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Shadow of Oz: Theistic Evolution and the Absent God
In the century and a half since Darwin's Origin of Species, there has been an ongoing--and often vociferously argued--conversation about our species' place in creation and its relationship to a Creator. A growing number of academic professionals see no conflict between Darwin's view of life and the Christian faith. Dubbed "theistic evolution," this brand of Christianity holds that God has used processes like Darwinian evolution to achieve his creation. But is that true? Can Darwin's mechanism of natural selection acting on chance mutations be reconciled with God's intentionality in producing particular outcomes? Does humanity represent the apex of his creation, or just an erasable and ephemeral signpost along a path still being revealed? Does theistic evolution permit God to intervene supernaturally in the workings of his creation? Can we as humans be made in the image of God if we are just one of the millions of products of evolution? Can we salvage concepts like freewill, meaning, purpose, or an eternal soul within theistic evolution? In this book, Wayne Rossiter assess theistic evolution, and whether or not it is consistent with Christianity and secular science. His conclusion is that it bears little resemblance to classical Christianity, and promotes a century-old understanding of evolutionary theory. Theistic evolution renders God a passive player in creation, so far removed and undetectable that he resembles a mere shadow of the Creator described in Christianity.
- GenresEvolution
173 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 8, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 25, 2024
3.5 ⭐️
There are good points made in the book (e.g. how can an unguided process still be guided, a willingness to accept arguments from authority in some realms of science but not others, the supposed goodness of the evolutionary process). However, Wayne never was willing to state - much less defend - his own views as an Old Earth creationist. Furthermore, he seems to pick fight with different proponents of theistic evolution when he wants to prove a point. Yet, there’s a vast spectrum with more than a few who are orthodox in practically all matters. But when he needs to, he’ll pull quotes from Kenneth Miller again and again.
Wayne also spends considerable time showing God’s unimportance in theistic evolution. Yet, there are fine-tuning arguments, intelligibility arguments, arguments from beauty, moral arguments, etc that don’t require God’s constant tinkering. So I don’t understand why he would feel people could not hold a rational belief in God without intelligent design.
Last gripe was that he kept saying that: Whenever there’s a conflict between science and faith, the science adjusts the faith. And there is a kernel of truth in that. Yet, Collins and others DO sacrifice science at the feet of God. They say Jesus was resurrected. They say He is God incarnate. Those are clearly out of step with contemporary science and examples of faith adjusting science.
There are good points made in the book (e.g. how can an unguided process still be guided, a willingness to accept arguments from authority in some realms of science but not others, the supposed goodness of the evolutionary process). However, Wayne never was willing to state - much less defend - his own views as an Old Earth creationist. Furthermore, he seems to pick fight with different proponents of theistic evolution when he wants to prove a point. Yet, there’s a vast spectrum with more than a few who are orthodox in practically all matters. But when he needs to, he’ll pull quotes from Kenneth Miller again and again.
Wayne also spends considerable time showing God’s unimportance in theistic evolution. Yet, there are fine-tuning arguments, intelligibility arguments, arguments from beauty, moral arguments, etc that don’t require God’s constant tinkering. So I don’t understand why he would feel people could not hold a rational belief in God without intelligent design.
Last gripe was that he kept saying that: Whenever there’s a conflict between science and faith, the science adjusts the faith. And there is a kernel of truth in that. Yet, Collins and others DO sacrifice science at the feet of God. They say Jesus was resurrected. They say He is God incarnate. Those are clearly out of step with contemporary science and examples of faith adjusting science.
January 25, 2018
Before I started reading I was prepared to like this book, whether I agreed with the conclusions or not. It seemed to address some very important topics at the point of overlap between science and theology. Unfortunately, my hope only lasted one chapter.
By the second chapter it became clear that Rossiter consistently conflates all three models of theistic evolution (see Rau, Mapping the Origins Debate, 2012). When discussing their scientific position it is fair to lump them together, but not regarding how they address theological issues. Directed evolution (DE) is consistent with conservative Christian doctrine. Planned evolution (PE) also affirms all the basic creeds hammered out by the church councils in the early centuries after Christ. Non-teleological evolution (NTE) denies many of these basic Christian beliefs. At one point he mentions the “three types of theistic evolution outlined in previous chapters” (p. 63), but I searched in vain to find any mention of three types, which apparently means the book was poorly edited as well as poorly written.
He then makes many groundless statements about the beliefs of theistic evolutionists. He believes that “the basic view of theistic evolution is that of process theism (sic) [theology]” (p. 69), and “As they must, essentially all theistic evolutionists think we have evolved to a point where God would start paying attention to us.” (p. 73) This may be true for Haught, at the most liberal end of NTE, but would certainly be news to Haarsma, the current president of Biologos, standing firmly in the tradition of Reformed theology.
In addition to papering over the theological differences the author makes many philosophical claims that indicate he is unfamiliar with the philosophy of science, not clearly distinguishing law from theory and approving Popper’s discredited idea of falsifiability (p. 148-9). Or saying, “Of course, Plantinga has erected a dichotomy that is philosophical, but not evidential.” (p. 93) What would you expect a philosopher to do?
There are a few glimpses of truth along the way, mostly in the chapter on Biological Evolution Updated, but even there we find mistakes I would not expect from a professor of biology, like, “Natural selection exists (presumably) whether or not there are variants to select for.” (p. 142) By definition, natural selection acts only in the presence of heritable variation.
I never give low ratings because I disagree with an author's conclusions, only if their argument is faulty. It pains me to say this, but this is one of the most poorly written books I have seen on this (admittedly difficult) subject. The last paragraph of the book says that when we pull back the curtain we find that TE retains only a shadow of Oz (God), but perhaps a more suitable analogy is that when we pull back the curtain we find a man, claiming to be an authority, making loud statements that are nothing but smoke.
By the second chapter it became clear that Rossiter consistently conflates all three models of theistic evolution (see Rau, Mapping the Origins Debate, 2012). When discussing their scientific position it is fair to lump them together, but not regarding how they address theological issues. Directed evolution (DE) is consistent with conservative Christian doctrine. Planned evolution (PE) also affirms all the basic creeds hammered out by the church councils in the early centuries after Christ. Non-teleological evolution (NTE) denies many of these basic Christian beliefs. At one point he mentions the “three types of theistic evolution outlined in previous chapters” (p. 63), but I searched in vain to find any mention of three types, which apparently means the book was poorly edited as well as poorly written.
He then makes many groundless statements about the beliefs of theistic evolutionists. He believes that “the basic view of theistic evolution is that of process theism (sic) [theology]” (p. 69), and “As they must, essentially all theistic evolutionists think we have evolved to a point where God would start paying attention to us.” (p. 73) This may be true for Haught, at the most liberal end of NTE, but would certainly be news to Haarsma, the current president of Biologos, standing firmly in the tradition of Reformed theology.
In addition to papering over the theological differences the author makes many philosophical claims that indicate he is unfamiliar with the philosophy of science, not clearly distinguishing law from theory and approving Popper’s discredited idea of falsifiability (p. 148-9). Or saying, “Of course, Plantinga has erected a dichotomy that is philosophical, but not evidential.” (p. 93) What would you expect a philosopher to do?
There are a few glimpses of truth along the way, mostly in the chapter on Biological Evolution Updated, but even there we find mistakes I would not expect from a professor of biology, like, “Natural selection exists (presumably) whether or not there are variants to select for.” (p. 142) By definition, natural selection acts only in the presence of heritable variation.
I never give low ratings because I disagree with an author's conclusions, only if their argument is faulty. It pains me to say this, but this is one of the most poorly written books I have seen on this (admittedly difficult) subject. The last paragraph of the book says that when we pull back the curtain we find that TE retains only a shadow of Oz (God), but perhaps a more suitable analogy is that when we pull back the curtain we find a man, claiming to be an authority, making loud statements that are nothing but smoke.
December 24, 2016
God used Darwinian evolution as his method of creating – this is the claim of theistic evolution. And to many Christians, it sounds very reasonable. To them it sounds like a balanced approach whereby concord is found between the claims of science and those of classical Christianity. But “Shadow of Oz” author Wayne Rossiter warns us that once one gets below the surface, this arrangement is entirely unsatisfactory.
This occurred to him one time when he was watching “The Wizard of Oz” with his daughter. The entourage shows up at the gates, and knocks on the door, and the doorman sticks his head out and says, “You want to see the Great Oz? Nobody’s seen Oz! Not even I’ve seen Oz!” And then Dorothy says, “Well how do you know he exists?”
That’s where it clicked for him that that’s effectively what theistic evolution is about, namely, an explicit desire to not ever have God poking his fingers into the natural world. And this translates into the belief that the best evidence that God is active in everything is the fact that you cannot detect him in anything.
This then led to the thesis of the book, which Rossiter spells out as follows: “The two ideas (the Judeo-Christian understanding of reality and that of Darwin) can be thought of as two ends of a continuum, along which all of us reside. Simply put, you cannot have your God and your Darwin too, while leaving nothing at the door. As we award explanatory power to one, power is taken from the other (i.e., every step towards Darwin is one away from the Judeo-Christian God and vice-versa)” (p. 9).
Rossiter sees a blatant appeal to naturalism through and through, one that goes beyond mere “methodological” naturalism. Theistic evolutionists defend their use of methodological naturalism, a rule of modern science (inserted into the definition of “science” by….you guessed it, full-blown naturalists), and say it is simply a tool, and does not lead to “metaphysical naturalism.” The two, it is claimed, are clearly separate. But this is clearly false. The wall between the two is porous. And this becomes evident when you look at their use of that conversation-stopping epithet “God-of-the-gaps,” used to bludgeon those who claim there is evidence not only of event causation but also of agent causation in the natural world.
What I mean is there is a manifest circularity in their reasoning, a circularity that presupposes naturalism. The “gap” in the God-of-the-gaps charge doesn’t exist for the one against whom the charge is levelled, who sees nature as a seamless garment of interacting event and agent causal actions (just like we see in everyday life). This is not just methodological naturalism, but metaphysical naturalism. Now surely at this point the theistic evolutionist will protest and say something about God “sustaining” everything, but when empirically there is no difference between that and a full-blown metaphysical naturalism in which God plays no role whatsoever, this becomes a distinction without a difference.
Nobody is fooled by the weak contrary claim, and Rossiter gives an example to illustrate this, one where for once I have to agree with something said by Richard Dawkins. He relates a time where John Lennox was debating Richard Dawkins, and proposed that there could be a Mind behind the seeming stochasticity (randomness) of nature. And Dawkins replied, “Why bother when you’ve got a perfectly good explanation that doesn’t involve guidance? Why bring it up?” (p. 98). And he’s right.
Rossiter adds that it’s like one person asking another how to boil water. The second person tells him to get some water, go to sea level, heat it to 100 degrees Celsius, and add a leprechaun. When the first man protests that he doesn’t have a leprechaun, the second man shrugs and says, well, it’ll boil anyways. Well then why would anyone invoke the necessity of a leprechaun, when it’s entirely unnecessary and superfluous?
This applies to the one who wants to declare that there are no stochastic (random) events, presumably because God is directing them, for two reasons. First, this is a completely untestable and unfalsifiable claim, and one of blind faith. Second, it betrays a belief that Darwinian evolution, of which stochasticity is an integral part, is inadequate as a scientific theory after all. Because if there’s one thing that theistic evolutionists of all stripes agree on, it is that Darwin’s theory is adequate.
The problem is not that we’re making God part of a scientific explanation, because nobody’s doing that. The problem is that theistic evolutionists are insisting, before looking at the evidence, on a God who is active every second in creation but has left not one shred of empirical evidence of his activity, and one is left with the “eyes of faith” to discern his involvement. Why is this a problem? Well, because it’s entirely contrary to how God has acted in the Bible, where, for example, with Moses and Jesus God doesn’t ask his people to “just believe” – he gives evidence so that they may know that he is there and he has acted.
The rejoinder, no doubt, will be, look, God has revealed himself in two books, and Darwinian evolution gives an accurate account of the book of nature. And here Rossiter points out that many theistic evolutionists are not keeping abreast of current developments in evolutionary biology, where not fringe scientists but high profile names, under the banner of the “third way of evolution,” are calling into question the adequacy of the Darwinian mechanism. They are, at the very least, calling for it to be supplemented and augmented, and perhaps even replaced entirely. And though they want to retain the word “evolution,” what they are proposing often is a lot more teleological, or goal-oriented, than the current Darwinian paradigm.
Rossiter doesn’t ask us to just take his word for it; chapter six in his book is a moderately technical review of some of these new developments.
The irony is that science itself, by moving away from Darwin, is moving in a direction compatible with Christianity, while theistic evolutionists remain with their wagons hitched to Darwin.
There are several tactics employed by theistic evolutionists that Rossiter warns us to be wary of. First, it is unwise simply to cite scientists who believe in evolution and who are also Christians, without examining what their Christianity consists of. For example, one big name that is frequently brought up is Francis Collins, the implication being, look, here’s a scientist, a Christian, who sees no conflict between evolution and Christianity, therefore, neither should you. The problem with this reasoning is that his expertise is in science, not theology, and to appeal uncritically to his theological conclusions is like appealing to Albert Einstein’s views on marriage and family as authoritative simply because they come from Albert Einstein.
Second, it is misleading to claim that the overwhelming number of scientists believe evolution is true, without acknowledging the difference between the reflexive “circle-the-wagons” defensive posture exemplified when public claims of loyalty to Darwin are made against the creationists and I.D. crowd, and the actual widespread dissatisfaction of Darwinism that exists in the literature.
Third, it is both naïve and dangerous to baptize with theological language what is widely understood to be the creation myth of naturalism, supposing that its initial acceptance was due strictly to its power as a scientific theory. It is naïve because it overlooks the reality that Darwin’s victory consisted not in its explanatory superiority against its rivals, but in its seeming ability to finally expunge God and design from biology, thus allowing this discipline to join the simpler sciences in being fully naturalistic.
And it is dangerous because it creates a tension that in the long run is impossible to resolve. Howard Van Till couldn’t do it. Darwin himself couldn’t retain any semblance of meaningful theism in the face of his own theory (Denis Lamoureux’s claims to the contrary notwithstanding). Why then do modern theistic evolutionists think that they can pull it off?
The fact of the matter is that if you must assume before you look at the evidence that natural history has unfolded in a strictly law-like fashion with no empirical evidence of a Creator, and if God is superfluous to a theory that does just fine without him, then in the tension between your Christianity and your naturalism, something is going to have to give. And it is going to be your Christianity.
Try as it might, theistic evolution cannot marry the naturalism inherent in Darwinian evolution with classical Christianity. Theistic evolution is bad theism, and it is bad evolution. It is in fact training wheels for atheism.
This occurred to him one time when he was watching “The Wizard of Oz” with his daughter. The entourage shows up at the gates, and knocks on the door, and the doorman sticks his head out and says, “You want to see the Great Oz? Nobody’s seen Oz! Not even I’ve seen Oz!” And then Dorothy says, “Well how do you know he exists?”
That’s where it clicked for him that that’s effectively what theistic evolution is about, namely, an explicit desire to not ever have God poking his fingers into the natural world. And this translates into the belief that the best evidence that God is active in everything is the fact that you cannot detect him in anything.
This then led to the thesis of the book, which Rossiter spells out as follows: “The two ideas (the Judeo-Christian understanding of reality and that of Darwin) can be thought of as two ends of a continuum, along which all of us reside. Simply put, you cannot have your God and your Darwin too, while leaving nothing at the door. As we award explanatory power to one, power is taken from the other (i.e., every step towards Darwin is one away from the Judeo-Christian God and vice-versa)” (p. 9).
Rossiter sees a blatant appeal to naturalism through and through, one that goes beyond mere “methodological” naturalism. Theistic evolutionists defend their use of methodological naturalism, a rule of modern science (inserted into the definition of “science” by….you guessed it, full-blown naturalists), and say it is simply a tool, and does not lead to “metaphysical naturalism.” The two, it is claimed, are clearly separate. But this is clearly false. The wall between the two is porous. And this becomes evident when you look at their use of that conversation-stopping epithet “God-of-the-gaps,” used to bludgeon those who claim there is evidence not only of event causation but also of agent causation in the natural world.
What I mean is there is a manifest circularity in their reasoning, a circularity that presupposes naturalism. The “gap” in the God-of-the-gaps charge doesn’t exist for the one against whom the charge is levelled, who sees nature as a seamless garment of interacting event and agent causal actions (just like we see in everyday life). This is not just methodological naturalism, but metaphysical naturalism. Now surely at this point the theistic evolutionist will protest and say something about God “sustaining” everything, but when empirically there is no difference between that and a full-blown metaphysical naturalism in which God plays no role whatsoever, this becomes a distinction without a difference.
Nobody is fooled by the weak contrary claim, and Rossiter gives an example to illustrate this, one where for once I have to agree with something said by Richard Dawkins. He relates a time where John Lennox was debating Richard Dawkins, and proposed that there could be a Mind behind the seeming stochasticity (randomness) of nature. And Dawkins replied, “Why bother when you’ve got a perfectly good explanation that doesn’t involve guidance? Why bring it up?” (p. 98). And he’s right.
Rossiter adds that it’s like one person asking another how to boil water. The second person tells him to get some water, go to sea level, heat it to 100 degrees Celsius, and add a leprechaun. When the first man protests that he doesn’t have a leprechaun, the second man shrugs and says, well, it’ll boil anyways. Well then why would anyone invoke the necessity of a leprechaun, when it’s entirely unnecessary and superfluous?
This applies to the one who wants to declare that there are no stochastic (random) events, presumably because God is directing them, for two reasons. First, this is a completely untestable and unfalsifiable claim, and one of blind faith. Second, it betrays a belief that Darwinian evolution, of which stochasticity is an integral part, is inadequate as a scientific theory after all. Because if there’s one thing that theistic evolutionists of all stripes agree on, it is that Darwin’s theory is adequate.
The problem is not that we’re making God part of a scientific explanation, because nobody’s doing that. The problem is that theistic evolutionists are insisting, before looking at the evidence, on a God who is active every second in creation but has left not one shred of empirical evidence of his activity, and one is left with the “eyes of faith” to discern his involvement. Why is this a problem? Well, because it’s entirely contrary to how God has acted in the Bible, where, for example, with Moses and Jesus God doesn’t ask his people to “just believe” – he gives evidence so that they may know that he is there and he has acted.
The rejoinder, no doubt, will be, look, God has revealed himself in two books, and Darwinian evolution gives an accurate account of the book of nature. And here Rossiter points out that many theistic evolutionists are not keeping abreast of current developments in evolutionary biology, where not fringe scientists but high profile names, under the banner of the “third way of evolution,” are calling into question the adequacy of the Darwinian mechanism. They are, at the very least, calling for it to be supplemented and augmented, and perhaps even replaced entirely. And though they want to retain the word “evolution,” what they are proposing often is a lot more teleological, or goal-oriented, than the current Darwinian paradigm.
Rossiter doesn’t ask us to just take his word for it; chapter six in his book is a moderately technical review of some of these new developments.
The irony is that science itself, by moving away from Darwin, is moving in a direction compatible with Christianity, while theistic evolutionists remain with their wagons hitched to Darwin.
There are several tactics employed by theistic evolutionists that Rossiter warns us to be wary of. First, it is unwise simply to cite scientists who believe in evolution and who are also Christians, without examining what their Christianity consists of. For example, one big name that is frequently brought up is Francis Collins, the implication being, look, here’s a scientist, a Christian, who sees no conflict between evolution and Christianity, therefore, neither should you. The problem with this reasoning is that his expertise is in science, not theology, and to appeal uncritically to his theological conclusions is like appealing to Albert Einstein’s views on marriage and family as authoritative simply because they come from Albert Einstein.
Second, it is misleading to claim that the overwhelming number of scientists believe evolution is true, without acknowledging the difference between the reflexive “circle-the-wagons” defensive posture exemplified when public claims of loyalty to Darwin are made against the creationists and I.D. crowd, and the actual widespread dissatisfaction of Darwinism that exists in the literature.
Third, it is both naïve and dangerous to baptize with theological language what is widely understood to be the creation myth of naturalism, supposing that its initial acceptance was due strictly to its power as a scientific theory. It is naïve because it overlooks the reality that Darwin’s victory consisted not in its explanatory superiority against its rivals, but in its seeming ability to finally expunge God and design from biology, thus allowing this discipline to join the simpler sciences in being fully naturalistic.
And it is dangerous because it creates a tension that in the long run is impossible to resolve. Howard Van Till couldn’t do it. Darwin himself couldn’t retain any semblance of meaningful theism in the face of his own theory (Denis Lamoureux’s claims to the contrary notwithstanding). Why then do modern theistic evolutionists think that they can pull it off?
The fact of the matter is that if you must assume before you look at the evidence that natural history has unfolded in a strictly law-like fashion with no empirical evidence of a Creator, and if God is superfluous to a theory that does just fine without him, then in the tension between your Christianity and your naturalism, something is going to have to give. And it is going to be your Christianity.
Try as it might, theistic evolution cannot marry the naturalism inherent in Darwinian evolution with classical Christianity. Theistic evolution is bad theism, and it is bad evolution. It is in fact training wheels for atheism.
April 11, 2019
Pair this book with Heretic by Matti Leisola, and you have all the reasons you could ever need to see the pitfalls of evolutionary theory and the supremecy of Intelligent Design. This is a seminal work in this field, and should be added to the very short list of must-read books. Clever, witty, well-researched and startling. It's well worth digging deep to read this one.
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