Avery Cardinal Dulles on Evolution

Avery Cardinal Dulles's article in First Things, called "God and Evolution," provides a thoughtful overview of an important contemporary debate. He takes Pope John Paul II's position as a starting point:

He [John Paul II] recommended a program of dialogue and interaction, in which science and religion would seek neither to supplant each other nor to ignore each other. . . . Science can purify religion from error and superstition, while religion purifies science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each discipline should therefore retain its integrity and yet be open to the insights and discoveries of the other.

Cardinal Dulles moves on to discuss the three common Catholic positions on evolution.

1.) Theistic evolution: "God initiates the process by producing from the first instant of creation (the Big Bang) the matter and energies that will gradually develop into vegetable, animal, and eventually human life on this earth and perhaps elsewhere." Francis Collins is perhaps the most notable proponent of this view.

2.) Intelligent design (ID): "[T]he development does not occur without divine intervention at certain stages, producing irreducibly complex organs."

3.) Teleological critique: "Becaues of the ontological gap that separates the living from the nonliving, the emergence of life cannot be accounted for on the basis of purely mechanical principles." Furthermore, "the forward thrust of evolution and its breakthroughs into higher grades of being depend upon the dynamic presence of God to his creation."

All three positions are "sustainable in a Christian philosophy of nature," yet the first two have significant weaknesses. Theistic evolution is often dangerously close to Deism, and Intelligent Design runs the risk of using as evidence things for which science may soon find an explanation. As Dulles wisely remarks, "[h]istory teaches us that the 'God of the gaps' often proves to be an illusion."

Notably, strict creationism hardly merits a mention.

I suppose that I should have guessed a Thomist/Aristotelian teleological position would appear in the article, but it actually took me by surprise. In Protestant circles, we seem to still be talking about creationism vs. ID vs. Theistic Evolution, a debate which goes in circles due to the aforementioned weaknesses. In public debates, Design too often comes off as a soft version of creationism, a sort of back door through which fundamentalists can get their world view back into textbooks. And, conversely, I suppose that opponents of Theistic Evolution see that as a back door through which Darwinists can get their world view into the church.

As usual, it's the Thomistic point of view that really illuminates what happens in our culture. It's philosophically sophisticated, and it certainly can't be labeled as soft modernism. Indeed, it takes us back to medieval thinkers. Yes, this looks to be the way forward.

Finally, Cardinal Dulles quotes Terry Eagleton's review of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and I can't resist putting it here:

Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge is The Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. . . . If card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins [were asked] to pass judgment on the geopolitics of South Africa, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could. When it comes to theology, however, any shoddy old travesty will pass muster.

American Heroes: "The Wire"

I've never watched "The Wire." But as I read Salon's Sopranos vs. The Wire point/counterpoint, I realized that at some point I may try it out, and all because of critic Laura Miller's cultural insight.

Death, loss, enslavement, the ruination of all their hopes and dreams, and yet in the midst of the world's stony realities, as inevitable as the wine darkness of the sea and the rosy fingers of dawn, there can be heroism, courage, honor. Just don't expect things to change; all of this is part of the game, and in "The Iliad" the game is war.

The characters in "The Wire" inhabit such a world. The gods may have different names; instead of Apollo and Juno pulling the strings, it's the bureaucracy, party politics, the free market: all equally capricious and implacable. Anyone who tries to alter the system -- be it Stringer Bell aiming to turn legit businessman, Bunny Colvin experimenting with decriminalizing drugs in "Hamsterdam" or Frank Sobotka struggling to save his beloved stevedores union from its inevitable demise -- will be crushed. The best they can hope for is to clean up one little corner of their world; Bunny may not be able to save the neighborhood, but at the end of Season 4, he managed to save one kid. To thrive, you have to learn to fly low and kiss up, and if you're unfortunate enough to be afflicted with a sense of vocation, you play it like that smooth operator, Bunk Moreland, not like that perennial troublemaker, Jimmy McNulty.

In a way, it doesn't make sense to talk of "The Wire" as the best American television show because it's not very American. The characters in American popular culture are rarely shown to be subject to forces completely beyond their control. American culture is fundamentally Romantic, individualistic and Christian; when it's not exhorting you to "follow your dream" it's reassuring us that in the eleventh hour, we will be saved. American culture is a perpetual pep talk, trafficking in tales of personal redemption and the ultimate triumph of good over evil. We don't do doom. "The Wire" is not Romantic but classical; what matters most in its universe is fulfilling your duty and facing the inexorable with dignity.

I can't argue that the classical view is superior to the Romantic one; to even introduce the idea that art is meant to nudge us toward moral improvement and social awareness is to concede to Romantic hope. But for some people, in some places, the classical view is more true, and in such cases, the artist's duty is to show us that these lives are no smaller for that.

A Point on Iraq

Beneath the rhetoric and (perhaps) hyperbole in this Salon.com article by Gary Kamiya is a completely valid point. I'm not endorsing the rest of the article, but the statement here is not very far off the mark.Of course, it's far too late to say these things now: the war is already in progress. Decisions like that can't just be undone. But let's still remember this for next time.

The angry bigotry that drove the war rings out loud and clear in the right-wing battle cry: "They attacked us, so we had to attack them." The recent TV ads run by war supporters repeat this theme: "They attacked us," a narrator says as an image of the burning World Trade Center appears. "They won't stop in Iraq." The key word here, of course, is "they." Just who is "they"? For Bush's die-hard supporters, "they" simply means "Arabs and Muslims." Cretinous rabble-rousers like Ann Coulter and Michael Savage play to this crowd, demanding that we nuke the evil ragheads. For the establishment, "they" is not quite so explicitly racist. "They" refers not to all Arabs and Muslims, but only to the "bad" ones. The "bad" guys include al-Qaida, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and the militant Palestinians. And, of course, it used to include Iraq (and may again). Anyone who makes this list is eligible for attack by the U.S.

What makes these wildly disparate entities so evil and so threatening that we're prepared to attack them without cause? Simply that they reject the U.S.-Israeli writ in the Middle East -- and that they're Arabs or Muslims. They are clearly not on our side, but they pose no significant military or economic threat to the U.S. In realpolitik terms, they are no more beyond the pale than many other dubious countries we do business with, from Venezuela to Nigeria to Russia to Saudi Arabia. No one would dream of suggesting that if Cuba attacked the U.S., we should respond by invading Venezuela. But we play by different rules in the Middle East.

Hauerwas on MacIntyre in First Things (!)

You have to be a subscriber to read it online, but it's almost worth the subscription price. First Things has an article by Stanley Hauerwas on Alasdair MacIntyre's career. It's almost too much. I printed it out and devoured it quickly. Fortunately, essays are better than sandwiches in the sense that once you've devoured an essay, you can go back and read it slowly and carefully.

In fact, it was First Things that first introduced me to the thought of Alasdair MacIntyre in an essay by Edward Oakes.

I wish I could write more, but it's been a busy week.

Religious Classics, brought to you by the Bureau of Prisons

This seems more like a bad decision than an unconstitutional one. There's a story in the New York Times about how prison chaplains have been given a list of acceptable religious books for prisoners. The dangers of religious extremism somehow make it necessary to allow prison libraries to stock only books on a list created by experts. As the spokesperson says: "We really wanted consistently available information for all religious groups to assure reliable teachings as determined by reliable subject experts."

But there's no money to replace the books which are no longer allowed. The reporter interviewed an anonymous chaplain.

The effort is unnecessary, the chaplain said, because chaplains routinely reject any materials that incite violence or disparage, and donated materials already had to be approved by prison officials. Prisoners can buy religious books, he added, but few have much money to spend.

The common-sense solution, of course, is to create a list of inappropriate books and trust the chaplains to weed out other problematic works. However, from a bureaucratic point of view, a small list is probably much easier to manage. It's just wasteful, unwise, and possibly unbalanced:

Timothy Larsen, who holds the Carolyn and Fred McManis Chair of Christian Thought at Wheaton College, an evangelical school, looked over lists for “Other Christian” and “General Spirituality.”

“There are some well-chosen things in here,” Professor Larsen said. “I’m particularly glad that Dietrich Bonhoeffer is there. If I was in prison I would want to read Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” But he continued, “There’s a lot about it that’s weird.” The lists “show a bias toward evangelical popularism and Calvinism,” he said, and lacked materials from early church fathers, liberal theologians and major Protestant denominations.

The Rev. Richard P. McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame (who edited “The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism,” which did make the list), said the Catholic list had some glaring omissions, few spiritual classics and many authors he had never heard of.

“I would be completely sympathetic with Catholic chaplains in federal prisons if they’re complaining that this list is inhibiting,” he said, “because I know they have useful books that are not on this list."

Mr. Obama and the Political Machine

The New York Times has run two long articles on Barack Obama's rise to national prominence. The first (printed in late July) details his accomplishments in the Illinois State Senate, while the second (from the September 9th issue) tells the story of how Mr. Obama lost his bid for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1999. Both are well worth reading.

What sorts of things did Mr. Obama accomplish during his time as a state senator? His first major achievement was in crafting campaign finance reform laws for Illinois's politicians. Later on, he pushed for legislation that would help combat racial profiling. Both of these tasks required him to negotiate agreements between antagonistic parties. In the words of the Times, "he turned out to be practical and shrewd, a politician capable of playing hardball to win election . . . a legislator with a sharp eye for an opportunity, a strategist willing to compromise to accomplish things.

Yet, throughout the story, Mr. Obama's ambition is ever present. Just a few years after his election to a state office, he tried to beat incumbent U.S. Representative Bobby Rush in a primary race. It was a strange race to enter; Rush had a high approval rating and no particular weaknesses on major issues.

Mr. Obama was a 38-year-old state senator and University of Chicago lecturer, unknown in much of Mr. Rush’s Congressional district. He lived in its most rarefied neighborhood, Hyde Park. He was taking on a local legend, a former alderman and four-term incumbent who had given voters no obvious reason to displace him.

Mr. Rush’s name recognition started off at 90 percent, Mr. Obama’s at 11. Then Mr. Rush’s son was murdered, leading Mr. Obama to put his campaign on hold. Later, while vacationing in Hawaii with his family, he missed a high-profile vote in the Legislature and was pilloried. (One Chicago Tribune editorial began, “What a bunch of gutless sheep.”) Then President Clinton endorsed Mr. Rush.

As might be expected, Barack Obama lost this one badly. But he gained valuable experience, and found himself positioned for a jump to the U.S. Senate soon afterwards.

Mr. Obama is smart, gutsy, and ambitious. He's extremely articulate, and has shown his ability to compromise when necessary. If he doesn't get the Democratic nomination this year, I'm sure that it will be in his future. Out of the whole field of Presidential hopefuls, I believe that he would be the most impressive on the world stage.

It's the ambition that worries me. When Mr. Obama took office in 2004, I had high hopes that he would become a leader in the Democratic Party. I thought it was fitting that Tom Daschle was out and Barack Obama was in. At the time, I believed that the Democrats had failed in their duty as an opposition party by voting for things first and complaining about them later. (At the time, I was reading some books about Victorian-era English statesmen, so I suppose my standards were a bit high.) I wanted Mr. Obama to rejuvenate the opposition party on a principled basis.

In many ways, he's tried to do just that. Still, he's been cultivating his image the whole time. I know that's how the system works, but my Frank Capra dreams don't die easily. The idealist in me still wants to believe that Mr. Obama hasn't spent the last four years carefully positioning himself for a Presidential run. Of course, political shrewdness does not entail bad leadership. I suppose that I am waiting for Mr. Obama to do something unexpected. I doubt that a Presidential candidate can get away with bucking the machine in this day and age, but I'd still like to see it happen.

I realize that I've neglected to discuss any of the substantial political issues here. Perhaps I'll get to that in a future date. But as a young politician, Mr. Obama must lean more on his leadership (dare I say - statesmanship?) than most of the other candidates. I'm watching him carefully; I've not yet made up my mind.

Sweater Weather: Now, Everyone Can Sing

My good friends in Chapel Hill have finally released their first LP. Here's the review, by the wonderful Grayson Currin, from the the Triangle area's Independent Weekly:

Chapel Hill octet Sweater Weather is nothing if not part of the fabric of orchestral, crest-minded indie rock that's been prevalent nationally and locally since the start of the decade. On its accomplished debut LP, Now, Everyone Can Sing, Sweater Weather climbs for the spiritual apogees of Michigan influences Anathallo, shudders through the emotional tremors that define Okkervil River, and emblazons pop with the textures that Grizzly Bear uses so subtly. Closer to home, the vulnerability of frontman Casey Trela owes flattered debts to Daniel Hart (who plays violin on one track here) and his Physics of Meaning, part of the Bu Hanan clutch that's largely responsible for the sound of swells in the Triangle.

Those referents are a broad swath through a rangy subgenre, though, and Sweater Weather carefully juxtaposes acoustic textures and electronic concrète manipulations from 24 contributors. At its best, Sweater Weather's eight members and several dozen instruments are joists and studs, building up and out instead of in or around. When they're least sure-handed, Sweater Weather crowds its middles, as with the overly didactic, Desaparecidos clang of "The Roots That Clutch." But nine-minute centerpiece "This Is an Owl as He Flies out of Himself" finds the band righting itself at the song's midpoint, the second half overcoming the jumbled first as a tense dirge of strings and horns becomes tinder beneath Trela's lonesome voice and guitar.

At nearly 56 minutes, Now, Everyone Can Sing lacks the sort of trenchant editing that could have trimmed the ornate frames to add focus to the bright picture in the middle. But broil-and-boil emotion, the thing Sweater Weather does so well over these 10 tracks, rarely cedes to restraint and reason, and—here, in the glow of a self-produced LP brimming with ideas and enthusiasms, if not focus or newness—such considerations are mostly an afterthought. A strong start.

I can't wait to get my copy in the mail.

Hidden Conflicts in Ethiopia, Kenya

It can be hard to keep up with events in Africa. But this one, from Slate, caught my eye. Ethiopia is trying to hush up Western journalists. Here's a summary of the last few years of Ethiopian/American relations:

The U.S. government considers Ethiopia an important ally in the war on terror, since it shares borders with Eritrea, Sudan, and Somalia, the latter invaded by Ethiopia this past Christmas with Washington's approval. Ethiopia has not been able to extricate itself from Somalia, and the military has been accused of possible war crimes there. Mogadishu even has a new nickname: "Baghdad on the Sea."

In addition to sending nearly half a billion dollars in aid money to Ethiopia every year, more than to any other sub-Saharan African country, the United States also supplies the Ethiopian military with funds, arms, and special forces training from Army Rangers.

Yet with all the recent negative attention focused on Ethiopia, it is easy to forget that the country had been on the right track. In 2005, poverty was down, growth was up, the local press was flourishing, and the capital, Addis Ababa, was brimming with hope and excitement about upcoming elections.

But then, it seems, the elections were rigged. Naturally, there were protests, but the police and military shut them down, jailing and even killing protesters. Will Conners, the journalist who wrote the article, was arrested and spent some time in an Ethiopian jail. Now, it seems, Ethiopia is becoming a terror state.

In order to fight rebels in the region of Ogaden, the government shut down access to the region and refused to let any journalists investigate. Conners tried to look into the situation, getting a glimpse of the tortured lives of ethnically Somalian residents of Ethiopia. He soon found himself followed by Ethiopian intelligence agents, and eventually decided to leave the country for his own safety.

The Kenyan government used similar terror tactics earlier this summer. It seems like the police in both countries are responding to legitimate problems by going completely overboard. And in Ethiopia's case, they're trying very hard to hide it from the West. I hope it doesn't work, although I have no idea whether greater awareness in the United States will really bring about any kind of change.

God of Numbers, God of Wonders

There's an excellent article by Amanda Shaw on the First Things blog about the true spirit of scientific inquiry. She contrasts "scientific positivism" with science itself. The scientific positivists, of course, are the popular intellectuals who pit (reliable, value-neutral) science against (irrational, untrustworthy) religion. Yet the true spirit of scientific inquiry does not shy away from what seems at first to be irrational or untrustworthy.

She uses the concept of imaginary numbers, which are the square roots of negative numbers, as an example. Imaginary numbers are wonderfully useful in many sorts of applied mathematics, yet there is an enduring weirdness about them. Shaw quotes the great Leonhard Euler: "they are neither nothing, not greater than nothing, nor less than nothing, which necessarily renders them imaginary or impossible."

I suppose that a real scientific positivist would say that science has its rational method for investigating things, whereas religious inquiry basis itself on muddle presuppositions derived from ancient texts. Yet when I read about the history of science, there is an undeniable exhilaration which can't be explained as simple satisfaction from the algorithmic application of the scientific method. The important point here is that reason, rightly used, chases joyfully after what is mysterious, knowing that the strangest facets of our reality can be only partially understood on this side of heaven.

Quick Anglican News

Remember last week, when the Kenyan Archbishop consecrated two American priests as missionary bishops? Well, Ugandan Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi consecrated another American today.

For some context, see Jordan Hylden's recent in-depth summary of the Anglican situation at First Things.

Christopher Hitchens: Three Iraq Wars, at the Same Time

Also writing in Slate, Christopher Hitchens explains why the "war in Iraq" is really three struggles.

When people say that they want to end the war in Iraq, I always want to ask them which war they mean. There are currently at least three wars, along with several subconflicts, being fought on Iraqi soil. The first, tragically, is the battle for mastery between Sunni and Shiite. The second is the campaign to isolate and defeat al-Qaida in Mesopotamia. The third is the struggle of Iraq's Kurdish minority to defend and consolidate its regional government in the north.

Hitchens judges the efforts against al-Qaida to be mostly successful, and the work in building the Kurdish regional government to be very worthwhile. It is the Sunni/Shiite subconflict that is, as we all know, almost impossible to deal with.

There are other clear and prudent ways to consider the multiple wars in the middle east. I recall George Weigel's April 2007 article in First Things:

• The first was the war to depose Saddam Hussein’s regime and create the political and military conditions for the possibility of responsible and responsive government in Iraq. It was quickly concluded at a very low cost in coalition military and Iraqi civilian casualties.

• The second—the war against Baathist recalcitrants and other Saddamist die-hards—erupted shortly after a decisive military victory had been achieved in the first war. Both coalition and civilian casualties increased significantly.

• As Jihadists such as the late, unlamented Abu Musab al-Zarqawi of “al-Qaeda in Iraq” flooded into the country, they deliberately created a third Iraq war, whose aims included not only driving the infidels from Mesopotamia but also destabilizing the fragile Iraqi democracy they regarded as an offense against Islam.

• The fourth war, between Sunni “insurgents” (terrorists, in fact) and Shia death squads and militias, broke out in earnest after the bombing of a major Shia shrine, the Golden Mosque of Samarra, in February 2006—a decisive event in which al-Qaeda operatives seem to have played a part. The second, third, and fourth wars continue to overlap.

Serious discourse requires an acknowledgment of the complex nature of the war, yet this is exactly what is lacking in calls for total withdrawal from Iraq. As Hitchens remarks:

The ability to distinguish among these different definitions of the "war" is what ought to define the difference between a serious politician and a political opportunist, both in Iraq and in America. . . . Sen. Clinton in particular has said several times in the past that we cannot, for example, abandon the Kurds as we once did before. Should she not be asked if this is still her view?

Unless the general discussion moves to this level, the successes of the war will be forgotten and the whole ordeal will be remembered as a total disaster. As of now, there's still time to preserve some of the good.

Briefly: The Challenge of Recruiting Teachers

There is an excellent article by Ann Hulbert at Slate Magazine on the challenges that public schools face in recruiting teachers. In the United States, teaching is neither a lucrative profession nor a particularly well-regarded one. This is not the case in other parts of the world.

The world's best educational systems—among them, Singapore, South Korea, Finland, and Alberta, Canada—cull their teaching forces from their top college graduates. The United States draws from the bottom third to staff a profession that, like many traditionally female-dominated pursuits, inspires reverence, at its best, but lacks social status. If there is one thing school reformers agree on, it's the importance of raising the caliber of teachers.

But there is no consensus on how to engineer the image upgrade that would help lure more of the best and the brightest. Look abroad, to the premier school systems, and a spectrum of tactics emerges. On one end is South Korea, where teachers get big paychecks—and big classes, which make the salaries affordable. On the other is Finland, where teacher salaries aren't high but social status is: Considered on a par in prestige with lawyers and doctors, teachers are well-trained and wield real influence over curricular and other school policies. Yet to judge by the behind-the-scenes view of American schools that Perlstein and Klein provide, teacher autonomy and authority are rare commodities in the NCLB era. And recruitment incentives and merit pay, while welcome, alone aren't likely to give the cultural boost the profession requires.