Evolution Discussion Sunday

Hi all,

Chris here -- by popular demand we'll be having a roundtable discussion on Sunday at 3pm about issues around evolution, creation and faith. This is something I've thought a fair amount about as a Christian and a physics grad student at Ohio State and I hope some of what I've learned and my thoughts on the topic will be useful to you in your Christian journey.

By "evolution, creation and faith" I'm actually looking to have a discussion around a much broader topic than just the current Evolution vs. Intelligent Design debate since the much larger question being asked in all of the rhetoric is the question of "How does God interact with the natural world?" And at the end of that debate is the ever-relevant question of "What is, or ought to be my relationship to the natural world?"

Acknowledging the huge scope of these kinds of questions and the many details that often cloud the discussion (e.g. "Did Darwinism cause World War II?" or "Who gets to decide what to teach in public schools?") I don't expect that we'll be able to cover everything on Sunday. I would however like to focus our upcoming discussion on what the experts might call "theodicy" and evolution -- in other words: how should we reconcile our understanding of a loving God with "survival of the fittest" or is it reconcilable at all? Another good question is "What is a miracle?"

For more food for thought check out these articles

"Theological Implications of an Evolving Creation" by Keith Miller (relatively short)
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1993/PSCF9-93Miller.html

"Theologies of an Evolving Creation" by Robert J. Schneider (longer with more theological meat)
http://community.berea.edu/scienceandfaith/essay07.asp

See you Sunday

Chris


P.S. I acknowledge that these links are biased towards theistic evolution. My intent here is not to shut down the debate between the two theories, nor to imply anything about the abstract reasoning power of people who might be sympathetic to Intelligent Design. (And, in any case, neither of these articles are anything like a Richard-Dawkins-esque scientific refutations of creation science.) If you have other articles of mention, or questions please comment.