2007 CONFERENCE REPORT
Theology, Evolution and the Mind.
Canterbury Christ Church University,
6 th-8 th September 2007
CONFERENCE REPORT BY PAUL BEETHHAM
This year's conference provided a stimulating mix of speakers and viewpoints bringing together archaeologists, and anthropologists, philosophers and theologians with agnostic, atheist, Christian and Muslim convictions. The debates were intelligent and free ranging, conducted with respect and integrity. Whilst the discussions produced few answers they brought together the rigours of a range of disciplines to the subject in a way that opened new thoughts and pathways.
Steven Mithen began our weekend in the Gowland Lecture by setting the archaeological scene. He reviewed the evidence or lack of it found in the fossil records and on that built an imposing theoretical edifice describing the changes in psychology of pre-historic Homo sapiens needed to produce religious thought. It was a tale of compartmented minds losing their divisions allowing different areas of operation to come together. The fusion of such domains allowed ideas of the supernatural to develop. Professor Mithen regarded religion as a universal feature of Homo sapiens but one which was in his view entirely absent 200,000 years ago. As an atheist he believed that humanity would be better without religion but thought that it would always be present.
Professor Celia Deane-Drummond gave a robust response criticising evolutionary psychology as being rather like a Swiss army knife, presumably able to change its method at will. She criticised what she regarded as circular arguments going from behaviour to design and then back to behaviour. She also criticised the reductionist approach to religion.
Our second lecture was delivered by a theologian who is also an ordained Anglican Priest. Dr. Fraser Watts gave a very positive account of the relationship of Darwinism and Christian faith in which he saw the process of evolution fulfilling God's intention. Evolutionary theory might have the guise of an enemy of Christianity but the nature of its friend. He argued that natural selection is not the chance process that it is assumed to be but in theological terms is serving a purpose. Evolutionary development seems to move towards greater complexity and in particular better information processing. Whilst he saw Christ as having no place in the Darwinian process he saw that process as being able to produce a species which is capable of receiving Christ. He challenged the suggestion that religious ideas are the product of a process of natural development because of their counter-intuitive nature.
In his reply Anthony Freeman challenged Fraser Watts' argument about God's control of evolution as Deism by another name. He did however agree with the criticism of evolutionary psychology regarding evolutionary atheism as a religious system with its own dogmas and beliefs. God for him is an emergent reality rather than a psychological construct.
Professor Neil Spurway in answering the question, "What can the evolved mind know of God?" carefully separated the bases of scientific understanding of human evolution and the revelatory nature of religious belief, clearly taking the view that religion represents an encounter with a reality. He saw these coming together as a theology of the evolution of humanity, each from evidence producing theories and those being synthesised. He discussed the importance of the emergence of the human mind, language and conscious thought including self-consciousness, and the ability to imagine the cessation of the self as crucial in the development of religious consciousness. Would the incarnation be possible without such self-consciousness?
Derek Stanesby in his reply led us towards Philosophy with the reprise of the theory of knowledge and of the philosophy of science.
Our philosophical considerations continued with Professor Roger Trigg who treated us to a discussion of dualism, that horror rejected by scientists and philosophers alike as well as by some theologians. Each demands one realm of being with which it can deal, regarding dualism as a surrender to mystery and ignorance. He gave a defence of dualism as allowing for the concepts as the "self" and the "mind" as well as allowing for a God whose nature is different from this material world and transcends it.
In her reply Anne Runehov rejected the dualist position but claimed to be a critical realist, a self embodied in a hierarchy rather than a ghost at a place. God is in the world but not reducible to it. God and humans meet in the world in a dynamic process.
In a new development Professors Mithen and Trigg led parallel workshops enabling the discussion on their papers to continue. Professor Trigg advocated the importance of philosophy as the mediator for science and theology. In the robust presentation he argued for the primacy of philosophy in our thinking and understanding. Clearly not a post-modernist he offered a realist view with a clear metanarrative. Professor Mithen further advocated the importance of pre-history to understanding, theology, God and religion. He argued that religion developed as an explanation of the world and related it to developments of thought and speech. The development of small sinuses in modern humans contrast with the large ones found in Neanderthal man. This had a significant effect on speech, thought processes and religious development.
Our short paper sessions were given by a range of speakers with Muslim, Christian, agnostic and atheist viewpoints. They included presentations on the purpose and end of evolution, the evolutionary benefit of scientific and rational understanding, the relationship of evolutionary theory to the Quran and the origins of sin. They ended with a stimulating account of the teaching of mathematics in Zimbabwe .
Our day ended with a splendid dinner in honour of the late Rev. Dr. Arthur Peacocke, the founder of the Science & Religion Forum.
Our final presentation on Saturday morning was given by the Rev. Dr. Jeremy Law, the Chaplain of Christ Church University, Canterbury . He gave us a classically theological argument relating the evolution of Homo sapiens by natural selection to patristic Christian theology. Beginning with the Chalcedonian statements he considered the importance of contingency in our understanding of our existence and our understanding of the incarnation, leading us through to Hegel but with the warning, that we do not turn the world into an aspect of God as in Hegel's philosophy.
"If the evolution of Homo sapiens has been the enabling ground of the incarnation, the incarnation means that the resurrection of Jesus can, in the power of the Spirit, also become the resurrection of evolved creation. 'God becomes like us, that we might become like God'."
The Rev. Roger Knight in his reply challenged the Theist implications of God's involvement in contingency and in evolution suggesting that we could become the Science and Fiction Forum.
Our conference ended with a plenary session ably led by the Rev. Dr. Roger Paul. The terms "evolution" and "Darwinism" had been frequently and widely used during the conference, often without definition as they had during Darwin 's lifetime. They had been applied to academic areas other than that covered by "Origin of Species" without clarification of their meaning. The importance of a proper understanding of the scientific process was emphasised by many, with a reference to the work of Popper. It was agreed that the conference had been controversial, stimulating and immensely worthwhile. Those participating expressed their thanks to Professor Neil Spurway for making it possible.
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