I bring good news! These two warring groups have more in common than they realize. And, no, it isn’t just that they’re both wrong. It’s that they’re wrong for the same reason. Oddly, an underestimation of natural selection’s creative power clouds the vision not just of the intensely religious but also of the militantly atheistic.If both groups were to truly accept that power, the landscape might look different. Believers could scale back their conception of God’s role in creation, and atheists could accept that some notions of “higher purpose” are compatible with scientific materialism. And the two might learn to get along.
Wright makes an excellent point on how we attribute things. Both science and religion have deep seated and quite inspirational purposes. Science does achieve a very high purpose, understanding the unfolding of the natural world. Part of the reason why I wanted to go into science and actually had some mild success stemmed from that idea (I of course failed because I hated the lab, but that's another story for another time).
Also, there is the question as to what exactly is God's role in creation. That too for a believer like me is complex. God's role is not some literal creation. It may just be setting the algorithms in place. However, I think imprinting altruism into the larger evolutionary framework as an underlying phenomena that natural selection chose (and it appears in other animals) may be what is going on. I do not take creation with any literalness, as it has its textual problems (See Genesis Chapter 1 and 2). However, I do think that it is hinting at something powerful and natural, and that is something about order in the world and the capability of humans to see that order, and a way of inspiring us toward that common good.
Of course, I think Wright's piece will likely get attacks from everyone as disingenuous and wrong. I think both sides have put too much in stake in the so-called war, and each side really wants to just win. Sadly, that may be the evolution our society is taking on a lot of matters.
Yuting posted this article on Facebook, and these were my comments:
ReplyDelete1. I think Wright is wrong to focus in on the "moral sense" as the "ingredient" which God added specially. As a theist, I would focus much more on the "spirit," "soul," or "mind." I think it's much more likely that our moral sentiments are reducible to evolution than that our minds are, and I don't think theism hinges on the means by which we came to have moral beliefs. That being said, I'm hardly willing to concede that the story evolutionary psychologists have given us about our morals is "plausible."
2. I think there are *huge* problems with the idea that we evolved to "discover" pre-existing moral rules - unless, of course, someone was guiding the evolutionary process. Anyway, such rules would necessarily negate the comprehensiveness of an empiricist worldview, leaving room for religion to "creep in" anyway.
In general, I felt that Wright glossed over the nuances of the theistic evolutionist view.
Do you agree with his point that the "intensely religious" and the "militantly atheistic" are making the same mistake and underestimating natural selection's creative power? I think it's sort of a stretch.
Thanks for posting!