Evolution: The Creation Myth—Phillip Johnson (1940 – )
Darwinists assert that science and religion are incompatible. Science (of the evolutionary brand) is to be pursued publicly and objectively while religion is a private, subjective matter. Intelligent Design (ID) theory belongs in the domain of religion since it makes recourse to an ultimate being. Thus, Darwinists want ID banned from the classroom. Phillip Johnson, Berkeley law professor and author of Darwin on Trial, thinks this policy is two-faced since evolutionary science is itself a religion; it comes with its own presuppositions that are not scientifically verifiable.
Johnson helpfully labeled Darwinian evolution a “creation myth,” taking the scientific shroud off of Darwinism and uncovering the religion of “scientific naturalism.” In what sense is scientific naturalism religious? First of all, religion is the “belief in something or other as divine,” and “‘[d]ivine’ means having the status of not depending on anything else.”.1 With this said, the Darwinist believes that material processes are the only things ultimately necessary to explain life in the universe and by definition are totally independent. Materiality thus takes on divine status worthy of reverence and awe, and becomes—very much so—a religion.
The continual efforts to base a religion or ethical system upon evolution are not an aberration, and practically all the most prominent Darwinist writers have tried their hand at it. Darwinist evolution is an imaginative story about who we are and where we came from, which is to say it is a creation myth. As such it is an obvious starting point for speculation about how we ought to live and what we ought to value. A creationist appropriately starts with God’s creation and God’s will for man. A scientific naturalist just as appropriately starts with evolution and with man as a product of nature.
In its mythological dimension, Darwinism is the story of humanity’s liberation from the delusion that its destiny is controlled by a power higher than itself. Lacking scientific knowledge, humans at first attribute natural events like weather and disease to supernatural beings. As they learn to predict or control natural forces they put aside the lesser spirits, but a more highly evolved religion retains the notion of a rational Creator who rules the universe.
At last the greatest scientific discovery of all is made, and modern humans learn that they are the products of a blind natural process that has no goal and cares nothing for them. The resulting “death of God” is experienced by some as a profound loss, and by others as a liberation. But liberation to what? If blind nature has somehow produced a human species with the capacity to rule earth wisely, and if this capacity has previously been invisible only because it was smothered by superstition, then the prospects for human freedom and happiness are unbounded. That was the message of the Humanist Manifesto of 1933 . . .2
. . . [According to the Darwinist,] it is imperative that the public be taught to understand the world as scientific naturalists understand it. Citizens must learn to look to science as the only reliable source of knowledge, and the only power capable of bettering (or even preserving) the human condition. That implies, as we shall see, a program of indoctrination in the name of public education.3
Footnotes:
1These definitions are taken from philosopher Roy Clouser’s book, The Myth of Religious Neutrality (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 21-22. Clouser’s book contains a lengthy elaboration defending these definitions.
2The Humanist Manifesto is the creedal statement of religious humanism. It begins with the statement, “Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.” In its seventh thesis, it describes religion as consisting “of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant.” Its thirty-four signatories concluded that the modern world has no room for any religion which includes a belief in the supernatural. Thus, it established itself as the new religion, the religion of the common good: “The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good.” For the full text, see “Humanist Manifesto I,” American Humanist Association Website, http://www.americanhumanist.org/about/manifesto1.html (accessed December 21, 2004).
3Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 133-134.
