From wikipedia slightly modified:

Metaphysical naturalism characterizes any worldview in which reality is such that there is nothing but the natural things, forces, and causes of the kind that the natural sciences study, More specifically metaphysical naturalism rejects the objective existence of any supernatural thing, force or cause, such as are described in humanity’s various religions.
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Having read Francis Collin,s book it is very clear to me that he does not accept Philosophical Naturalism although he does accept evolution as the mechanism used by God to produce life on this planet. From Ted’s reference to BioLogus it is clear that Collin’s see’s God as having been active in at least the initial conditions and constants of our universe, what one might call lower case “id”.

IMO there needs to be acceptance of the fact that affirmation of evolution does not necessarily entail Philosophical Naturalism. Personally I differ from Collin’s in that I think the evolution of complex biological features is something that may or may not be true, the jury is still out. As someone from the reformed tradition I see all of nature as being under God’s control and direction although I am not convinced that such is scientifically detectable. If God needed to perform some act beyond his normal upholding of the laws of nature at the start of life and in the development of irreducibly complex features of life, then so be it.

Collin’s may not be all you want but is the glass half empty or half full?

Dave Wallace

This morning, Cal Thomas gave a ringing endorsement to Collins as nominee for the NIH. http://www.calthomas.com/index.php?news=2651
So, I can add Thomas to the list already given of evangelical leaders who are listening to him.

If I may add something that relates indirectly to this thread (on ways of relating science and faith): The magazine “First Things” has a web site called “On the Square,” (a reference to their late editor Richard John Neuhaus, author of “The Naked Public Square”) which has just published my review of two new books by John Polkinghorne. It’s freely available at http://www.firstthings.com/ont.....lkinghorne. I see Collins as pretty similar to Polkinghorne, although he is not nearly as sophisticated in his writings about science & religion. That is no criticism of Collins; Polkinghorne is close to being in a league of his own.

Ted

Actually- he’s stirring-up trouble for evangelicals, because Collins fully accepts evolution while most evangelicals reject it (evangelicals reject macroevolution, Collins accepts it all).

As for CS Lewis being against evolution… check out the last chapter of “Mere Christianity” (maybe his most famous Christian theology work) where CS Lewis uses evolution as an analogy for understanding the spiritual world, the gospel, etc. It is an awesome analogy, and puts evolution in a positive light.

But I think if Collins accepts the government post, he should fold his ministry; he should do one or the other, not both. Just as Christians don’t want to see atheist evangelist Dawkins as head of such a thing, it is fair that atheists don’t want to see a Christian evangelist/apologist doing the same thing. Also- too much temptation for compromise on both politics and religion when playing them both… reminding me of this quote:

“Every preacher ought to be primarily a prophet of God who preaches as God bids him, without regard to results. When he becomes conscious of the fact that he is a leader in his own church or denomination, he has reached a crisis in his ministry. He must now choose one of two courses, that of prophet of God or a leader of men. If he seeks to be a prophet and a leader, he is apt to make a failure of both. If he decides to be a prophet only insofar as he can do without losing his leadership, he becomes a diplomat and ceases to be a prophet at all. If he decides to maintain leadership at all costs, he may easily fall to the level of a politician who pulls the wires in order to gain or hold a position.” (H. C. A. Dixon, A. C. Dixon [New York: Putnam’s, 1931], p. 277)

There is something to be said for clarity — it’s one of the things I like most about Polkinghorne (for example). But in some areas clarity is clearly not very easy to obtain. Perhaps it’s better to be clearly wrong than to be clearly unclear about how to adjudicate a particularly hard issue. Clearly, we differ on that.

Evangelicals are no fools, but we have not always made the most thoughtful decisions when it comes to science. For more on this, see http://evanevodialogue.blogspo.....emics.html

As for Collins and design detection, Rude, his views are not as hard and fixed as you implicitly state them. For example, see what he says at http://biologos.org/questions/fine-tuning/

Like many other Christian scientists, he’s worried (I believe with some justification) that many common design arguments run the risk of being “god of the gaps” arguments. I realize that most folks here don’t think that ID (at least ID as usually presented, ID that is aimed at “Darwinism” in biology) falls foul of that — or, they may think that it’s a risk worth taking. This is something on which people might fairly differ. I’m more open myself to “design” arguments about biological complexity than Collins is, but I do think that this type of concern can be well placed.

John Lennox, the Oxford mathematician who has successfully debated Dawkins, might be an ID supporter (I think he probably is). His essay, “Intelligent Design: Some Critical Reflections on the Current Debate,” in Robert Stewart’s book, “Intelligent Design: William Dembski and Michael Ruse in Dialogue,” is well worth reading. Lennox accepts design arguments from irreducible complexity, but quite cautiously: he “takes such reasoning and the concomitant charge of intellectual laziness that is often leveled at God of the Gaps-type arguments very seriously indeed,” and he prioritizes more general design arguments (of the type given by Collins and Polkinghorne, I would point out) over the kinds of arguments often advanced here.

Better in my book to have clarity. I have absolutely no use for these holy types who know in advance what God wouldn’t do, and who so piously preach that any design detection in nature is scientifically and theologically illegal.

I’m no evangelical but I do hate to see that community taken for fools.

“The jury’s out on whether Collins – or anyone – advances the cause of Christ. I want to hear whether evangelical leaders think that his views on human life qualify him to be the evangelical icon (as the “wise Latina” Sotomayor is a Latino icon) that he is currently touted to be.

If they say yes, fine. Otherwise, we have a fark on our hands.

I want to know, do evangelicals agree that he’s their token rep, in a political world where, like it or not, being a token rep matters?”

***

I agree with Denyse that the jury is still out on whether he will be accepted as the “token rep” of evangelicals, in the context of this issue — and also (I would say) on issues pertaining to evolution.

In his personal life and story, as well as the fact that he has made his life and story a public matter in his book and speeches, no doubt (IMO) Collins “advances the cause of Christ.” I take it Denyse was referring more specifically to his views on bioethics. Some of the rhetoric I see about Collins, and not just the rhetoric of the past few days surrounding his nomination, says two quite different, nearly contradictory, things. (1) He’s stupid, or at best incoherent or inconsistent, even though he’s a world-class scientist {which makes it hard to make the “stupid” part stick), b/c he believes in miracles such as the resurrection, and b/c he believes that a “conversion experience” can be a genuine encounter with a “supernatural” creator. In short, he’s too serious about his religious faith; indeed, he oughtn’t have religious faith at all. (2) He’s not a very good example of a serious Christian, b/c he thinks the evidence for human evolution is far too strong to be rejected and b/c he isn’t “pro-life,” as defined by those who use that term the most. One could respond to this combination of claims in various ways, but I’ll respond simply with a comment and a question. The comment: it might be time for some folks to get some new boxes in which to place people. The question (for Collins’ critics on the religious side): whom would you rather have had leading the genome project — Collins, or his predecessor (the illustrious racial and religious bigot, James Watson)? And, whom would you rather have leading the NIH? (I leave this one open for suggestions that would be realistic in the current administration)

I return now to the “token rep” thing, concerning Collins’ influence on evangelicals. Collins is of course hardly the only Christian scientist who holds a certain set of views and attitudes about science and religion, generally but vaguely labeled “theistic evolution.” A number of others write about this more thoughtfully and more carefully (an obvious example is Polkinghorne, whose two latest books I am currently reviewing for “First Things”), but none are as visible as Collins for various reasons. He’s used his notoriety as a bully pulpit, but with a big difference from a lot of other religious scientists over the past century. I am thinking here of people like Nobel laureates Robert Millikan and Arthur Compton, who both wrote far more about science & science religion than Collins has written and who were both of comparable notoriety in terms of the attention they got from the media. (There are others in this category, I’ll stick with these two here.) Both Millikan and Compton were known as very active, church-going men who believed that science and religion are completely compatible, yet neither one believed in the divinity of Jesus or the bodily resurrection. (Both were effectively Unitarians, though Compton was a Presbyterian elder.) Collins however believes in the incarnation and resurrection, among many other traditional beliefs that I could mention. This doesn’t necessarily make him an “evangelical,” though he might be an evangelical. But it does make him a breath of fresh air — and a very important one, given his notoriety. When Dawkins and others try to paint him into a corner on the basis of his beliefs, they run the considerable risk of creating some doubt about their credibility. And, that’s a good thing. It’s good, IMO, for evangelicals to pay attention to him — good to have his visible example, very good to read him instead of Ken Ham, and excellent to believe him instead of Dawkins.

There is some evidence that Collins might be very influential indeed on evangelicals. First, his book has now sold about a quarter million copies in three years — a long way yet from Dawkins, but not bad. Second, some very important evangelical leaders are starting to listen to Collins and others whose ideas are similar to his — people such as Os Guiness, Rick Warren, Andy Crouch, and Tim Keller, and influential organizations such as Regent College, the Trinity Forum, Asbury Seminary and the Fermi Project. As Denyse says, the jury is still out, but this isn’t just blowing smoke. A lot of evangelicals are looking for some alternatives to Dawkins and Answers In Genesis, and whatever else one may say about him, Collins absolutely represents an alternative.

First, herb (#31) said, “I’m surprised to see that Collins is in favor of human cloning! WTH kind of evangelical is that??”

In the simple terms in which your question is phrased, herb, my response is that Collins is dead against human cloning — as that term is usually understood, at least. I will quote a passage from “The Language of God,” pp. 254-5:

“Scientists, ethicists, theologians, and lawmakers are essentially unanimous that reproductive cloning of a human being should not be undertaken under any circumstances. While a major reason for this stance is based on strong moral and theological objections to making human copies in this unnatural way, other major objections are based upon safety considerations, since reproductive cloning of every other mammal has been shown to be an incredibly inefficient and disaster-prone effort, with most clones resulting in miscarriage or early infant death. … Given those conclusions, it would be entirely appropriate to demand that the product of a human somatic cell nuclear transfer never be implanted into the womb of a host mother.”

The more difficult question for Collins — and (I would suggest) for almost anyone else as well, regardless of one’s moral philosophy — has to do with what is often called “therapeutic cloning,” which is not at all the same thing. Whether that is morally objectionable depends on a lot things, including whether one believes that the products of such procedures are fully human. I’m not trying to be tricky here, but using the term “fully human,” I simply mean to get at this type of thing: is a human hair follicle fully human, in the same sense in which you and your parents are fully human?

Whatever one may think about the answer(s) to such questions, I do think it’s fair to ask them, and fair even to allow evangelicals room to disagree about which answer(s) are theologically acceptable. As Collins says at the end of this part of his book (257), “Anyone who portrays this issue as a simple battle between belief and atheism does a disservice to the complexity of the issues.”

I don’t see that specific kind of distortion in your question, herb, either implicitly or explicitly, but I wanted to close this comment with that point b/c it’s worth noting on all sides.

“But why are supposed traditionalists so eager to accomodate the adversary?”

Because we believe that claiming to be an evangelical makes it so?