Today's video is courtesy of filmmaker Ryan Pettey, director/editor of Satellite Pictures.

In today’s video, Brian McLaren talks about what he calls a paradigm of compatibility between evolution and Christian faith. He explains his own comfort with accepting Scripture and evolution and seeing the process of evolution as a wonderful opportunity for adaptation, growth, and development and a reflection of God’s glory. He believes that over time Christians will get a lot more comfortable with the idea of evolution is a part of God’s creation, just as Christians came to accept Copernicus’ theory of heliocentricity without abandoning the Bible (only certain assumptions about what the Bible meant).

This week we feature the next clip from the documentary “From the Dust”, directed by filmmaker Ryan Pettey. It is our sincere hope that, above all else, the film can become a focal point for some of the big questions that inevitably arise at the intersection of science and faith.

To help foster such dialogue, we are once again including several discussion questions with this week’s clip. In the transcript below, you’ll find several prompts that are meant to help viewers dig deeper into the material being presented. Mouse over each highlighted region and a question will appear on the side. We encourage you to watch this video with your friends, your churches, your small groups and Sunday School classes, your pastors -- or anyone else for that matter – and take some time to discuss what is being said (and maybe even what isn’t). You may not all agree, but you will find yourselves engaged in fruitful and spirited conversation. And it is this kind of conversation that will help move the science and faith discussion forward.

Editor's Note: The full documentary is now available on DVD and Blu-ray. You can order the film here, and learn more about the project here.

"Framing the Debate" Transcript

Jeff Schloss: “So why are Christians nervous about evolution and why do we even use a phrase like the ‘e’ word? The word itself has a negative connotation in many groups.”

Alister McGrath: “I think in the States you have a culture war between forces of religion and secularism, and what has happened is that some people in that debate have seen science as a weapon to be used against religion. So, the first casualty in this culture war, I am afraid, has been a proper understanding of what science is and then how it relates to religion.”

Nancey Murphy: “One of the concerns that evolutionary biology raises for some Christians is the view that because evolution is a long drawn out process and because the evolutionary biologists themselves say that evolution is not toward anything—it is just from origins and it is not directed—that that somehow removes God’s purposes from the universe.”

Alister McGrath: “I think we find atheists arguing that evolution is fundamentally a random, directionless, purposeless development, and therefore, that means that there is no intrinsic meaning to human existence. We are simply the random outcome of an essentially random process.”

Jeff Schloss: “Are those, in fact, genuine entailments of evolutionary theory or does that involve philosophical moves that are arguable on the grounds of philosophy, and not on the grounds of the evidence for evolutionary theory? That is a conversation, I regret, that Christians haven’t had very deeply.”

Ard Louis: “Christians are hearing what non-Christians are telling them about what evolution means, and they are believing it. Underlying it are, in fact, often a worldview or philosophical assumptions that say it is all purposeless.”

Alister McGrath: “The point I would like to make in response to that is that that is a very superficial reading of things—that is simply saying, ‘Look, we can’t scientifically discern purpose or meaning, so we draw the conclusion that there is none.’ It is extremely important to make the point that the idea of meaning or purpose is not an empirical notion. It is not something that you observe; it is something you infer.”

Nancey Murphy: “The science is, by design, unable to talk about purposes. Evolutionary Biology is a science that only looks at the question of how one life form develops from another life form. It doesn’t have the sort of perspective you would need in order to see whether there is or is not purpose there. Science by its very definition cannot make pronouncements either for or against religious truths.”

Alister McGrath: “And that is why it is extremely important to emphasize that the scientific method, when properly applied, is neither theistic nor anti-theistic. It is simply about trying to offer explanations for what we find in the world—proximate explanations, not ultimate explanations. Ultimate explanations begin to ask deeper questions like, ‘Why is the universe as it is?’ That is where we can start to talk about God.”

Michael Ramsden: “I think what has happened in the last couple decades is that we have lost sight of the overall history the context of this debate, and then that has then fueled a continued misunderstanding about the contemporary debate, and it instilled this sense of war between Christianity and science—that these two things are battling each other, they are fighting each other, and they are at odds with each other. So, the options are look—be pre-modern, go live in a cave, and believe in God or embrace reality, welcome the new world, and be an atheist. Whereas actually what the facts, what the figures, what everything else shows is that that is not actually correct.”

John Polkinghorne: “There is a sort of myth in modern society that when Charles Darwin published his great book The Origin of Species in 1859 that all the scientific people shouted ‘yes’ and all the religious people shouted ‘no.’ That is not true on either side, and in particular, there were religious people who from the start welcomed Darwin’s ideas. Charles Kingsley, who was a clergyman friend of Darwin’s, said, ‘Darwin has shown us that God had done something clever. Rather than producing a ready-made world with the snap of divine fingers, God had brought into being a world so full of fruitfulness and potentiality that creatures could be allowed to be themselves and to make themselves. We have to recognize that God acts as much through natural processes as in any other way. The idea that somehow the creator of the world, who ordains the character of nature, does not work through natural processes is really a silly idea.

Alister McGrath: “In light of the deeper Christian narrative, everything makes sense if we assume there is a purposeful God, who in some way is directing his creation towards the outcomes that we now see.”

Ard Louis: “One of the really big difficulties in looking at all this stuff about creation and science is that we take a lot of our own feelings about ourselves and put them in. We think that where we come from determines who we are and how we should live. I think that is the reason why a lot of Christians intuitively would prefer man to be made in an instant because somehow they feel that where we come from determines who we are. Therefore, if we were made in an instant that would be more glorious than if God made us over time. But I think that is wrong, the Bible tells us that are value comes from what God thinks about us, not by the details of how we are made.”

Chris Tilling: “Humans are explicitly stated to have come from the dust of the earth. So, in terms of our constitution, we are no different from the animal kingdom. What is different according to the Genesis account is that God enters into relationship with humans. It shifts the focus away from who we are, to who God is, and it seems to me that that is more faithful to the Christian gospel.”

John Polkinghorne: “I think that Christian people are genuinely seeking to serve the God of truth. That means that they have a very important investment in truth, and they need to welcome truth and not be afraid of truth in whatever sort it comes. Now, not all truth comes through science, but some of it does, and it is very sad to see people serving the God of truth who are turning their backs on certain types of truth.”

Though some may believe that moving the science/faith dialogue forward is best left to scientists, scholars, and theologians, we at BioLogos recognize that our pastors play an invaluable role in the conversation. Across the globe, pastors are helping their congregations work through difficult issues of science and faith with honesty, insight, and a gentle spirit. To this end we present an ongoing series recognizing sermons (and the pastors who give them) that are helping to promote the harmony of science and faith. If you know a sermon or podcast related to science and faith that has especially spoken to you, please let us know.

During the 1600’s, the majority of philosophers, religious authorities, and astronomers alike believed in what is known as a geocentric universe—a universe centered on the earth. However, the scientist Galileo was convinced otherwise. It was his conviction that the universe was heliocentric, or centered on the sun. When church leaders learned of his ideas, Galileo was forced to recant and abandon this (what they believed to be) heretical belief. This event marked the beginning of the science and faith war. [For more information concerning Galileo and the Inquisition, please visit the following BioLogos blogs: here and here.]

According to John Van Sloten of New Hope Church Calgary, however, the idea that God’s truth and scientific truth disagree with one another is a “false dichotomy if ever [he] has heard of one.” If God has indeed created all things, pure scientific truth should never be a “problematic thing” for Christians. If anything, Van Sloten continues, scientific truth enriches the faith as it reveals his majesty and provides Christians with a deeper understanding of God. He emphasizes that both the Bible and nature (as understood through science) are God’s books. Therefore, any point of conflict between the two arises only when the Church is reading one book incorrectly. Although science is not contrary to the Bible, countless scientists have strayed away from faith on account of this misconception, and many Christians have missed out on the opportunity to worship God through the study of His creation because the church has been too afraid to fully engage this field. To stress the idea that nature reveals God, Van Sloten quotes King David in Psalm 19: 1-4: “The heavens tell of the glory of God. The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make Him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is silent in the skies; yet their message has gone out to all the earth, and their words to all the world.” Creation indeed reveals God’s beauty, ingenuity, and greatness.

Then, Van Sloten addresses this question: how can one reconcile the belief that God is providentially working in and through the world with the claim that science can empirically explain how everything works? He points to a quote in Dr. John Polkinghorne’s book Science and the Trinity that says:

…it has been widely recognized that the intrinsic unpredictabilities that twentieth century physics has uncovered as limits on our knowledge of detailed behavior both in quantum theory and chaos theory have significantly qualified the kind of merely mechanical physical process that previously had seemed to be the deliverance of science.

In other words, although science can explain much of the world, there are laws at work within nature that cause it to be unpredictable, and thus restrict science’s ability to describe things in a detailed and “mechanical” manner. For this reason, one cannot use science to discredit God’s providence operating “in the ordained open grain of nature.” Van Sloten further explains that if humans have the capacity to act as influential agents in the world, it is reasonable to believe that there is a Creator with an analogous capacity. Scientists, he says, may even be the greatest example of this concept as they constantly intervene and manipulate the natural order of things in their research. Thus, not only does nature leave room for God to work, but also, it can be influenced by the will of humans.

As the sermon closes, Van Sloten re-emphasizes that scientific discovery allows a person to stand in awe of God and worship him more. Although one may disagree with the atheistic conclusions that scientists draw from their discoveries, the data itself reflects his beauty and glory; it is not to be neglected.