By: Chuck Nelson
Revised:  05/16/03

Is it possible to bring all religions, philosophies and worldviews into harmony?  A few might say, “yes,” most would say, “no,” but today an increasing number might say, “yes and no.”  It’s to the “yes and no” answer that we will direct our attention.  According to the rules of logic, the law of non-contradiction holds that two contradictory statements cannot be true at the same time without qualification.  In some modern thinking, however, the law of non-contradiction and logic itself appears to have been suspended.  Today, in some circles, if two contradictory statements taken together don’t make sense, the conflict is resolved by redefining the concept of “sense” rather than qualifying the statements.  This phenomenon is called postmodernism.  It is a form of post-logic thinking and it is well illustrated in the context of the creation versus evolution debate.

All religions, philosophies or worldviews, at some point attend to three fundamental questions or issues.  The issues can be expressed in different ways but, in their essence, they pertain to the: (1) origin, (2) condition, and (3) destiny of mankind.  “Who am I, how did I get here and where am I going?” The creation versus evolution debate addresses these same issues making it impossible to avoid the religious, philosophical and worldview implications inherent in the origins debate.  Evolution and creation represent two contradictory worldviews, each with its own idea regarding the origin, condition and destiny of mankind.  Whether viewed in the context of science, religion or philosophy, both concepts (creation and evolution) cannot be true at the same time except at the expense of logic. 

In spite of the fundamental incompatibility between the concepts of evolution and creation, many people attempt to merge them together or to migrate back and forth between the two concepts, with their associated worldviews, as if they were in harmony.  Indeed, in our culture, the practice of this logical fallacy is often seen as meritorious.  It’s something like a respectable, or at least politically correct form of schizophrenia.    

Perhaps an example will help.  Occasionally we hear someone say they believe in both evolution and creation.  They explain that both concepts could be true at the same time if God used evolution to “create.”  At first, this sounds like a convenient way to integrate and relieve the tension between two conflicting concepts.  However, is it really possible to be a logically consistent “crevolutionist?”

Admittedly, being a “crevolutionist” has certain social advantages.  When associating with creationists the crevolutionist can claim to believe in creation but when associating with evolutionists they can claim to believe in evolution, when in a mixed crowd they can join hands with everyone and sing “Kumbaya” and nobody is offended.  Further, the crevolutionist has demonstrated his/her ability to compromise and not be divisive or dogmatic with their personal beliefs.  This is important because in our increasingly “pluralistic” culture, doublethink is often seen as a sign of wisdom and social grace.  Pluralism used to mean that all belief systems were accepted or tolerated but this has changed.  Our postmodern, neo-pluralistic culture defines pluralism to mean that ALL belief systems are equally valid and no belief system is objectively true, correct or right in any absolute sense.  This being the case you might think that it would be pretty hard to be wrong about whatever you may believe.  However, if you believe this, you don’t understand neo-pluralism or postmodernism.

In our present culture, it’s definitely possible to believe the “wrong” thing, even if there is no particular “right” thing to believe.  It turns out that all beliefs except for absolute beliefs are valid.  Absolute beliefs imply certainty, which implies the existence of truth, which is, by nature, exclusive and therefore intolerant.  Postmodernism, with its roots in neo-pluralism, tends not to tolerate intolerance.  Interestingly, this affinity for tolerance is expressed in its intolerance of absolute truth or certainty.  Absolute beliefs are invalid and that’s the only absolute belief postmodern neo-pluralists consider valid.  Postmodernism is predicated on absolute uncertainty and expresses itself in a pervasive affirmative agnosticism.   (Is you head hurting yet?)

At this point we have established that being a crevolutionist is socially acceptable as long as you don’t hold to it too dogmatically.  As we have noted, certainty is frowned upon so it seems one must always be ready to compromise one’s compromise position in order to be an effective neo-pluralistic communicator.  However, the question remains as to whether social acceptability has anything to do with the logical consistency of the crevolutionist position?  Lets see how the crevolutionist position holds up under a logic scan. 

When someone invokes the concept of evolution in word or thought, they bring into play the accompanying worldview.  The philosophical starting place for the evolutionary worldview is naturalism or materialism.   Naturalism is a belief system that maintains that we live in a universe where only natural things happen.  In such a universe god or gods may or may not exist but if he/she/they do exist they are not allowed to participate in creation or to otherwise tamper with the real (physical) world.  The “god(s)” of naturalism are pretty much limited to a non-physical or spiritual domain where they render certain spiritual services but they are apparently inert in the physical world. 

Materialism is a close philosophical relative of naturalism in that it also maintains that we live in a universe where only natural things happen.  However materialism goes further to assert that the reason only natural things happen is because all that really exists in our universe is matter and energy.  Within the philosophy of materialism, the concept of God has no basis in reality.

Materialism says God doesn’t exist and naturalism says God can exist if he wants to but he can’t touch anything.  In common language, materialism would be called atheism while naturalism would be applied atheism, usually in the context of agnosticism. 

Whether the evolutionary paradigm is viewed from the perspective of naturalism or materialism, the universe we live in and life within it is viewed as inherently purposeless and fully explainable by time and chance and the unaided natural properties inherent in matter and energy.  The material universe is, in essence, a self-existent, self-organized closed system.

In contrast, when someone invokes the concept of creation, they invoke the accompanying creationist worldview.  The creationist paradigm maintains the material universe we live in is lesser included within the purposes of a transcendent Creator or designer (if you prefer the intelligent design concept).  The Creator/designer is a necessary intelligent first cause who is responsible for the existence, properties and order of the present material universe. 

Inherent in the creation concept is the idea that time and chance and the unguided properties of matter and energy (naturalism or materialism) are an insufficient cause for the effect we observe as the universe and life within it.  The Creator/designer is not confined to the skull of believers or limited to a passive role in a spiritual domain but is able to wield influence, power and authority over the physical-material universe.  In essence, the Creator transcends the material universe making it an open system. 

When the crevolutionist says they believe in creation they invoke the creationist worldview in which an omnipotent Creator is responsible for bringing everything into existence in the context of His ultimate purposes.  When they say they also believe in evolution, they have stepped into a “wormhole” that transports them instantly into another universe, one where purposeless time and chance and the properties inherent in matter and energy have created everything.  (It is an amazing thing to think that one can migrate between universes within the span of a sentence.)

The terms creation and evolution are wormhole-words that transport people back and forth between two radically different universes - one a Creator-based universe infused with purpose and design and the other a material-based universe founded on purposeless chance.  The two universes cannot be compatible unless you define purpose and purposeless to be equivalent concepts.  However, robbing words of their inherent meaning in order to sustain an artificial reality by semantic obfuscation is more of an exercise in self-delusion than a convincing tactic of debate. 

In order to avoid this logical dead-end some people will attempt to resolve the conflict between a purposeful creator and purposeless matter by defining God to be material or material to be god.  Accordingly, it is no surprise that many post-modernists drift toward New-Age religion.   

Much of what is called New-Age religion is just repackaged old-age Eastern mysticism and pantheism.  In such religions, god and matter can be one and, if you manage to achieve the proper mental state, you can become part of the grand impersonal oneness.  Pantheism, however, in whatever form it takes, (new or old age), fails to resolve the crevolutionist’s dilemma because while it defines God and the cosmos to be equivalent, it still fails to resolve the purpose-purposeless conflict or the cause-effect questions of origins. 

Most people who invoke crevolutionism, however, are not advocates of New Age or Eastern pantheism or mysticism.  When they claim to believe in both creation and evolution at the same time, they don’t necessarily intend to invoke pantheism in any of its forms; nor are they intending to imply that the cosmos is an unintended, and thus purposeless, act of God.  Most often crevolutionists are expressing belief in something like theistic evolution - the idea that God is behind evolution, used evolution to create or aided evolution along at strategic points.  Whether expressed as crevolution or theistic evolution, it boils down to an attempt to integrate two contradictory concepts.  At best, it demonstrates that imagination and semantics are not bound by the constraints of logic.     

Most crevolutionists I have met (including myself as I used to be one) consider themselves to be Christians or nominal Christians and, at the same time, evolutionists or nominal evolutionists.  In so doing, they are engaging in a classic doublethink in which two incompatible worldviews are allowed to dwell within the same skull at the same time.  In such a condition one worldview or the other must always be in the foreground while the other is in the background.  The two worldviews are never allowed to occupy the foreground at the same time as the immediate result would be the destruction of all logic circuits and the skull would be rendered useless for further service, except possibly as a palm-reader, a human-shield or politician.          

All of this notwithstanding, I’m not sure the Christian God has granted anyone permission to redefine Him, His attributes or His universe.  The personal Christian God clearly says that He alone is the Creator of all things including the universe, life in general and mankind in particular.  He clearly proclaims that nothing was made without him and that all things are sustained by his power.  Indeed, if we live in a created universe then the only authoritative account of the creation would have to come from the Creator.  Put another way, the Creator is somewhat of an authority on creation.  This means that, as Creator, God transcends His creation, and He is distinguishable from it.

This may be a disappointment to the pantheist who sees god in a tree and a rock.  The Creator God made the rock and the tree (or at least the material of which it consists) as well as the genetic information that contains the “recipe” to make the tree, but God is NOT the tree or the rock.  God’s awesome wisdom, intelligence and omnipotence may be seen in the “general revelation” of a rock, tree, sunset or newborn baby but they are not Him.  The Christian God designed and created with and for purpose.  There is no purpose in time and random chance and the natural properties inherent in self-existent matter and energy.  A natural and supernatural universe cannot logically be the same universe at the same time.          

John Woodmorappe provides an analogy that illustrates the inherent logical fallacy in the theistic evolutionist’s claim that God used evolution to create.  He describes a farmer who insists that an invisible horse was pulling the diesel tractor that was plowing his field.  When told that the horse wasn’t necessary because the tractor could plow the field by itself, the farmer said he understood that but it made him feel good to believe and tell others that an invisible horse was pulling the tractor that plowed the field.  In other words, crevolution (God used evolution to create) is intentional self-delusion.  Self-delusion is being dumb on purpose or for a purpose.  Crevolution retrofits God (an invisible horse) to a naturalistic evolutionary process (the tractor) that is able to do the job all by itself.  In such a circumstance, either God is an unnecessary afterthought or the universe is not a naturalistic materialistic product of time, chance and the inherent properties found in matter and energy.  Theistic evolution and crevolution are the semantic equivalent of jumbo shrimp or not tolerating intolerance.  You can’t have it both ways. 

The crevolutionist with Christian leanings must define and then defend a God who claims to be omnipotent and transcendent but who, for some reason, used random chance, billions of years of mutational trial and error and life and death struggle with survival of the fittest to create a world that he then called “very good.”   Within this view, somehow, the death of countless billions of slightly mal-adapted organisms is viewed as God’s “good” way of “creating” biological advancement and diversity.                

However useful crevolution is as a politically correct social institution, it can only survive in a logic free environment.  Perhaps this is why it thrives in the post-logic environment of postmodernism.  Nevertheless, while crevolution compromises logic for social advantage, it never really achieves social acceptance except at a limited and emotional level.  Pluralism may dominate our culture at one level, but our culture has embraced naturalism as a philosophical absolute or intellectual certainty on another level.  A wide front of individuals who dominate our educational, cultural and legal institutions have adopted philosophical, or even metaphysical naturalism as their religion.  Indeed, for them naturalism is an absolute, it’s the basis of their reality and they are highly evangelical with their faith.  Viewing themselves as the keepers of ultimate truth and reality they crusade tirelessly to impose their faith on our culture starting with our public education system.  Naturalism is advanced as the “state religion” while every effort is made to oppose and obstruct the non-believing heathen who hold the view that there is a God, Creator or intelligent designer who actually plays a role in the physical universe. 

This brings us to an interesting observation.  True Darwinism begins with the philosophy of naturalism or materialism and then reasons logically to arrive at the only naturalistic model of origins – evolution.  It may be circular reasoning but it’s logically consistent to the extent that the conclusion is consistent with the premise.  Some theists, on the other hand, begin with God but then reason illogically to a model of origins where God is rendered unnecessary because it is maintained that the material universe is self existent and/or capable of naturalistic self-evolution.  A self-evolving universe requires no creator.  In this case, either their god is superfluous or evolution is not naturalistic.

Many find a superfluous god more manageable than one that goes around creating things but they cannot have non-naturalistic evolution.  Any form of evolution that is God directed or involves God or an intelligent designer in any way is not naturalistic.  There’s a name for non-naturalistic evolution – it’s called “creation.”  All of this leaves the crevolutionist with a god who created the universe and life within it using a supernatural process that they illogically call evolution. 

Out of this maze of semantic and logical circumlocution, it becomes evident that some creationists prefer to adopt elements of the Darwinian vocabulary but with different meanings to the words.  Others prefer to adopt the Darwinian vocabulary and meaning and then allow Darwinism to define the nature and role of their god in the material universe.  This is illustrated by the Presbyterian Church’s recent reaffirmation that there is “no contradiction between an evolutionary theory of human origins and the doctrine of God as Creator.”  One wonders whether Darwin is defining their god or whether they are redefining Darwinism?     

The crusaders of naturalism encourage crevolutionist doublethinking.  Crevolutionists are considered to be something like useful idiots because they support the essence of evolution while, at the same time, rendering their god inert or unnecessary.  Darwinism encourages belief in such a god because he will most likely die with the generation that believes in him.  We have seen this in Europe and elsewhere where liberal theology thrives but “god” doesn’t.  Darwinists encourage crevolutionists to believe in their “invisible horse” as long as they keep him out of the classroom where the tractor of naturalistic evolutionism alone pulls the plow.  Many so-called Christian evolutionists think this is a good deal.  In the mean time, postmodernists agree that everybody is right unless they actually think they are right or if they think somebody else is wrong.  Uncertainty is the only thing they are sure of.  Go figure!

Crevolution is an attempt to straddle the fence between incompatible worldviews.  It is logically inconsistent but manages to thrive in the absolute uncertainty of postmodern thinking where all religions, philosophies and worldviews can be in harmony provided none of them are actually true. 

References

http://www.answersingenesis.org/