We're.

Just.

Doing it.

This spring.

That you know.

Every.

Day.

Is a very special here in
Georgia Tech we are not.

Yet.

It is.

Here.

Two years or so ago.

Through the first day.

Was there ever a good.

Day to.

Be.

This Georgia.

People are likely.

To.

Understand.

That.

This best.

Years.

Are fortunate just to be there Raiders.

Every We have established.

More.

You.

Can leave.

This

land.

Here you know for.

To.

Us for the first verse.

Verse.

Or.

Here.

Is another one of the first heard and.

Things like this.

Or.

Cold out.

Here it's.

Just finished.

Or over.

Focus is supposed to.

Mean.

It was one of.

The here and you have just come
out of those words like the next.

Day.

And no one heard their presentation.

For.

Free for you three news thirty.

Here.

Are your

fish.

Or twelve thirty.

This expressiveness to you we
are to bring this program to you.

Your successor is to hear
the worst of this size.

Like the rest of the spirits or to.

Suggest to an author of.

The silliness of your life that it is.

For us to.

See what other people you are.

But also.

As we.

Point out.

Here.

With us today tomorrow it will be a.

Reflection.

House retreats or.

Drive.

Three.

Words of it to the director
of the program Real Crestor

director with us tonight.

Day.

Urges as a babysitter space is.

The focus of the day.

In this drama unfolding or.

So.

I want you to know are.

There.

Available.

On the left with sight.

Little.

Introduction.

Out.

There searching for.

Four doors down university Brady was

formally.

Just yesterday.

With interesting issues pertaining to.

Evolution.

And.

Has authored twenty eight books so
you're just.

Gets worse are those are.

Actors they're really an Internet.

It's.

Just titles and things like say a new

introduction make sense of evolution.

Or the drama of life.

And an atheist group goes.

Here and Christianity is.

The nature.

And truth and.

Purpose evolution and the life.

After Darwin.

Of evolution.

This is one of the counters.

Of.

Nature.

For.

His resist.

Because this.

Is where.

He is for.

A credit.

Has demonstrated that because he has
received awards over the course of.

Just.

To see where.

You were.

Testified before it played here.

And.

We see.

That.

You see.

It is why.

Mr.

Joyce.

If you want to get

there.

Thank you.

For Thank you sir for
that morning generous introduction and

I want to thank you for your hospitality
and especially John Cressler for

risking his reputation by asking me to
come here and I want to thank the students

of his class and all of you for
being here the same thing.

I was introduced as a theologian I
don't know whether everybody here knows

what a theologian else might my
definition of a theologian is someone who

who doesn't make much money but
at least knows why.

I should also add that for many years I
tried instead to be a philosopher but

cheerfulness kept breaking him so I had to
become a theologian as well but saying.

You for being here I want to talk about
the subject which I think is central

to the contemporary conversation the
relationship between science and religion

about ten years ago science magazine
sponsored a survey of adults and

thirty four different countries asking
them the question Do you agree that

humans developed from earlier living
species the affirmative answers were

very high in Iceland waiting seven percent
of the people could agree with that and

also the Scandinavian countries in
Western Europe the more secular countries

the numbers were very high at the very
bottom of the west west Turkey very

religious country where only twenty
seven percent of the people could agree

that we had non-human ancestors.

And the country right up the rest from
Turkey was the United States where only

about thirty percent of the adults could
answer affirmatively to the question.

On this map as a red states in the pink
states which includes Georgia are places

where significant initiatives against
the teaching of Darwinian evolution

in public schools has taken place but
the most famous example of this

took place in the rural county of dirt
were Pennsylvania back in two thousand and

four where the road you sat at the
students in that district should be made

aware of what they called the gaps and
problems in Darwin's theory and

that they should be informed
about an alternative theory

of life namely intelligent design which is
the idea that the complexity of life is so

staggering that purely natural causes are
not enough to bring about something non

natural which in our Western culture we
immediately identify with the Creator God

a Biblical religion has to be called in to
tinker with creation and make it right and

they said OK let's let the kids
learn both Darwinian evolution and

intelligent design but
then let the kids decide not parents or

teachers which one is right which one is.

Wrong Well this struck the scientists of
the time as comparable to asking the kids

to distinguish what to do to pick between
chemistry and alchemy for example or

phonology in Iran or between magic and
physics or between astrology and

astronomy Well the case went to
court parents were not thrilled with

the school best resolution and I was
involved as the minister said in this

court case the judge Johnny Jones
to make a long story short.

Eventually ruled in favor of those not
in favor of teaching intelligent design

in public schools and he referred to the
school boards dictum as an imprudent and

ultimately unconstitutional policy and
using very interpret language for

the judge he says he talks about
the breast taking inanity of the board's

decision that has now been fully
revealed through this trial so

it was resolved that intelligent design
not be taught in public schools and

maybe you'll understand why
some go along I joined those

opposed to teaching intelligent design
because it's neither good theology nor

good science anyway the Deborah school
bread was voted out of office in

November of two thousand and five which
prompted Pat Robertson on his program.

The seven hundred Club to say I'd like
to say to the good citizens of Denver

if there's a disaster and you don't turn
to God You just rejected him from your

city God is time and loving but

we can't keep sticking a finger in his
eye forever if they have future problems

endeavor I recommend they call on
Charles Darwin maybe he can help them.

Where you can get from this.

Snapshot of the kind of issue of
the kind of welfare that's going

on in our culture regarding evolution so
when I found to talk about tonight.

What is at stake for so
many people in this controversy well for

many people to put the best face on
it nothing less than the existence of

a creator because if they've
been told that natural selection

is what created the biosphere Then
they asked what place for a creator.

And if evolution occurred in the rough and

ragged way that Darwinian
evolution since the dead.

Can we have a law could be any longer
believe in Genesis when God says

after each day of creation that
it was good how can the rainy and

Creation be good in comparison to
the biblical story of creation

then there's the question of who are we if
there are no sharp breaks between us and

other living spaces what is
human identity for Christians

nothing last as at stake than
the meaning of Christ if evolution took

place Jay Pharoah used to say if evolution
took took place then there was no original

sin there's no regional center
then what need for a savior.

Say that issue is also the question
What is the sky probably dimension

does it include just humans or what about
this whole ragged history of life that

goes back millions and billions of years.

To some of the ripe to get down to it I
think the real issue bothering must people

that is that issue are two things
from Biblical religion which

have contractual agreements and
other face traditions as well.

The issue of divine providence can we
believe in a God who provides the word

providence comes from to provide this God
really deserve to be called providential

given the way that evolution has
taken place if Darwin is right and

then there's the question of how can we
any longer think of an infinite divine

wisdom on the lying the whole of creation
if evolution took place the way Darwin and

his followers.

Saying that it does.

For Darwin before science the pretty
evolutionary universe could host

the notion of Divine Providence Divine
Wisdom much more closely because

the universe prior to science was
thought to have as a vertical static

hierarchical universe a lot of levels
moving from merely matter at the bottom

through plants through animals to humans
then perhaps angelic spheres then I would

comp us by ultimate infinite
divine care and wisdom.

In this universe nature each level in
its own way reflected sacramentally

the eternal Divine Wisdom Providence and
creativity of God

species were thought of as having created
in a fixed way in the beginning and

not having evolved very much
over the course of time and

finally the discontinuity of levels and
the static vertical hierarchy

allowed us humans perhaps to think
that we our species was cared for

in a very special way by God But

now let's move into the present to a new
scientific understanding of the universe

I used to just picture you know I must
always talk I give up on science and

religion is the new scientific story of
the universe thirteen point eight billion

years old you can get some sense of the
scale of this universe if you imagine you

have on your bookshelf thirty big books
each of these books just one million

each of these books is three hundred
fifty pages long and each page stands for

one million years in the story the big
bang takes place on page one of volume one

but you notice that the first two
shelves and part of the third consist of

what seems to be essentially lifeless
physical stuff and processes life was

not in a hurry to come into this universe
the earth spins out around the sun

in Volume twenty run through our
point five billion years ago.

And about a billion or so years later
the first sparks of life begin to grow but

not terribly enthusiastically
on our planet and

life remains very simple
unicellular status

until you get almost to the end of volume
twenty nine between five to six hundred

million years ago where the famous
Cambridge an explosion took place and

then I have a sudden life begins to
complexify at an accelerated pace

even say the dinosaurs don't come in until
after the middle of Volume thirty and

they go extinct on page three hundred
eighty five which leaves only the last

sixty five pages of the last volume for
the same rushing madly in life and

eventually the development of our primate
ancestors twenty or so pages from the end

hominid ancestors come in maybe three four
or five but the most pages from the end

of random one went to recovering
thirty one to will come in we come in

modern descendants of Cro-Magnon
humanity and really on the last fifth or

perhaps even the last tenth of the very
last page of the very last fathom this

is when intelligence ethical aspiration
and our faith traditions finally come onto

the scene in this universe.

So if you were thoughtful
person today you can't help but

asking and especially if you're
theologically interested or

religiously interested to boot you can't
help asking what is going on here.

If you're a skeptic a like a broken
Russell the famous British philosopher

was you might quip that if the point of
the story was to produce intelligence

then why did it take so
long to produce so little.

And that's a good question to ask but when
I want to focus on this what happens when

we get down to this last row
of books the colored books.

That's when the Darwinian recipe for
evolution takes over and that

becomes the generator of all the different
species according to science and.

Getting eventually us that have occurred
in the evolutionary process this recipe

consists of what many religious people
consider to be scientifically people and

scientific minded people do too but
a tribe of some in Queens there's a lot of

accidents plus natural selection plus loss
and loss of time this is the recipe for

evolution accidents first accidents and
the origin of life itself which

the scientist seems to be on completely
spontaneous unintended eruption on

our planet perhaps elsewhere sporadically
but the universe was not intended to bring

give rise to life according to many
scientific thinkers like Bertrand Russell.

Accident Sasso in the variations
that provide the raw

material of evolution when
Today we call the mutations and

accidents in the history of
nature including the asteroid

that impacted
the Yucatan Peninsula in about

sixty five million years ago causing
the atmosphere to cool down considerably

causing the dinosaurs another
reptiles to drop to to die out but

opening up niches through mammals to
come out of the holes in the ground and

down from their trees and so
forth and begin to flourish and

develop so it seems to a lot
of people if accident is so

much a factor in the existence of life and

even in their own existence how can you
reconcile that and this will be what I

want to talk about tonight how do you
reconcile that with divine providence and

divine wisdom and
then natural selection seems to operate so

unfairly indiscriminately and
impersonally that many people find it

very very difficult clued in many great
philosophers today to reconcile the notion

of Divine Providence with
Darwin's picture of life.

And then there's deep time what scientists
call deep time the billions and

billions of years and.

Walt some people wonder if
the point of the universe

was to include the emergence of life and
eventually the emergence of humans and

consciousness then why would this God
the Creator God through around and

fool around for so many billions of
years before all our own life and

mind to emerge in the process so you can
see what a problem this is for many people

and it right it makes them ask
the question that I'm asking tonight where

if anywhere is divine providence in this
new scientific picture of the universe and

where is divine wisdom if anywhere.

I said I thought I should point out
that there are other theories as to why

the dinosaurs really
became extinct This is

Gary Larson the famous cartoonist theory.

But then there's the question of how do
you I don't know whether you've thought

about it yourself but how do you reconcile
if you do it all the Darwinian picture

of human origins where ancestors
lived first in the swamps and

then later in her son the ground and
later in trees and

on the savannas How do you reconcile
that with any theological picture

of human origin such as we see
depicted in the Sistine Chapel.

You know a lot of people
simply can't reconcile the two

not just religious people but
scientists to.

Scientists who would
call themselves atheist.

Biologists than any other
scientific discipline and

this is part of the reason why so
it's a really tough issue so

what little I lot seems to be at stake
in this debate over Darwin including

the reasonable reasonableness of belief.

And then there's the even more ancient
question of the people even before

Darwin were squeamish about the way in
which life tends to feed upon life but

Darwin himself from.

Well it's an extremely
sensitive person and he asked.

A friend of his or you wrote to a friend
of his just a flicker whether Burke

a dentist chaplain might write on
the clumsy way some blundering live and

horribly cruel works of nature and he
referred to what he calls the dreadful but

quiet world of organic beings that's
going on in peaceful words and

smiling fields his friend and advocate
his bird dog as he was called T.H.

Huxley after reading the origin so

what kind of example is nature setting for
us and he concluded that never again

can humans look to the natural world
to find any instructions as to how they

should behave we're on our own in other
words as far as creating good manners and

conduct is concerned
George Williams recently deceased.

Godfather of much contemporary biology

used to ask this in nature I reckon
on which by the way in which

Darwinian process he's had
allowed life to come about.

My favorite example of this kind of
troubling thing going on in nature is

the life cycle of the sheep liver fluke I
know you're already familiar with that but

let me just summarize for you case you've
forgotten there's a parasite that lives

near our ponds and it lays eggs and when
they hatch they swim to the parts women

to the router and they bury themselves
in the flesh of a rather snail and

start eating the creature away
from the inside the parasite and

freed it reproduces a sexual history
a complicated process and the offspring of

that process swim back to the edge of the
pond and they climb up blades of grass and

they bury themselves in little
systems like formations on the WE so

that can our A sheep will come along
grazing ether grass the system will desire

in the creatures in the host stomach and
really want to misquote out.

And they make their way into the liver and
the bile duct causing enormous discomfort

in the process what the Scots
refer to as sheep rot and

then they reach section much earlier.

Late and then the process begins and
really begins and

goes on and on millennium after millennium
So again when you look at this and

your thoughts of course and you can't
help but ask what is going on here.

So Charles Sherrington as you can see
from his picture is not very happy

with what's going on here.

From his book Man on his nature one of his
Gifford lectures that I got this example

for the first time but
it's one that many naturalists have.

Looked at all closely to it's a story as
far as sheer Sherrington is concerned.

Securing existence to
a worm at cost of lives

superior to it in the scale
of life as humanly reckoned.

And he goes on to say that life
surprise is given to the aggressive and

inferior forms of life.

And from that he concludes that
this example is only one of many

countless similar examples that
naturalists have been able to dig up.

If you ask so Richard Dawkins probably the
best known evolutionist in the world today

and a man who never lets an opportunity
pass to instruct us that evolution

goes best with atheism says it's not very
hard to understand what's going on and

all what's happening is genes
are trying to make their

way into the next generation and they're
going to through any gymnastics and

pull any kind of tricks and
cause any kind of suffering they can

just to get themselves passed
off into the next generation so

long as D.N.A. genes being segments
of D.N.A. is passed on it does.

Matter he says Who or what gets hurt
in the process jams don't care about

don't care about suffering because
they don't care about anything and

he drives this philosophical conclusion
which has been quoted quite often

the universe meaning the Darwinian
universe that we observe has precisely

the properties we should expect if there
is a bottom no design no purpose no reason

no good nothing but
blind pitiless indifference.

And he goes on in his later writing to
say that this Darwinian picture of things

provides the best
intellectual foundation for

atheism today he excuses people for
not being atheist before Darwin but

after Darwin you have no excuse you not
know the book of his he quite ingeniously

says let's go let's think about mountain
on one side of which there has sure but it

will drop off from the top of the mountain
to the plain below a perpendicular but

the other side of the mountain is a gentle
slope say of thirty five degree angle and

he uses this image to suggest that
if life had only a biblical span of

six to ten thousand years to move
from the state of a primitive sad to

something as complex as the eye for
the brain then we would be excused for

bringing things out of G.M.
to explain how something so

improbable could happen in that short
amount of time but the fact is let's go

around to the other side of the mountain
and imagine the trajectory of time the fat

billion years roughly that life has had
to evolve three point eight three point

five whatever the latest estimates are and
imagine that there was billions of years

that the tree should ject way of life
the trail of life meanders layers

the laid back and forth up the slope
side of the mountain for that long and

then you mix in the other two ingredients
of Darwin's recipe lots of accidents or

chance plus natural selection mixed
in with for a billion years and

then you would have a purely
natural explanation of why.

I guess wonderous outcomes so the
existence of the guy or the human brain

could be considered probable and
we could get rid of theology once and for

all this is how compelling he sees
the Darwinian picture of life to

be as far as the question
of Divine Providence and

Divine Wisdom is concerned there is none.

So it's no wonder then that many
Christians and other people who

are religious have reacted vehemently
against this interpretation of evolution

and have like Philip Johnson one of the
chief architects of the Intelligent Design

movement argued that Darwinism is not
really science at all it's just a mask for

atheist ideology and they have been
religious people including Popes

have said this ever since Darwin wrote
back in the one nine hundred century.

But Johnson any intelligent design
advocates go on to argue that Darwinism

is not only not science it's
scientifically in adequate

and because it doesn't
explain rationally and

reasonably how all the complexity of life
came about and this is why they bring in

intelligent design as essential to
explaining living complexity and

its kind of thinking that led to
schoolboy if there were conservation you

to argue that biology classes
should be given balance treatment

they should be giving balance treatment
to both id intelligent design and

evolution we have this is simply by way
of background for the question I want to

ask tonight and maybe you have asked this
question yourself before and it would be

interesting if you would sometimes
sometimes talk about this with with other

people what's your own answer to the
question can think how Raji our religion

can faith as we don't really understand
it can I long in any way with evolution.

I want to preface my discussion
of the discussion follows by so.

Saying that ever since
Darwin himself wrote and

he was deeply troubled by
these questions himself and

hadn't any absolutely certain answer to
the question of God and evolution but

ever since he wrote there been a number of
religious thinkers who instead of being

upset by this have actually think
Darwin Charles Kingsley for

example in Anglican divine at the time
of Darwin wrote to Charles Darwin and

in effect says Thank you Your you've
made the picture of creation so

much more wondrous than we ever knew and
therefore this picture of divine

creativity correspondingly has
to be intensified as well so

one of the various possible approaches
I can only left us a brief sampling of

ways in which people have tried to engage
evolution from my theological or religious

standpoint starting out with what I
would call the blind faith approach and

this approach a green that evolutionary
biology is scientifically correct and

people who advocate this are not afraid to
send their children to public schools and

have them educated in evolutionary
theory but they look at these words

that evolutionists use such as accidents
randomness contingency suffering.

Spontaneity as terms that
stem from human ignorance

more than from any
surveying intelligence or

control intellectual control of the
picture their thinking is that the human

sense of rightness Aries
are very limited one and

that's why whenever anything happens that
doesn't fit our sense of decent design or

whatever we refer to it as an accident or
an absurdity

that following the wisdom of many
religious traditions not just Judaism and

Christianity and Islam but many religious
traditions would say there's a perspective

much larger than ours that
we don't have and maybe.

Within that larger perspective what seems
to us not to make sense makes very very

good sense that perhaps then
behind Darwin's recipe.

Which is so troubling to so
many people there lies a rise and

mysterious providential plan
that we have no business prying

into and people who tell take
this blind faith approach

you're fond of quoting Job thirty eight
where you are a appears out of the world

when says to job after he's complained
about his predicament for so long so

it's a job really when you're when
I lay the foundation of the earth

tell me if you have understanding and
job's reaction as you know is to

shrink back presses fingers to his
lips and say I will speak no more

this approach is found of maxims such as
God right straight with crooked lines or

I say is my ways are not your ways and
I suppose that whatever

answer you come up with to the question
of how to reconcile evolution and

faith if you've tried to do it maybe
at least some of the modesty of

this perspective the tentativeness
of this perspective has to be part

of any answer from the theological side.

But I don't know about you but

I grew up in a religious tradition of
the Roman Catholic tradition where I was

taught that faith is not the end of
inquiry but the beginning of inquiry

that faith is something that should lead
us to seek understanding St Anselm for

example following ideas of
St Augustan centuries ago so

the theology is faith seeking
understanding yes we start with faith but

we don't have to stop with that we we have
to we are driven by desire to know to

understand we don't need to suppress
our intelligence when we do theology so

that's why you see a lot of attempts
to make sense of evolution and

most of them are tentative.

And I don't know anybody that's absolutely
sure what the answer to this sales but

here's an interesting one that's commonly
used even by great philosophers I call

it the theory of evolution as
defined pedagogic according to this

approach we can save the notion
of Divine Providence and

divine wisdom after Darwin if we
reinterpret the earth as a school.

And evolution as
the curriculum in that school.

The thinking here is that.

Imagine if life never had to face
any obstacles how insignificant and

simple it would be and imagine how
out of character we would be if we

never had to face challenges doesn't life
to be life need to face challenges so

that it can transcend itself and become so
why would the Darwinian curriculum

not be as good as any for
the screwball that we call Earth.

So.

This thinking guy much he was.

Very accessible writer and he's written
a version of this divine pedagogical

approach in this book like a book
called The Seven mysteries of life and

he says yes we have to admit that
the Darwinian process is harsh but

that doesn't make it evil.

And he himself uses the term
service to describe what

Earth is a small school in
which obstacles are essential

to life as well as to
the building of human character.

And he turns to the reader.

And says to the reader what kind of
world we're here to have created

he says I magine for the moment that
you are God and here admits that this

will come more easily to some of us than
others but imagine that you are God What

kind of world would you have created and
here's what he concludes Honestly now.

If you were God could you possibly
dream up any more educational contrast

a thrilling beautiful tantalizing world
then Earth meaning the Darwinian so

school to develop spirit in which you
try to make the world nice and safe or

would you let it be provocative dangerous
and exciting in actual fact if it ever

came to that I'm sure you would find it
impossible to make a better world and

he talks about Darwin at this point
then God has already created by

way of installing
the evolutionary sort of school.

Well.

Darwin then in this view of things
is right but divine providence and

wisdom instead of being opposed
to evolution actually underlie

the evolutionary recipe that I mentioned
earlier and I said not just marching but

great philosophers like John Hick for
example have used this theocracy or

theology to make sense of evolution.

I wish we had more time to talk about this
if I were teaching a class I would pass at

this moment and ask my students what they
thought they would think about this I want

to do this to the class that I met with
this afternoon but what kind of questions

does this raise in your own mind I
tell you what it really is and mine.

I have to wonder whether pedagogically
is the best framework theologically

to make sense of suffering.

It's not just suffering it's the excess
of suffering that bother Darwin why so

much suffering Wouldn't a lot less
suffering be just as pedagogical And

then there's something really enterprise
centric about this approach it seems to me

which makes us wonder why do the other
species have to go to school

with us as it were is this
really a satisfying answer

if there is truth to this approach
it seems to me as a theologian and

thought a lot about this
that it's only a grain of.

A much now.
Barger truth and we still haven't yet

discovered that but

I am experiment with several possibilities
that might suggest themselves.

A Carlist first one Bradley Biblical
approach I think it's an approach that

Jews Christians and
maybe maybe even some Muslims descendants

of Abraham the Abrahamic
traditions could possibly think of

it in these terms in the story of Abraham.

God is pictured as one who comes
out of the blue makes promises.

And well it's a promise if it's not
something that opens up the future.

So the fundamental motif I think
in biblical literature is that

the ultimate creator of the universe
that which is ultimate in being and

goodness is also one who makes and
keeps promises and

promises open up the future so
instead of thinking of nature

I'm the quoting to the metaphor
of design which is what causes so

many problems in the quote on
the controversy between Darwin and

others think of nature in a more
biblical metaphorical way

as he did with promise and
if you do that then everything changes

a bit the God of promise then would be
the ultimate explanation of evolution but

opening up the future not just to
Abraham not just to you know Israel

not just to the people of God not
just to the people of earth but

to the whole universe think
of promise as the most.

Infinite and
important horizon of our existence and

that would be a very biblical way
of thinking about the divine and

within that context let's go back and

review what seemed to be at first
the three troubling ingredients.

The Darwinian recipe which consists
of lots of accidents first of all try

to imagine a universe without accidents
the universe without accidents would be so

first and so stiff so determined there
wouldn't be any room for a future to take

place at all accidents can be thought
of as the openings in nature which

allowed novelty unpredictability
indeterminant vention really evolution and

eventually human freedom to emerge
in this kind of universe so

the universe without
accident even Thomas Aquinas

in the thirteenth century before anybody
knew anything about evolution Aquinas or

something the the idea of a universe
without accidents is theologically

inconceivable the universe would be
not a story but stone it would be

dead on delivery and that's not a very
interesting universe either and

the second laws of nature instead of
thinking of them as I read determinants

that fix nature on a trajectory that
leads it to an inevitable destiny think

think of the last of nature mirrors
like grammatical rules which keep

the story within balance keep her from
going off the rails but grammatical rules

when we write stories are open to any
kind of meaning that might emerge in

the future yes the grammatical rules
remain the same on page one as on page two

hundred but they allow for an indefinite
ray of outcomes to take place so

we should look upon the last
of nature simply as cold and

impersonal determinants but as absolutely
necessary enabling conditions for

there to be any interesting story
going on in the universe and all and

then finally deep time deep time
instead of being something we

should be afraid of it should
give us a sense of the grandeur

of the magnificence of this
drama that we call the universe

Darren is one of the most
important figures in science not

to me not because he came up
with the theory of evolution.

But because he taught us something
that people did not know until very

recently and that's that the universe
itself is still unfolding

narrative a still unfolding story or
drama and

then when it comes Mark
contemporary cosmology came along

it gave us an even more extended
sense of the drama of nature so

I look upon these three
ingredients instead of being

things that we should be upset about
they are necessary conditions for

having a story if you had never in
unpredictability there would be no story

everything would be determined in advance
but if you didn't have any consistency

everything would fall apart on
page one and what Deep Time does

is an added dimension to the narrative
his narrative Grand your drama of nature

some time somebody one time asked a famous
rabbi Why did God create human beings and

the rabbi answer because God loves stories
maybe we could make it even bigger Why

did God create a big bang universe
because God loves really big

big stories as it were and
most important of all.

The nature of narrative the nature
of story the nature of drama

is that it can carry a meaning but

the meaning might not be obvious to us
when you read a story you have to wait for

the meaning to emerge if the universe is a
story the way in which we should approach

that story is not to demand for
intelligibility here and now.

Be patient wait read the story
attentively and opportunistically but

wait for the possibility of new meanings
emerging and that's the kind of universe

that science has been giving
us it seems to mean to me and

what it's worth within that context I
suggest we might think about evolution.

Design.

Don't look for design the question is not
so much whether design points to deity.

But whether the drama
carries a meaning and

that's something we have to be attentive
and wait with for the long suffering for

parents to see if it possibly emerges but
I reading already we can we can see

that something really interesting has been
going on the universe has been becoming

something interesting out of
left us matter life emerged

then since since then
consciousness then in humans.

US and freedom and
the possible capacity for

hope hope would be the way in which
evolution now that has become conscious of

itself in US Open to self
to the new future that is

not fully determined yet and one of
the interesting things that the universe

has produced are beings that
are capable of making and

keeping promises which becomes
the framework the metaphor on

the basis of which Biblical religion
came about as well so that's one

perspective it's a very broad one now
sometimes people ask me as a Christian and

particularly Roman Catholic Really you
think that's what's What does evolution

mean to you as a Christian I can't go into
our details of this I've laid it out in

books like God after Darwin but let me
just give you some facts here it seems to

me that Christianity is a religion
that instructs its devil taze

not to think about God at all without
thinking first about the main Jesus.

The New Testament itself says that
Jesus is the fairness of the revelation

of God The very image of God so
it would be

Christians when they talk about God not
to think first of all of a designer but

the think of this man and
the way in which he related and

the way in which he opened up the future
to people who had reached a dead.

And you know in their own lives to
think about God in that way and

if you're familiar with Christian
scriptures you would go to the Gospels

of course to get the image of God by
looking at how Jesus acted behaved and

related to others but
you might also look at St Paul's letter to

the Philippians chapter two
which brings into it and

ancient Christian him that Christians were
saying this to him which Paul repeats

in the second chapter of Philippians
in which Jesus is pictured

as being in the form of God but
not clinging to that status

he emptied himself he underwent
a Canopus Kinison cell

time he emptied Himself underwent
a self emptying a can osis in Greek and

took on the form of a slave and
I was interested to see in Pope John Paul

the second the relatively conservative
theologian interest in secular

ASIO recess this that the prime
commitment of Christian theology

should be to understand God's kenosis
that should be the main focus

of Christian thought a great and
mysterious truth for the human mind.

Which fancy inconceivable that
suffering and death can express alone

out of an infinite love
which gives itself away and

sinks nothing in return.

So it seems to me that in
our conversations with

the scientists if you come at it not just
from a vaguely religious point of view but

from a specifically Christian point
of view this is the idea of God that

theology must take with it when
it talks about evolution or

anything in science and a very famous
German theologian you haven't met my.

Reformed Protestant theologians.

Asks this question.

In the light of this can overtake
the self emptying view of God or

this view of God is so
after emptying love what should we expect

the world to look like should
we expect it to be rather dark

completed finished in one
instantaneous act of creation.

Or shouldn't we look upon
creation itself as a consequence

of a divine self humbling in which God.

Withdraws to use an inadequate metaphor
here with brass the divine power.

Takes on this.

Portrait of a slave so
restore allow something other than God

to come into existence so
as to allow a world to appear and

once that world appears it's
not created instantaneously but

it's given room or scope to undergo
all kinds of experimentation such

as we see in evolution including allowance
for accidents for blind alleys for

dead ends for Lagaan RAM periods of time
in which not much seems to be happening

happening but
one in which surprising outcomes.

Can eventually arise when
an interesting universe so

instead of understanding divine
creation on the model of engineering so

to use that word here Georgia Tech used
to think of think of God in the model of

allowing something rather than
God to come into existence.

So if that's the case then
divine providence and wisdom

would manifest themselves in
concerned that the Creation be given

every opportunity to become itself
to become something distinct from.

God to become in a way
autonomous to become free.

Of God as Charles Kingsley
mentioned earlier says you

can make a record that can make
itself is a much more impressive

creator than one who makes
it instantaneously and

cursed with it constantly instead
of allowing it to become itself.

In this understanding of evolution
the Christian vocation will be run

of contributing to the ongoing creation
which has already been going on for

billions of years and the Christian right
also not want to forget most important of

all that in the symbol of a crass
God the divine self participates.

And takes upon the divine compassion
their way of struggle and suffering.

So it's just very likely expressed
here that I have as a Christian

when I encounter evolution and
it's led me to the firm belief that.

Faith can get along perfectly
well with evolutionary science

without any editing of the science.

Which is then left for us the question
I raised earlier and the dad one had.

So much suffering right
a tremendous excess of suffering.

I don't have any answer to that question
nor do most religions sometimes people

have called suffering the earth from the
ruined theology and have taught that any

attempt to close that to reach closure as
they say on this issue would in effect be

a subtle way of legitimating suffering by
making it part of the legitimate scheme or

rational scheme of things but instead
the Christian theologian like peer to.

Where did shut down and famous just
what paleontologists see suffering as

a stimulus to widen and keep widening
our vision not just of the world and

not just of ourselves but of God as well.

To hear does not have an answer to this
question OK I guess one of the first

Christian thinkers Roman Catholic just
what think a geologist paleontologist

who thought about evolution Lambie for
most of us back in the early decades

of the twentieth century and fast that his
church needed to come to grips with it and

that in the process of doing so it would
come to a renewal which you're badly needs

but he thought that even though he has no
answer to the question of of suffering

it makes a difference now that we locate
suffer in the suffering of life not

just our suffering but suffering of
all life within the framework of

the fact that we now know to be true
that we live in an unfinished universe

by which I mean a universe
which every day becomes new

which becomes more every day the universe
which has never stopped developing

if you look at suffering within that
context look at all the tough questions

within that context such as Well life
struggles Why suffering exists at all

rather we people of faith have to
walk by faith not by sight there's so

much darkness in our journeys
that we all know and

why as tired saw it first
hand religions to are so

imperfect and so much in need of repair.

And why Hope is essential all
these questions think of them now

as rising from the context of the fact
that we live in an unfinished

universe an unfinished universe means one
that's not perfect if it's not perfect.

Said that it's imperfect and if it's
imperfect it's got a dark side to it and

any process which is still in
the process of becoming something more

years until that girl is
reached deficient imperfect and

that's the kind of
universe that we have so

that raises the very interesting question
and I don't have an answer to this but

I pretty much leave it with you
why would God make unfinished

rather than into a finished universe a lot
of people would ask that question it's

a good question let me give you
ten hours take on this question.

He thinks that there is no real return
it if theologically in a rich man or

a perfect creation it's
theologically inconceivable.

Such a creation would not be
distinct from God It would be read

to.

Imagine a perfect creation where
the creator makes the world rounded off

completely in the beginning
such a creation will bring.

In distinct from God It would
not be something unto itself.

It would be perhaps a word
without suffering and evil but

it would also be a world without a future
since everything would be finished and

it would be read without freedom since
everything would be determined fixed

into its final place
from our internal state.

And it would be a world without
life since life cannot be

alive unless it has the capacity for
striving and

it can't strive unless there is room for

it to transcend its
present state of being so

think of it before you complain about
the fact that we live in an unfinished

universe where the alternative namely
a finished universe would bait.

Tell yard and I agree with him here would
prefer an unfinished universe any day.

When you came into the room tonight I
don't know whether you were able to say it

was a little bit dim I had
a quotation from a famous

geneticist who does see a stop sign ski.

Who is famous for
saying nothing in biology

makes sense except in
the light of evolution.

Sometimes I wonder if anything
in theology makes sense

except in the light of evolution.

And I mention this as an unfinished
universe that religions are unfinished

therefore theologies are unfinished and

lectures on theology are on Spanish
to as well so I will stop there

thank you very much for listening.

Thank you.

Life.

Is Jewish Yeah

yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

You know.

No that's that's that's right and
most of the for

last person who have used evolution
as a reason for their atheism

site especially natural selection which
I point out is one of the ingredients

of the Darwinian recipe and
that does differentiate his theory from my

vague evolutionary worldview but.

I can't get a full response to
your question but I would locate

natural selection within the context of
what I was talking about tonight as part

of the whole gallery of
what scientists refer to as

rational inviolable physical
principles that exist throughout nature

natural selection works almost as
remorselessly as the law of gravity does

is there no exceptions and even today
natural selection is still working but

I'm just talking about this with
John Prescott's class today it seems

to me that for three or
four centuries Western thought has been B.

Witched by the metaphor of Iraq
that latter implies something

impersonal something inhibitory something
out that keeps things within balance or

constrains them it does that to
a degree but I would prefer to use as I

mentioned in my talk another now that we
realized that the universe is a story and

not a machine Raffa on us the idea of
law is not as appropriate a metaphor as

it seems to be grammar
grammar is inviolable to but

in a story the rigorous
remorseless working of grammatical

rules does not rule out
the inventiveness of the process.

Just as when you write an essay The fact
that you have to follow the same

grammatical rules throughout does not
inhibit you from giving us a whole new our

way of meanings that could not have
been predicted on the basis of the laws

themselves so I see natural selection
as part of that grammar of nature

without which everything would fall into
complete jelly at any particular moment

unless there's some consistency well let's
call it reliability to the process so

natural selection I'm not the first one to
point this out and other less of nature

need not be looked upon
simply as fatalistic but

rather as facilitative as
making this narrative unfurled

an indeterminate ways I think we've
been led into a lot of dead ends but

taking too literally the Biblical
creationists are not the only literalist

there's a kind of scientific or cosmic
literalism that has taken the notion

of law with a rigor that it does not
deserve and it messed a lot of things up

including including the the belief on
the part of the unbelievable belief on

the part of many scientists will add
to the metaphor of law that human

freedom cannot possibly exist you know
that that's one of the consequences

of that metaphor I don't think
that metaphor is necessary I think

that we have a new understanding of the
universe quite different from matter early

modernity when this last all thinking got
started and within this new narrative or

drama of nature there's room for
other metaphors so and

I'm not sure Mine's the best one
either but I think there is room for

thinking rethinking that
the implications of the law.

Like.

So.

Well.

To put it bluntly they would say
that it's a standard that's the best

we could do in a pre-scientific world
of making very vivid and palpable

the obvious fact that
evil is monstrous and

it's and that's why when we read
that ancient literature instead of.

Criticizing it or arrogantly
dismissing it try to get to what they

were feeling what does that image trying
to suggest it means we have to take very

seriously the monstrosity of evil and
certainly Ted wanted to do that but

he thought that now that we
have a new picture of nature.

The evolution we can still hold on to
the notion of the monstrosity of evil but

also it's also seeing it within the
context which our religious ancestors did

not.

Compare performing
completed in the beginning

instantaneously.

Well by perp by perfected he means
that in the Latin in the animal

logical sense of the world brought
through made thoroughly per pair for

CIO made completely and
what he's trying to

put himself in conversation with us
the assumption throughout most of

biblical history that
the universe was made fairly.

Perfect in the beginning but
then it got messed up.

And that the purpose of our life is to

not statically return to
that state of perfection.

I can't go into all the details it's
a very good question but what evolution

causes if we take it seriously causes us
to think about is not only the notion

of whether creation could have brought
about in an instantaneous act fully and

completely but also about the meaning
of suffering the meaning of just.

To what extent is suffering.

Or have we interpreted suffering
in a purely expiatory way that

suffering is expiation for a primal
fault and Taylor pointed out that so

much of the FI ology of the Latin
church as more and more so

than the Greek Church has been based upon
the assumption that all the evil around us

was born of a primordial felt that
messed up that initial creation and

what he says he has to think about is
OK without denying that the universe

is messed up it is messed up universe.

It's just to think about evil in more
realistic terms as something that

goes right down the heart of reality and

that the whole of reality
needs healing and that's and

the healing of it would correspond
with the bringing of it to perfection.

If we hope for such a consummation then
we would locate it not in the past and

not try to think of our lives as returning
to something that's already been completed

than got messed up but think about our
lives as making original contributions

to this creation which has
never been fully formed and

it gives a meaning it gives Taylor puts it
this way gives us just to our lives and

to our moral aspirations that is stuff.

Really undercut by the assumption that
what we're doing doesn't make any

difference as far as the furnace of
being is concerned whereas if you think

of your life as contributing to something
that's an adventure of ongoing creation

that gives some momentousness
to our decisions that.

The Latin fathers
the Latin church writers.

Understandably could not
have conceived of so

what is needed is nothing
less than the reformation

of Christie had it in terms of
an evolutionary worldview and

that's what he undertook to try to
undertake that's what I'm trying to do in

my writing but there's a lot of
resistance to that I have to

admit.

Story.

Yes I think I would look at that if I
were going to talk about it in any detail

as part of the discussion of what is life.

Because lack of resilience is deadening so

somehow it it belongs to life but
what is life.

I've been deeply influenced
not just by to hard but

by the philosopher Michael Polanyi
who was a physical chemist

himself he knew a lot about chemistry and
physics but he thought that physics and

chemistry cannot tell us what life
really has what makes it possible for

us to identify things as living at all
is the fact that they are involved

in the neck to everything we could we
could call generally speaking strong.

Having endeavoring or
trying but that means that they

are also capable of not succeeding so
you need a whole new

logic when you talk about life what he
calls the logic of achievement it's

different from what we see in chemical
processes there's no trying they're just

an indeterminate impersonal playing
things out physically and chemically but

when you get even to the first living
cells and neighbors I mean by looking for

a food supply or a sophomore in
college in the library looking for

the meaning of life or.

Just looking for anything that we
prefer we humans feel a kind of

kinship with other living beings
because we too are striving beings and

that's what I last us in universities like
this if we didn't make those distinctions

then there would be no biology
department at all it will be physics and

chemistry so
it's something tacit as Polani put it

has been going on which we haven't
acknowledged in the concept personal

knowledge we identify with life as persons

because we too are striving beings so
resilience I would try to locate within

that context of striving that's part
of what it means to be alive as it were

so.

That's.

OK.

When I was in graduate school

I was reading about the same time
as I was reading one of my favorite

German theologians a Protestant
theologian you're going milkman who read

a better back then a splendid
books called theology of hope and.

What that book proposed to do is to
rediscover the future he had gone to the.

Marxist philosopher Ernst
block who had reset the whole

of being in terms of few to attain
that being is not just static

it's open to newness and
better thinkers block and

met one until you are even earlier are
people who have rediscovered the continent

of the future as it were and this was
the reason the terror start caught on so

well around the Second Vatican Council and
even influenced the documents

of the Second Vatican Council in ways that
are very ironic because the nine hundred

sixty two the Holy Office said to turn.

Heads of cut Catholic colleges and

universities not to let their students
read they had to shut down but

by the end of the council nine hundred
sixty five the imprint of tide was all

over the pastoral Constitution of
the church in the modern world as only

deliberate another thing loads of
pointed out and it was primarily.

The sense that eschatology doesn't
mean just waiting around for

an apocalypse to happen but
eschatology is fundamentally

about the openness of the future.

Of making Hope possible.

And one of the things that is very
difficult in our intellectual

setting today is hope because the the
the conventional wisdom on the part of

the intellectual and academic world
is that of cosmic pessimism that

everything is ultimately headed toward
nothingness as it were and Ted was trying

to combat that So eschatology
doesn't mean just extrapolation

of our images on Apocalypse into some
future time but it means writing.

Now the future is now in a sense
the future is not out there the future is

coming in and every day every day the word
creation rises a little further out of

nothingness so what I would do in a second
short to respond your question is link

eschatology with a theology of creation
and I think that's what has been done.

Partly due to the great influence
of ten yard on temporary

theology.

At an eschatological question.

I'm.

Sure.

That it.

Can.

Be a pretty.

Good worst.

Thank you very much thank you.