On Evolution and Theology

Q. What exactly do you mean by a "hierarchy of explanations," and how can it help reconcile theology with evolutionary accounts of life?
 

Answer: Let me begin with an analogy. Suppose someone is driving your car down the street. You ask: "Why is my car moving?" At one level of explanation a good answer is "because the wheels are turning." At another level as equally acceptable explanation is that internal combustion has set the pistons, drive-shaft, and so forth, in motion. At still another level the answer may be "because Jim is driving it." And at another level the explanation might be "because Jim has to go to the store." 

This is a simple example of a hiererchy of explanations. All of these explanations make sense at their own level. And all can coexist without contradicting or competing with one another. Taken together they constitute a richer explanation than any provides for itself. 

Life in this universe also lends itself to such a hierarchy of explanations. Take cellular DNA, for example, one of the richest instances of complex design we can find in nature. How can we explain DNA? 

DNA can be understood quite well at the level of chemistry. At another level, DNA can be understood by the geneticist in terms of its hereditary properties, features that don't interest chemistry as such. And, at a still higher level, DNA can also be interpreted by the Darwinian biologist as the fundamental unit of natural selection. Each of these levels can enrich our understanding of life. The evolutionist, moreover, does not have to be an expert in the "lower" levels ( for example, biochemistry) in order to understand the role DNA survival plays in the origin of species. There is a legitimate autonomy in each of the sciences. 

The famous Harvard biologist Ernst Mayr accepts the idea of a hierarchy of explanation. However, he claims that Darwin gives us the "ultimate" explanation of life. Mayr is not a theist, so he has no use for theology. He feels no need to look any higher in the hierarchy of explanations than the Darwinian notion of natural selection in order to find the deepest explanation of life. Similarly Richard Dawkins of Oxford University accepts in principle the notion of hierarchy of explanations. But he abruptly declares that gene-survival is all that is going on when evolution brings about complex instances of design. Any allegedly "higher" or deeper level of explanation is superfluous. 

However, theology has every right to suspect that both Mayr and Dawkins are still living in Flatland. For theology can also legitimately claim a place, at another level of the hierarchy, in the explanation of life. To do so it does not intrude-- in a competitive fashion-- into the various levels of scientific explanation, as though it has a "better" explanation than they do. Rather, theology claims that the ultimate explanation of evolution is divine creativity. And it does so without in any way disturbing the integrity of the various sciences. 

In the case of the moving car, the fact that Jim wants to go to the store is a "higher" level of explanation, but it does not contradict or compete with the other levels of explanation. Theologically speaking, the fact that God wants the universe to unfold in an extravagantly creative way does not abolish the chemical, genetic and evolutionary accounts of life.

( Excerpt from John F. Haught's Responses to 101 Questions on God and Evolution. The author is Senior Fellow, Science and Religion, Woodstock Theological Center, Georgetown University.)

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