Evolution Does Not Disprove Design

November 11, 2021

The assumption that evolutionary theory refutes the existence of a Designer conflates a scientific mechanism with a metaphysical conclusion. Both Islamic theology and careful philosophy of science show that evolution and divine creation are not mutually exclusive.

"What ultimately grounds the Ashʿarite worldview is the radical contingency of creation and the necessity of God; whether creation conspicuously demonstrates design or not makes no difference."

Shoaib Ahmed Malik argues in Islam and Evolution that Muslims can comfortably adopt methodological naturalism studying natural processes on their own terms without committing to philosophical naturalism, which claims those processes are all that exist. The Ash'arite framework is particularly well-suited to this distinction. In Ash'arite theology, God is the ultimate sustainer of every moment of existence. Physical processes, whether deterministic or probabilistic, operate because God sustains them, not because nature possesses autonomous causal power. "Chance-like mechanics in creation don't undermine ultimate teleology, which is revelation-dependent in the Ashʿarite perspective."

John Lennox makes a complementary argument from a different tradition. The "nothing but" language of ontological reductionism "the universe is nothing but a collection of atoms in motion" smuggles a metaphysical claim into what appears to be a scientific statement. Remove the words "nothing but" and you have unobjectionable science. Add them back and you have a faith commitment disguised as a finding. As Lennox puts it, "statements by scientists are not necessarily statements of science." The question of whether the universe has an intelligent cause is not a scientific question that science has answered in the negative; it is a philosophical question that some scientists have pre-decided.

Richard Swinburne captures the deeper point: "I am not postulating a 'God of the gaps'... I am postulating a God to explain why science explains." God is not an alternative explanation competing with natural processes but the ground that makes natural processes and their intelligibility possible in the first place.

Takeaway: Evolution describes a mechanism; whether that mechanism is all there is or whether it operates within a larger purposeful framework is a question evolution itself cannot answer.