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Is Theism Compatible with Darwinian Evolution?

[My friend Fred is a metaphysical naturalist of 50 years standing. Here is his preliminary conclusion based on the following considerations and distinctions.]

With respect to the compatibility of theism and biological evolution, I’ve come to the conclusion that there isn’t a satisfactory general answer to the question, because the answer depends both on the scope assigned to evolution and the type of theism under consideration. Expanding a little, let me define some abbreviations:

T = theism

MLN = methodological naturalism

MPN = metaphysical naturalism

EB = evolutionary biology (does not include abiogenesis, i.e. the evolution of the first living cell)

EP = evolutionary philosophy = EB + MPN

R = a religion

EP can and does arise through at least two different routes:

1. MPN is adopted because it is taken to be implied by EB. In other words, someone has taken EB on board intellectually, and from that position has inferred MPN from it.

2. EB is adopted, but MPN is adopted for other reasons, or for other reasons plus EB. EB may be seen as a necessary condition for MPN, but not as a sufficient condition. My own position is that my MPN is based on a number of considerations, of which EB is just one, though hardly a minor one. It’s important to remember that examples of people holding to MPN antedate EB by many centuries, e.g., Lucretius and Epicurus.

Summarizing so far: EP is incompatible with most commonly found types of T, but so far here we haven’t decided the implications of EB alone.

There are a number of different species of T. Note that T, as a practical matter, rarely stands alone, rather it’s almost always embedded in a religion, so that we have systems of belief with various religious tenets (RT). It’s usually in the details of these RTs that the nature of a particular form of T is spelled out and elaborated.

So, we have R = T + RT. (all terms may come in different instantiations: R1, T1, RT1 etc.)

My contention is that in order to deal with the question of compatibility of EB with T we should really change the question to “Is EB compatible with R?” The devil is then frequently in the details of RT, and sometimes in the details of T.

Summary for T and R: Compatibility depends crucially on the details of R and T, and most often depends on the details in RT.

It’s easy to find examples of R and/or T with which EB is clearly incompatible. And I would argue that it’s not that difficult to find examples of them which are compatible. Clearly, there are examples of people who claim to hold this position. So now the question becomes whether or not these people are deeply mistaken in some way about either the implications of their version of R or T or about the implications of EB. There seems to be a number of people who hold that EB implies MPN and a number of people who hold that it does not.