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Foundry United Rev. |
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“Finding God in an Evolving World” Sunday, September 20,
2009 |
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Psalm 139: 1-24
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This
morning I want to talk about something that I don’t think there is much of a
consensus about within the Christian theological community. The question is this:
what does God do and how does God do it in a post-Darwinian understanding of
the world? Really, the question is: What is there left in the world for God
to do after we’ve explained so much about how things happen? The
problem really goes back to before Darwin but Darwin’s theory of evolution
and natural selection really exacerbates it. Scientific
discoveries keep crowding God out of the world. This is a problem I have been
thinking about since I was 18 and took my first religion course in college.
Scientific discoveries keep crowding God out of the world. People
used to believe that God made the sun rise in the morning and that God set
the course of the sun in the sky every day. People used to believe God made
it rain. People used to believe that God made crops grow and produce a
harvest. People used to believe that God made babies. People used to believe
that these kinds of things were individual and specific decisions of God. Then,
through observation and measurement, we discovered that there are natural
laws which govern the sun rising and its course in the heavens. We can
actually accurately predict when the sun will rise and the course it will
travel next week and next month and next year. We
discovered that there are natural laws about humidity in the air and
temperature and condensation points that determine when it rains. We
discovered how photosynthesis works, and the natural laws that explain plants
growing and producing fruit. We figured out what makes babies. And it
feels as if God gets pushed into a smaller and smaller role in the world
until you wonder if you really need God for anything other than an explanation
for how the whole thing started. We don’t know what was before the Big Bang
yet. Some cosmologists believe we never will. Otherwise lots of things make
sense now without God as an explanation. Anybody else ever have this problem
besides me? I’ve had
a couple of people tell me after last week’s sermon that they just don’t
understand the problem. They don’t get the issue. Every time I’ve been told
this I’ve thought, “Well, that person must be more spiritual than I am.” But
then it occurred to me, “Maybe they are just less rational.” Anybody
else have this problem? If we have natural explanations for almost
everything, other than setting the operation in motion to start with, what
does God do? And how does God do it? One of
the phrases used to describe this problem is “God of the gaps.” Henry Drummond,
a Scotch scientist and theologian, introduced the term in the 1890s in the Two
generations later Dietrich Bonhoeffer was still worrying about the same
problem. In his Letters and Papers from
Prison, Bonhoeffer wrote: "...how
wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge.
If in fact the frontiers of knowledge are being pushed further and further
back (and that is bound to be the case), then God is being pushed back with
them, and is therefore continually in retreat. We are to find God in what we
know, not in what we don't know."[ii] The
scientist Richard Bube, who read Bonhoeffer, said In a
world where there are natural explanations for almost everything, where is
there place for the supernatural? This is
how the philosophy and religion of Deism emerged. Deism believes God started
creation off and then let it run itself. God started everything. God wound up
the clock, but has left the universe to run itself ever since. Deism
was the predominant European philosophy during the 18th century.
Some people talk about the If
evolution is driven by natural selection, then what do we need God for other
than to start the process? You
understand that when I have
a friend who says that he is a dinosaur. What does he mean? He means that he
has stopped being able to adapt to fit the changing environment of his life. Don’t
become a dinosaur. God has
no role to play other than to set off the process. Many of
us are practical deists. I am at least a partial deist. There are things I
would not want God interfering in. I would not want God interfering with
baseball, for example. If the Nats are going to win or lose, let them win or
lose on their own. If God interfered it would not be right. If they deserve
to win, they should win. If they deserve to lose, they should lose. God
fixing games would take the fun out of baseball. No
matter how much I might want a parking space, I myself would rather not have
God moving cars. I know some of you feel differently about this, but there
are just too many problems in life if God moves cars. I am
actually grateful that God doesn’t change the rules every day, or week, or
month. What if God decided that for the rest of today we should breathe
helium rather than oxygen? Most of the helium is up high, I think. I’m afraid
of heights. I’d be in big trouble. What if
God decided to reverse the law of gravity for the next hour? What if God
nullified the power of soap to kill germs? Really,
there are more things that I would want God not to interfere with than things
I would want God to change. That’s just me. This is
all about the question – What does God do in a world where we can explain
almost everything in terms of natural causes? Each of
us needs to figure this out for ourselves…unless you are so spiritual that it
is not a question for you. So I am
going to say a little bit about what I think, not because I want you to think
about it the way I do but because I want to encourage you to think about it
in a way that works for you. This is just what I think. You don’t have to
think it. Here’s
what I think: I think God is a very long-range planner. One of the way God works
is very long term. II Peter 3:8 says: “…with the Lord one day is like a
thousand years and a thousand years are like one day.” That’s just an
estimate. I think God works out whatever God is working out over a very, very
long time. Psalm
139 says to God: “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me
together in my mother’s womb.” I think God was doing that about the time that
blue-green algae were turning the earth’s atmosphere into breathable oxygen 2,000
million years ago. I think
God was knitting me together in my mother’s womb 375 million years ago when
sea creatures were learning to walk on dry land. I think we are wondrously
made and it took billions of years to do it. I think
one of the ways God works is very, very long term. You don’t have to think
that. That’s just what I think. This is very speculative. I’m just trying to
figure it out. Alfred
North Whitehead, a great philosopher, had an argument with In 1925
he wrote a wonderful little book of less than 100 pages called The Function of Reason. Here’s what he
says: I must … join
issue with the evolutionist fallacy suggested by the phrase “survival of the
fittest.” … Only inorganic things survive for great lengths of time. A rock
survives for eight hundred million years, whereas the limit for a tree is
about a thousand years, for a [person] or an elephant about fifty or one
hundred years, for a dog about twelve years, for an insect about one year. In
other words, if the goal is to survive the longest, a rock wins. Whitehead
writes: …there is a factor
in evolution which is not in the least explained by the doctrine of the
survival of the fittest. Why has the trend of evolution been upward?
[Inorganic matter has evolved into organic life. Animals have not adapted to
the environment to survive.] Animals have progressively undertaken the task
of adapting the environment to themselves. They have built nests, and social
dwelling places of great complexity; beavers have cut down trees and dammed
rivers; insects have elaborated a high community life… He
continues: The simplest
living things let their food swim into them. The higher animals chase their
food, catch it, and masticate it. In so doing they are transforming the
environment for their own purposes. Whitehead
argues that the driving force of evolution is not survival but something
else. It is, he says, a threefold urge: The urge to live, the urge to live
well, and the urge to live better.[iv] Evolution
is not merely survival of the fittest. Evolution is either driven toward life
and meaning or it is drawn by life and meaning. And God is somewhere in that
mix, I think. To say
that evolution is driven or drawn toward life and meaning suggests something to
me about what God is up to, and the way God works. God’s work is very, very
long term. Survival
of the fittest, by itself, doesn’t explain why evolution has a direction. I think
one of the ways God works is with billion-year long range plans. I just think
that. You don’t have to. Here
another thing I think. I think most of God’s work is terribly subtle. I
actually don’t think most of what God does is what we would really consider
doing much of anything. This is
what I’ve learned in my current phase of parenthood…being a parent of adult
children. Generally speaking, the less I do the better. The
less I tell my grown kids what I think they should do the better. The less I
try to get in there and fix up their messes, the better. I mean, I want to fix
up their messes, but when I do, it turns out to be highly likely that they
will get in the same mess again. You
know what the most important thing I can do is? I think, at least. I think
the most important thing I can do is to communicate to my kids my confidence
in them and to tell them that I will love them no matter what happens. And
that usually, to me, doesn’t feel as if I am doing hardly anything at all. Sometimes
the best thing a parent can do is to wait…which feels like you are doing
nothing at all. The best thing you can do is just wait. You know Jesus’ story
of the prodigal son. The most important thing the father did was to wait and
watch. (Luke 15: 20) I think
the most important kinds of things God does are very subtle and may not seem
to be doing much of anything at all. God believes in us. God has confidence
in us. God loves us. God forgives us. God waits for us. I think
maybe sometimes God greases the skids. I think God maybe sometimes slows
things down a beat. I myself think God rarely moves the furniture. That’s
just what I think. In WIN
– the Washington Interfaith Network – we have a motto called the Iron Rule.
It is this: “Never do for someone else what they can do for themselves.” It
only makes people weaker. It only makes people more dependent and less free.
God loves freedom. I think God follows the Iron Rule. You
know what the hardest part of learning to be a pastor has been for me?
Learning that it is not my job to fix people’s problems. It is my primary job
to listen and understand and have confidence in them. Sometimes to
communicate encouragement. Sometimes to communicate forgiveness. Thinking
that you have to fix people’s problems is demeaning to them. Tiring for you
and insulting for them. In the
first churches I served I over-performed. I worked day and night and built up
the church. When I left they were worse off than when I came because I had
done their ministry and not built up their capacity for ministry. They grew
while I was there and declined when I left. That is bad ministry. I don’t
think God is a bad minister. I think God is constantly building our capacity.
That’s just what I think. You don’t have to think that but it would be good
for you to think something. I encourage you to think it through for yourself.
I think
God preserves the rules of the natural order. I think God enforces the law of
gravity, and I am grateful God does that because I hate heights. I wake up in
the morning and if I am not floating up by the ceiling that is a great thing.
Great is thy faithfulness. I’m so glad, God, you did not repeal the law of
gravity overnight. I think
God makes and implements very, very long range plans. I actually think that
God draws creation toward where it is headed rather than that God drives it
or pushes it. I think God invites us more than God forces us. But that is
just the way I think about it. You don’t have to think that way. I think
God is very subtle and that the most important stuff God does doesn’t look
like anything at all to most people who are watching. God believes in us; God
loves; God waits; God forgives. You may
think God moves cars and, if that works for you, I have no quarrel with it.
I’m just telling you what I think. I think God is very subtle and that the
most critically important things God does wouldn’t look like much at all but
that they save the universe every day and they save you and me everyday. That’s
just what I think. www.foundryumc.org |
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