God and the future of secularism

Secularism is so concerned with denying God that we've thrown out the baby of truth, justice and progress along with the bathwater of supernatural theism. This is both unnecessary and detrimental to the project of building a flourishing secular civilization.

The secular fear of leaving open any space for others to retain some form of God-belief, and the negative consequence of that fear, is evident in the debate over evolution. In the 2005 controversy over creation science that culminated in the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision, many scientists and secularists were anxious to deny not only a creator God but any pattern to evolutionary history.

The Dover Area School Board had required ninth-grade biology teachers to read a statement to students that encouraged them to “keep an open mind” about Darwinian evolutionary theory and mention “intelligent design” as an alternative theory about the origin of life. Federal District Judge John Jones enjoined the statement as an endorsement of religion.

But in a commentary entitled "For the Anti-Evolutionists, Hope in High Places," New York Times science writer George Johnson saw the matter in broader terms. Johnson pointed to the “unhappiness with evolutionary science that would be a comfort” to the school board, expressed by figures as diverse as Pope Benedict, Pope John Paul II, the Dalai Lama, and the theologian Ian Barbour.

Even though these figures accepted the mechanism of evolution as established fact, they all denied the “notion that life emerged blindly.” As Johnson saw it, the fundamental commitment uniting right-wing fundamentalist opposition to evolution and these much more scientifically enlightened figures was opposition to the philosophy of materialism—the view, quoting the Dalai Lama, “that all aspects of reality can be reduced to matter and its various particles.” People concerned about the implications of evolution reject the idea that the universe as we know it is the result of pure chance. They endorse some form of “hidden causality.” Johnson considered such hidden causality to be anti-scientific.

But does secularism require the philosophy of materialism? Does it require randomness in everything? Certainly not. It's true that the mechanism of evolutionary theory is random mutation, but the results will not be random; the results of evolution will accord with conditions.

In Daniel Quinn’s 1992 fable Ishmael, the student observes the grand scheme of evolution as a pattern: “There is a sort of tendency in evolution, wouldn’t you say? If you start with those ultrasimple critters in the ancient seas and move up step by step to everything we see here now—and beyond—then you have to observe a tendency toward … complexity. And toward self-awareness and intelligence.”

That certainly looks like a pattern, but there is nothing supernatural about it.

Nor is this pattern in evolution limited to observable features like enhanced intelligence and self-awareness. There are value-laden aspects to human evolution as well. As Brian Swimme observes in the documentary The Universe Story, humans are descended from a fish that, contrary to the practices of other fish, did not eat her young. Human compassion, generosity and kindness are absolutely a part of evolutionary theory as well.

Darwin wrote in The Descent of Man that our capacity for sympathy played a central role in human evolution.

Of course, not eating her young gave that fish an evolutionary adaptive advantage. And just as clearly, that particular adaptation emerged randomly at first.

But that is the point. The universe may be structured in such a way that complexity, intelligence, awareness, and social cooperation confer advantages. Not always and under all conditions, but over time and generally. This is why humans are not alone in many of our social behaviors. We share traits with other social animals, such as elephants and dolphins.

This is not the action of a supernatural God interfering with the natural laws of the universe. But it's not random either.

Nor is the concept of random chance helpful in explaining the emergence of life. It used to be thought that life emerged as an accident. But now, many scientists see patterning in matter itself to be conducive to the emergence of life, where other factors support it. Rather than an accident, the emergence of life is now looked upon as more or less inevitable.

As Carl Sagan reportedly said, “The origin of life must be a highly probable affair. As soon as conditions permit, up it pops!”

Observations like these make many secularists, such as Johnson, nervous. They imply a certain kind of universe—not a cold indifferent one, but one on the side of life and even goodness. If this is an accurate description of reality, does it not imply the existence of something like the God of the monotheistic religious traditions?

No, it does not.

That conclusion is understandable but erroneous. A secularist by definition must rule out anything but natural development in explaining reality. But nothing in this value-laden evolutionary account invokes supernatural explanation. It's true that science has advanced by ruling out teleological thinking—the idea that the universe has a goal or an end. But that is just a working hypothesis. If observation demonstrates patterns, then patterns are a part of reality, not something to be ruled out a priori as inherently impossible.

It is true that a universe on our side, as the theologian Bernard Lonergan put it, is one that is compatible with a transcendent God and with cosmic purpose. But it is not the job of science to insist on meaninglessness in existence. It is the job of science to explain in natural terms what is there.

If meaning is baked into the nature of the universe, then it is.

Fear of lending any support to a supernatural God has caused secularism to close its eyes to a large amount of evidence of pattern and harmony in reality. I call this tendency "the fear of God is the end of wisdom," in a parody of the traditional religious teaching that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Secularism is so afraid of God that it too often closes its eyes to what is in front of us.

But a new kind of secularism may be emerging. Cognitive neuroscientist Bobby Azarian’s 2022 book The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity gathers the scientific evidence for a universe on our side. I lack the scientific background to assess its persuasiveness, but I expect to see a debate in secularism unfold over its arguments.

In this way, the future of secularism, whether based in materialism or based on a kind of meaningful naturalism, is coming into view. The difference between the two positions is not just a matter of intellectual and spiritual interest. In a future column, I will discuss how materialism has affected American law and public life in harmful ways and how a new kind of secularism could usher in a new politics.