Are All Coynes Made of Dross? — First Jerry and Now George!
| November 18, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Evolution, Intelligent Design |
The Rev. George Coyne, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said placing intelligent design theory alongside that of evolution in school programs was “wrong” and was akin to mixing apples with oranges.
114 Responses to Are All Coynes Made of Dross? — First Jerry and Now George!
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“you got the inside line to God. You know the truth and everybody else is wrong”
You hit the nail on the head; that’s exactly what the Bible claims.
Claims are cheap.
For more of these fundamentalist beliefs, take a look at Chuck Missler’s site (I think you know him).
what religion DOESNT think it has the line on god? itd be pretty pointless to say “we worship you god…well, if were doing it right, and if youre the right god, and if youre doing what has been claimed you do for us! amen!”
lets pray to go with the note beforehand that were not totally sure of what we believe.
and i hardly think a series of novels gives you an idea of current christian beliefs in the US or anywhere else for that matter.
Reminder: The blog is entitled
“The Intelligent Design Weblog of William Dembski” not “The Evangelical Christian Weblog of William Dembski”.
Less bible thumping and more NFL thumping seems to be in order.
Yeah everyone. Listen to Dave Scot- he’s your boss.
Wait…I’m looking over to the right panel of the website and I’m seeing the category “religion.” Wait, I also see “philosophy” as well!
Dave wants us to “spare” him and not talk about these absurd religious notions that are mere superstitious fairytales from lice infested ignoramuses.
2000 pages of biblical prophecy of the end times with some somewhat shallow fictional characterization to make it more readable, written by a guy with a Doctor of Ministry degree from Western Theological Seminary and Doctor of Literature degree from Liberty University isn’t sufficient to get a handle on what fundamentalist Christians in the United States believe?
Well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me. ROFLMAO!
“Wait…I’m looking over to the right panel of the website and I’m seeing the category “religion.†Wait, I also see “philosophy†as well!”
And which category is *this* article filed under?
I’ll give you three chances to say “intelligent design”.
“Less bible thumping and more NFL thumping seems to be in order.”
I agree with Dave. There are places you can go for heated theological debate, but this blog is not one of them. Besides, I think we all realize there are people who love to falsely equivocate ID with theology. Let’s not give them fuel to add to their fire.
#94, a lot of that stuff is conjectural and may not be a good source of info
I agree we should stay on topic though. How about applying E. Filter to prophecy
“#94, a lot of that stuff is conjectural and may not be a good source of info”
I will certainly agree that the rapture of born-again Christians, armegeddon, rise of the anti-christ, tribulations, etc. etc. etc. is conjecutural in nature. But you’re wrong about it not being a good source of info about fundamentalist Christian beliefs in the U.S. If you don’t recognize the terms you really don’t even know much about doctrinal Christianity. Unless you’ve at least read the Left Behind series, all 2000 pages (or more) you have no idea how accurately it follows fundamentalist doctrine. Granted fundamental Christians aren’t monolithic. Some are pre, some are mid, and some are post…
Left Behind is pre so as to get the maximum evangelical fear factor effect.
This might help get you up to speed:
http://www.catholic.com/library/Rapture.asp
Dave, there is no question that we have a modern western prejudice against the supernatural – “I ain’t never seen that before, so must not have happened!” The point I would make is that maybe we shouldn’t be willing to disregard something because it doesn’t fit in to our little prejudiced paradigm. There are compelling reasons to believe that God chose to deal with this ancient group of people and reveal himself in a way that was specific to their need and to their culture. And that He chooses to reveal himself today in the finished redemptive work of Christ.
As for why God chose people to pen his revelation… I believe that God created us to choose to love and obey Him with true free will. He already revealed himself in a supernatural way and now desires that we read His word to learn of this revelation. The Bible also teaches that He is brought glory through the use of his creation in revealing His word.
I’m getting sick of this thread!
But he definitely did not chose to reveal himself to Mohammed?
“we have a modern western prejudice against the supernatural ”
“we shouldn’t be willing to disregard something because it doesn’t fit in to our little prejudiced paradigm”
Bombadill
Its not a prejudice against the supernatural. There is just no compelling evidence for supernatural events. Everything we know about the universe suggests that it and everything in it behaves according to natural laws. If someone (in the West) is not indoctrinated with fundamentalist teachings they simply see little reason to believe in the supernatural. Many non-fundamentalist christians believe in the immaculate conception and other biblical events, but for whatever reason are not so apt to believe in modern supenatural events.
The way I see it
We ascribe supernatural causes to unexplained events or phenomena. Knowledge about the world has always shown these events or phenomena to be natural. I am not going to say that the supernatural world does not exist or that it cannot interact with us. I could not possibly prove such things. What I can say is that I have good reason to believe in a world governed by natural laws and no reason, as of yet, to believe in the supernatural. To me the human religious experience is perfectly natural and indeed necessary. It does not offer anything in the way of proof as I see it.
jmcd, if there is compelling evidence which demonstrates that a document(s) is historically sound/reliable, and if this document records supernatural events, and if the reliable documentation details numerous eye-witness accounts of supernatural events, then there is grounds for further investigation and consideration. We have governing principles that allow us to test the authenticity and reliability of ancient documents – this is called Textual Criticism. The Bible manuscripts demonstrate an uncanny constency and reliability, more so than other historical volumes which are viewed as indesputible fact. So, it is only logical to consider the legitimacy of the supernatural events presented in the writings and not let lack of experience with certain phenomena cause us to outright reject it. Again, it is entirely possible that God chooses to reveal himself via the finished redemptive work of Christ and scripture clearly demonstrates that God deals with his creation differently now, since the closing of the Apostolic era.
When you couple the historical evidence with the subjective experience of countless transformed lives today… you can build a cogent case, in my opinion.
Phil: The ITC wrote:The nub of this currently lively disagreement involves scientific observation and generalization concerning whether the available data support inferences of design or chance, and cannot be settled by theology. Resist the temptation to use theology to “prove” NS.
They also wrote:But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence.
NS is not incompatible with Catholic teaching. That’s not the same as saying Catholic teaching insists on NS. The position stated above, I believe, fully conforms to Michael Denton’s in his Nature’s Destiny. God “could” use NS–and many IDers agree that He does when it comes to “microevolution.” But Nature itself does not confirm that “macroevolution” results from NS.
jboze3131: yeah. but both the pope and the cardinal posit purely natural processes that god used to create life and finally humans. i see problems denying creation itself…but i see even bigger problems with positing natural processes and not god guided processes that bring man about.
The Catholic Church would never deny “divine causality.” The argument is–and they give science great latitude in trying to determine this–is the causality “primary”, that is, God “directly” brings something about, or is it “secondary”, that is, God brings is about through created causes (the causal natural order). What is essential, for faith, is “divine causality”, not whether it is primary or secondary. You seem intent on saying, definitively, based on the Bible, that it is primary. I remember what a Jesuit told me once: “Look at the creation account. The sun was created on the third day. How can you have a “day” without the sun?” Moral of the story: let’s be careful.
Bombadill
I certainly do not reject supernatural events outright, and I do consider their legitimacy. The Bible certainly is an accurate historic document in many regards. I do not view eye witness testimony as particularly compelling evidence. There is no shortage for modern eyewitness testimony of the existence of ghosts.While I would like to believe in the existence of ghosts however history has shown that many such claims are fradulent or a case of an overactive imagination.
Early this century mediums were the rage. Scientific American offerred a substantial cash reward for any medium that could demonstrate the authenticity of their craft. Many mediums attempted to claim the prize and many were debunked by the review board. There were a few however that were “verified” by the review board and nearly claimed their prize. That is until Mr. Harry Houdini stepped in to expose their quite ingenious tricks. If no one could demonstrate an ability to contact the dead then it is likely that nobody could do so today and that the psychics are almost certainly frauds or victims of self-dellusion, but hey who isn’t.
Sorry for the digression. As far as my views on the supernatural and the history of life go, I think it a good bit more likely that we are a product of natural processes. I think there is a tremendous amount about the mechanisms of evolution that is not currently understood, but that lack of understanding is not, for me, a compelling reason to abandon the search for natural processes i.e. science.
sorry scratch the however at the bottom of the first paragraph
nobody to anybody at the bottom of the 2nd paragraph
jmcd, I hear you and your approach is perfectly logical. However, I think your analagous examples are a bit limited. If you examine the account of Christ’s bodily resurrection, for example, you learn that he appeared to over 500 people at once in just one of his post-resurrection appearances. And the manuscript evidence across the board, details this. When you combine these accounts with things like, how 12 scattered cowards who feared for their lives, were suddenly willing to sacrifice their lives for what they believed in. It all adds up to a solid case for the supernatural being real. It’s at least worth looking into.
As for natural processes producing life, I would argue that we are seeing more and more that unguided natural mechanisms cannot produce life at the complexity which we observe. When we consider things like Irreducible Complexity and the Cambrian Explosion, it seems to point towards purposeful supernatural events.
Speaking of mediums… check this out:
http://www.lilydaleassembly.com/
This place is like psychic central. It’s about an hour’s drive from where I grew up and has been around for over a century. My family has been going there on occasion since before I was born. My first memory of it is going on 50 years old. I took my children there too. It’s quite an experience and while it isn’t free it’s less costly than Disney World.
I think Coynes is just expressing Theistic evolution, but not the sort of thing ID says. ID argues for things like “irreducable complexity”. Coynes would disagree, and say that natural forces DO have the capacity to cause the complxity we see. But just because they have the capacity does not mean that natural forces alone were responsible.
Evolution depends on random mutation. But replace the word “random” with “non-deterministic”, and then one could say that some non-deterministic events are indeed random, but some are choices made by God, and/or other creative entities.
I may be putting words in is mouth, but everything he said is fully consistant with a someone who believes in “process philosophy” and also accepts basic Catholic teachings like God’s creation of the universe, and the miricle of Christ. So that is what I would expect he believes. That, or something very close to it.
“what of the numerous mentions of original sin in the bible”
Um…can you show me one?
St. Augustine coined the term.