When scientists investigate God’s creation, they find that humans appear very late in the history of life. The fossil record shows that many creatures died long before humans appeared. In fact, many entire species went extinct millions of years ago (the dinosaurs are the most famous example), long before humans lived or sinned.

See “What does the Fossil Record Show?” and “How are the ages of the Earth and universe calculated?”

Yet God’s revelation in scripture paints a different picture. Several key scripture passages teach that death is a consequence of sin, including Genesis 2:16-17, Genesis 3:19,22, Romans 5:12-21, and 1 Corinthians 15. How should we think about these passages in light of the scientific evidence? Could animals have died before human sin? Does “death” in these passages refer to physical death, or spiritual death, or sometimes one and sometimes the other? To ponder these questions, we need to consider God’s revelation in scripture and God’s revelation in nature. The scientific evidence is discussed in other Questions, as are the topics of the fall and sin (see sidebars). Here we consider what scripture says about death and how the two revelations might be reconciled.

See “How does original sin fit with evolutionary history?”

Animal Death

The Bible passages that teach about sin and death are clearly referring to the death of humans. Do these passages also refer to animals? Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) didn’t think so. He believed that God’s original creation included animals that killed each other, writing that “the nature of animals was not changed by man’s sin.”¹ Pastor Daniel Harrell makes a logical argument for animal death, writing that “there had to be death in the Garden, otherwise Adam would have been overrun by bugs and bacteria long before he took that forbidden bite of fruit.”² Animal death is also necessary to maintain population levels in a balanced ecosystem (see below for more). Some Bible passages portray predatory animals as part of God’s original plan for creation (Job 38:39-41, 39:29-30, Psalm 104:21,29). Other passages speak of the “wolf laying down with the lamb” instead of killing the lamb (Isaiah 11:6-7, Isaiah 65:25), but these verses refer to the future kingdom of God, not the original creation. While animal death and suffering raises other theological questions (see Sidebar), it does not contradict Biblical teaching about death as a consequence of sin.

See “How does the evil and suffering in the world align with the idea of a loving God?”

Human death: physical or spiritual?

One traditional interpretation of Genesis 2-3 is that sin results in physical death. Humans would have been immortal without sin. In Genesis 2:17, God warns Adam and Eve, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat you shall die.” In Genesis 3:19, God carries out this punishment, cursing Adam with labor and death, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul contrasts and compares Christ and Adam, highlighting Adam’s fall as the cause of physical death for the whole human race.

John Calvin, however, suggested that Adam’s sin caused the abrupt painful death that we experience today, a wrenching apart of the physical and spiritual aspects of humans. Calvin seems to have thought that if Adam had not sinned, a more gentle kind of physical death or “passing” from life into life would have occurred: “Truly the first man would have passed to a better life, had he remained upright; but there would have been no separation of the soul from the body, no corruption, no kind of destruction, and, in short, no violent change.”³ In this view, humans were created mortal, but intended for long healthy lives and graceful deaths, such as described in Isaiah 65:20-25. The Old Testament speaks of death at the end of a long life in purely positive terms, such as 1 Chronicles 29:28 where King David “died at a good old age, having enjoyed long life, wealth, and honor.”

Another interpretation of these passages is that the consequence of sin is spiritual death, not physical death. If Adam had not sinned, humans would still have died like we do today, but without “the sense of loss, uncertainty about an afterlife, … and regret for unfinished work” that comes with spiritual death.⁴ Agemir de Carvalho Dias, Presbyterian pastor and teacher of the Evangelical College of Parana, Brazil, writes that “the death that entered the world with Adam is understood as something that takes man apart from God, a spiritual death, in the sense that the access to God is now closed and can be restored only through faith.”⁵ Of course some sins still bring about physical death, such as Abel’s death at Cain’s hand, and the death of King David’s infant son after the king’s adultery (2 Samuel 12:13-14).

The text of Genesis 2-3 can support an interpretation of the curse as spiritual death. In the curse of Genesis 3:19, God tells Adam “for dust you are and to dust you will return,” implying that Adam was created mortal from the dust. God warned Adam and Eve that they would die in the day they ate from the tree, and yet Adam lived to the age of 930 (Genesis 5:5). What did happen on the day they ate from the tree? Adam and Eve felt shame and were expelled from the Garden, breaking their fellowship with God – spiritual death.

Weren’t Adam and Eve immortal, created as perfect ideal human beings? This is a popular idea, but not clear in the Biblical text. The first humans are described as “very good” and pleasing to God (Genesis 1:30-31), but not as perfect or with superhuman abilities. Also, consider the Tree of Life. God planted this tree in the garden before the fall (Genesis 2:9) and it gives immortality to the one who eats it (Genesis 3:22). If God created humans as immortal, what was the purpose of the Tree of Life? It would only be needed if humans were mortal to begin with.⁶

In the New Testament, Paul writes much on the relationship between sin and death. Sometimes Paul was clearly referring to spiritual death (Romans 6:1-14, 7:11), and other times clearly to physical death (1 Corinthians 15:35-42). Yet even in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul writes of the eternal life in Christ as something much more than the mere earthly life we experience now, implying that “death” also refers to much more than mere physical death. This is more explicit in Romans 5:12-21 where death is contrasted with the gifts of grace, justification, and righteousness, i.e. the new spiritual life provided by Jesus’ victory.

See “Were Adam and Eve Historical Figures?” which discusses the issue of death and the identity of Adam and Eve

Could physical death be part of God’s original plan?

The Garden of Eden has a reputation as a perfect place, with no death, pain, or even danger for humans or animals. Yet Genesis only teaches that the original creation is “good”, not “perfect.” Some verses in Genesis 1-2 suggest that God’s creation was not safe or pain-free. D. C. Spanner points out that God charged humanity to “subdue” (Genesis 1:28), a word that implies danger.⁷ Also, Genesis 2 places Adam and Eve in a garden; in the ancient near east, this was a walled enclosure, protecting the inhabitants from the wilderness and dangerous animals beyond. The Bible is clear that the culmination of God’s plan in the new creation is a place without tears, pain, or death (Revelation 21:4), but is less clear whether the first creation shared these traits.

The death of plants and animals is actually an essential feature in a healthy ecosystem. Plants provide food for animals, and animals return nutrients to the soil upon their deaths. Without predators, populations of some species would explode and crowd out others, maybe even pushing those species to extinction. Predators tend to pick the most populous species to eat, limiting its growth so that other species can compete successfully.⁸

It is more difficult to see human death in a positive light. For those who have lost a loved one, death can feel like the ultimate evil.⁹ Jesus mourned the death of his friend Lazarus (John 11), after all. Paul writes of death as the paycheck for sin (Romans 6:23) and as the last enemy to be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26). The New Testament seems to emphasize death as an evil because it is incompatible with the kind of life promised in the fulfilled kingdom of God. Jesus’ earthly ministry signified the arrival of that future kingdom of God into the present age, but we still live in a world in which the kingdom has not been fully realized. Thus the continuing reality of physical death clashes with the promise of the redeemed future. Only when believers are clothed with their new resurrection bodies will death be finally conquered.

Yet death also appears in the Bible as the utmost expression of love—part of God’s plan for ushering in that new kingdom. Jesus said that the greatest love one can show is to lay down one’s life for another (John 15:13). He then proceeded to lay down his own life for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:6-8). Christianity holds up the cross as the supreme demonstration of sacrificial love. Jesus said, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:23-25). Jesus thus pointed to the role of death in a healthy ecosystem as a parable for the importance of His own death. Just as the death of an organism allows for the rebirth and flourishing of life, so the death of Jesus leads to a rebirth and new life for Jesus’ followers. Perhaps the biological death in the evolutionary epic was not a purposeless waste, but a hint at the way God redeems the negativity of death for the sake of new life.

Behe suggests that the parts of irreducibly complex biological structures would be useless unless they appear all together, and evolution has no mechanism to build complex structures like this. Natural selection, after all, works just one step at a time. Furthermore, natural selection has no foresight. Put simply, if a change is going to be preserved, that change will generally need to confer some extra benefit—no matter how small—to the next generation. Behe has oversimplified things a little. Evolutionary theory predicts that in small populations, neutral changes—and even changes that are slightly deleterious—will survive sometimes. Still, in general, he is correct. So let’s examine what evolutionary biologists believe about how complex structures are built.

A Seemingly “Irreducibly Complex” System

As Scott Gilbert shows in his textbook Developmental Biology, Eighth Edition, the evolution of the interconnecting bones of the middle ear illustrates how supposedly irreducibly complex structures can in fact be generated by the stepwise process of gradual change and natural selection. Fish, for example, have a special system called the lateral line system that extends along the length of their bodies and enables them to detect vibrations in the water. They also have an inner ear, which is useful for balance and supplements the lateral line system in detecting vibrations. With the movement of certain water-dwelling species to land, the lateral line system became obsolete because what was needed was a way of amplifying the vibrations in air, not water. A bone that had previously been used as a support for the skull became the stapes. Along with supporting the skull, the stapes also transmitted sound vibrations—which come in part through the skull and jaw—to the inner ear. How do we know it’s the same bone? By examining its embryological origin in fish and reptiles. In reptiles, there is just one bone that transmits air vibrations to the inner ear: the stapes.

We can also trace the origin of the two other middle ear bones, the incus and malleus, by looking at fossils from the time of the origin of mammals about 230 million years ago. Until that point, two bones—the articular and quadrate bones—served as the hinge of the jaw. Investigators, however, believe they carried out a second function. Because they were located adjacent to the stapes, it is likely they also aided in transmitting sound vibrations to the stapes.

Here is where the story gets especially interesting. Right at the time of the origin of mammals it turns out there were several species—perhaps many, paleontologists are sure they don’t have all of the transitional species preserved in the fossil record—that had a double hinge at the jaw. Not only did the articular/quadrate bones serve as a hinge, but another pair of bones, the dental/squamosal bones, served that purpose as well. So the articular/quadrate bones, which transmitted sound, no longer had to also serve as a jaw-hinge. This second function became redundant because there was another set of bones doing the same thing.

With that redundancy, the articular/quadrate bones of the jaw were free to become the incus/malleus of the middle ear. We have a record of the transition, and we have a record of the building of a so-called irreducibly complex structure. Parts that were initially used for one function became, for a period of time, useful for two functions. Then, one function was refined while the other function became redundant or unnecessary. In other words, parts that were initially used for one purpose become co-opted for another purpose; and looking back through the fossil record, we can see the intermediates.

The Bacterial Flagellum

In Darwin’s Black Box, Behe focuses on three things he considers to be irreducibly complex: the bacterial flagellum, the blood clotting cascade and the immune system. The elements of these systems are molecular in nature and therefore the evolutionary intermediates are somewhat harder to document. Interacting molecules are not preserved for historical analysis like fossil bones of the skull and middle ear. In his book, Behe suggests that biochemistry gives no clue as to how complex interacting parts like these might have come about, and he confidently states that investigations have run up against a blank wall.

It has now been 13 years since Darwin’s Black Box was written. The structures and processes Behe chose to focus on have been studied quite extensively. Although it is impossible to go back and analyze step by step what actually did happen, much evidence for straightforward evolutionary explanations has accumulated over the years. The diversity in a given structure that we see when we compare different species tells us a great deal about how that structure might have come about.

Consider the bacterial flagellum, the example most commonly used to illustrate the principle of irreducible complexity. First, it is important to point out that the bacterial flagellum comes in many different varieties, sometimes with profound differences between one species and another. This alone illustrates that the flagellum is probably not irreducibly complex. It can be altered, and when it is altered, it does not necessarily lose its function.

There are many species of bacteria, for example, that use the basal parts of the flagellum to deliver toxins into their host. A different set of bacterial species uses a portion of the flagellar machinery for another purpose. Species of the genus Buchnera live inside the sheltered environment of aphid cells in a symbiotic relationship. These bacteria no longer need flagella. However, each tiny Buchnera cell is studded with hundreds of copies of the flagellar base. As a recent paper in the journal Trends in Microbiology shows, the purpose now is to serve as a passageway for the export of proteins and other material into the surrounding environment—the aphid cell in which the bacterium resides. So while we cannot follow the sequence of events step by step to illustrate how the various types of flagella have arisen, we can see how they have changed and, in some cases, even taken on whole new functions. The term for adapting a structure for a different purpose than that for which it originally arose is “exaptation.” This is one important way in which complexity arises.

That is not the whole story, however, because individual parts have to be added into the structure as it becomes more complex or takes on new function. Where do those parts come from? Recently, investigators have shown that the key protein in the molecular motor that causes the flagellum to rotate has a very similar structure to another protein that is used to transport magnesium into and out of cells. Both protein molecules have sections that fold in almost exactly the same manner, and when we analyze the order of their building blocks (amino acids), we see profound similarities. This illustrates a second principle in building complexity: It is done by co-option. Parts that are used for one purpose are co-opted to take on a second function as well. Sometimes, the instructions to build a part are encoded by identical duplicate genes. When that happens, co-option is especially straightforward. One set of instructions for making the original part is preserved while the duplicate set of instructions can gradually be modified through mutation and natural selection, allowing the part to become better and better at carrying out its new function. This illustrates a third principle of assembling complexity: adaptation through natural selection.

Even more revealingly, the supposedly irreducibly complex bacterial flagellum turns out not to be irreducible after all. For example, there is a protein at the base of the flagellum, an ATPase, that drives the key structural subunit (flagellin) of the long hollow tube through its inner core, causing the flagellum to grow in length. Yet, it has been shown that flagellin can be transported to the end of a flagellum without this ATPase. The protein that was thought to be one of the flagellum’s most important parts can be done away with. This illustrates a fourth principle of building a complex structure: redundancy. Inside of cells, there is often more than one way to accomplish a particular purpose; as evolution “tinkers” with a complex structure, there is likely to be redundancy with certain parts at certain stages. One of these redundant mechanisms may become more specialized, and even perfected, as time goes by.

The Eye

Another system that is often held up as an example of irreducible complexity is the eye. People often ask: What good is a partly assembled eye? Is there any logical series of steps that could result in the creation—through the process of natural selection—of a structure so elegant as the eye of an eagle? What would be the starting point, anyway?

Watch "The Evolution of the Eye" from PBS' Evolution: "Darwin's Dangerous Idea".

All light-sensing devices in the animal world make use of a single light-sensitive molecule, retinal, which is derived from Vitamin A. Retinal can change its shape when it absorbs a photon of light. This molecule is always complexed with a protein known as an opsin. The two work together to sense light.

By analyzing the arrangement of the building blocks, or amino acids, in opsin, it is possible to show that all opsins are derived from a single ancestral gene. What purpose could the retinal/opsin combination have had in the earliest days of animal history? It likely functioned to detect light in order to set the internal body clock that regulates the 24-hour cycle of biological processes, known as the Circadian rhythm. In recent years, it has become apparent that living processes inside of cells are tuned to function in a manner that is synchronized with the cycle of sunlight.

Circadian rhythms function throughout the living world, including single-cell organisms. It seems likely, then, that the simplest light-detecting device arose through exaptation of a molecular device that was used to detect light—not so that an organism might move toward or away from the light, but so it could reset its molecular clock. Even the origin of opsin illustrates a basic principle of building complexity, co-option. Opsin is one of many G-protein receptors, which have come to take on many different functions through the history of life. When coupled with the light-sensitive molecule retinal, a G-protein receptor allows the cell to be sensitized to the presence and absence of light. Although we have no fossilized transitions that allow us to trace the various eye intermediates that have occurred in animal history, as we do with the middle ear, we do have a myriad of light-sensing devices in the animal kingdom that allow us to piece together how sophisticated eyes could have been created through a gradual process driven by natural selection. (You can read more about the prospective intermediates that exist in the animal world in a wonderful paper by Ryan Gregory.)

If you choose to explore eye development in detail, be watching for examples of exaptation, co-option, step-by-step adaptation and redundancy. For example, you will note that the evolution of the lens illustrates co-option and redundancy. There are two ways to focus the image on the light-receiving cells at the back of an eye. One way is through an independent lens. The other way is through the transparent cornea in front of the lens. The lens is simply transparent crystallized protein molecules that are assembled in such a manner that they bring the image into sharp focus. There are a variety of proteins that can be crystallized to serve as an effective lens. It turns out that, depending on the evolutionary lineage, various proteins—including enzymes such as alcohol dehydrogenase (an enzyme for breaking down ethanol), glutathione S transferase and protein chaperones—are used for this purpose. This is a simple example of co-option and redundancy functioning together as part of the tinkering mechanism used for building a complex structure like the eye.

Two-thirds of animal phyla have some sort of light-sensing device. Although all of these light-sensing devices make use of retinal and opsins, there are differences in structure that we can trace to differences in evolutionary origin. In his 2003 book, Life’s Solution, Simon Conway-Morris documents at least seven independent origins of the eye resulting in very similar outcomes. For example, the eye of a squid and the eye of a mammal work in a remarkably similar manner. However, the ways the two eyes are constructed during development are quite different. Differences in structure are constrained by how particular bodies are constructed as the embryo develops. Eyes also bear telltale signs of the fact that there has been a certain amount of jury-rigging in their construction. They are not perfect. They have blind spots, are subject to retinal detachment, glaucoma and macular degeneration, all of which are a function of the history of how the eye has been assembled through time.

Read how a recent study has shot down the idea that protein transport is irreducibly complex.

Although we don’t have the eye intermediates preserved in stone the way we can see the simpler assembly of the parts of the mammalian middle ear, we do have a vast array of eye structures in the animal kingdom, any one of which might appear to be irreducibly complex but which, in fact, has been put together through a set of processes that has included exaptation, co-option, step-by-step adaptation and some redundancy at various stages along the way. Indeed, these eye structures themselves are likely intermediates. Everything changes as it passes through the eons of time. This is the legacy of creation through the process of natural selection.

God-of-the-gaps arguments use gaps in scientific explanation as indicators, or even proof, of God’s action and therefore of God’s existence. Such arguments propose divine acts in place of natural, scientific causes for phenomena that science cannot yet explain. The assumption is that if science cannot explain how something happened, then God must be the explanation. But the danger of using a God-of-the-gaps argument for the action or existence of God is that it lacks the foresight of future scientific discoveries. With the continuing advancement of science, God-of-the-gaps explanations often get replaced by natural mechanisms. Therefore, when such arguments are used as apologetic tools, scientific research can unnecessarily be placed at odds with belief in God.¹ The recent Intelligent Design (ID) movement highlights this problem. Certain ID arguments, like the irreducible complexity of the human eye or the bacterial flagellum, are rapidly being undercut by new scientific discoveries.

Illustrating God-of-the-Gaps

The familiar story of Isaac Newton and Pierre Simon de Laplace is a classic example of the God-of-the-gaps argument. Newton devised a mathematical equation for the force of gravity that he used to explain and predict the motions of planets with outstanding accuracy. With pencil and paper, the orbit of the planets around the sun could be calculated with great precision. But planets also have gravitational interactions with each other, not just with the sun. For example, when the Earth passes Mars in its orbit around the sun, there is a small but significant gravitational interaction between Mars and Earth. Because these tiny interplanetary interactions occur often — several times per year in many cases — Newton suspected that these gravitational perturbations would accumulate and slowly disrupt the magnificent order of the solar system. To counteract these and other disruptive forces, Newton suggested that God must necessarily intervene occasionally to tune up the solar system and restore the order. Thus, God's periodic special actions were needed to account for the ongoing stability of the solar system.

See "How is BioLogos different from Theistic Evolution, Intelligent Design and Creationism?" and "How can evolution account for the complexity of life on earth today?"

Newton also thought that God was necessary to explain how the planets all happen to be travelling around the sun in the same direction and in the same plane. His theory of gravity was entirely compatible with planetary motions in any direction and with orbits tilted at any angle to the sun. But this is not what we find. The planets travel in the same direction, and almost all of their orbits are in the same plane. The planets move around the sun like runners on a track: very orderly. Newton thought only God could have set things up so elegantly:

"The six primary Planets are revolv'd about the Sun, in circles concentric with the Sun, and with motions directed towards the same parts, and almost in the same plane. […] But it is not to be conceived that mere mechanical causes could give birth to so many regular motions. […] This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets, and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being." ²

In both of these examples — one related to the ongoing motion of the planets and the other related to the origin of the motions — Newton is employing textbook God-of-the-gaps reasoning. Scientific theories are proposed to explain as much as possible, and then God is brought in to cover any remaining unexplained gaps in the explanation.

We now know that Newton was wrong on both counts. The gravitational perturbations that planets experience are so completely balanced that they average out to zero over time. The net result is that the planetary motions are stable; they do not deteriorate over time. And it was a straightforward application of Newton’s theory that revealed this. Newton simply had not done all the calculations to see if his intuition was right. The same was true for the orderly motion of the planets. Newton had no concept of how solar systems could form on their own or what the planetary motions would be like in naturally forming systems. Astronomy simply had not developed to this point. In the decades after Newton, astronomers discovered that solar systems form naturally from large clouds of rotating matter. Therefore, a large, slowly rotating cloud collapses under its own gravity, and it tends to flatten into something like a pancake. Saturn's rings are an interesting example where the cloud is still present. The material collects into big clumps in the plane of the pancake. After the process is completed, a collection of clumps all travelling in the same direction and in the same plane exists — just like our solar system.

Such episodes in the history of science are not unusual. In fact they are so common that the phrase God-of-the-gaps has been coined to label the process of invoking God to account for natural phenomena that is not explained by science. The dangers of such God-of-the-gaps reasoning were highlighted a century after Newton by a situation involving the French mathematician Pierre Simon de Laplace who held a bureaucratic post in Napoleon Bonaparte’s administration. Laplace was the beneficiary of a remarkable century of progress in refining and extending Newton’s laws of motion and expanding the vision of what was going on in space. As a result, he was able to write a wide-ranging text explaining the mechanics of the heavens without invoking divine intervention.

As legend goes, Laplace was questioned by Napoleon about the absence of God in his theory: "M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its Creator." To this, Laplace famously replied, “I had no need of that hypothesis.” Of course, God can be still be used as a hypothesis for the existence of the universe. But because Newton had used a deficiency in scientific explanation as an argument for God’s existence, Laplace’s theory delivered an unnecessary blow to the apologetics of the time. Herein lies the danger: If gaps in scientific knowledge are used as arguments for the existence of God, what happens when science advances and closes those explanatory gaps?

Pointers to God: Fine-Tuning and the Moral Law

In the first and third chapters of The Language of God, Dr. Francis Collins mentions pointers to God that played a role in his journey to faith. One of these pointers is the fine-tuning of the universe. Fine-tuning refers to the way the basic laws of physics appear to be delicately balanced for life. This precision calls for an explanation that science cannot provide. There is a spirited debate over the meaning of fine-tuning, and some critics charge that invoking God as the fine-tuner is a return to the God-of-the-gaps. But there does not seem to be any way to explain the detailed properties of the laws of nature from within science. Fine-tuning arguments thus go beyond science into metaphysics to explain why the world that science studies has the properties that it does. Another pointer that Collins mentions, following C. S. Lewis, is the moral law. The moral law is an implicit and universal standard of ethics for humanity. Collins describes morality as a universal law, which, unlike laws such as gravity, is broken very often. Overall, the moral law is consistent with the type of behavior that is expected of products of evolution. However, as Collins points out, altruistic behavior often seems to go beyond what would be expected from the best-established processes of Darwinian evolution.³ Mathematical models developed by theorists like Martin Nowak ⁴ have established that natural selection can produce genes for altruism, but the radical self sacrifice of great saints like Mother Theresa of Calcutta seems to go beyond what the models can account for. A completely natural account of our origins may be insufficient to explain present observations of human behavior. However, if evolutionary psychology could explain human morality, or if theoretical physics could explain such perfect constants of nature, would theistic apologetics be discredited in any way?

Fine-Tuning

Unlike a God-of-the-gaps argument, the argument for fine-tuning uses science without divine action to reveal the impeccable precision of our Universe.⁵ Fine-tuning is described in terms of physical constants and the initial conditions of our universe. Fine-tuning does not try to draw attention to where science has failed, but rather emphasizes how science has revealed the intricate balance of the universe.

One might argue that science could potentially explain the origins of these delicately balanced features, but there are two important things to keep in mind. First, it is very unlikely that a scientific theory could explain away the improbabilities of our Universe without raising other improbabilities.⁶  Second, an argument for fine-tuning is unlike a God-of-the-gaps argument in that it is not intended to prove God’s existence. While it is true that the fine-tuning of the Universe adds credence to belief in a creator, such recent scientific findings could hardly be called upon as the basis or justification of the long history of theistic belief. While the fine-tuning of the Universe does indeed lead many people to consider the possibility of God’s existence, the fact that science cannot disprove God’s existence assures us that it also cannot prove it. Instead, fine-tuning can be understood as a feature of the universe that is accordant with belief in a creator. A deeper scientific explanation of these features — albeit highly unlikely — would not ruin its usefulness as a pointer to God.

Moral Law

The moral law also offers evidence that the world has evolved in a way that is consistent with the belief in a good and loving God. This remains true whether science eventually finds an account or explanation for morality. Even if a purely natural account of moral development could be found, the simple fact that morality has evolved is something that would be expected in a world created by a just and loving God.

Evolutionary theory explains selfishness in a most obvious and natural way. Altruism is far less obvious, but it can also be explained by recognizing that humans evolved in tribes that were essentially extended families with many genes in common. Imagine two tribes, one has genes to help each other even when it requires sacrifice and one does not have such genes. Which tribe will flourish? In such ways, genes for altruism can be selected by nature and spread in a population. But in its most radical form, altruism refers to situations where individuals risk their very lives to help someone they do not even know, and from whom a reciprocal benefit is unexpected or even unimaginable. This concept runs counter to the behavior expected from the best-established processes of evolution, and there are no widely accepted theories that can fully account for such examples. Some have suggested that radical altruism might perhaps be explained as misfiring —  we mistakenly go overboard in our desire to be nice. Radical altruism is currently somewhat mysterious.

As with most situations, science may someday provide an explanation for altruism. In light of that possibility, the argument from the moral law as a pointer to God is subject to the same risk of explanation as Newton’s God-of-the-gaps argument. If radically altruistic behavior is someday given a natural evolutionary explanation, it will no longer stand out as an inconsistency in evolutionary theory. However, Robert Wright argues in Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny, that the evolution of altruism can be explained as an application of game theory.⁷ In Wright’s view, the deep mystery is not altruism itself, but the intriguing mathematical structures of the universe, like game theory, that can coax from the universe surprising behaviors like altruism.

Conclusion

If gaps in scientific knowledge are the basis for belief in God, then as science progresses, evidence for God’s existence continually diminishes. Fine-tuning does not rely on divine action as an explanation, but points out the striking precision of nature’s order in line with the requirements for human life, thus establishing a mysterious connection between physics and biology. As for the moral law, its use as a pointer to God can be understood in that human behavior has evolved in a way that is consistent with the idea of a good and loving creator. Belief in any moral truth rests upon the assumption of God’s existence or some other ultimate standard.

Finally, although these pointers to God should encourage one to consider God’s existence, they must not be placed at the foundation of faith. The belief in a creator and the experience of a relationship with God should not rest solely on a logical or scientific justification. But then, as Collins himself wondered, “How can such [religious] beliefs be possible for a scientist? Aren’t many claims of religion incompatible with the “Show me the data” attitude of someone devoted to the study of chemistry, physics, biology, or medicine?”⁸  

The BioLogos view holds that both Scripture and modern science reveal God’s truth, and that these truths are not in competition with one another. While there are varying views within the BioLogos community of how to reconcile the truths of science and Scripture on particular issues (for example with regards to a historical Adam¹), we believe that the Bible is the divinely inspired and authoritative Word of God. BioLogos accepts the modern scientific consensus on the age of the earth and common ancestry, including the common ancestry of humans.

See more on Scientific Evidence

Evolutionism

While BioLogos accepts evolution, it emphatically rejects evolutionism, the atheistic worldview that so often accompanies the acceptance of biological evolution in public discourse. Proponents of evolutionism believe every aspect of life will one day be explained with evolutionary theory. In this way it is a subset of scientism, the broader view that the only real truth is that which can be discovered by science. These positions are commonly held by materialists (also called philosophical naturalists) who deny the existence of the supernatural.

The BioLogos view celebrates God as creator. It is sometimes called Theistic Evolution or Evolutionary Creation. Theism is the belief in a God who cares for and interacts with creation. Theism is different than deism, which is the belief in a distant, uninvolved creator who is often little more than the sum total of the laws of physics. Theistic Evolution, therefore, is the belief that evolution is how God created life.

Because the term evolution is sometimes associated with atheism, a better term for the belief in a God who chose to create the world by way of evolution is BioLogos. BioLogos comes from the Greek words bios (life) and logos (word), referring to John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

See "What role could God have in evolution?"

Intelligent Design

Contrary to some interpretations, Intelligent Design, or ID, makes no specific theological claims. Instead, proponents of ID argue that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection,"² and that the existence of this intelligent cause is a testable scientific hypothesis. Furthermore, ID theorists attempt to show that intelligent causation is the best explanation for certain phenomena such as irreducibly complex systems (e.g. bacterial flagella) and the complex specified information in DNA.

Those who hold the BioLogos view also believe in intelligent causation. The universe and all that is in it has been created and is being sustained by God:

…in [Christ] all things in heaven and earth were created, things visible and invisible…all things were created through him and by him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Col 1:16,17 NRSV).

BioLogos differs from the ID movement in that we have no discomfort with mainstream science. Natural selection as described by Charles Darwin is not contrary to theism. Similarly, we are content to let modern evolutionary biology inform us about the mechanisms of creation with the full realization that all that has happened occurs through God’s activity. We celebrate creation as fully God’s. We marvel at its beauty and are in awe that we have the privilege of experiencing it.

BioLogos celebrates the reality of miracles, including the miracles of Scripture, but also those we experience in today’s world through answered prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit in our own lives. However, the demonstration of such supernatural activity in the history of the natural world is, we think, unlikely to be scientifically testable.

See "Is there room in BioLogos to believe in miracles?"

To summarize, BioLogos differs from the ID movement in three respects:

1. We are skeptical about the ability of biological science to prove the existence of an Intelligent Designer (whom we take to be the God of the Bible), while ID advocates are confident.
2. We find unconvincing those attempts by ID theorists to scientifically confirm God’s activity in natural history, while ID theorists believe they have sufficiently demonstrated it.
3. We see no biblical reason to view natural processes (including natural selection) as having removed God from the process of creation. It is all God’s and it is all intelligently designed. Those in the ID movement for the most part reject some or all of the major conclusions of evolutionary theory.

Creationism

BioLogos affirms that the earth and the universe were created. Creationism, however, generally refers to the belief that life on earth is a result of a direct flurry of supernatural intervention in a manner that is concordant with a highly literal view of Genesis 1-3. There are two main varieties of Creationists, those who believe the earth is young and those who believe it is old.

Young Earth Creationists (YECs) hold that the earth is between 6,000 and 10,000 years old, a figure derived from the genealogies presented in the Bible. YECs believe the most faithful way to read Scripture is through the lens of a literal six-day creation as presented in the first chapter of Genesis, and they further believe that a literal worldwide flood as depicted in Genesis 6-9 is responsible for geological features of the earth and the fossil record. YECs also reject the common ancestry of all species, believing that life was created as it presently appears by supernatural action. They view “macro-evolution” (as distinct from within-kind or within-species “micro-evolution”) as incompatible with Scripture and some even argue that it is a direct threat to Christianity.

BioLogos disagrees with the YEC viewpoint. This view rejects the discoveries of almost every modern scientific discipline to arrive at its conclusions and overlooks the revelation of God’s work in creation as uncovered by science. We also maintain that the YEC viewpoint stems from a particular interpretation of Genesis that ignores the rich cultural and theological context in which it was written.

See more on Scripture Interpretation

Old Earth Creationists (OECs) accept that the earth and universe are billions of years old, but maintain that these findings are in concordance with a literal reading of the first chapters of Genesis (often by interpreting the days of creation as long periods of time, or by understanding large gaps between the days of creation). OECs hold that modern science tightly corresponds with biblical accounts and assume that God included modern scientific ideas in the Bible, sometimes through secret language that would have been lost on the original audiences. OECs do not accept macro-evolution and the common ancestry of all life forms.

BioLogos disagrees with the OEC viewpoint. While accepting the scientific consensus for an old earth, this view rejects the findings of modern genetics, paleontology, developmental biology, evolutionary biology and many other biological sub-disciplines that make little sense apart from macro-evolution and common ancestry. Furthermore, we believe that God chose to reveal himself within the worldview, culture, and language of the biblical authors.

Where Christians Agree

Despite these differences, all Christians agree that the God of the Bible is the creator of the heavens and the earth. We agree on the authority of the Bible, even though we disagree on the best interpretation of particular passages. We agree that God is continually active in his sovereign governance of the universe, even though we disagree on how much God acts through natural law versus miracles. We are unified in our rejection of evolutionism, even though we use different strategies to counteract it (some reject the science of evolution, while BioLogos rejects the atheistic spin put on the science). We agree on the fundamentals of our faith: that all people have sinned and that salvation comes only through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We agree that the God of our salvation is the same God we see in the wonders of his creation. Whether we ponder the intricacy of DNA, the beauty of a dolphin, or the vastness of the Milky Way, we can lift our hearts together in praise to the divine Artist who made it all.