Craig Venter has recently claimed to have created artificial life. His name showed up in a book I read and reviewd not so long ago and I have received permission to post an excerpt from that book—Who Made God? by Edgar Andrews (read my review or read my interview with the author).

This excerpt begins on page 194 if you’re looking for it in your copy of his book.

Life in a cake mixer

We shall spend this chapter in pursuit of the jellypod. That’s my pet name for Haldane’s ‘minimal organism’ — the simplest entity that could be called ‘living’ and which we discussed briefly at the start of chapter 12. No disrespect is intended; jellypod is just more memorable than ‘minimal organism’.

In chapter 12, having pointed out the enormous complexity of even the simplest life-form known to us today, we put the jellypod on one side to seek out the essence of physical life. This turned out to be organised information — something, moreover, that cannot be stored, transmitted or put to work without the use of communication or ‘language’. This is just what we would expect on the biblical hypothesis of God, since the Bible attributes both the origin and maintenance of the natural world to God’s ‘spoken word’ — a metaphor that embraces the twin ideas of command and communication. It is no surprise, therefore, that the molecular foundations of life are stacked full of information and bear all the marks of advanced language.

Last week I wrote a review of the excellent new book Who Made God? by Edgar Andrews. This book is an intelligent, insightful response to many of the claims of today’s new atheists. I recently had the opportunity to interview Mr. Andrews and wanted to share that interview with you today.

What do all of those letters after your name actually stand for?
The first three (BSc, PhD and DSc) are earned academic qualifications while the remainder (FInstP, FIMMM, CEng and CPhys) are professional qualifications. My Bachelor’s degree was in theoretical physics; the ‘doctor of philosophy’ degree was awarded for research, and the ‘doctor of science’ degree is a higher doctorate awarded for eminence in a given field, as judged by the quality of peer-reviewed publications.

Why should the Devil get all the good scientists? It sometimes seems that way, doesn’t it? We hear of scientists like Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins and others who are acclaimed as being at the top of their field and almost inevitably it seems that they are atheists or otherwise committed to explaining the world in terms of Darwinian evolution. Occasionally we find a great dissenting mind, but then we discover that that person is committed to beliefs that seem opposed to the plain account of Scripture. So we have Francis Collins who writes The Language of God but who in the book says that, though God exists, life and creation can be explained in terms of natural laws and processes that do not depend on the Divine hand of God. It is both tiresome and frustrating.

This Sunday I’ll be preaching on the topic of Creation in an evening series at my church. Our Sunday evening format allows for only short sermons and I am trying to distill the broad topic of Creation down to the most fundamental points. I have no intention of defending Creation against evolution or of refuting the various views among Christians that conflict with the position of my church’s leadership (though I am sure some of that will arise in the Q&A that follows the sermon). But as I was thinking about the subject of Creation, my mind was drawn to this article I read a couple of years ago. It argues that Christians can and should embrace evolution and lays out the reasons we can do so while remaining faithful to the Bible.

Scientific American is a popular science magazine with a monthly circulation approaching 700,000. Including foreign language editions, the circulation increases to over 1,000,000. First published in 1845, it is the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. Quite needless to say, it is not a publication that is particularly friendly to creationism. In the October 2006 edition is a column by Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic, a magazine produced by The Skeptics Society, which “engages in scientific investigation and journalistic research to investigate claims made by scientists, historians, and controversial figures on a wide range of subjects.” His column is titled “Darwin on the Right: Why Christians and conservatives should accept evolution.” The column is a brief attempt to lay out six reasons that Christians should embrace evolution. I’d like to take a brief look at each of Shermer’s six points. He begins with statistics:

According to a 2005 Pew Research Center poll, 70 percent of evangelical Christians believe that living beings have always existed in their present form, compared with 32 percent of Protestants and 31 percent of Catholics. Politically, 60 percent of Republicans are creationists, whereas only 11 percent accept evolution, compared with 29 percent of Democrats who are creationists and 44 percent who accept evolution. A 2005 Harris Poll found that 63 percent of liberals but only 37 percent of conservatives believe that humans and apes have a common ancestry. What these figures confirm for us is that there are religious and political reasons for rejecting evolution. Can one be a conservative Christian and a Darwinian? Yes. Here’s how.

One immediate observation is that he makes a distinction between evangelicals Christians and Protestants, yet does not define these terms. In theory, every Protestant is evangelical and every evangelical is Protestant. So I am uncertain as to how we are to distinguish between these two. Regardless, we will press on.

1. Evolution fits well with good theology. Christians believe in an omniscient and omnipotent God. What difference does it make when God created the universe—10,000 years ago or 10,000,000,000 years ago? The glory of the creation commands reverence regardless of how many zeroes in the date. And what difference does it make how God created life—spoken word or natural forces? The grandeur of life’s complexity elicits awe regardless of what creative processes were employed. Christians (indeed, all faiths) should embrace modern science for what it has done to reveal the magnificence of the divine in a depth and detail unmatched by ancient texts.

I will be the first to affirm that the Bible is not a scientific text. Neither was it intended to be such. However, if we are to believe that the Bible is God’s word and that what God has spoken is true, we must also believe that what God says about science must be true. When God says that the world was created by His command, we must believe it to be so. Shermer asks, “what difference does it make how God created life—spoken word or natural forces?” The difference is that the Bible tells us God created the world by His spoken word. We are not able to believe in the Bible as God’s word and reject Scripture’s clear teaching that life was created from nothing and at God’s command. I agree that “Christians … should embrace modern science for what it has done to reveal the magnificence of the divine in a depth and detail unmatched by ancient texts.” But science has not proven evolution. It has not proven that the world was created in any way other than at God’s command. I embrace modern science, but only so far as it is compatible with Scripture and plain reason. Evolution does not fit with good theology, for evolution and Scripture are wholly incompatible. If we are to embrace evolution, it will be at the expense of the Bible.

2. Creationism is bad theology. The watchmaker God of intelligent-design creationism is delimited to being a garage tinkerer piecing together life out of available parts. This God is just a genetic engineer slightly more advanced than we are. An omniscient and omnipotent God must be above such humanlike constraints. As Protestant theologian Langdon Gilkey wrote, “The Christian idea, far from merely representing a primitive anthropomorphic projection of human art upon the cosmos, systematically repudiates all direct analogy from human art.” Calling God a watchmaker is belittling.

Calling God a watchmaker is clearly belittling, but I do not know of any Christians who believe that God fills this role. God is not a mere garage tinkerer who pieces life together from available parts. Rather, God is the one who not only created life as an idea, as a concept, but who created the available parts and who then assembled them in an orderly fashion. To suggest that God is only slightly more advanced than we are is to ignore the vast gaps that continue to exist in human knowledge. Humans may have been able to map the genome, but a great deal of work remains; an infinite amount of work. The more we conquer, the more we realize we still need to conquer. And one thing humans have never been able to do and will never be able to do is create life ex nihilo, from nothing. We may be able to arrange and rearrange the building blocks of life in some semblance of order, but we are not able to make something from nothing. That is the realm of God alone. Creationism is not bad theology, but is the theology of the Bible. It is not an optional doctrine, but something we must believe if we are to be men and women of the Bible.

3. Evolution explains original sin and the Christian model of human nature. As a social primate, we evolved within-group amity and between-group enmity. By nature, then, we are cooperative and competitive, altruistic and selfish, greedy and generous, peaceful and bellicose; in short, good and evil. Moral codes and a society based on the rule of law are necessary to accentuate the positive and attenuate the negative sides of our evolved nature.

This third point begins with a premise that is accepted only by evolutionists. As Christians we do not believe that humans evolved at all, but that we were deliberately placed on this earth and were made to rule it. To attempt to explain original sin through between-group enmity is to completely misrepresent original sin. Between-group enmity is unable to explain why it is that every human being, no matter his age, culture, race, or gender is sinful. It is unable to explain why we all do things that are wrong and why we all delight in doing wrong even to our within-group. It is unable to explain what is clearly spiritual. Evolution cannot explain original sin or the Christian model of human nature. It cannot explain the conscience, the soul, or sinful nature.

4. Evolution explains family values. The following characteristics are the foundation of families and societies and are shared by humans and other social mammals: attachment and bonding, cooperation and reciprocity, sympathy and empathy, conflict resolution, community concern and reputation anxiety, and response to group social norms. As a social primate species, we evolved morality to enhance the survival of both family and community. Subsequently, religions designed moral codes based on our evolved moral natures.

“Attachment and bonding, cooperation and reciprocity, sympathy and empathy, conflict resolution, community concern and reputation anxiety, and response to group social norms” are all characteristics of families. However, all of these characteristics are as easily and even more easily explained by creation rather than evolution. Could God not have given us the desire to attach and bond? Could he not have made us sympathetic and make us desire to resolve conflicts amicably? Even a brief overview of the Bible will prove this to be true. To suggest that religions designed moral codes based upon moral natures is to put the cart before the horse, for is it not more likely that a moral code existed with God before creation was begun, and that our natures were created in a way consistent with this code? Is it not likely that God, whose moral nature included moral codes, designed us in His image and built that code into us? Is this not an explanation for the laws that seem so clearly to be written into the hearts of all humans? Evolution cannot explain family values and can certainly not explain more codes. A glance at the conflict over the right of homosexuals to marry will show the vast difference between an understanding of family as rooted in naturalistic evolution and of family rooted in God’s creative design.

5. Evolution accounts for specific Christian moral precepts. Much of Christian morality has to do with human relationships, most notably truth telling and marital fidelity, because the violation of these principles causes a severe breakdown in trust, which is the foundation of family and community. Evolution describes how we developed into pair-bonded primates and how adultery violates trust. Likewise, truth telling is vital for trust in our society, so lying is a sin.

Christian morality has to do primarily with imitating God who is true and who is faithful. The violation of these principles may case a severe breakdown in truth, but far worse, violation of these principles causes a growing rift between creature and Creator. Christian morality involves human relationships, but only secondarily to the relationship between God and man. Evolution may offer some description of how humans developed into pair-bonded primates and how adultery violates trust. But the Bible offers an answer that is far more clear and far more likely: God created marriage so that human beings could emulate the relationship of Jesus Christ to His people. Truth telling is vital for trust, but even more vital to maintain relationship between God and man. Lying is a sin because it makes a mockery of God who not only tells the truth, but is the very source of truth. Evolution absolutely cannot account for specific moral precepts in a way that is satisfying. And, ironically, evolution is the worldview that underlies the acceptance of non-traditional relationships such as homosexual marriage. Could it be that evolution can be used to explain anything?

6. Evolution explains conservative free-market economics. Charles Darwin’s “natural selection” is precisely parallel to Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.” Darwin showed how complex design and ecological balance were unintended consequences of competition among individual organisms. Smith showed how national wealth and social harmony were unintended consequences of competition among individual people. Nature’s economy mirrors society’s economy. Both are designed from the bottom up, not the top down.

This sixth point does not seem to fit with the rest of the list. While the other five have dealt with principles that are distinctly Christian, this one turns to free-market economics. Shermer may as well have said “Evolution explains the American obsession with team sports.” I know little of economics, free market or otherwise, so will leave this point as-is, except to point out that simply because two theories parallel one another does not make either true.

The article concludes with an exhortation and a passage from Scripture. “Because the theory of evolution provides a scientific foundation for the core values shared by most Christians and conservatives, it should be embraced. The senseless conflict between science and religion must end now, or else, as the Book of Proverbs (11:29) warned: ‘He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.’”

There does not need to be a conflict between science and religion. In a perfect world, there would be no conflict, and, indeed, when the world is remade there will be no conflict. What we see in this debate is not a competition between science and religion, but a conflict between worldviews. These worldviews are wholly incompatible. Michael Ruse, a well-known evolutionist, speaks truthfully when he says “evolution came into being as a kind of secular ideology, an explicit substitute for Christianity…Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and is true of evolution still today.” Evolution is not mere science, but is religion dressed as science. Evolution, and the naturalism that lies behind it, is a full-blown worldview, and in reality, is a religious system that stands in direct opposition to Christianity. The true conflict, the conflict between evolution and creationism, is a conflict of truth and error, a conflict of God and man. Creationism embraces God as the Creator and Sustainer of the world; evolutionism rejects God replaces Him with time, chance and opportunity. The debate between creationism and evolutionism is by no means senseless, for it is a defense of the truth and a defense of the One who is Truth.

Christians are accustomed to treating evolution as an account of the world’s origins that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and something that a person could only believe in the absence of God or in the absence of faith. But this is not quite fair. There are now many Christians—Christians who treasure the Bible and who affirm the truths of the historic Christian faith—who do believe that the evidence for evolution is too compelling to ignore. It is telling that, as far as I can see, the vast majority of Christian scientists (not to be confused with Christian Scientists) hold to evolution. In the face of modern science, those of us who still cling to a literal six day creation may seem to be increasingly stubborn and outdated. Certainly the world perceives us this way. So, too, today, do many in the church. There is very real pressure to conform.

The stakes are high. As Christians we believe that God is honored when we honor the truth. Hence if God did not create the world from nothing in six literal days, we dishonor God by clinging tightly, even in the face of evidence, to a view that is wrong. Of course the opposite is also true. If God did create the world in six days, we dishonor Him by believing in evolution. Only one view can be right.

In his book The Language of God, Francis Collins, who identifies himself in the book as an evangelical Christian, neatly divides the realm of science and the realm of faith. Faith is given to answer ultimate questions about meaning and purpose where science is God’s way of speaking about the physical world. He sees a complete harmony between them. Collins says there are four options when we consider possible responses to the interaction of the theory of evolution and belief in God.

The first is atheism and agnosticism which he describes as science trumping faith. In this view people place their ultimate trust in science and have little to offer when it comes to ultimate questions about meaning and purpose.

The second is Creationism and he describes this as faith trumping science. He says that if the views of creationists are true, “it would lead to a complete and irreversible collapse of the sciences of physics, chemistry, cosmology, geology and biology.” “Ultra-literal” interpretations of Genesis are wrong and must be adapted to fit with what science tells us. Collins makes no distinction between “old earth” and “young earth” Creationists. There are, after all, some Christians (and though I am not among them I do have some sympathy for their beliefs) who would hold to something a little bit different than a six day creation, believing that God has created ex nihilo (i.e. out of nothing) and that He has been doing so progressively over millions or billions of years. He created man ex nihilo 6,000 or 10,000 years ago almost as described by a literal reading of the first few chapters of Genesis. Collins does not distinguish because he feels evolution is simply to clear to ignore and whether we believe in an old earth or a young earth, to ignore evolution is folly. Evolution and divine non-intervention are the keys, not the age of the earth.

The third option is Intelligent Design, which tries to find harmony but which does so only by looking for areas science cannot explain. As science progresses it inevitably finds a way to explain these gaps, thus keeping Intelligent Design advocates always scrambling and always on the defensive. While I enjoy reading of the world of these people, I find Intelligent Design an unsatisfying explanation for reasons I may discuss at another time.

The final option is theistic evolution or what Collins prefers to call “BioLogos.” This is the view he holds to and the view of an increasing number of Christians. This belief rests of the following premises:

1. The universe came into being out of nothingness, approximately 14 billion years ago.
2. Despite massive improbabilities, the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life.
3. While the precise mechanism of the origin of life on earth remains unknown, once life arose, the process of evolution and natural selection permitted the development of biological diversity and complexity over very long periods of time. Collins seems to hold that life arose naturally (or at least that it could have arisen naturally) and not through supernatural intervention.
4. Once evolution got under way no special supernatural intervention was required.
5. Humans are part of this process, sharing a common ancestor with the great apes.
6. But humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation and point to our spiritual nature. This includes the existence of the Moral Law (the knowledge of right and wrong) and the search for God that characterizes all human cultures throughout history.

I think these six points accurately summarize what most theistic evolutionists believe. I don’t have an exhaustive list of Christians who are theistic evolutionists, though some of the names I’ve heard are a bit surprising to me. But as I said at the outset, the names do include many Bible-believing Christians.

As for me, I am still an old-fashioned, out-dated, six day Creationist. My reasoning is simple: I believe we have to give the position of supremacy to the Bible. While I certainly admit that the Bible is not meant to be a scientific textbook, if we affirm its inerrancy we need to believe that where it does comment on science, it does so truthfully. Thus, until it can be proven to me otherwise, the creation of the world, as outlined in the Bible, is meant to be read literally and accepted as fact. Further, the creation of the world is not merely a scientific question but also a theological one, so it is not something we can consign entirely into the realm of science. Thus we have to arrive at a solution that is consistent with both science and Scripture, all the while knowing that we are imperfect and our eyes are clouded by our limitations. Where science and Scripture clearly disagree, we must hold fast to God’s Word. And to this point that is where my conscience has directed me.

There are several areas where I feel theistic evolutionists allow science to trump Scripture and I’d like to point out just four of them. Francis Collins is certainly no theologian and, unfortunately, does not address these in his book. I really would be glad to receive recommendations for a book written by a conservative Christian explaining how we can reconcile science with Scripture in these points and others.

First, if we decide that the biblical account of creation is simple allegory or a metaphorical description of what actually took place, how are we to determine where allegory ends and reality begins? If the description of the creation of the world is either just a vague metaphor for what actually happened or perhaps some kind of allegory, where do we determine that historical narrative actually begins? Certainly we cannot read much into the fact of God resting on the seventh day. We have to see that God did not create Adam from the dust of the ground and did not form Eve from Adam’s rib (putting to rest the age-old controversy of whether or not they had belly buttons). Was there a literal tree of life and tree of the knowledge of good and evil or were these, too, mere metaphor? Did God really create Eve specifically to be Adam’s helper or did woman arise by the process of evolution? Were gender roles part of God’s creation or did they arise only through natural selection? Was there a serpent who tempted Adam and Eve? Did they really eat fruit God told them not to eat? Was there a real Garden of Eden? Did Adam and Eve really get banished from it? Was there really a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life? Did God really create Adam and Eve clothes (foreshadowing the death of Christ in the death of the animal He used to cover them) to cover their nakedness? And finally, do we not see throughout the Bible that the other authors seem to understand the Biblical account of creation in a very literal way? It seems to me that the metaphorical reading of the first few chapters of Genesis if fraught with peril. This, in itself, is not a sound argument as much as it is a caution. Those who hold to theistic evolution tread upon portions of the Bible that are absolutely foundational to our faith.

While I will admit that this next argument, an extension from the last, may fall into the realm of fallacy, I will state it anyways. Is there not a danger in handing someone a Bible and saying, “It is important to note that the first three chapters you read really aren’t meant to be taken literally!”? Does it seem likely that God would give us His description of the world’s origins in a way that, by most measures, seems to be meant literally, when in reality it is merely figurative? What are the wider implications of reading these early chapters in a way that is less than literal?

Second, the Bible tells us that Adam, as the first man, stands as our federal head. He represented us before God in such a way that when he fell into sin, so did we. The Bible makes it clear that this position was assigned by virtue of Adam’s position as the first man. If we hold to evolution we have no way of knowing if, how or why Adam is our federal head. Was he perhaps the first person who was truly a sentient being? Was he the first person to whom the moral law was given? Did God somehow intervene in his life to give him something that made him human while the rest of the species went on as animals? We are forced to believe that God somehow chose Adam out of the mass of humanity (or near humanity) and conferred on him a special privilege. While this is something God is known to do (think of Abraham as an example) this is certainly not clear from the Bible. In fact, I don’t know that anyone would have thought of this until evolution began to make us rethink Genesis. We would also do well to consider the implications to the federal headship of Christ, the Second Adam.

Third, how did the fall into sin actually happen? I touched on this in the first point, but if we believe in evolution, it is difficult to then believe that the story of man’s fall into sin happened exactly as the Bible describes it. And so I ask, how did sin come into the world? And how can we explain its pervasiveness?

And finally, was there death before Adam? Romans 5:12 says that death entered the world through the sin of Adam. “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…” Yet evolution is impossible without death (and without death being an agent of good, rather than evil, for death causes the stronger to supplant the weaker, driving the innately beneficial process of natural selection). So did death really enter the world through Adam or was there death already? And is death a curse, as the Bible says, or is death also a good and necessary force that causes the stronger to survive?

I have found these four questions (or series of questions) impossible to reconcile with Darwinian evolution. Thus I have to give supremacy to the Bible. Am I asking you to answer these questions? Not necessarily, though if you have answers or can refer me to a place that they’ve been answered satisfactorily I would be interested in the learning experience. In the meanwhile, I’m content to continue believing that God created the world, from nothing, in six days, and that He did so not too long ago. My understanding of Scripture and my love for it just doesn’t allow me any other option.