Editor,
Craig Butler’s Feb. 21 column, “Don’t dismiss theory so quickly,” draws even more attention to Monday’s self-proclaimed “Creationism versus Evolution” debate on campus. Perhaps I am doing the same, but I feel that, once again, the voice of reason is getting short shrift.
As a student member of the American Scientific Affiliation, which co-sponsored the event, I support bringing speakers of this nature to University campuses. However, I do not feel obliged to share the perspectives of the speakers, as with Dr. Phillip Johnson. The reason I do not agree with Johnson is simple and has already been stated by Mr. Butler: “Theologians have tried for millenia to uncover actual proof of God’s existence to no avail.”
I would propose that we trust those theologians and accept that we cannot prove God’s existence. And I would propose that we trust the countless biologists and paleontologists that have tested and evaluated Darwin’s theory for a century and a half (and continue to do so). Evolution remains the dominant theory because it is the best explanation for the observations.
Science, by its very nature, is meant to be carried out as objectively as possible. Therefore, it cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. It is improper science to have a notion that God did it this way — for example, through supernatural interventions — because that is not objective.
Evolution, because it is by definition a scientific theory, is godless. But that doesn’t mean that God does not exist, only that science simply does not reach into that arena. Believing in God is all about faith, not proof. If you look to science for proof, you are looking in the wrong place. You will never find it. The corollary to this is that if your faith depends on such scientific proof, your faith is in for a crisis someday.
That is why I disagree with Johnson’s whole approach. If I believe in God because someone can prove it to me on paper, what kind of faith is that? If it’s that obvious, why doesn’t everybody believe already? What does that say about the religion I subscribe to?
In order for us to have a meaningful relationship with the God that created and sustains the universe, and therefore sustains biological evolution, we must have free will. Therefore, beware of people such as Dr. Johnson who claim that they can prove the existence of an intelligent designer through scientific means.
It is not science, and it is not faith.
Chris Herd
Graduate student and Canterbury Campus Ministry peer minister
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