Huckabee gives himself away

[fpb]

Governor Mike Huckabee is a Creationist - one of the old kind we thought defeated after the eighties. What is more, his answers reveal a depressing ignorance of the basics of science, a worrying failure in understanding the relationship between science and government, and, what is more surprising, a spectacularly poor grip of theology.

This is the giveaway passage. "I believe there is a God who was very active in the creation process. Now how did he do it, and when did he do it, and how long did he take? I don't honestly know and I don't think that knowing that would make me a better or worse president…. [Y]ou know, if anybody wants to believe that they are descendants of a primate, they are certainly welcome to do it…but I believe that all of us in this room are the unique creations of a God who knows us and loves us and who created us for his own purpose."

Let us start from the theology. Huckabee speaks as if there were any contradiction between being being "descendants of a primate" and being "the unique creations of a God who knows us and loves us and who created us for his own purpose." The particle "but" placed between the two halves of his sentence proves beyond reasonable doubt that he is speaking of something he regards as a contradiction - of two propositions one of which must deny the other. It does not take a Pope (but two Popes have pointed it out anyway) to point out that such a contradiction still does not exist. Provided we accept a creator God, it matters very little indeed by what means or stages He created us. Indeed, it is a useful exercise in humility - that most Christian of all virtues - to get it clear in our minds that the clumsy gorilla and the ridiculous chimpanzee are our close relatives. And it is good for the intellect to review, for instance, all the theories that Thomas Aquinas proved to be compatible with the idea of a Creator. (Even, he argued, that of a universe with no beginning or end!) Even my own self can grip such an obvious idea: as I put it elsewhere, God made the toymaker, the toy, and the child who holds the toy. Now theology is a branch of philosophy; and I have to have a poor opinion of a preacher with such a poor grip of what is contradictory and what is not. At best, one could say that he did well to move from the ministry to politics.

Equally bad is his grip of what science is. "[Y]ou know, if anybody wants to believe that they are descendants of a primate, they are certainly welcome to do it..." I think that his folksy, confidential use of "you know" (a favourite of Tony Blair and of all kinds of people who wish to sound sincere) makes it even worse. But the essence of this statement is that Huckabee believes all propositions that claim to be scientific to be equally valid and defensible. "...if anybody wants to believe..." He is speaking as if it was the choice - and, one rather surmises, the wilful and selfish choice - of a scientist, indeed of any person, to choose this theory over another. That is not only bullshit, it is potentially appallingly dangerous. Ask any doctor how many cases he knows of "alternative" quacks who have killed people by denying them the proper medicine in favour of crank remedies or "mental" disciplines. Even to sceptics, the proof of the truth of science is in its immense, unmatched record of achievement. It has multiplied the powers and faculties of the ordinary human being a hundredfold (every time Mr.Smith drives his car out of his garage, he is literally controlling more power than many ancient sovereigns did), and access to knowledge and communication beyond comparison. But behind this lies a rigorous intellectual discipline. Whether we understand the heart of scientific method in falsifiability (Popper) or in the improvement of puzzle-solving capacities (Kuhn) or both (and to me, this is one of those contradictions that are not contradictions), it is clear that science progressively enlarges the area of what we know to be wrong. More than one discipline - genetics, paleontology, etc. - has drawn the range of acceptable theories so tight around the human descent from primates, that any other account is simply out of court. In this context, to speak of it as one of many possible beliefs, which a man accepts not because of the authority of science, but out of a mere personal taste, is disgraceful. It is a genuine validation of quackery and arbitrariness - finally, of that very relativism which the Pope has singled out as the evil of our age, and that all thinking Christians since C.S.Lewis if not G.K.Chesterton have been fighting.

Finally, this shows a painful misunderstanding of modern politics. It does not make no difference what view of science the leadership of a country takes. Ever since Prussian Germany discovered that scientific research in its vast universities was a tremendous booster of industrial competitivity and military power, science has been a direct concern of the State. All great powers finance and encourage scientific research and engineering innovation. And it makes an enormous amount of difference whether they pursue the proper kind of science. Hugh Trevor-Roper has given a painfully amusing account of the decline of German science - once the world's leader - under the Nazis; and everyone knows that, by accepting Trofim Lysenko's mistaken rejection of Darwinian evolution (does that sound familiar?), Stalin held back Soviet biological science for a generation and may well have contributed to the enduring disaster that was Soviet agriculture. (Although of course a much more direct and immediate cause of disaster was his forced collectivization.) A modern country cannot afford a leadership that ignores science (Italy has suffered severely for this) or that treats it as a matter of opinion. George W.Bush has been unfairly charged with being anti-scientific because of his doubts about the theories of global warming - doubts which legitimate and distinguished scientists across the world share. But that is one thing, and treating the descent of man as a matter of opinion - and doing so, at that, on theologically untenable ground - is quite another.

Comments

[jennilee.livejournal.com]

This post was a bit surprising to me; I had no idea you believed in evolution. Have you ever believed in the 6-day creation? Did you grow up believing in evolution all along?

first part of my answer

[fpb.livejournal.com]

This is one of those responses that really leave me bewildered and uncertain how to answer; and that suggest that in some things, the Atlantic really is an ocean. You speak as though someone like me - a man with a claim, however pathetic, to be a follower of Jesus Christ - could, on account of that, be expected to be a fundamentalist, a literalist, a Biblical inerrantist. If this is your view, then I can only say that the difference in life experience and understanding between us is large enough to build several essays on. I was already writing an essay on the history of knowledge, and another on the history of history, but your post makes them rather more urgent, and I will try to complete and have them posted by early next year. They will cover, among other things, the grounds for finding Fundamentalism hopelessly irrational, and also the fact that it is a very modern movement indeed; and I will now have to enlarge on what had been originally designated as a side issue.

I hope I do not sound hostile when I say that: but I am more than surprised that I, a Catholic, and a European Catholic at that, should be expected to have ever taken the 6-day creation as a fact. I was taught the basics of the theory of evolution by nuns, in convent schools in Italy (while being enthralled, like most young boys, by dinosaurs and other strange monsters of the past). Even the kiddy songs that were popular in my childhood took it for granted.

Catholics never had a serious problem with evolution, because we do not read the Bible as a source of facts. This is for two reasons. First, we are devoted, not to a book, but to Christ. It is the fact that Jesus repeatedly validates the Old Testament in his teachings, that validates it for us; it has no autonomous value, except in that it helps us understand and penetrate the figure and teachings of our Master. And second, and connected with that, we do not approach the Old Testament as a source of FACTS, but as a source of VALUES and THEOLOGICAL IDEAS. What matters is what Jesus had to teach about God and Himself, and the Old Testament is important in that it is the language - a language not only of words, but of images, stories, moral ideas - that Jesus spoke. When the Old Testament tells us that absolutely everything in the Universe depends for its existence on the sovereign Will of God, we have to take that with absolute seriousness; that it uses a story of a world made in six days to convey that truth is only important in that it conveys it. The same goes for the other early stories. We are not under the obligation of believing in a Universal Flood when historical and archaeological research shows no evidence of one, and when it can with greater spiritual profit be read as a myth of the death and rebirth of mankind in Baptism. We are under no obligation to admire the more bloodstained among the Old Testament heroes, but only to appreciate the urgent need to keep their Jewish identity - that is, their faith in the One Creator God - pure and unstained, no matter what methods they used. And we have to appreciate that because Our Lord told us that if anything as close to us as our own eye should be the cause of spiritual injury to us, we should ruthlessly tear it off from us. And by being familiar with the Old Testament, we also become able to appreciate that Jesus was speaking in metaphorical terms, "the apple of one's eye" being the term for everything that is both beloved and close to one's own self.

Re: first part of my answer

[8bitbard.livejournal.com]

I don't know how it is elsewhere, but in America (I guess I should say North America since the poster above is from Canada) it's pretty much taken as a given that if you're a practicing Christian you don't believe in evolution. Also, if you're religious and out of sync with social trends on account of that, then you're a Fundamentalist, QED. I know this from personal experience - I've had non-religious friends actually tell me "you can't do that" when I told them I'm Catholic and believe in evolution. I was once even told that I can't believe in science at all. The "warfare thesis" is very strongly ingrained in our culture. It frustrates me to the point that I seldom want to discuss religion, or weighty matters in general - it seems like most people don't want to look at individuals and individual opinions, only at stereotypes. If your opinion does not fit a stereotype then it is ignored, and a stereotype is assumed to be what you're REALLY thinking. It's blatantly stupid, and yet reason is of little practical use against it - the Hive Mind has spoken, and all others must be silent. I realize this must sound horribly cynical, but one of the central experiences of my life is that of being either treated as a stereotype or ignored altogether when I'm in a group setting. It's hard for me not be paranoid.

Re: first part of my answer

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Quote Popes Pius XII and John Paul II at them - neither of them a feeble-minded liberal. The links are in the second part of my response. If they still bother you, you can slay them with St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, who both agreed that Christians must not read the Bible in a way that conflicts with the best that science can make out of the making of the universe. (In Augustine's time, or rather a bit later, a man called Cosmas Indikopleustes rebelled against the Ptolemaic cosmology accepted in his time and tried to design a Bible-based cosmology. It did not work, of course.) Augustine and Aquinas are the two greatest thinkers of the history of the Church, and are to be taken seriously.

second part

[fpb.livejournal.com]

This is the teaching of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII said in his encyclical HUMANI GENERIS, art.38:

38. Just as in the biological and anthropological sciences, so also in the historical sciences there are those who boldly transgress the limits and safeguards established by the Church. In a particular way must be deplored a certain too free interpretation of the historical books of the Old Testament. Those who favor this system, in order to defend their cause, wrongly refer to the Letter which was sent not long ago to the Archbishop of Paris by the Pontifical Commission on Biblical Studies. This letter, in fact, clearly points out that the first eleven chapters of Genesis, although properly speaking not conforming to the historical method used by the best Greek and Latin writers or by competent authors of our time, do nevertheless pertain to history in a true sense, which however must be further studied and determined by exegetes; the same chapters, (the Letter points out), in simple and metaphorical language adapted to the mentality of a people but little cultured, both state the principal truths which are fundamental for our salvation, and also give a popular description of the origin of the human race and the chosen people. If, however, the ancient sacred writers have taken anything from popular narrations (and this may be conceded), it must never be forgotten that they did so with the help of divine inspiration, through which they were rendered immune from any error in selecting and evaluating those documents.

It is building on this teaching, as he himself makes clear, that Pope John Paul II has explicitly recognized the factual truth of the theory of evolution, calling it "more than a hypothesis", in his famous 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. I am surprised to hear you did not hear of it: it made a great deal of noise at the time, especially in America. The complete text, with umpteen-squinchy links, is here: http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm. Have a look.

And since this answer may have been a bit aggressive...

[fpb.livejournal.com]

...I want to take the opportunity to wish a happy birthday, a merry Christmas, and a prosperous and happy New Year.

Re: And since this answer may have been a bit aggressive...

[jennilee.livejournal.com]

Sorry for taking this long to reply; I didn't want you to think you had scared me away (you'll have to be a lot more scarier than you are for that!), but I've been so busy with people staying over for the holidays. Finally, they have gone on home and I can breathe.

Thank you for the wishes; I hope you had a relaxing holiday, if nothing else, and that the New Year brings you happiness as well.

Back to the original topic: I feel a bit silly, but I am being completely honest when I say I had no idea Catholics were taught to accept evolutionary theories. So thank you for correcting my misconception!

I haven't had the interest to study Catholic doctrine. All I know about Catholics are in regard to issues Adventists find pertinent or damning, i.e. Sunday as the Sabbath, the state of the dead, the perceived Catholic church's role in Daniel and Revelation prophecy, etc. I was 10 years old when Pope John Paull II "explicitly recognized" evolution as "more than a hypothesis" and while I may have heard of it in the news, it didn't stick with me.

I have been looking for a church more compatible with my beliefs; this revelation of finding out the Catholic church is not completely anti-science is intriguing. I want to find out if there are other assumptions I may have that are unfounded.

That said, I do find it a bit iffy for the readily acceptance of the origin of life. (Or I am also mistaken in this inference from the text?) Evolution is quite a different matter from the first living organism coming into being spontaneously.

Re: And since this answer may have been a bit aggressive...

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I know the good Lord made you tough. It was rather that I was worried that my approach might sound rude or thoughtless - especially with the approaching of Jesus' and your own birthdays. (Did you read my post about the likely historical reality of the Dec 25 date?) Yes, the Christmas season is almost inevitably hectic, but would we want it any other way? What other time is there to reaffirm our family links and close friendship, and spend some exuberant time together?

You may find that most of the older Protestant churches - Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Anglicans, etc. - have little or no problem with evolution either. The problem with them is that, especially in Europe and North America, they have also got rid of so much of historical Christian teaching as to leave the impression of something both washed-out and vaguely hypocritical. And where there are strong religious impulses to rebuild and reintegrate Christian culture into the Church, most of them are subject to the cultural pull of the harder Protestants - Baptists, Adventists, Pentecostals - which means a drift to Fundamentalism. To my open disgust, I found such a drift even among American Catholics.

The Catholic doctrine does not necessarily concern Evolution alone, but the whole of science. It was suggested by St.Augustine and clearly and authoritatively set out by St. Thomas Aquinas, and it amounts to a statement of the freedom of science. Science, like other doctrines, is sovereign in its own sphere, and its results, in so far as they are its own, cannot be dictated by theological presuppositions. Where the supposed results are affected, consciously or unconsciously, by presuppositions that crept in from non-scientific sources - such as a non-Christian philosophy - theology can not only point out the non-scientific nature of the conclusions, which is after all an intellectual error, but also suggest possible alternative interpretations: but theology has no business interfering with the results and evidence of science. GK Chesterton - an author whom I cannot recommend enough to you and anyone - sums up St.Thomas' theory of science in one striking image: Science standing up and saying, "I am a servant in my Father's house, but a mistress in my own."

That, of course, is a large-scale guideline, and specific issues can each set up their own problems. I do not feel qualified to answer your question about the origin of life, but I am certain that the Church teaches that it was not random or "spontaneous" except by the will of the Father, on Whom all existence, in whatever form, depends. I may post on this matter in the future, probably in my community fpb_de_fide.