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Karl Giberson Responds to William Dembski

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Karl Giberson has responded in a post at Beliefnet to Dr. Dembski’s previous post here at UD. The post that Dr. Dembski wrote was in response to another Beliefnet post written by Darrel Falk. What is left out of this triangle is that I had also posted a response to Darrel Falk’s post right after Dr. Dembski’s post. But Karl Giberson seems to have missed my post, because not only am I not mentioned in his reply, his reply has already been directly refuted by my post, and I would assume that Karl Giberson wouldn’t have written his post if only he had read mine. He wrote:

The key point here, that Dembski claims to miss, is that the gift of creativity that God bestowed on the creation is theologically analogous to the gift of freedom God bestowed on us. Both we and the creation have freedom…In exactly the same way, less the moral dimension, when nature’s freedom leads to the evolution of a pernicious killing machine, God is “off the hook.” Unless God micromanages nature so as to destroy its autonomy, such things occur. Likewise, unless God coercively micromanages human decision making, we will often abuse our freedom.

In my post I wrote:

Then there is the obviously flawed position that he takes which claims that those of us who think God created life are heretical, that life had to have come about in a “freedom zone” where things kill each other and natural selection is to blame, not God. Which is tantamount to saying “I’m sorry that my pit bull killed your children, he has a mind of his own and I can’t put him on a leash.” Falk’s attempted theodicy to account for natural evil doesn’t even get off the groud, it only attempts to shift the blame to “evolution.” In personal evil, done by actual people, there is free-will, and so accountability. Here Falk is giving the process of evolution free-will that doesn’t have accountability, and so there is no accountability for anything evil any living creature does by extension; not even personal evil. For the created person has been removed, and replaced by a process that has it’s own freedom to create as it sees fit, and he has to take that evolutionary outcome as a whole, bad deeds and all. And the driving force of this process is survival of the fittest. How is our freedom differentiated from evolution’s freedom? Is evolution not our keeper and the reason we are here Falk? How can we help how evolution made us, evil and all? In removing the created person from his equation, he removes the equation. For if there is no person to determine evil, separate and apart from an evolutionary process, that can pass judgment on that process, of which judgments are themselves not a product of that process, then there is no [independent and objective judgment of] real evil.

And notice the “less the moral dimension” that Giberson claims for the freedom of evolved creatures to do whatever they evolved to do without “moral” responsibility. Aren’t we just another evolved creature? If we are to be held accountable, yet not any other creature, then the defining line between us and the animal kingdom will have to be a real line, (which means that we didn’t evolve with and from them) otherwise, if we are to be held accountable, then so is every other creature, and if every other creature is not, then neither would we be, given that we are the product of the same evolutionary process. Why should evolution’s freedom be stopped by God when it comes to humans? And why should “we” take over our freedom, when “we” are merely whatever is evolving in an ongoing process? And is this not God micro-managing and truncating evolution’s freedom, while making “us” accountable at some stop-gap of evolution’s freedom? And why would God be off the hook for creating a mechanism (evolution) that kills and destroys the way it does? For in Giberson’s theodicy, not only did God make the process of evolution, He set it in place and started it. This would be like me letting a bunch of mice, some infected with a plague, loose into a town. The mice have their own freedom to do whatever they want and go wherever they want, and do it all without a “moral dimension.” This does nothing to get me “off the hook” for whoever as a result dies.

And what about the weather, the planet, the universe that has caused all sorts of pain and suffering from hurricanes to earthquakes to spaceship destruction? Was there some sort of “freedom” that physics and cosmology enjoyed all the way back to the singularity before the Big Bang? Well, then, did God not even create the singularity that produced the Big Bang? If the answer is “The only thing God created was The Laws of Nature”, this is not an answer, for the laws of nature are inert. They are only the pattern to which events conform once they are induced to happen, but the laws of nature cannot provide for the inducement. It would be like me trying to add money to my account by doing sums about it. And secondly, something cannot come from nothing, so we know that God created the something.

God, to truly be off the hook by Giberson’s theodicy couldn’t be responsible in creating the laws of nature, the singularity, the universe, the world, or living creatures. The “freedom” for nature that he thinks gets God off the hook is a non-starter, and in the end will give nature so much creative ability it will be a form of pantheism.

When pressed to its logical end, Giberson and Falk’s attempted theodicy leave God as creating nothing at all, and this is a heresy, not even a theodicy. A theodicy is a harmonization between a good God and an evil world, and if God had nothing at all to do with the world, then there is no need for a harmonization.  There are better theodicies available, and the one I recommend is Dr. Dembski’s book The End of Christianity.

Comments
Gaz, Ha, yeah, I'm sure. :)Clive Hayden
October 3, 2009
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Clive, Are you SURE you aren't my father??Gaz
October 3, 2009
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Gaz, You really don't understand. I had high hopes for you.Clive Hayden
October 2, 2009
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Clive Hayden (51), I'm afraid your explanation is little more than religiobabble. On the one hand you claim the book tells the why not the how, yet you seem wedded to the view that the book does tell of the how to the extent that it says death arose from the fall - but refuses to go any further and say what the mechanism is. It's a bit like design theory: claiming it can tell there is design but not the mechanism for it (or even whodunnit). In other words, it tells of the "how" to the extent that it gives you the result you want (i.e. man is sinful and responsible for death, in the case of the fall; and that there is a designer - aka, God - in the case of intelligent design). Yet it stops short of giving the "how" when it comes up against something that would call it all into question (i.e. mechanisms for the fall and design). A convenient cop-out in other words.Gaz
October 2, 2009
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How does the account in Genesis 9 say that rainbows did not exist before the Flood? lol. How does the account in Genesis 9 say that carnivorous animals did not exist before the Flood? It doesn't. Verse 2: "The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands." That verse suggests a dispensational change in animal behavior, but I see nothing else that suggests such a change, much less a change in physical law. Carnivorous animals existed before the Flood. What didn't exist apparently was the animal fear of humans. As for humans eating animals, that is a change in the moral law if it's a change at all. Rainbows existed before the Flood. After the Flood, God gave them a special meaning. Nowhere does Genesis 9 state that God created rainbows at that point. The closest it says about that is when God says, "I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign." He describes the rainbow as past tense, and the fact that it "will be" a sign is future tense.tragic mishap
October 2, 2009
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lol Gaz. Much better.tragic mishap
October 2, 2009
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Nakashima, No you misunderstand, I didn't say a better description, I said a real explanation, something that a description cannot bring. Rule from repetition is still not an explanation, only something that we have begun to bet on because of repetition. We rule out changes, such as the miraculous, not because they are impossible, (because we don't know what is possible), but because they are an exception. We rule them out because they are an exception to what we have called a rule, like we do of a poisoned pancake or a world destroying comet. But the rule has no philosophical basis, it only has repetition. On why the repetition must be the way it is, or whether it could change, or has been different in the past, we have no reason to say no to any of the above. Because the repetition has not been perceived by reason as to why it repeats. We only notice that it does. And since it does, we have no reason, (perceived by explanation) to say that it must. And yes, rainbows appear to have come after the flood. To assume that the way nature behaves now must have always been the case is an unwarranted assumption, and is not ratified by the facts, but is rather your philosophical position. Clive Hayden
October 2, 2009
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Gaz, Not at all, there is no disharmony, no anti-science, this is a false dilemma. The anti-science would only apply if the how were directly contradicted by the narrative, but since you said that the book makes no reference to it, then there is no dilemma. The proposition that apparently bothers you is that the meaning of the how, the very authority over nature, is explained in a book, but this can only be a concern if the two, meaning and method, are positively harmonious, in which case they are not antithetical. You can't have it both ways. And the age of the book doesn't matter in the least, unless we say that nature herself fundamentally changes. Any position about why the repetitions in nature are the way they are, that they are or are not necessities, or that they could've been different, is a faith position. If my position cannot be justified on objective grounds, then no position can. Meaning and the explanation behind the description of nature's behavior is not something that can be established objectively outside of an explanation from intentionality from a narrative from the one who made it the way it is. The only difference is that mine has a history of special revelation, other grounds on which to be authoritative. But nature has no such explanation, for she doesn't explain herself, we can only notice some of her behaviours. Your dilemma is a false one.Clive Hayden
October 2, 2009
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Clive Hayden (46), Your posts suggest your position is now one of anti-science - to claim a thousands-year old tribal book as an authority on science and nature, without any evidence to back up that book's views, cannot be justified on any objective grounds. Your position is purely a faith one.Gaz
October 2, 2009
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tragic mishap (47), "Yeah, cuz nobody who didn’t understand how digestion works, i.e. modern scientists, ever knew which foods were good for them and which were bad. :eyeroll:" Or if you were an ancient hunter gatherer you observed that some berries badly affected you and others didn't. Some gave you the runs, others didn't. Basic, but it's the rudiments of how human digestion works. :Duh:Gaz
October 2, 2009
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Mr Hayden, If I understand your position correctly, there is a text which is absolutely a better description of reality than any measurement. The text preceded (in some sense) reality, and reality depends on the text, not vice versa. I hope I understand your position, even if I disagree with it. I still don't understand what 'biblical literalism' can mean if reality depends on the text and not vice versa. The "'yom' means 24 hours" crowd seems to think that the idea of a 24 hour day is independent of the word yom. That the mist could rise or the rain fall depends on gravity working as it does today. I agree that science is the assumption that repetition can be relied upon, can be elevated from repetition to rule. A demonstration that this is not so would be a great acheivement. A demonstration that a specific text is a better predictor of reality than some set of measurements would be even more so. But what about rainbows? (Sorry for the long delays in replying, I'm in Malaysia right now.)Nakashima
October 1, 2009
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Yeah, cuz nobody who didn't understand how digestion works, i.e. modern scientists, ever knew which foods were good for them and which were bad. :eyeroll:tragic mishap
October 1, 2009
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Gaz,
I think you make my point. Knowing we can eat to live is not enough, we need to know what is good to eat and what bad and in order to do that we need to know something of the digestive process.
Actually, that's a bad example to make your point, because the OT does give what foods should have been eaten and which ones not by God for the Jewish people. The how can never describe the why. Natural events are descriptions, not explanations. That the repetitions of nature are necessities is an unwarranted assumption, and the same goes for the assumption that these repetitions couldn't have been otherwise.Clive Hayden
October 1, 2009
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Clive Hayden, I think you make my point. Knowing we can eat to live is not enough, we need to know what is good to eat and what bad and in order to do that we need to know something of the digestive process. That is completely lacking in the Bible - as you would expect, because it is all about faith. Either you believe or you don't, just like any other religion.Gaz
October 1, 2009
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Gaz,
The trouble with ignoring the “how” bit is that the “how” is a test of the validity of the “why” message. Any book can give you a “why”, but you don’t necessarily follow it.
I'm not advocating ignoring the how, but the how doesn't explain itself, so it should not be solely referenced in general when seeking a comprehensive picture, as it seemed Nakashima was assuming in response to my conjecture that Pre-Fall repetitions of nature could have been different. And no, I disagree that a book that doesn't include a how is going to look "fishy", the how is a detail, and besides, the important thing is the why, which the how can never discern. We have no reason to assume that the repetitions in nature are necessities, nor that they are not willful, nor that they shouldn't or didn't change. How our bodies digest food isn't essential to knowing that we can eat to live, and how the Atonement "works" on the physical level seems irrelevant to me, like asking why I came to stand in for another on the firing line by discerning how the bullet affected my body physically when I was shot. It's a choice, an intentional choice, and on that level no amount of how will add up to that explanation.Clive Hayden
October 1, 2009
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Clive Hayden (36) and ScottAndrews (42), The trouble with ignoring the "how" bit is that the "how" is a test of the validity of the "why" message. Any book can give you a "why", but you don't necessarily follow it. Now, any book that tells you why something is allegedly so is going to look fishy if it doesn't come up with a convincing "how". And the Bible has a fair bit of that. The missing mechanism of the fall is one - for me, another one is this idea of Jesus dying for our sins. Just exactly how does that work? It all sounds like "just so" stories to me.Gaz
October 1, 2009
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I second all of that. The Bible only tells us what happened, now how. People die because they sin, but what actually changes? There's no answer, because it's not relevant. The Bible was written to for people across centuries and continents, scholars and farmers. Whether sin affected DNA or whether dinosaurs (which were unknown for most of the Bible's history) ate meat would not have been the most useful thing to include. The general knowledge that we die because we sin is very meaningful.ScottAndrews
October 1, 2009
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we have no cause to believe that anything physical changed.
I should have said "any physical laws" changed. Unless animals have immaterial minds, then something physical did change and God did it miraculously. My point is that this type of change does not require a change of any physical laws.tragic mishap
October 1, 2009
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I personally don't think the Fall changed any physical laws. We still don't understand the aging process. We still don't understand instinctual animal behavior. Until we do, we have no cause to believe that anything physical changed. Obviously something changed, but there's no evidence that the kind of changes which happened can be accounted for by a change in physical law. Now, if animal behavior relies on brain chemistry and brain chemistry relies on DNA, then God could have just changed the DNA. This does not require changing any physical laws like gravity or any nuclear force.tragic mishap
October 1, 2009
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tyke:
Ah but that’s not what people argue about. The typical claim of theodicy is that evil is necessary for us to have free will.
That is total BS dude. You don't know what you're talking about. If free will exists, then evil is an option. Without free will, evil cannot exist. Nobody says that free will necessarily leads to evil. God has free will, and God is not evil. What Christianity says is that everyone sins. Everyone has done evil. It does not say that free will leads deterministically to evil. It wouldn't really be free will if it did.tragic mishap
October 1, 2009
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Nakashima,
Where is the evidence for such an assumption?
It's in Genesis. If you think Nature, in her present form, explains herself, you're mistaken. She doesn't now and she didn't before the Fall. All we have are repetitions of nature, where is the evidence that we should believe this to have always been the case? Repetition? That's not a real reason, not a reason perceived reasonably, for the repetitions in nature are not connected philosophically like the laws of logic are, they only repeat. Why they repeat, or why they must be as they are, we have no evidence for, and since we have no evidence for why, or whether or not they are necessities, we cannot reasonably say that they couldn't have been otherwise. The narrative is the real story, the real explanation, the physical repetitions are, and can only be, descriptions. But descriptions are not explanations. And what point does a literalist worldview bring me to? If you claim that nature is immutable, you are begging the question, for that is your philosophical point of view, which is not empirically evidential.Clive Hayden
October 1, 2009
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Mr Hayden, The laws of physics, gravity, etc. might all have been different. Nature in general may not have been how it is now. This is rampant Last Tuesdayism. Where is the evidence for such an assumption? Are you actually arguing that something as recognizably carnivorous as T. Rex existed in the Garden, and flourished generation after generation until made extinct and buried by the Flood about a thousand years later, but that gravity might have been different? How do align that with cosmic fine tuning? How do you align that with any kind of Biblical literalism? Why defend a literalist worldview if it brings you to such a point? On a point related to how much you are willing to let physics vary, did rainbows exist before the Flood?Nakashima
October 1, 2009
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Gaz,
How did the fall manage to do that? I’m intrigued by the physical mechanism.
Me too Gaz, me too. But, the physical mechanism can't speak to why, which is more interesting to me than how, but scripture can. The how is a detail.Clive Hayden
October 1, 2009
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Clive Hayden, "You have to remember, the fall changed everything" How did the fall manage to do that? I'm intrigued by the physical mechanism.Gaz
October 1, 2009
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Gaz,
Thanks. For clarification, does that mean that Tyrannosaurus Rex ate nothing before the fall, because to eat plant material would have involved killing plants and hence death would have been in the world?
It's possible to eat fruit, berries and foliage without killing the plant. We don't even know if it was possible to kill even plants prior to the fall. You have to remember, the fall changed everything, but, we just don't know how much everything changed. The laws of physics, gravity, etc. might all have been different. Nature in general may not have been how it is now.Clive Hayden
October 1, 2009
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Clive Hayden, Thanks. For clarification, does that mean that Tyrannosaurus Rex ate nothing before the fall, because to eat plant material would have involved killing plants and hence death would have been in the world?Gaz
October 1, 2009
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Gaz,
Does this mean you think that Tyrannosaurus Rex was a herbivore before the flood? And if so, how could it eat plants without killing them (and hence bring death to the world)?
Thanks for your question. According to scripture, there was death before the flood, but not before the fall. It's important to keep these dispensations straight. And yes, the T Rex and everything else was a herbivore before the flood.Clive Hayden
October 1, 2009
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I read Karl Giberson Response before I read this response. My! it was so unreasonable. I would say Clive Hayden was very gracious in the way he responded. Good post Clive.T. lise
October 1, 2009
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Clive Hayden (21), "The derivative of the original creation was changed as a result of the fall, and as a result death was introduced into the world. Remember also that prior to the flood, there were no carnivorous animals, so two dispensational changes have occurred (fall and flood) to get to the present, both of which had physiological impacts on the very created order of nature and all of life." Does this mean you think that Tyrannosaurus Rex was a herbivore before the flood? And if so, how could it eat plants without killing them (and hence bring death to the world)?Gaz
October 1, 2009
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tyke (#27) Thank you for your post. You write:
As for responsibility, if a the creator of a fantastic new toy for toddlers later discovers that the toddlers also find out it’s a perfect tool for stabbing their playmates with, no one in their right mind would absolve the manufacturer of all blame, even if they didn’t realize the mistake they were making before it was unleashed.
What if the manufacturer had originally planned to warn users of the risks, but the residents of one particular state had rudely rebuffed the manufacturer's warnings, even going to far as to suppress all attempts to publicize them, because they saw them as paternalistic and intrusive? Would not the residents of that state be responsible for any injuries suffered by toddlers living there? Planet Earth represents the state with the rude residents, in my tale, and the original decision taken to rebuff the manufacturer's warnings represents the Fall. In other words: even if people living today could be likened to toddlers (and I don't think that comparison really holds for rational adults), it was the first human beings who made a conscious, deliberate choice to make the world a "God-free zone." Don't blame the manufacturer. Later, you write:
God created us that way not in the hope that we would not stray, but in full knowledge that we could do nothing else.
Wrong. Our first parents had free will. There's a big difference between God's knowing that we would stray and God's knowing that we could do nothing else (as you claim). That is not what Judaism or Christianity teaches. In any case, I would maintain that even God's knowledge of what we would do was logically (not temporally) posterior to His act of creating us. It's not as if God could have predicted our Fall merely from having a complete understanding of human nature. If that were the case, then we wouldn't really have free will. But we do.vjtorley
September 30, 2009
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