Bee in Amber
Smith, R.T.
Bee in Amber A single syllable held unsung for centuries in such bliss as this bitter honey might still level a holy city or bring a pilgrim, as he tries to sing it, swiftly to his...
...Still, a closer look at his own rather cropped and condescending interpretation of religion raises serious questions about whether he really provides much help...
...Bee in Amber A single syllable held unsung for centuries in such bliss as this bitter honey might still level a holy city or bring a pilgrim, as he tries to sing it, swiftly to his knees...
...Thus, in the end, beneath his well-intended overtures to religion, Gould, in company with Dawkins and Dennett, allows that only a materialist and absurdist philosophy can appropriately contextualize evolutionary science...
...We should note that Gould himself is not at all frustrated by this state of affairs...
...I personally doubt it, though, since the real issue in Kansas and elsewhere is whether, in the wake of Darwin's ideas about nature, we can coherently claim—independently of our own valuations—that the universe is in fact purposeful...
...But his persistent approval of the materialist ideology in which allegedly "scientific" presentations of Darwin's great idea often come packaged does not help his case...
...That Gould himself rejects such a possibility for Darwinian reasons is clear from his own writings...
...The Kansas decision, the general reluctance of religious thought to engage Darwin head-on, and the academically sponsored persistence of materialist evolutionism all show, once again, that convincing noncreationist theological interpretations of Darwinian evolution are virtually unknown to both the scientific community and vast numbers of religious people...
...He never allows that religion can put us in touch with transcendent reality or, for that matter, give us anything resembling truth...
...Throughout his career he has maintained that what makes Darwin so difficult for people to swallow is not the science of evolution as such, but the "philosophical message" that comes along with it...
...Religion can enshroud reality with "meaning," but, for Gould, this meaning is purely of our own making...
...And just what is this message...
...While Teilhard de Chardin and Alfred North Whitehead may have helped us begin this work, the science of evolution has continued to evolve, and it is now time for a more rigorous and publicly accessible renewal of postDarwinian theology...
...And, as far as Gould is concerned, this "philosophical message" cannot appropriately be disengaged from Darwin's science...
...Where, then, does this leave us...
...Rather, no less than Dawkins, Dennett, and Wilson, he holds that only science can be trusted to put us in touch with what is...
...Religion, on the other hand, is a "search for spiritual meaning and ethical values...
...Although biblical literalism will always be an obstacle, our religious thought and education could at least begin to show more clearly than before how the Darwinian picture of life is more or less what we should expect if the world's creator is a God of infinite love...
...Theology simply needs to pay more attention to evolution...
...In his Time commentary, Gould once again makes his constant insistence that there can really be no conflict between evolution and faith...
...Gould is certainly correct to observe that "no scientific theory, including evolution, can pose any threat to religion...
...It is hard to doubt his sincerity...
...Science, he writes in Time, is "an inquiry about the factual state of the natural world...
...They should be "equal, mutually respecting partners, each the master of its own domain, and with each domain vital to human life in a different way...
...Perhaps a generous reading will allow that this is at least some progress...
...The problem is that Gould never concedes the slightest cognitive status to religion or theology...
...At best, religion paints a coat of "value" over the otherwise valueless "facts" disclosed by science...
...As he has elsewhere recently begun to put it, science and religion are "nonoverlapping magisteria" (noma...
...Needless to say, not only creationists, but all religious believers—not to mention ecological ethicists—can only shiver at Gould's repeated contention that we alone are the authors of nature's value and meaning...
...As Gould expresses it in such books as Ever Since Darwin and Wonderful Life (both Norton), Darwin's message is that life has no direction, that there is no purpose to the universe, and that matter is "all there is...
...An inherently meaningless world, he submits, allows us humans to give our own meanings to it, and in this way realize our special creative potential...
...Smith clearly enjoy brandishing the atheism they claim to be the underside of Darwin's revolution, while Gould considers such antics to be pointless...
...Science and religion, he says, are talking about two entirely disparate sets of topics...
...If he is correct in tying Darwin's theory inalienably to the idea of a cosmos intrinsically devoid of overall significance, then no conceivable theology, by anyone's definition, could ever live comfortably with evolution...
...R.T...
...One must credit Gould for trying so hard to bridge the deep cultural divide between the religious world and evolutionary science...
...D Commonweal 16 September 24,1999...
Vol. 126 • September 1999 • No. 16
