DIVINE DESIGN AND EVOLUTIONARY EVIL

This article explores Christian philosophical views regarding the existence of God through an analysis of various main arguments that have been developed by Christian philosophers. Focusing on ontological, cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments, this article explores how each argument attempts to prove the existence of God through rational and empirical approaches. Ontological arguments, such as those proposed by Anselm of Canterbury, use conceptual reflection to conclude that God must exist. The cosmological argument, popularized by Thomas Aquinas, combines observations of the universe with the logic of causality to demonstrate the existence of a transcendent first cause. The teleological argument, with a major contribution from William Paley, suggests that the complexity and order in the universe indicates the existence of an intelligent designer. Apart from that, this article also highlights the importance of religious experience as subjective evidence of the existence of God. Through a combination of rational argument and spiritual experience, Christian philosophy offers a comprehensive and insightful view of God's existence, making it relevant in contemporary theological and philosophical discussions.

When Charles Darwin was developing his ideas for On the Origin of Species, the most widely accepted estimates of Earth’s age were those of William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin). Kelvin used calculations involving thermodynamics to argue that Earth is only 20–100 million years old—an age far too brief to accommodate evolution by natural selection. Darwin referred to Thomson’s claim as one of his “sorest troubles,” for Darwin understood that the history of life on Earth ultimately relies on geology. Darwin suspected that Earth was much older than Thomson claimed, but Thomson’s enormous stature as a scientist obliged Darwin to reconcile his claims with Kelvin’s data. To accommodate Kelvin’s timeline, Darwin proposed pangenesis as an explanation of inheritance (i.e., every sperm and egg contained “gemmules thrown off from each different unit throughout the body”). Darwin’s explanation sped evolution while avoiding Lamarck’s quasi-spiritual sources of acquired traits. However, Darwin’s explanation of inheritance was wrong (see discussion in Moore et al. 2009a). The age of Earth remains a divisive topic in the modern evolution–creationism controversy. Whereas mainstream science has long acknowledged that Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, a vocal group of citizens and religious activists continue to insist that Earth is less than 10,000 years old. Although most geocentrists and flat-Earth advocates have capitulated to scientific evidence, young-Earth creationists continue to reject scientific evidence in favor of religious dictum to claim that Earth is less than 10,000 years old. These antiscience claims have been surprisingly popular with the public. For example, a Gallup Poll in early 2009 reported that “On Darwin’s [200th] Birthday, Only 4 in 10 Believe in Evolution” (Newport 2009), and Berkman et al. (2008) noted that “16% [of biology teachers] believed that human beings were created by God in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.” In another study, 12.5% of students were young-Earth creationists (Rutledge and Warden 2000), as are 10%–14% of biology majors (Moore and Cotner 2009). Answers in Genesis’ (AiG) Creation Museum, along with the $27 million in donations required to build it, attest to the appeal of young-Earth creationism. Indeed, AiG’s income for 2005 exceeded $13 million, and that of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR, another religious organization based on young-Earth creationism) exceeded $7 million. For comparison, the 2005 income of National Center for Science Education—the nation’s leading organization that defends the teaching of evolution in public schools—was

The teleological argument has received a resurgence in recent years. This is thanks to cosmological data which appears to offer new evidence to indicate that the existence of life is the result of contrivance in the face of staggering improbability. Richard Swinburne argues that cosmic fine-tuning gives us good evidence to believe in the creator God of classical theism, who has good reasons to create human agents. I assess Swinburne’s use of the “principle of simplicity” as a criterion for selecting the best explanation in this particular case, arguing that it is not as compelling as Swinburne claims.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION: A New Introduction, 3rd edition by Alister E. McGrath. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2020. 272 pages. Paperback; $28.99. ISBN: 9781119599876. *Alister McGrath is a major international scholar who is prolific in his output. He has produced many popular books and academic tomes, and as a theological educator his output also includes many textbooks for students. Science and Religion: A New Introduction is now into its third edition and is an excellent introduction to the whole field of science and religion. The restructuring and inclusion of new material is designed to be helpful to the student, and reflects comments on the previous editions. The book introduces most of the areas of interaction between these bodies of thought, and I myself have used earlier editions in my own teaching, giving students a chapter of McGrath to start with for an essay, followed by more detailed material from elsewhere. *McGrath notes that science and religion are wide categories and serious study entails narrowing them down. He describes Ian Barbour's four models for interaction followed by what he calls four ways of imagining the relationship between them. The conflict model is rightly dismissed as a late nineteenth-century myth, and areas where conflict has been perceived, notably with Galileo and Darwin, are given the more nuanced treatment they deserve, thus dispelling the myths surrounding them. McGrath also gives a broader historical overview, refuting the further myth that the scientific revolution owed nothing to the medieval period. He describes the development of the Newtonian mechanistic model of the universe and brings us to the twentieth century with the development of the Big Bang theory. Regarding this last, it would have been good to note the pioneering work of Roman Catholic priest Georges Lemaître, often dubbed the "Father of the Big Bang," who, in contrast to Alexander Friedman, regarded solutions of Einstein's equations as physically realistic and not just mathematical curiosities. *McGrath moves on to a helpful chapter on religion and the philosophy of science. Some form of realism seems predominant and, indeed, the most rational position to take. It is interesting to note the adoption of "critical realism," including not only by science-religion scholars such as John Polkinghorne and others, but also such as the biblical scholar N. T. Wright and James Dunn. McGrath moves on to the role of explanation in science, noting how in science there are different methods for different sciences, and thus different levels of explanation across the different subdisciplines. Theology too has its own methods appropriate to its own object but there are differing views on the role of explanation. He discusses an important case study, that of "non-reductive physicalism" associated with Nancey Murphy and others. He also gives criteria for drawing an "inference to the best explanation." Various perspectives on the philosophy of science--logical positivism and the criteria of verification, falsificationism, and Kuhn's paradigm shifts--are discussed. Worthy of mention here would have been Imre Lakatos whose "methodology of scientific research programmes" has been applied to theology by Philip Hefner and Nancey Murphy. *Complementing the above there follows a useful chapter on science and the philosophy of religion. McGrath describes arguments for the existence of God, beginning with Aquinas's five ways. A section on the Kalām cosmological argument notes how this has been given a new lease on life by the Big Bang theory's postulation of a temporal origin to the universe, although it would have been good to note that the existence of the universe would demand an explanation even if it were to lack a temporal origin. He gives a careful analysis of Paley's natural theology, noting neglected aspects of Paley's work such as his responses to arguments of David Hume. He examines ways in which God may act in the world given the laws of nature uncovered by science, including through miracles, where he notes Hume's critique. However, as McGrath rightly says, Hume's critique needs to be qualified, since, on the one hand, he defines miracles as violations of laws of nature and yet, on the other, has a problem with inductive generalizations from past experience--which is just what laws of nature are. McGrath rightly sees evolutionary arguments debunking religion as committing the genetic fallacy and self-defeating if human rationality is flawed, since that could equally well affect judgments in areas other than religion, notably science. There is a good section on natural theology and the role of explanation. *In the next chapter, McGrath turns to models and analogies: first, as found within the natural sciences and then, within religion. After considering what the terms mean more generally, he gives specific examples for the sciences, including the kinetic theory of gases, wave-particle duality, Galileo's analogical reasoning which led him to postulate mountains on the moon, and Darwin's metaphor of "natural selection." In the theological sphere, he considers Aquinas's notion of analogia entis whereby the creation bears a likeness to its creator, and Ian Ramsey's model of the "divine economy" utilizing the Greek concept of oikonomia. He looks at Arthur Peacocke's theological application of models as linked to "critical realism," and Sally McFague's metaphors in theology--though he could perhaps have allowed more than one sentence on Janet Soskice. He then examines specific theological examples: creation and theories of the atonement. He has a helpful section on the notion of "mystery" in science and religion before returning to Ian Barbour on models. *McGrath's final chapter considers a number of contemporary debates. Noting Hume's distinction between "ought" and "is" he critiques the idea that science, say, evolutionary biology or neuroscience, can determine ethics and moral values. That leads to a more general critique of the imperialist stance that science can answer all interesting questions or that the only reality is that disclosed by science. An interesting example is mathematics, which discovers truths that do not belong to the natural sciences. It is also utterly astonishing that mathematics is effective in describing nature and very hard to explain on an atheistic view. *An important area considered is theodicy, which is arguably made more difficult by the long process of evolution, preceding the existence of humans by hundreds of millions of years. McGrath provides an overview of the helpful contributions of Christopher Southgate and his former student Bethany Sollereder. For these scholars, there is "no other way" for God to create such a rich diversity of creatures, with whom God suffers, and for whom God will bring eschatological fulfilment. On transhumanism, McGrath describes the approaches of Philip Hefner and Ted Peters who, while recognizing the creativity of technological enhancement, are also aware that, given fallen human nature, this can also be abused. *McGrath returns to the anthropic principle and fine-tuning. He says that fine-tuning is strongly consistent with a theistic perspective, but the debate about a multiverse as a possible explanation continues. He also considers the legitimacy of teleological language and directionality in biology. Simon Conway Morris's notion of convergent evolution may be the "best explanation" of what is observed and is resonant with a religious perspective but, like cosmological fine-tuning, does not prove that God exists. *McGrath concludes with two sections on the psychology of religion, considering whether this field can "explain away" religion. Religion may be "natural," but it is debatable as to whether that has any implication at all about the existence of God. Moreover, it is a long way from primitive apprehension of some vague supernatural agent to the systematic theology of, say, Thomas Aquinas or Karl Barth. To my mind, this is not unlike the difference--to give a scientific analogy--between the discovery of fire by early humans and the modern scientific understanding of combustion. *This is an excellent introduction to the field and very well suited to its pedagogic purpose. There are a few typographical errors (e.g., "magisterial" for "magisteria"). I also noticed that British cosmologist Paul Davies is mistakenly described as American. But these and my earlier minor points should not detract from a volume that provides a vital resource to educators and their students. *Reviewed by Rodney Holder, Emeritus Course Director, The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, Cambridge, UK CB3 0UB.

"Classical theism" designates an understanding of God in which God has no need of the world and is not internally related to it. In classical theism, God's joy is not increased by the world's beauty or diminished by its pain. God's being is perfectly and fully actualized apart from the world. Any alternation would only decrease it. In this understanding, God's being is immutable in a static sense, essentially unrelated to the world and unaffected by what happens in and to it. Thomas Aquinas is usually cited as representative of this position. But this concept of God has been present in Christian theology from the patristic. era on, when absoluteness and impassibility came to be seen as basic attributes of God that determined how the revelation of God in Jesus Christ could be understood. Classical theism, this understanding of God as impassible and statically perfect, has been sharply criticized by process philosophers and theologians as logically incoherent, an obstacle to faith and de-valuing creation. Feminist theologians have repeated and extended this, arguing that classical theism is a male idolatry that undermines peoples' humanity, especially women's.

I. INTRODUCTION 1. Myths of LaPlacean Omniscience Realism for Limited Beings in a Rich Messy World Social Natures Heuristics as Adaptations for Real World Nature as Backwoods Mechanic and Used-Parts Dealer Error and Change Organization and Aims of This Book 2. Normative Idealizations versus Metabolism of Error Inadequacies of Our Normative Idealizations Satisficing, Heuristics, and Possible Behavior for Real Agents The Productive Use of Error-Prone Procedures 3. Toward a Philosophy for Limited Beings The Stance and Outlook of a Scientifically Informed Philosophy of Science Ceteris Paribus, Complexity, and Philosophical Method Our Present and Future Naturalistic Philosophical Methods II. PROBLEM-SOLVING STRATEGIES FOR COMPLEX SYSTEMS 4. Robustness, Reliability, and Overdetermination Common Features of Concepts of Robustness Robustness and Structure of Theories Robustness, Testability, and Nature of Theoretical Terms Robustness, Redundancy, and Discovery Robustness, Objectification, and Realism Robustness and Levels of Organization Heuristics and Robustness Robustness, Independence, and Pseudo-Robustness: A Case Study 5. Heuristics and Study of Human Behavior Heuristics Reductionist Research Strategies and Their An Example of Reductionist Biases: Models of Group Selection Heuristics Can Hide Their Tracks Two Strategies for Correcting Reductionist The Importance of Heuristics in Study of Human Behavior 6. False Models as Means to Truer Theories Even Best Models Have Biases The Concept of a Neutral How Models Can Misrepresent Twelve Things To Do with False Models Background of Debate over Mapping in Genetics Castle's Attack on Linear Linkage Model Muller's Data and Haldane Mapping Function Muller's Two-Dimensional Arguments against Castle Multiply-Counterfactual Uses of False Models False Models Can Provide New Predictive Tests Highlighting Features of a Preferred Model False Models and Adaptive Design Arguments Summary and Conclusions 7. Robustness and Entrenchment: How Contingent Becomes Necessary Generative Entrenchment and Architecture of Adaptive Design Generative Systems Come To Dominate in Evolutionary Processes Resistance to Foundational Revisions Bootstrapping Feedbacks: Differential Dependencies and Stable Generators Implications of Generative Entrenchment Generative Entrenchment and Robustness Conclusion 8. Lewontin's Evidence (That There Isn't Any) Is Evidence Impotent, or Just Inconstant? False Models as Means to Truer Theories Narrative Accounts and Theory as Montage III. REDUCTIONISM(S) IN PRACTICE 9. Complexity and Organization Reductionism and Analysis of Complex Systems Complexity Evolution, Complexity, and Organization Complexity and Localization of Function 10. The Ontology of Complex Systems: Levels of Organization, Perspectives, and Causal Thickets Robustness and Reality Levels of Organization Perspectives: A Preliminary Characterization Causal Thickets 11. Reductive Explanation: A Functional Account Two Kinds of Rational Reconstruction Successional versus Inter-Level Reduction Levels of Organization and Co-Evolution and Development of Interlevel Theories Two Views of Explanation: Major Factors and Mechanisms versus Laws and Deductive Completeness Levels of Organization and Explanatory Costs and Benefits An Example: The Assumption of the Purity of Gametes in Heterozygote Identificatory Hypotheses as Tools in Search for Explanations Appendix: Modifications Appropriate to a Cost-Benefit Version of Salmon's Account of Explanation 12. Emergence as Non-Aggregativity and of Reductionism(s) Reduction and Emergence Aggregativity Perspectival, Contextual, and Representational Complexities or, Ain't Quite So Simple as That! Adaptation to Fine- and Coarse-Grained Environments: Derivational Paradoxes for a Formal Account of Aggregativity Aggregativity and Dimensionality Aggregativity as a Heuristic for Evaluating Decompositions, and Our Concepts of Natural Kinds Reductionisms and Revisited IV. ENGINEERING AN EVOLUTIONARY VIEW OF SCIENCE 13. Epilogue: On Softening of Hard Sciences From Straw-Man Reductionist to Lover of Complexity Messiness in State-of-the-Art Theoretical Physics Hidden Elegance and Revelations in Run-of-the-Mill Applied Science Pure versus Applied Science, and What Difference Should It Make? Hortatory Closure Appendix A. Important Properties of Heuristics Appendix B. Common Reductionistic Heuristics Appendix C. Glossary of Key Concepts and Assumptions Appendix D. A Panoply of LaPlacean and Leibnizian Demons Notes Bibliography Credits Index

Partnering with parents and children in the design process can be important for producing technologies that take into consideration the rich context of family life. However, to date, few studies have examined the actual process of designing with families and their children. Without understanding the process, we risk making poor design choices in user-interactive experiences that take into account important family dynamics. The purpose of this investigation is to understand how parent-child relationships in families shape co-design processes and how they are reshaped through co-design. We document the evolutionary process and outcomes that exist in co-design partnerships between researchers and families. We found that parents' engagement patterns shifted more slowly than that of children's from observing and facilitating to design partnering practices. Our analysis suggests the importance of establishing and nurturing social bonds among parents, children, and researchers in the co-design process.