 1, col. 2). the scientific community. In the life-span of the earth, forty million years "are but First, the scientific announcements all supplied hard em- as yesterday when it is past, and a watch in the night" (Ps. pirical evidence to support the hypotheses of the working 90:4). Among scientists working to answer the question, group of scientists. Their theories, their evidence, and their How, out of the inorganic substances that originally made up methods of work were all published so that their hypotheses the earth, did organic life emerge? the current focus is on a

Summer, 1982 69 period between 3.5 and 4 billion years ago! in the churches. Those years were the heyday of liberal Dr. Cyril Ponnamperuma, a native of Sri Lanka, now religion in the United States as well as years of growing Director of the Laboratory of Chemical Evolution at the strength for religious liberalism. Sometime in the 1950s, the University of Maryland, had this to say in a recent interview: century of religious and political liberality came to an end; "Somewhere some fragment of nucleic acid recognized a perhaps sooner in Europe than in the United States, because fragment of a protein and decided to live together...the the brunt of both world wars was borne by the Europeans. nucleic acids provide the instructions for making more pro- The age of atomic warfare brought with it a sense of the need teins, and the proteins help make more nucleic acids. But how of a religious and ethical control to the development of did this interaction begin to take place? Here the problem of science. The turning back to the old-time religion, strengthen- the origin of life becomes synonymous with the problem of ed by the propagandist assimilation of any liberal religious the genetic code."4 ideas to "atheistic Communism," has moved fast in the In conversation with Dr. Ponnamperuma, the journalist volatile population of the United States, especially in the who wrote this article in the Times, John Noble Wilford, rais- south and southwest. We are now suffering the consequences ed the question whether "the epitome of scientific hubris" of our version of "the failure of nerve." might not be "to presume to discover the origins of life." Dr. As a nation we have chosen to forget, for, I hope, only a Ponnamperuma replied that, rather than a manifestation of short season, the lesson that we seemed to have learned in the egregious pride, the experience of participation in such a pro- late nineteenth century, when science and the social religions ject is quite humbling, because it demonstrates how far moved hand in hand. We have returned to a new conflict of beyond the capacities of the individual scientist it is to tackle religion and science; whereas in the earlier period science was so vast a theme by himself. He quoted J. P. Bernal, a British on the attack and religion on the defensive, today the scientist, who once said that "even the formulation of this Religious Right is on the warpath. The sage counsel of H. J. problem is beyond the reach of any one scientist." Muller that "we are not forced to choose between reason and faith in the conventional sense — we may choose between 5 more and less reasonable faiths" has been overlooked.6 The liberation of the shackled minds of so large a Needless to say, not every scientific problem needs so vast a number of today's American people demands of us an in- canvas. Most scientists are engaged with questions of lesser creased devotion to the maintenance and expansion of oppor- scope. But by looking at these larger problems, requiring a tunities for reading and study. It requires the strengthening, "task force" or even an army of laboratory workers, especially of laboratory facilities, so that even in their early mathematicians, speculative theorists, and others, we see very school years children will develop a "hands-on" appreciation soon and very clearly that the work of science is a social of the methods of scientific procedure. Basic to the changes product. of attitude that must come if we are to avoid further slippage Even the scientific achievements of an earlier day, those of our national prestige it is that all of us must learn and teach discoveries that the older or the more romantic among us like — and then relearn and reteach — the fundamental truth so to remember — Newton, napping in the apple orchard, hit on well expressed by Voltaire: "The interest that I have in believ- the head by a falling apple and startled into the theory of ing a thing is no proof at all of the existence of that thing," gravitation; Mendel in the monastery garden cross-breeding and echoed in the gentler comment of Alfred North peas until the idea of his hypothesis grew in his mind — these Whitehead, "Action in accordance with the emotional lure of discoveries, too, were on this view social products. They a proposition is more apt to be successful if the proposition be rested on the work of earlier researchers; they pointed out the true."7 way (and the pitfalls) for later researchers; they broke a trail so that others might adventure beyond it. When scientists Notes were few and scattered, the social character of their work was 1. Gilbert Murray, Five Stages of Greek Religion, 2nd ed. (New York: manifested through time. As, in Europe at least, their Columbia University Press, 1925). numbers increased, they invented instruments and agencies — 2. Reginald Stuart's article in the New York Times, March 7, 1982, scientific societies, scientific journals, more and better headed, "0ne Battle Lost, Creationists Regroup for Second Round," refers to Paul Ellwanger, founder of Citizens for Fairness in Education, as "a technical equipment — so they were enabled to combine their `creation scientist' with no academic credentials." 0n the other hand, Duane skills to produce results both more numerous and more vast Gish, associate director of the Institute for Creation Research, based in San in range, like those more recent achievements I have Diego, "holds a doctorate in biochemistry from (the University of California mentioned. at] Berkeley." In the wake of the nineteenth-century advances in 3. Peter Gay, The Bridge of Criticism (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 22. science, what Beatrice Webb called "the mid-Victorian time- 4. New York Times, February 23, 1982, Sect. C, p. I. spirit" developed. It was a spirit of doubt and inner struggle. 5. Beatrice Webb, My Apprenticeship (New York: Longmans, Green, The mid-Victorians tried to unite "faith in the scientific 1926), pp. 213-14. method with the transference of the emotion of self- 6. H.J. Muller, The Uses of the Past (New York: 0xford University sacrificing service from God to man."5 From the middle of Press, 1952), p. 48. 7. F.M.A. de Voltaire, "Remarques sur les pensees de Pascal," the Victorian era into the fifties and perhaps even the sixties Oeuvres, vol. 22, p. 32; Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: of our own century, much of this spirit remained strong, even Macmillan, 1933), p. 313. •

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