God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution

Rating:
Summary: Three "Ds" and a distant deity
Review: Up front, let us grant that Haught gets a few things straight. He acknowledges the impact Darwin has had on our view of life. And the supernatural. Many of Darwin's successors declared natural selection signalled the end of theism. That terminal judgment will be addressed in this book, but he warns that theology must still "come to grips" with the "opulence of evolution". From this opening he seeks to create a new theology. In order to launch this enterprise, Haught must sweep away some obstructions. Among these obstacles is the wave of "intelligent design" [which is neither] - Michael Behe's excuse for failing to understand how natural selecton works. Haught dismisses Behe with ease, claiming the idea "ignores novelty". So far, so good.

Haught then mounts his pulpit to steal a book title as a means of launching an assault on Darwin's most penetrating students, Daniel C. Dennett and Richard Dawkins. "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" [1995] is what this book is about. Haught flaunts the term often. Each time, he tries to discount it, sniping at Dennett for being "prolific" and his presentation as done "in laborious detail". The detail appears to have been too much for Haught, since he seems to have missed many of the more obvious points. Dawkins, a much more outspoken non-theist than Dennett, if that's possible, gives Haught the vapours. Dawkins' "selfish gene", a frequent target of theists, here undergoes the usual vilification. It's "materialist" and "mechanistic". When you're building a case for the supernatural, such ideas are anathema. Perhaps even worse for Haught than the "Three-D" figures is that of Edward O. Wilson. At least Dennett and Dawkins aren't lapsed Christians, but Wilson shed his Baptist upbringing when he discovered gods and life aren't related. What greater betrayal could a theologian encounter?

While Haught is disparaging the non-theists, he steps back a bit. He wants to show he's a reasonable man. We're all good fellas, here. He demonstrates his knowledge [such as it is] of Darwin's Dangerous Idea, but he wants to add a new element. A deity. Somewhere in the process some god has to be involved, he says. Well, his god at any rate. That step back puts him on a slippery slope. As Haught builds his thesis, you observe him sliding down the ramp. The ramp is labelled "sophistry" and Haught has a supreme talent for it. He wants to create a "theology of evolution" - perhaps one of the more bizarre concepts of modern times. Haught takes us through "laborious detail" in explaining how many philosophers and theologians have struggled to merge Darwin and a deity. All have failed and Haught is no exception.

Haught's sophistry utilises a range of voices. He even snares Taoism for a prop. He finally selects two buttresses - Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin and philosopher Hans Jonas. De Chardin's struggle to reconcile natural selection with metaphysics has been refuted too many times to recount here. Jonas may be new to some of Haught's readers, but Haught attempts to introduce him. A follower of Alfred North Whitehead, Jonas was also influenced by Jewish Kabbalistic thought. He contends the deity [please note "the"] made the universe with the "promise" of life - and, one presumes, at some point would produce an intellect to observe it. Jonas pushes this deity about as far from human ken as can be achieved and still have any meaning. As a stretch of conceivability and expression of unreality, there are few peers. What purpose such a deity could have remains escapes understanding - and reason. It turns out this is the whole point - at some future time one of natural selection's products, humanity, will reach an "Omega Point" to encounter this deity. To what end isn't explained.

Books such as Haught's are attempts to reconcile the irrational with the real. Limited, as he is, by his Roman Catholic Christianity, he starts with a flimsy a priori stance. He then tries to shore it up with a confusion of quotations synopsised ideas. As we wade through his quote snippets, we learn that an event never historically justified, a crucifixion, provides one gleam of illumination for his thesis. A dim light to steer by. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]