Review of “God After Darwin”
by Jonathan
I recently read a book by Mr. John F. Haught, titled God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution. It was a very interesting book about evolutionary theory, current debates between science and religion, and the authors own contribution to the ongoing dispute. His constructive contribution, I believe, was two-fold. First, he extricated the hidden metaphysical premises of some leading evolutionary naturalists (ie. Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet). Second, he proposed his own explicit metaphysical framework and demonstrated how it is a more compatible and meaningful metaphysic for evolutionary theory.
1) On the naturalist’s metaphysics – which he refers to as materialism - Haught explains that they “profess to provide the ultimate explanation of living complexity and diversity. (p. 206)” And “for evolutionary materialism the ultimate explanation of all living phenomena, including human intelligence, is unintelligent matter and blind, impersonal natural processes. (p. 206)” This, Haught explains, is an essentially religious claim, ie the claim to a certain process or agency as having Ultimate explanatory power. So, for materialists such as Dawkins and Dennet, the most efficacious of all reality are the processes of determinism and that the past completely determines the future. Haught concludes,
Dawkins and Dennett provide evidence of doing so by their very claim that evolutionary biology rules out God’s existence. For if biology is able to rule out God’s existence, in principle it should be able to confirm God’s existence as well-that is, if God does exist. As Dawkins has explicitly written in The God Delusion, it is within the capacity of pure science-and he means especially Darwinian theory-to remove the idea of God and replace it with blind evolutionary mechanisms as the ultimate explanation of all living phenomena…. For evolutionary materialists (Group 2) such mixing of metaphysics with scientific method is perfectly acceptable as long as the worldview is materialistic rather than theistic. But by promoting their own peculiar alliance of science and philosophical belief they leave themselves with no methodological high ground to stand on… (p. 207)
2) His own metaphysical proposal is very intriguing. He presents in contrast a “metaphysics of the future”. The meaning of this is to locate the kind of position that God has in relation to the physical world and its processes, and thereby to determine the locus of divine action. Haught explains that from the future God draws life to higher levels of awareness/consciousness, and ultimately to the telos or eschaton – the final aim and fulfillment of God’s promise. This very nicely connects to the biblical view of God’s promissory relationship to Israel.
The main flaw that I see in this metaphysics is evident in the kind of acrobatics he has to go through to keep from creating a theistic determinism. By locating God and God’s activity in the future, all of creation is determined by the will of God – and without Haught’s acrobatics, there is no human free-will. To deal with this potential, Haught relies on the kenotic view of God, which means that God’s loving nature disposes God to a sort of self-emptying or self-limiting on behalf of that which is other than God. I’m not unfriendly to the kenotic view of God, but I do believe it creates questions in this sort of setting. If God is the meaning/conclusion of creation, by limiting God’s self is the consummation of creation also limited thereby? How does God experience this ‘self-limiting’; is it ‘painful’? Why should God really even need to empty and limit himself? (this last question is more on the doctrine of God in general; ie. is this kenosis an immanent or economic aspect of God’s identity?) I believe some of this questions are a result of a lack of development of the doctrine of trinity. I’m currently reading vol 2 of Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology and soon will be posting a review of his conception of the trinity as it was presented in vol 1. As Haught draws on the ‘theology of hope’ of Pannenberg, this will be a good opportunity to see how a doctrine of the trinity could strengthen Haught’s metaphysics.
On a final positive note, I brought up some questions in a former post that arise when theology deals with evolution, and believe that Haught’s thoughts on creation as God’s promise as well as sacrament couple well to deepen my own thought of God’s creative election throughout the development of the cosmos.
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*Haught, John F. God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution. 2007. Kindle Edition.
Do you think that Haught’s “metaphysics of the future” would be more compatible with an Open Theist position? And this that he would possibly be summarized to say, “it is to God’s determined future, God is drawing life to higher levels of awareness/consciousness…etc?”
I do have to credit Haught with this, by the impression you give, despite his acrobatics, he is a more competent meta-physicist than most theists involved in the conversation.
I think you’re right on both accounts. I think he ultimately affirms an Open Theist type position and he does well with his metaphysics. I think perhaps with some analysis of Pannenberg’s eschatology and doctrine of God a more coherent form of what Haught is saying can be obtained.
All in all though, I recommend the book. He has a ‘sequel’ called “Deeper Than Darwin” that I may read at some point.
[...] I mentioned in my post on Haught’s ‘metaphysics of the future’ that I would present a supplemental theory of the trinity to help resolve some of my misgivings [...]