Logic Times

Punctuated Creation

Posted by Aslan, 05/05/05, 11:51pm.  Comments (0)

 

In the last installment, Where the Theories Succeed, I argue that two seemingly contradictory elements comprise a new theory of evolution/creation:

  • Humanity is unique and clearly not the by-product of natural/random evolutionary forces, and
  • The idea of a God constantly intervening to place individual species on this Earth over the life of the planet makes no sense and unnecessarily limits the Creator.  However, the rejection of "speciation via divine intervention" implies that some mechanism of species development – as yet not well understood (and certainly not Darwinism) – is likely true.

This contradiction can be reconciled if we recognize that LIFE and the UNIVERSE are incompatible. Entropy is the starting point.

 

The Second Law of Thermodynamics (SLT) – the law whereby order in the universe always decreases – is one of the over-arching laws of the physical universe.  And what is a unique characteristic of the SLT and this decrease in order?  Time.  Time's Arrow (see here).

 

Time is essential for free will to operate.  Without cause and effect, there can be no choices, and without choices there can be no expression of free will and without free will God does not get what He wants: reciprocation of love.  

 

God "needs" time.  Yet time comes with baggage: a decrease in order. Life is all about an increase in order.  To suggest a local increase in order because of star power is one thing (i.e., coalescence of planets), postulating that all the coordinated, essential conditions for human life are part of a universal decline in order is, quite frankly, preposterous. The only answer that those opposed to Intelligent Design can offer is RANDOMNESS (and repetition), which wholly fails every test of significant complexity.  Life cannot arise unaided in a universe governed by the SLT; entropy does not permit it (and, no, the flawed and simplistic 1953 Miller experiment does nothing to suggest otherwise).

 

So God created the universe with the Big Bang, and His initial creative effort was entirely sufficient to begin time and produce all the entropic majesty of a lifeless universe of planets and galaxies, organization on a relatively low scale with local increases in order easily explained (by the overall decrease in heat). Unattended, such a creation is a lifeless dead-end, doomed to slowly cool and drift apart (or perhaps cyclically re-collapse if Omega is slightly less than 1).  

 

And such may indeed be our fate, except that God has, for His unique purpose, grafted life onto this lifeless universe.  

 

Why did God not create a Big Bang configuration such that life could begin in a universe governed by the SLT?  Because He cannot.  Do not fret, God remains omnipotent.  Yet even omnipotent Beings are constrained by contradiction.  God cannot create a circle-square.  I do not mean he cannot make a circle into a square, but that he cannot create a shape that possesses both the characteristics of a circle and a square – such a shape is nonsensical and, by definition, cannot exist.  

 

So, too, God cannot create a lifeless (entropic) universe with life hardwired into it – the laws of order contradict the laws of disorder.  Enter the need for intervention.  

 

An important point in this discussion must be restated: God is certainly capable of creating life that can evolve, even in universe that increases in disorder – we see the hint of such a system in natural selection. To object to evolution on the basis of it not being possible is to suggest God is incapable of designing a system of evolution.  This must be rejected.  One can reject evolution on the basis of the evidence (or lack thereof), but then one must argue for speciation via divine intervention, which defies the systematic nature of the rest of God’s creation and conjures up, with the aid of compelling circumstantial evidence, an illusion that evolution has indeed taken place.

 

Once life is established, variation and selection are more than capable of preserving traits and adapting life.  Micro-evolution is fact and macro-evolution for non-complex traits seems well supported in areas of the fossil record (hominids, plants, fish, etc.) and in lines of descent. We know that variation and selection function to preserve advantageous traits – the question is: what is the missing mechanism that produces complex variation?  I do not know.  I do understand the scientific method and therefore must reject gradualism (Darwinism) as this mechanism.  Of all the theories of evolution in the public domain, only one does not contradict observation and offers unproven but promising mechanisms for complex variation: punctuated equilibrium (PE) by Dr. Stephen Jay Gould.  The theory described here embraces most aspects of PE.

 

God, therefore, need only introduce biological life (capable of speciation) into the lifeless universe to begin the process of creating human life.  But there is a problem: the entropic universe is not only incompatible with biological life (ordered), it is also completely incompatible with spiritual life, which is non-physical and eternal.  The introduction of biological life (the symbiote) into a lifeless universe (host) is only part of the operation necessary to achieve human life.  A second intervention is required to incorporate spiritual life into the symbiote.

 

Now why should anyone take this theory, which I call Punctuated Creation, seriously?  Because no aspect of this theory contradicts observation or an inerrant reading of the Bible.  Some parts are certainly speculative, but spend five minutes with Hawking’s no-edges model of the universe if you want a real taste of speculation.

 

The main points:

  • God began creation with an initial singularity
  • The unfolding of this universe produced local increases in order we call galaxies, suns and planets
  • Life cannot emerge in a universe where all systems decrease in order
  • God intervenes to graft life into a lifeless universe
  • The addition of life, with its built-in selection characteristic, to the nascent, environmentally unstable Earth ensures dramatic variation which drives speciation
  • Such speciation cannot be explained through the gradual accumulation of variant traits, but must instead be the result of an intense mechanism, perhaps what Gould describes as "metasystem transition"
  • The end result of the evolution of life is limited (Flipper, Old Yeller, Koko), devoid of the spiritual complexity that is the hallmark of humanity
  • God incorporates the spirit into homo sapiens sapiens

Punctuated Creation has a friend in the Bible, where God creates a lifeless universe, then God creates life, and finally creates Man, unique and in His image, valued above all.  This theory also has a friend in science, where theories that do not violate observation are given their due, and where hard gaps in knowledge are filled with Intelligent Design.

 

 

Copyright ©  2005 Dan Hallagan. All Rights Reserved.