Microbiology, Chance, and God

Here are some interesting points that problematize the belief that God controls life on earth.

Microbiology is a problem. For me, it's a complicated topic that will probably drag down my GPA when I can no longer avoid taking a science class. But for the religious, microbiology poses a real problem. There are basically two poles of belief about God for adherents to the theory of evolution. At one end, there are atheists who belief life on earth evolved within the confines of the physical constraints of this planet, such as food, temperature, and gravity, with God left wholly out of the process. On the other end, there are believers in God who accept every tenet of evolution, but hold that God directs the process. In between these two poles exists a spectrum of beliefs where various scientific and religious ideas converge. There are myriad positions which draw upon somewhat opposing interpretations of science and religion. These positions are usually reconcilable, if a little contradictory. However, some of these "hybrid" positions fall apart in the face of microbiology.

Let's take the basic Christian belief, "Love thy Neighbor." Jesus said it; he issued God's command that we should treat everyone and everything equally despite our differences, genetic or otherwise. However, this all-powerful creator has deliberately designed a system that does not adhere to his command. After all, is anyone really going to tell AIDS to love its neighbors? My guess is no. In fact, the biological systems that God has created seem to imply just the opposite. God has designed a world in which humans with certain genes, which I assume are also his doing, are at the cruel mercy of their own genetic flaws. For those that subscribe to hybrid positions that simultaneously accept scientific facts as well as the belief that God has made these facts so, genetic disorders threaten to rip these conflictual views asunder.

Genetic disorders introduce the element of chance into the debate over evolution. If you believe that God directs and controls the course of life on this planet, you cannot believe that Chance occupies the same role. Chance here refers to the way that we as observers cannot account for the workings of certain events. It is an expression of our inability to predict events when no observable cause for them can be identified. However, how is that any different from the conception of God? When we observe certain events but cannot identify a cause or purpose behind them, we attribute their occurance to God. The reason why God and Chance cannot occupy the same role is because they are different expressions of the same fundamental thing. Essentially, either God, or Chance controls whether children develope genetic disorders from their parents. In other words, according to "hybrid" believers, if a doctor tells two parents that their child will have a 25% chance of inheriting a fatal hereditary disease, he is really telling them that God is giving their child a 25% chance of dying. The point is this: belief in God and belief in pure Chance cannot coexist. Humans have a need to make sense out of what appear to be random occurring events. One can ascribe this apparent randonmess to a supernatural cause, or a mathematical cause, but not both. Chance makes sense out of this apparent randonmess by chalking it up to probability; others attribute this randomness to the will of God.

Problematization status: majorly problematic.

Let's run through a theological laundry list.

If you:
1) believe that God exists and you
2) believe that God created life and you
3) believe that God directs the evolutionary then you
4) must believe that God controls the chance of one of your cells turning cancerous, so you
5) must believe that God generally controls chance, and if you don't then you must
6) read number six, which says if believe that God controls the Chance of one thing happening, then you must believe that God controls the chance of all things happening. If you don't, then I defy you to give me a schedule of the times and events for which God puts his Chance setting skills to use. If you believe that God controls the chance of your cells turning cancerous, why doesn't she control which side of a die lands facing up? Is it only medical events? How about biological ones? What if I'm going to roll a die to decide whether or not to inject someone with cancer causing agents? Would he turn on his skills at that moment? Since you could not present me with such a schedule, then you must believe that
7) God and Chance are expressions of the same inability to predict events.

The strange thing is, this randomness which we attribute to Chance isn't really that random at all. Mathematical rules govern the probabilities of events unfolding. Mathematics can determine the probability of heads landing up when I flip a coin, of rolling a die and getting a 6. The obvious problem for believers who straddle the position between God and Evolution is that the comparison between the two is inevitable. Evolution has shown that natural physical laws account for developments in life on earth. This is a basic fact. What evolution cannot account for, and indeed what science cannot always account for, are explained by the basic laws of probability. It is easy to see how God fits into the hole in Science's explanation. But doesn't the fact that God fits so neatly into this explanatory void just go to show what the belief in God really is? God is an explanation for what Science leaves out. However, that hole is shrinking by the day. In fact, that hole has been shrinking exponentially as Science has developed over the past 500 years.

We should thus reconfigure how we define God. If God was previously understood as the being or force which directs the course of life on this planet, he must now be considered the being or force that chooses which cell turns cancerous, which children develop genetic diseases, and which side of the coin lands upright.