Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Theistic Evolutionists, Your Position Is Incoherent — But We Can Help You!

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email
In this, my first column for Uncommon Descent, I’d like to address what seems to be a fundamental contradiction running through the writings of many “theistic evolutionists,” and propose an adjustment to their theoretical framework.
 
Critics of theistic evolution (TE) have often suggested that theistic evolutionists (TEs) have to put themselves through mental contortions in order to remain Christian while embracing Darwin.  Yet a person very well versed in TE literature has informed me that many TEs do not appear to feel any such intellectual discomfort.  They reconcile Christianity and Darwin, he suggests, by holding to an “old earth creationist” position, by interpreting Genesis non-literally, and by treating evolution as God’s “creation tool.” 
 
The first two points are non-controversial.  There is plenty of room within orthodox Christianity for the belief that the earth is very old, and for less-than-completely-literal interpretations of Genesis.  However, the proposition that evolution could be “God’s creation tool” is open to more than one interpretation, and bears closer examination.  Given that most TEs appear to be strict Darwinists with respect to the mechanism of evolution (i.e., chance mutations plus natural selection), critical observers are justified in inquiring about the suitability of the Darwinian mechanism as a “creation tool” for a specifically Christian God.

I would not have a problem understanding evolution as God’s “creation tool,” if TEs conceived of evolution as a “tool” in the strict sense.  A tool in the strict sense is fully in the control of the tool-user, and the results it achieves (when properly used by a competent user) are not due to chance but to intelligence and skill.  But Darwin’s mechanism leaves room for neither intelligence nor skill; it is the unconscious operation of impersonal natural selection upon mutations which are the products of chance.  It follows that Darwinian evolution is not a tool, but an autonomous process, and therefore out of God’s control.
 
This has a theological consequence.  If evolution is out of God’s control, it is incompatible with the notion of providence — the notion that God provides for the future needs of the earth and its inhabitants.  God can hardly, for example, provide for the need of Hagar in the desert, if he can’t even guarantee that the human race, of which Hagar is a member, will ever emerge from the primordial seas.  (The radical contingency of the Darwinian mechanism is captured well by Darwinist Stephen Jay Gould, when he wrote that if the tape of evolution were rewound and played again, the results would be entirely different.  Once God sets a truly Darwinian process in motion, he has no control over whether it will produce Adam and Eve, a race of pointy-eared Vulcans, or just an ocean full of bacteria.)
 
A non-providential God is clearly not an orthodox Christian God, and it therefore appears that theistic evolutionism generates heretical Christianity.  As I see it, the only way for theistic evolutionists to escape this consequence is to argue that mutations seem like chance events from the human perspective, but from God’s perspective are foreordained.  But in that case, “evolution” is really just the actualization of a foreseen design over a very long time frame; the “purely natural causes” spoken of by the TEs are really just the unrecognized fingertips of the very long arm of God.  This view, which we might call “apparent Darwinism,” fails to get God out of the process of natural causation, which was (as Cornelius Hunter has argued) Darwinism’s historical raison d’être.
 
In response to this, TEs could say:  “Well, we are Christians, so of course we believe that these apparently chance events were divinely foreordained and therefore are not ultimately chance events.  Our goal is not to deny the ultimate agency of God, but only to establish that the design of living things, though certainly in the mind of God at the beginning of the world’s creation, is not humanly DETECTABLE, as the ID proponents say it is.  Evolution proceeds as if directed by chance; neither our sense nor our instruments are capable of registering the difference between mutations produced by the hidden hand of God and mutations produced by chance.  Operationally, science must proceed as if chance alone is at work.  There is therefore no legitimately scientific design inference.  Design is a theological interpretation of the natural data, not a scientific one.  And that is why we remain theistic evolutionists, appealing to strictly Darwinian causation in our science and keeping our theological interpretation of nature out of the labs, schools and universities.”
 
This has surface plausibility.  But note that, if this argument is accepted, there is no longer any metaphysical difference between TE and ID.  Given this argument, both ID and TE acknowledge that living creatures are in fact designed by God and brought into being exactly in accord with God’s will.  The difference that remains between TE and ID is not over metaphysics but over epistemology, i.e., over the question:  How do we KNOW that the flagellum or the wing of a bird or the circulatory system is a consequence of design rather than chance?  And here is where TE takes its final stand:  it is only by faith, not by the scientific study of nature, that we can know this.
 
But how does TE verify this doctrine?  Surely the question whether design detection can be an empirical science is itself subject to empirical investigation, and cannot be prematurely settled by any dogmatic pronouncement.  TE is thus obliged to look at the work of those who claim that design detection can be an empirical science, and to consider that claim on its merits, not dismiss it out of hand.  It thus must engage the arguments of Dembski, Behe, etc.  TE is of course free to argue that Dembski and Behe and the others fail to provide an adequate basis for a science of design detection, by pointing to real or alleged flaws in their arguments.  But this still means that TE must abandon a priori epistemological declarations and enter whole-heartedly into the honest consideration of whether design in nature is detectable by scientific means.
 
Thus, we see that the foundational contradiction at the very core of TE (that orthodox Christianity is 100% true, and that the Darwinian mechanism is also 100% true), puts TEs on the horns of a dilemma.  Accept the complete truth of the Darwinian mechanism, and one must deny at least one key Christian doctrine, i.e., providence.  Alternately, accept the complete truth of all the core Christian doctrines, including providence, and “chance” is a fiction, Darwinism is a guided process, there is design, and design may in principle be detectable.  TEs thus have a choice.  If their priority, their most important motivation, is to ban the notion of design from science, they can do so, by affirming that chance rather than providence is ultimately real; the cost is the adoption of a non-Christian theology.  If, on the other hand, their priority is to account for the origin of species and of man within the framework of providence, they must affirm that chance is not ultimately real; the cost is the abandonment of the Darwinian mechanism.   
 
Let me summarize.  It is possible to be a theistic evolutionist without contradiction.  It is possible to be a specifically Christian theistic evolutionist without contradiction.  It is not, however, possible to be a Christian DARWINIST without contradiction.  A Christian Darwinist is bound to maintain logically incompatible positions:  that evolution is both a tool and an autonomous process, that providence and chance are both ultimately real, that design is potentially detectable and that it is a priori indetectable.  This intellectual schizophrenia cannot be maintained.  TEs must decide whether or not their grudge against ID and its proponents is more important to them than the maintenance of a consistently orthodox Christian theology. 
 
TEs, you can join us at no real cost.  You can keep your Christian faith (which incidentally is more highly respected by even non-Christian ID advocates than it is by many of your current colleagues).  You can keep evolution (understood as common descent) and all its evidences, including the fossil record, Darwin’s arguments about biogeographical distribution, and a 4.5-billion-year-old earth.  We don’t even ask you to pledge allegiance to intelligent design; we just ask you to abandon your a priori prejudice that design in nature can’t possibly be detectable, and to join us in investigating the question.   
 
And there’s an added bonus.  You’ll finally be able to abandon the unsavory company of angry, paranoid, condescending atheists like Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, P.Z. Myers, Jeffrey Shallit, and Barbara Forrest.  Talk about the icing on the cake!
 
Think about it.

 

Comments
Ted Davis wrote, "As for creating confusion with creationism, the 'Reply to Francis Collins’ Darwinian Arguments for Common Ancestry of Apes and Humans,' by Casey Luskin and Logan Gage, appended to the new book, Intelligent Design 101, does seem to me only to further confuse things." Why does our Response to Francis Collins confuse things? Our Response to Francis Collins makes it very clear how the situation works: Many assume that if common ancestry is true, then the only viable scientific position is Darwinian evolution—in which all organisms are descended from a common ancestor via random mutations and blind selection. Such an assumption is incorrect: Intelligent design is not necessarily incompatible with common ancestry.4 Even if all organisms on earth share a common ancestor, it does not follow that the primary mechanisms causing the differences between the species must be blind, unguided processes such as natural selection. Nonetheless, Darwin’s tree of life (see fig. A.1) is an “icon of evolution” and therefore deserves careful examination.5 (ID 101, pg. 217) Since we find Collins' arguments for human/ape common ancestry to be weak, nothing we write serves to "confuse" how ID interacts with common ancestry. We recognize that ID can be considered compatible with common ancestry but also write, "Nonetheless, Darwin’s tree of life (see fig. A.1) is an 'icon of evolution' and therefore deserves careful examination" and after a long analysis, conclude that Collins "arguments in favor of human-ape common ancestry are simply unconvincing." I don't see any reason for confusion and I think that Ted Davis's charges here are fair at all.Casey Luskin
October 9, 2008
October
10
Oct
9
09
2008
10:08 AM
10
10
08
AM
PDT
Jerry, just one quick point of clarification. When I use the language describing what I believe to be possible or impossible, I refer not so much to God as reason itself. I place no limits on God’s power, but I do contend that God cannot violate his own nature by lying or contradicting himself. So, when someone proposes something that, in my judgment, violates the law of non-contradiction, I characterize it on those terms, even if it is their scenario for the creative event itself. So, I will always take exception when someone suggests that I am trying to limit God’s power when I am simply saying that a thing cannot be true and false at the same time and under the same formal circumstances. In any given situation, I could be wrong in making that charge, of course, but the fact remains that some scenarios really are impossible because of their self contradictory nature.StephenB
July 2, 2008
July
07
Jul
2
02
2008
07:54 AM
7
07
54
AM
PDT
StephenB, One quibble, two points. Read the paragraph again about the Valley. I said "I actually don’t believe this was how it was done for the major changes to evolution but there is no reason to think God could not have done it this way." In other words I believe that God could create intelligent life this way if He wanted to but that He didn't. To say He couldn't is to arbitrarily put some limitations on God and I am not sure where that would lead. The evidence says He didn't do it this way. To do it that way the initial conditions and boundary constraints would have to be very different than what He chose to do. He could still arrange to have Stephen and Jerry in His mind from all eternity. I then go on to say that such a system does exists and it essentially guides micro evolution. It does not have just one exit but the number of exits are numerous but limited. This system guides most of the changes to life we see in this world. It is powerful and so obvious and why it is so easy to accept Darwin in all his glory because the system works right before your eyes for this limited form of evolution. All the Darwinists say is add one more ingredient and you got everything and that ingredient is "deep time." Well deep time is an essential part of micro evolution but it is still limited for many of the reasons you, Behe and many others have listed. But none the less micro evolution is still great design. By keeping the big tent, ID is forced to give up this magnificent design process which I believe could go a long way to its greater acceptance.jerry
July 2, 2008
July
07
Jul
2
02
2008
06:25 AM
6
06
25
AM
PDT
Gentlefolk: A very good onward discussion overnight. On a note or two, or three: 1] Phil and the empirical: My take here -- cf Hasker et al -- is that phil is in the end about analysis of worldviews. To do so, it has to look at empirical adequacy, coherence and explanatory power and elegance. So, it may start from experience and questions, and it may in part come back to further experience, but there is much more to it than that, and it turns out that as SB stresses, there are many things that turn out to be priors, in the sense of the underlying logic of right reason. 2] ID and design detection vs mechanism: Given the significance of identifying THAT there has been design as detected through credibly reliable empirical signs, it5r is sufficient for many purposes to address this issue as a core challenge. To challenge an identification that there is recognisable design, that it has not identified or specifically addressed the mechanism, seems to me pretty far off the mark. The latter is an onward question -- "now that we credibly know that there was design, let's reverse engineer it." 3] Pandas, follytricks, Judge Jones, ID and creationism Let's get back to basics. First, here is the statement that was denounced:
The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part. Because Darwin’s Theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations. Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People, is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually involves. With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the Origins of Life to individual students and their families. As a Standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on Standards-based assessments.
Regardless of motive-mongering [with underlying hysterical or cynical slanders on theocracy; recall here some of the (now too often unknown, ignored, dismissed or suppressed) roots of modern liberty and democracy!], the above is utterly unexceptional, and -- apart from an irrational, secularist agenda-driven law and policy environment -- would not even be controversial. Further to this, Judge Jones' ruling in the parts on ID in general, plainly was demonstrably a copycat from the ACLU et al; crude errors of fact and all. That was incompetent or worse than incompetent, and plainly tyrannical in implications. Next, Pandas took a major bum rap, as StephenB pointed out above. --> In a rational environment, if one in the editorial process cuts out words that could be read one way and replaces with language that more explicitly says something else, it is the later that DEMONSTRABLY is what you were trying to say. --> in the case of Pandas, the language was edited to stress the differentiation between ID as a nascent movement and the then far more better known Creationism. --> This was also done to conform to law in contemporary rulings. --> It is paranoia or intentional slander that would read that as trying to sneak Creationism in the back door. And given Ms Forrest's wider patterns of claims and behaviour, sadly, I must think it the latter. --> She has utterly discredited herself so far as I can see, given gross dereliction of intellectual duty on even so basic a point as the definition of ID. --> here is what Pandas actually explicitly states in the published edition, which is what students would have seen:
This book has a single goal: to present data from six areas of science that bear on the central question of biological origins. We don't propose to give final answers, nor to unveil The Truth. Our purpose, rather, is to help readers understand origins better, and to see why the data may be viewed in more than one way. (Of Pandas and People, 2nd ed. 1993, pg. viii) . . . . Today we recognize that appeals to intelligent design may be considered in science, as illustrated by current NASA search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Archaeology has pioneered the development of methods for distinguishing the effects of natural and intelligent causes. We should recognize, however, that if we go further, and conclude that the intelligence responsible for biological origins is outside the universe (supernatural) or within it, we do so without the help of science. (pg. 126-127, emphasis added)
--> Could anything be plainer than that? _____________ Bottomline: our civilisation is in deep, deep trouble. Putting on my theological hat, Romans 1 trouble. On the incoherence of theistic evolutionism as currently practiced, I think TC and SB have made their point, at least in general terms. G'day, all . . . off to a hot seat in a local lion's den! GEM of TKIkairosfocus
July 2, 2008
July
07
Jul
2
02
2008
03:12 AM
3
03
12
AM
PDT
Jerry @177-- Jerry: After Plato, all other philosophers seem like an anticlimax. So I’m onside with you (as you might expect from my nom de plume). And Plato has been a great inspiration for many of us who champion intelligent design. But don’t overlook Aristotle’s natural philosophy, either. Compared to my master, Plato, he was a bit of a blockhead on some things -- couldn’t do math to save his life, and, despite his best efforts, astronomy just wasn’t his forte -- but he is the greatest of the ancient thinkers on the subject of teleology in biological systems, which is a subject near and dear to the hearts of all intelligent design theorists. T.Timaeus
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
11:16 PM
11
11
16
PM
PDT
Steve Matheson (#178): Sorry I didn’t get whatever point you were trying to make about embryology and the Psalm. I thought that my answer was direct and clear, but obviously I was not answering the right question. I took it that you were arguing that the literal meaning of the Psalm contradicts the known facts of embryology, but that you didn’t think you were less of a Christian for sticking to scientific embryology nonetheless. And I was trying to agree with you. And I understood you to be making a general point, i.e., that modern Christian scientists shouldn’t be bound by other apparent scientific inaccuracies which appear to be endorsed by certain statements in the Bible. And I was trying to agree with you about that, too. But, since I’d told you already that I wasn’t a Biblical literalist of any kind, I wasn’t sure what larger goal you were driving toward by making these (for me) non-contentious points. Neither my original posting nor any of my subsequent arguments depended on reading Biblical statements as scientific authorities. I am glad that, despite your past negative experiences with UD (which you certainly did not let us forget!), you felt welcome here, and that you now realize that UD people do not reflexively kick newcomers out of a discussion merely for disagreeing, not even when the newcomer accuses the lead writer, quite unjustly, of “whining.” I hope you will jump in on new threads from time to time, whenever you see points of theoretical interest to you. As you can see, we have many well-read and thoughtful writers posting here, who love to wrestle with theoretical propositions and reason out their implications. I am sorry you don’t like the pseudonymity of the place. At the risk of being accused of “whining” again, let me remind you that for many ID proponents, pseudonymity on the internet may well be the difference between acceptance into or rejection from a graduate program in the life sciences, between being hired as a biologist or having to drive a cab for a living, between being granted tenure as an astrophysicist or having to look around for one-year contracts for the rest of your life. That’s something that people in your position, i.e., tenured professors, don’t have to worry about. It’s also something that, generally speaking, TEs don’t have to worry about. When the Iowa States of the world start treating ID proponents as well as your college treats TE proponents, then we’ll drop pseudonymity – not before. I do thank you for all your answers and clarifications. You've helped us make a start toward addressing the root causes of the unfortunate conflict that has arisen between ID and TE. Hopefully, with good will and open minds on both sides, we can continue to find common ground.Thomas Cudworth
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
10:56 PM
10
10
56
PM
PDT
Jerry, I promised to give you the last word, but you introduced some new topics so I will cast the net a bit wide without going to deep. Also, I am going to strive mightily to achieve a high level of diplomacy, so tell me how I do. This will be a lighting round, so don’t take my brief replies as evidence of limited perspective. -----“By the way I do not buy your dichotomy of mindless purposeless vs God controlling every move. I believe God could use so called random events to create anything He wants if He also designs the system that processes the random events......" If you introduce teleology at any level, then you are not talking about what I am talking about. I don’t think that total randomness can produce much of anything. With regard to constrained randomness, I guess my position that is the more you constrain it the closer you come to a purposeful resolution. I must say this, however. I was speaking solely in terms of God programming an evolutionary process to unfold according to a plan. I never say anything about “God controlling every move?” With all due respect, I have never misread anything you said on a level of that magnitude. That comment causes me to suspect that you didn’t grasp my points at all, which may be my fault, by the way. ----“ I said this before on another thread and no one seemed to understand it. I used the concept of a valley with one entrance and one exit and while there are many paths through the valley they all must eventually lead to Rome or the one exit. The trek through the valley could be a random process but constrained as to outcomes. I actually don’t believe this was how it was done for the major changes to evolution but there is no reason to think God could not have done it this way......... Yes, I recall your comments. For me, the issue is not whether such a process could produce intelligent life, which I doubt very much. What I was discussing constitutes a far greater challenge than simply getting from nascent life to intelligent life. The issue is whether it can produce a finished product perfectly in accord with a well conceived specification. In other words, will such a process take us from the idea of Jerry (as formed in God’s mind) to the reality of Jerry? I don’t think contingency, (even constrained) can climb a mountain like that. So, we have a disagreement. I guess that means that every time you bring it up, I will deny it and every time I deny it you will affirm it. ----“You notice I said several million years which means I believe that age is an essential part of ID and by refusing to acknowledge it, ID has become self limiting as well as opening itself to criticism it shouldn’t have to bear. I know people here don’t want to hear this but I am with Ted Davis on this.” I don’t think that the age of an organism has anything at all to do with making a design inference. I don’t mind hearing you say it, I just don’t agree with it. We don’t need to know anything about the history of an ancient hunter’s spear to detect its design. In my judgment, the whole point of the design inference is that human, superhuman, or Divine artifacts all leave the same kinds of clues. ----“You failed to see the significance of my call to recognize the empirical evidence in the debate with TE’s on the various philosophical or theological options. If any of the options are true, then each would imply a different pattern in the fossil record and the current biological world. Each philosophical position has implications which can then be verified by looking at the empirical data. People have their pet theories but if the real world does not support it, then one has to admit the problem. As I said the real world does not support a gradualistic approach for macro evolution. I asked the same question of Ted Davis and Stephen Matheson but neither has responded as yet. I hope they do because we could all stand to learn how they think on this all important topic. Maybe I am wrong about gradualism but so far no one has taken it on.” I don’t think that I gave your points a fair hearing. I was very tuned in to the theme of the post which was, “TEs your position is incoherent, but we can help you.” I probably should have been a little more flexible about discussing what, to me, was a peripheral issue. Not every comment needs to be about incoherence. ----“By the way on ASA some are criticizing you which I think is unfair because they have been silent on a lot of the key issues we believe are important. If they weren’t so silent then they might have a point. It is interesting the criticism here is making them think a little more about how vocal they should be. But we also criticize a lot of people here on this blog without giving them the chance to respond. However, I doubt that someone like Ken Miller would ever come here to respond.” I did ask some very hard questions and I did press. All I can say is if that if they think that is rough treatment, they have led very sheltered lives. Even so, I would be very open- minded toward criticism of my behavior from any UD blogger. That means that I am not committed to my present style of discourse. Taking it one step further, if I thought that I made this website look bad, I would seriously reevaluate my role here. My attitude about ID is this: If I become more of a liability than an asset, I need to bow out. I want ID to succeed. ----“They are doing a little soul searching at ASA and will have to see if anything will come of it. They do not know how to define what a TE is and some seem to be unhappy with the title. I have read their blog for over a year now without seeing much progress there on dealing with those who criticize them except to mock the criticizers. Ted Davis is a major exception and has been a defender of ID people without embracing the concepts. What he has said here, he has said on ASA. Another is Loren Haarsma who currently has a thread about myths about ID and myths about TE. So far as I can see Davis and Haarsma are two extremely upright people and have captured ID better than most of the rest at ASA. Haarsma is probably making many at ASA think more clearly about ID. I agree that those two carry themselves very well. ----“As a final note, let’s just say what I believe is true about the empirical data could change with new data. I enjoy the give and take here and have learned a lot because of it so my understanding has changed a lot since first posting here. That is why I was glad to see Ted Davis and Stephen Matheson come here so we can get some intelligent counter opinion. You are right, I don’t like philosophical discussions. I had 12 credits of philosophy in college and thought it was mostly bull****. Since that time I have grown to love Plato and really can’t see the importance of Aristotle though I believe he was instrumental on the issue of natural law which I endorse. I have gone through several Teaching Company courses on philosophy and sometimes my head spins at what they are trying to say. But Socrates is the man!!” I can sympathize with those who have to endure philosophical instruction that doesn’t relate to daily life. Good philosophy is really nothing more than amplified common sense. If one is grounded in it, everything changes for the better. Bad philosophy, which is the norm today, is worse than nothing at all. There are three classes of people: educated, uneducated, and badly educated. To be badly educated (educated in the wrong philosophy) is worse than being uneducated. Socrates does rock doesn’t he? I, on the other hand, need to work a little harder at interacting fruitfully with those that I disagree with. In other words, I must learn to preserve their self esteem with the same vigilance that I protect my own. In communication, they call it “saving face.” Maybe you can let me know when I am pushing too hard or if I am being unfair. Since we often disagree, I gather that I will get a lot of practice. One thing sure, it is unwise to make enemies when it is unnecessary. I don’t know about constraining “randomness,” but I think a good case can be made for constraining passions.StephenB
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
10:21 PM
10
10
21
PM
PDT
Steve Matheson: I have been rethinking my approach to our dialogue and wondering where I might have gone wrong. If I get a next time, and I hope that I do, I think that I will just slow down, relax a little bit more, and just let things air out without leaping right back in. A friend recently advised me to wait an hour before posting, especially at those times when I feel most compelled not to wait. That’s good advice and I think I will apply it. One thing sure, I don’t want my ego to get in the way of meaningful interaction. These things take time, patience, courtesy, and CHARITY. You will get more of that from me next time.StephenB
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
09:56 PM
9
09
56
PM
PDT
Well, I thought it would be rude to leave without saying goodbye. To all correspondents: I see occasional carping about this or that question that didn't get answered by me or by Ted. Step back and think, and give us both a break. This thread is enormous, and some (such as jerry) took note of what I tried to get you all to see: there's no way for me to sustain a massive open forum while meeting my other obligations. But... at least some of the questions and topics are important and worthy of further discussion. I don't know where or when, but I am keen on continuing dialog with you all on these various topics. There were/are some rough spots, but I see abundant opportunities to explore common ground and to reduce unedifying tension and hostility, and I am grateful for the reception I received. There is no question I am afraid to answer, and nothing I have seen in this thread that I am unwilling to address. (That doesn't mean you get to write multiple-choice exams for me, and Ted Davis in comment 114 nicely addressed that recurring problem.) To Thomas, I think we made progress toward understanding each other, and I hope my answers to your questions were helpful. My point about theistic embryology didn't get through, but we can revisit that sometime soon if you're interested. To jerry and Kairosfocus: I share your interest in the thorough discussion of evolutionary science. This was neither the time nor the place. But there can be a time, and a place. In the next few weeks, I'll come up with a plan, probably on my blog, for addressing some of the questions you raised. If that plan doesn't work for some or all of you, I'm confident we can come up with something that will work. UD is not a place for open discussion, and is not the right place for such a conversation. StephenB: we got a little off track there, and I wish I had noted specifically how I objected to your behavior, so we could have an opportunity to work it out and move forward. One hindrance to this is the pervasive pseudonymity of this place, in which I can't contact you privately. My M.O. would be to send private email, and that (in my experience) almost always leads to understanding and reconciliation. You did annoy me, and I really don't like your style, but we were doing well there for a while and I'm sure we can do it again. Please consider accepting my apology for gruff shortness, and I'll look forward to further conversations with you. It'll be at least 2 weeks before I can consider entering another serious discussion here, but feel free to contact me anytime with private questions or to explore ideas for more deliberate interaction.Steve Matheson
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
08:33 PM
8
08
33
PM
PDT
StephenB, You said I could have the final word but there is never any final word here. I don't think the empirical data supports a gradualistic approach to evolution. Whether it be the mindless purposeless approach proposed by Darwin and his heirs or a semi teleological approach espoused by TE's (and by the way they are in disarray on this and have no common accepted opinion). Nor do I· think God directed a gradualistic approach either through secondary causes or by direct maneuvering of the genomes through direct action or indirect actions of quantum manipulation. How it was done, I haven't a clue but the evidence does not support any gradualistic approach. I have yet to find a TE who will defend the gradualistic approach in writing nor anyone at the ASA site that will defend it either. When I finish Keith Miller's book, I may have a better perspective. Nor interestingly any Darwinist who comes here will coherently defend it either. I find this interesting. By the way I do not buy your dichotomy of mindless purposeless vs God controlling every move. I believe God could use so called random events to create anything He wants if He also designs the system that processes the random events. Not everything in the system would be random as the whole process could be directed through initial conditions and boundary constraints. I said this before on another thread and no one seemed to understand it. I used the concept of a valley with one entrance and one exit and while there are many paths through the valley they all must eventually lead to Rome or the one exit. The trek through the valley could be a random process but constrained as to outcomes. I actually don't believe this was how it was done for the major changes to evolution but there is no reason to think God could not have done it this way. This idea was brought up before several times before under the rubric "designed to evolve" when the evolve here means a somewhat random process such as sexual reproduction and selection pressures but constrained by the initial conditions (for example the initial DNA sequences) and the boundary conditions (e.g. structure of the genome and its capability for change plus environmental conditions) I happen to believe that micro evolution is such a God designed system that uses random events but constrained by the content and structure of the genome and selection to produce new variants and eventually new species. I happen to believe it is a magnificently designed process and explains most of the life on the planet but is limited and cannot account for macro evolution or as some would say new functionally specified, complex information. The new species produced would be very similar to the old ones. It may produce most of the 300,000 beetle species but not the ability of an insect or vertebrae to fly. This is my opinion and it could change with new information or become even more reinforced as new genomes are sequenced and we find out how little natural selection has done in the last several million years. You notice I said several million years which means I believe that age is an essential part of ID and by refusing to acknowledge it, ID has become self limiting as well as opening itself to criticism it shouldn't have to bear. I know people here don't want to hear this but I am with Ted Davis on this. You failed to see the significance of my call to recognize the empirical evidence in the debate with TE's on the various philosophical or theological options. If any of the options are true, then each would imply a different pattern in the fossil record and the current biological world. Each philosophical position has implications which can then be verified by looking at the empirical data. People have their pet theories but if the real world does not support it, then one has to admit the problem. As I said the real world does not support a gradualistic approach for macro evolution. I asked the same question of Ted Davis and Stephen Matheson but neither has responded as yet. I hope they do because we could all stand to learn how they think on this all important topic. Maybe I am wrong about gradualism but so far no one has taken it on. By the way on ASA some are criticizing you which I think is unfair because they have been silent on a lot of the key issues we believe are important. If they weren't so silent then they might have a point. It is interesting the criticism here is making them think a little more about how vocal they should be. But we also criticize a lot of people here on this blog without giving them the chance to respond. However, I doubt that someone like Ken Miller would ever come here to respond. They are doing a little soul searching at ASA and will have to see if anything will come of it. They do not know how to define what a TE is and some seem to be unhappy with the title. I have read their blog for over a year now without seeing much progress there on dealing with those who criticize them except to mock the criticizers. Ted Davis is a major exception and has been a defender of ID people without embracing the concepts. What he has said here, he has said on ASA. Another is Loren Haarsma who currently has a thread about myths about ID and myths about TE. So far as I can see Davis and Haarsma are two extremely upright people and have captured ID better than most of the rest at ASA. Haarsma is probably making many at ASA think more clearly about ID. As a final note, let's just say what I believe is true about the empirical data could change with new data. I enjoy the give and take here and have learned a lot because of it so my understanding has changed a lot since first posting here. That is why I was glad to see Ted Davis and Stephen Matheson come here so we can get some intelligent counter opinion. You are right, I don't like philosophical discussions. I had 12 credits of philosophy in college and thought it was mostly bull****. Since that time I have grown to love Plato and really can't see the importance of Aristotle though I believe he was instrumental on the issue of natural law which I endorse. I have gone through several Teaching Company courses on philosophy and sometimes my head spins at what they are trying to say. But Socrates is the man!!jerry
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
07:49 PM
7
07
49
PM
PDT
Charlie, thanks for your comments. The question about why TEs try to integrate Christianity with Darwinism is interesting one. I suppose that the only way to settle the matter for sure is to enlist the aid of a sociologist and just do a study. My perception is this: Their notion that [A} a Good God would never have done it the ID way (the design is hearless or [B] a competent God would never have done it the ID way (a greater God shouldn't have to intervene) drives their ideology and leads them to embrace Darwinism as a way to justify what they perceive to be a "bad design." I could be wrong, of course. It could be the other way around. Maybe they really did get conned by the Darwinists and decided to subordinate their religion to it as an afterthought. One thing sure, their main selling point is their mistaken claim that Christianity and Darwinism are compatible, and they don't hesitate to use it on new Christian recruits.StephenB
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
05:59 PM
5
05
59
PM
PDT
Ted Davis, On looking at (160) I get the even stronger impression that you believe in ID, specifically with regard to cosmological fine tuning and with regard to DNA. I think it is fair to say, welcome to ID. Yes, you believe in common descent (is it unasssisted common descent?), but as you know, that does not exclude one from ID. One point deserves emphasis now. If DNA required some kind of intervention, and cannot be explained completely by random processes acting in concert with natural law, then the standard textbook explanations of the origin of life are inadequate (or more colloquially, wrong; technically, at least partly wrong). The same goes for the philosophical positions of such atheists as Dawkins, Dennett, or PZ Myers. It also means that any TE that agrees with them on the scientific evidence (such as the former position of Howard Van Till) are also wrong. It also means that there is no theoretical reason for excluding design from natural history. If random variations and natural selection seem inadequate, after careful study, to account for the Cambrian part of the fossil record given the Precambrian, one is reasonably entitled to accept intelligent intervention here too, rather than resort to a strained naturalistic explanation or "nature of the gaps" promises ("we don't know precisely how now, but science is sure to explain it naturalistically in the future"). If random variations and natural selection seem inadequate, after careful study, to explain the transition from apes to humans, we need not assume a naturalistic explanation anyway. In fact, it is possible that, after careful consideration, one might reach the conclusion that natural history has made enough mistakes that the entire enterprise will need to be completely rebuilt. The recognition of ID does, in fact, question the "legitimacy of the historical sciences as means of investigating natural history", at least to the extent that that the exclusion of intelligent design in principle is part of the historical sciences. (Whether more fundamental rebuilding is warranted is a question for another day.) I can understand your discomfort when ID is presented without a swipe at YEC. However, please recognize that even those who clearly state their disagreement with YEC are still vehemently opposed. It strains credulity to believe that Guillermo Gonzalez would have been acceptable to the faculty at ISU if only the DVD had not come out. He was turned out for ID, not for agreeing with YEC, which he clearly did not agree with in the book. My personal advice to those ID adherents who do not believe in YEC is to clearly state their differences with it, so as to decrease the confusion as much as possible. But I am under no illusions as to whether that will stop the charge that ID adherents are closet creationists. It will only make more obvious the opportunistic nature of that charge. I would second Thomas Cudworth's (170) comments. As far as responses are concerned, I (unfortunately) fully understand the time limitations that can happen for all kinds of reasons, some public and some not. I also think that careful responses are preferable to prompt or frequent ones. I try to practice that, which is why my comment 169 missed your comments 160 and 167. The only comment on (167) that I would make at this time is to ask you to clarify your use of common descent. Do you mean common descent as with a parent-child relationship, or with a parent-child relationship and no other factors than random variations (including genetic drift) and natural selection? How often do you see arguments that state something like "with these 5,372 changes, and resting at these 17 intermediates, one can get from a chimpanzee brain to a human brain, and this appears to be within reasonable probabilistic limits for random mutations"? Are they not rather more like "humans and chimps have the following 1,539 bases in common, with 13 changes, and they have no function, so there is no reason that a designer would have put them both in there, so we have evidence for descent with modification without intelligent intervention"? The latter kind of argument would give evidence for common descent, but not for the absence of design, without highly questionable theological/philosophical assumptions, and StephenB (152--or jerry; see 171) would be perfectly fair in calling them philosophical and theological arguments. The former would be much more direct evidence for the absence of design. I doubt that they are common, but would be open to being proved wrong in that assumption.Paul Giem
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
04:41 PM
4
04
41
PM
PDT
Jerry, The phenomenon you are describing, namely the necessary act of beginning with an investigation of empirical data, is real enough, but it has more to do with methodologies than foundations. I suppose that you can argue that some philosophical proofs begin with observation, which is a reasonable objection, but I don’t think that it is decisive. Priority in time is not synonymous with priority in importance. The rules of right reason can exist without science, but science cannot exist without the rules of right reason. Logic precedes investigation in importance. In any case, I will give you the last word, because I am more interested in dealing the TE errors than extending an intramural disagreement.StephenB
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
03:51 PM
3
03
51
PM
PDT
Ted Davis, you wrote about my comment: “Unfortunately, all of TEs objections are philosophical and theological in nature. These kinds of objections cannot be refuted by empirical evidence, because they are not empirical in their formulations.” the following “I’m really puzzled by this–I’m not saying this as a polite way of expressing skepticism about its sincerity, which I accept. I’m really puzzled. I’ve read many books & articles by advocates of various forms of TE, in which scientific arguments for evolution are reviewed or even advanced.” Ted, first of all thank you very much for your participation. I hope those who run this site let you post threads here in the future where you can control and frame the content to your desire and we can react. And you could invite your students to participate. Having people like you and Stephen Matheson come here and post your comments can only be helpful. Now to your comments. In the various times that someone who is a TE or claims to be a TE comes here and expresses their opinion, I have yet to see anyone of them defend the empirical basis for their position. That does not mean there aren't several but David Opderbeck, George Murphy and Richard Blinne all came here and only wanted to discuss theology and not science. Not that theology is not relevant but it is not what most of us are interested in and our theologies could be quite different from each other. So any discussion of theology here has to be limited or else it will be food fight. George Murphy made the same comment yesterday on ASA about our hypocrisy in not debating theology. He should have a running exchange with Bill Dembski who is trained in both theology and science as George Murphy is and not us. I am certainly not going to debate an ordained minister on theology. It would be a joke. Peter Falk was here briefly and I have read his book but his only suggestion before he left was to read Sean Carroll's book. I then read Sean Carroll's book and it could have been a book supporting ID for what I could get out of it. Nowhere did it support gradualism or any other mechanism for macro evolution. I read the ASA comments frequently and have yet to see any rigorous debate about the science behind evolution. I have started reading Keith Miller's book and like it so far (first 120 pages) but so far it could be an ID book as well as a TE book. Which I find interesting. I know Keith Miller's chapter is to come and will react to that after reading it. Common descent is completely consistent with ID. The only quarrel is over the mechanism for change since ID supporters do not see gradualism able to generate macro evolution. So given common descent, what is the mechanism for macro evolution. Common descent is a conclusion from the data and in no way points to any mechanism for change. Bye, and as the song goes in Oliver, "Be Back Soon."jerry
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
03:51 PM
3
03
51
PM
PDT
Ted Davis (#160): Thanks for another thoughtful posting. I’m sorry that personal matters will keep you away for a while. Regarding the Dover Trial, I was not denying the judge’s competence as a lawyer and judge. In fact, I thought he conducted the trial portion very fairly, giving both sides equal time, being reasonable about procedure, and showing extensive knowledge of the relevant case law. He was also right to grill the lying school board witnesses personally, and his final decision to throw out the Dover policy as religiously motivated was undeniably the correct legal decision. When I said that the judge was incompetent, I was referring to his understanding of philosophy, science and religion. It is clear that his understanding of the theoretical and religious issues was wholly derivative from the events of the trial; his statements in his final decision betrayed a level of knowledge of these subjects that was lower than that of the average interested lay person. It is not surprising, therefore, that in his general remarks about the nature of science, the relations between science and religion, and the epistemological status of intelligent design, he was easily led by the nose by the plaintiffs’ lawyers and witnesses. Beyond this, I heartily applaud everything you said about the Dover Trial. The defense was conducted poorly. Not that there was any hope of acquitting the plaintiffs, who clearly had religious motives, but with regard to distinguishing ID from YEC and with regard to the scientific status of ID, the defense could have done much better. They failed on so many counts it is hard to keep track. In general, I agree with your analysis. Your points about the connection between YEC and ID are worth pondering. It is definitely true that YEC support has given ID more political traction than it would otherwise have had. It’s also the case that the connection between the two movements has given the foes of ID a larger target area. I say this not to be critical of YEC people, but simply as a point of political analysis: many Americans dislike YEC and therefore can easily be led to dislike ID for its association with YEC. This is why foes of ID throw around the word “creationist” so liberally, even though they know that many ID supporters would strongly deny that they are “creationists” in the intended sense. The political difficulty is that it is hard to see how YEC and ID could do anything other than what they are doing. They are both opposed to Darwinian orthodoxy, and even for partly overlapping reasons. They are both trying to combat an absurd series of interpretations of the First Amendment which has been politically slanted in the direction of secular humanism and has given Darwinism an absolute power over educational establishments which it should not have. As long as judges, lawyers and atheist pressure groups insist on making ID a political and constitutional issue, when it should be an intellectual and academic issue, the YEC and ID people have little choice but to ally with each other, sharing financial and intellectual resources to combat the common enemy. I certainly wish it were otherwise. I think any science teacher who sees a pedagogical advantage in doing so should be allowed to discuss the main contentions of ID, as a minority scientific viewpoint, provided that no religious proselytization goes on. But the current legal and judicial temperament in the USA is not rational, and will not permit of such local, common-sense decision-making. The culturally left-biased elite and media place no trust in the good will of the vast majority of schoolteachers, and they have no respect for the intelligence and inherent sense of proportion of most students, who are not easily brainwashed when discussion is truly open. They’ve thus created the current atmosphere of bellicose secular humanist litigiousness. Under such circumstances, ID and YEC supporters have had to become political animals, as a means of survival. The litigious Darwinists, the NCSE and so on, have created the very monster—the alliance of YEC and ID -- that they fear. I can hardly feel sorry for the NCSE, and I can hardly be angry at the YECs and ID people for allying. Regarding your hesitations about embracing ID: I’m not asking you to become a card-carrying supporter of ID as a movement. You’re welcome to find some of the cultural context of ID as unpleasing as you like. Obviously it is the same cultural context of ID which Steve Matheson finds distasteful. I can live with that, though I’m wondering why Steve doesn’t find the repulsive cultural context of neo-Darwinism, as exemplified on Pharyngula, Panda’s Thumb, Dawkins’s website, Amazon.com and Wikipedia, even more distasteful. I suggest, however, that you consider the presentation of ID that I’ve offered here, especially in my last three replies to you above, as something closer to the theoretical core of pure ID. I think that the theoretical core of ID is pure science, or at the very least a philosophical analysis very closely allied with scientific investigation, and I also think it’s compatible with at least some formulations of theistic evolution. And finally, for those who care about such things as orthodoxy and heresy, ID’s lack of theoretical fuzziness about the status of design in nature appears to provide a guard against certain theological deviations which are not well fenced out by some forms of theistic evolution.Thomas Cudworth
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
03:12 PM
3
03
12
PM
PDT
Ted Davis, Thanks for joining our conversation. And thanks especially for your letters to the president of ISU regarding Guillermo Gonzalez, mentioned in (104). I can only wish that that activity were more general in the TE community. I also appreciate your comment about the distinction between ID and YEC, and your willingness to say so publicly, which, given the present political climate in science, took some courage. However, you (IMO) display a misunderstanding of the facts when you say,
What needed to happen, IMO, a long time ago, was for people to say, “hey, if we’re going to promote the scientific detection of design, then we need to make sure that everyone realizes we accept the big bang (from which the best design arguments come, IMO), we accept common descent of humans and other organisms, and we accept an earth that’s been around for billions of years before we arrived on the scene.”
The leaders of ID, with the exception of Paul Nelson, have made very clear that they accept the Big Bang as the (overwhelmingly) best explanation of the large structure of the universe, and in fact made use of it in their argumentation. They also accepted an earth that was billions of years old. More to the point, they accepted a fossil record of life that was billions of years old. I know, because I was observing this as a YLEC, and now a YEC (but not [yet?] a YUC). (BTW, be careful how you pigeonhole even here. Some of us YEC's have come to our convictions largely because of scientific, not theological evidence). However, common descent needs a nuance teased out of it. To quote you again (120),
If ID is really open to common descent, as is often claimed (and I think even claimed again in this book), then why do so many ID books make such a point of trying to refute it?
A distinction should be made here. There are at least three groups of hypotheses that should be considered in this regard: A. Humans are directly descended (that is, through parent-child relationships, from a creature ("ape") intermediate between humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas, with no causes of the changes other than natural sources of variation such as point mutations, insertions and deletions, and heritable epigenetic changes, all of which were random, natural selection sorting through these changes, and genetic drift adding more randomness. This, AFAICT, is the orthodox Darwinian view. B. Humans are directly descended from an ape, but with some non-random variations in addition to those mechanisms included in hypothesis A. Perhaps some point mutations were guided by quantum interference or guided cosmic ray interactions, for example, which would not require violations of the "laws of nature", but only of the randomness which is supposed to be a part of quantum variation according to standard theory. Or perhaps an intelligent force interfered with which hominids were eaten by lions or died from malaria, so that we have artificial selection rather than natural selection. Or perhaps both, or some other interference. The point is not the exact mechanism; the point is that there was guidance towards a predetermined goal. C. At some point God, or at least some being with vastly greater intelligence than ours at present, stepped in and created a pair of hominids from whole cloth, or as the Genesis record says, from dust. Hypothesis C is clearly compatible with YEC, with OEC, and even with some other forms of ID. It cannot, however, by any rational definition, be called common descent. Hypothesis A can clearly be called common descent. Where does hypothesis B belong? By one definition, it is common descent; by another one, it is not. As I understand it, Behe currently favors Hyp B. That's partly because he sees continuities in DNA between humans and chimps, for example, that he finds difficult to explain by design, but much easier to explain if they are the remnants of a common ancestry. However, he sees the speed of unassisted evolution as far too slow to reasonably account for the differences between humans and chimps given the standard geologic time scale, so he cannot buy Hyp A. Some others would not be as impressed by the similarities between chimps and humans, and would say that common design accounts for most of them, and degeneration accounts for the rest. Some might be agnostic between Hyp B and Hyp C, or might lean towards Hyp C (or Hyp B). Still others might opt for Hyp C on the basis of Genesis, while acknowledging that the scientific evidence is ambiguous regarding these possibilities. All of these people might agree that Hyp A is inadequate from a scientific standpoint. Believing Hyp A is necessary, but not sufficient, for believing classical Darwinism. Believing that Hyp A is inadequate is sufficient, but not necessary, for belief in ID. The question I would ask is, is belief in Hyp A necessary to be a scientist? If so, is that true for other controversial areas, such as the origin of life or the cause of the Cambrian explosion? Can one do science only under the assumption that one can never in principle find any discernible purpose (outside of human and animal purpose)? If so, is there any purpose? If not, why the persecution (which you have noted and spoken out about)? Is it fair to blame this all on the non-acceptance of common descent, especially when people like Behe explicitly accept common descent, as long as the concept of complete randomness is not smuggled in with it? The animus and deliberate distortions from many adherents to Darwinian evolution, including some TE's, does not seem to be well-explained as a reaction to a 1925 law. This leads me to believe that more is going on here than their account of the controversy would indicate. There are two other misunderstandings that should be cleared up. In (125) you say,
2) If so [if "you believe that God programmed the process of random variation and natural selection to unfold according to a plan], how is this plan intellectually distinguishable from what ID proponents mean by “design”? ID proponents insist (unless I badly miss the mark) that this design (which I would see as the plan in question 1) must be demonstrable scientifically. Russell does not agree, since the sources of variations are, from the scientific point of view, “random” quantum events.
Some ID proponents, such as, if I read him correctly, StephenB, would say that for theological reasons involving, among other things, Psalm 19 and Romans 1, design must be demonstrated scientifically. Indeed, if the theological point is valid, Divine design must be reasonably demonstrated. But many in ID would not go that far. But many of us, myself included, would much prefer to say that it is theoretically possible to detect design in some cases, and that there are in fact some cases where design has in fact reasonably been detected. My own personal favorite is the origin of life. Attributing to us the belief that "design . . . must be detected" seems to us to "badly miss the mark". We believe that in fact it has been detected, rather than that for some deeply held philosophical reason it has to be detected. To be completely fair to StephenB, his reasoning might be simply that if one accepts the Bible as authoritative, the implications of Psalm 19 and Romans 1 require that Divine design be the most reasonable explanation for the data, and rather than stating that design must be detectable, he may simply be saying that if one is a reasonably traditional Christian, one must believe that design must be detectable. I will leave it to him to clarify this point. Of course, once design has been detected, one then must deal with the philosophical consequences. Some of those consequences seem to be damaging to science conceived as studying a system closed to outside (supernatural) activity. But the problem with that system, at least IMO, is more empirical than theoretical. In addition, you say, (131)
My own view is intermediate to this, and so is that of Polkinghorne and some others. I say that science can help us make some design arguments, but that any inference to purpose in the universe (which is the bottom line for a design inference, IMO) involves more than science. It is not “only by faith,” but “partly by faith” and “partly by reason, informed partly by science.”
I want to point out how very close you are to ID. Official ID theory states that we can detect design, but not necessarily who (or Who) the designer was, or how he/she/it/He did it or for what purpose. To take a theoretical example, if we find obsidian arrowheads on Mars, we can be reasonably certain that they were designed. We will not know who (Martians? Some prankster in NASA? Angels? Demons? God?), or why (to hunt Martians? to prove that design can be detected? to embarrass us?), or even to a certain extent how (by flaking Martian obsidian? by flaking terrestrial obsidian? by pouring molten obsidian into a mold? by creation ex nihilo?). But we can be reasonably certain that they weren't formed by volcanic eruptions or meteorite impacts, unless some intelligence is capable of guiding meteorites very precisely. So most ID people would agree with you that while "science can help us make some design arguments", the extension of those design arguments into "purpose" requires faith; evidence-based faith, perhaps, but faith nevertheless. Are you a closet ID proponent?Paul Giem
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
02:29 PM
2
02
29
PM
PDT
Ted Davis: I think most of us here do accept common descent, at least as the best theory at present about that specific aspect. I have sometimes, like others, expressed some reservations about universal common descent, but not out of any religious conviction (as I have said many times, there is nothing against common descent in my religious views), but just because I believe that, while common descent is at present the best explanation for most of the available evidence, still there are some aspects of the evidence itself which could suggest different explanations, and we should not forget that. In other words, OK for common descent, but with open eyes. I think that we should take into account both common descent and common design as possible explanations of functional homologies, and that we have still much to do to explain on a common descent basis the amazing discontinuities in evolution, especially the "explosions" of the Cambrian kind. I just believe that scientific theories must always be open to critical discussion. No scientific theory is ever truth. Not darwinian evolution, not common descent, not gravity, not ID. They are theories, all of them. Good or bad theories, but theories just the same.gpuccio
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
01:59 PM
1
01
59
PM
PDT
Grabbing a moment, I'll reply briefly to this point by Stephen: "Jerry, unfortunately, all of TEs objections are philosophical and theological in nature. These kinds of objections cannot be refuted by empirical evidence, because they are not empirical in their formulations." I'm really puzzled by this--I'm not saying this as a polite way of expressing scepticism about its sincerity, which I accept. I'm really puzzled. I've read many books & articles by advocates of various forms of TE, in which scientific arguments for evolution are reviewed or even advanced. Perhaps, Stephen, you are not counting these when you say this, since ID is said to be open to common descent, etc. Well, OK, but so many essays and books by ID advocates seem to oppose common descent that IMO when a TE argues for common descent from scientific evidence, in my book that can be seen as an objection to ID that is based on science. If we were to eliminate all of the ID books and articles that do not argue against common ancestry, then indeed I think there might not be many (perhaps not any) objections to ID by TE advocates, based on science rather than philosophy or theology. I'm not sure about that thought, but it seems accurate to me. What is your thought about mine, Stephen? In reviewing quickly the table of contents from Keith Miller's book, Perspectives on an Evolving Creation, (I would say that is mostly a TE book), I see that quite a few of them aren't anti-ID at all: they simply advance views related to an overall TE perspective, without trying to refute or dismiss ID (just as there are many ID works that simply advance ID, without discussing TE). Some do directly reply to scientific aspects of ID, esp the essays by Miller, Terry Gray, and David Campbell. Do these count, relative to your claim? If not, why not? One of the other essays, on evolution and original sin, is even written by a fellow of TDI--my colleague Robin Collins, for whom I have the highest respect. But that's obviously not scientific in thrust, and there's nothing about ID in it.Ted Davis
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
01:31 PM
1
01
31
PM
PDT
Hi StephenB, Kudos and ditto.Charlie
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
12:44 PM
12
12
44
PM
PDT
StephenB, you wrote about my comment: “My understanding of philosophy and theology is that it is always based on empirical data and how to interpret it.” the following "That is not even close to being the case. Maybe the problem has less to do with my reading comprehension and more to do with the fact that you carry around a lot of unwarranted assumptions that you don’t even know that you have." I suggest you give examples where there were fruitful philosophical and theological discussions that did not depend upon their relationship to empirical data. As I said Plato and Aristotle were trying to interpret the empirical data they saw in the world. Each speculated on the meaning of the data but would never wander/wonder off somewhere that didn't have its basis in the real world. Even speculation about God and His intentions and existence is underpinned by empirical data that one is trying to make consistent. Aquinas' Quinque Viae depend upon empirical data for their arguments. If they were not real world based, they would have no purchase. The design argument flows from empirical findings. If it didn't the whole process would be vapid and truly be a joke. I was making the point that the arguments were drifting away from the empirical basis for them and I still believe they were. Some of the discussions did not reflect the empirical data that started the discussions in the first place. It seems that once a discussion gets to a philosophical or theological bent, empirical data often goes out the window. It can never leave because it is the basis for the discussion. It is like, here is what I believe so don't confuse the issue with facts.jerry
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
12:41 PM
12
12
41
PM
PDT
Kairosfocus: gpuccio: T hanks for your usual well-thought out perspectives. This may be a good time for me to slow down and wait a bit before I respond to others’ comments, even when I don’t think they have done justice to mine. None of us come to these discussions totally free of biases and prejudices, myself included. At times, we need role models to show us how to engage in spirited discussions without allowing personal comments to creep in. Both of you exemplify the very best of this kind of internet behavior and when I read your posts I always feel that I should spend less time talking and more time listening. I agree that the artificial division of disciplines is unrealistic, especially since many of them obviously overlap in important ways. Indeed, we spend much of our time refuting arguments from ideologues who err precisely because they try to make unrealistic divisions between disciplines. As is evident from my comments, I place high importance on the subject matter under discussion, the theme of which was framed as an argument, namely, that theistic evolution is inherently incoherent. So, to me, the challenge was to point out the contradictions involved in trying to wed Christianity with Darwinism. It isn’t often that TEs come here to dialogue, so it seemed appropriate to ask some hard questions about their rationale. Sometimes I even apply this standard to those in our own camp who sometimes find reasonableness in the TE arguments. I don’t mind it if I offend someone with what I say, if what I say is true, but I don’t want to make enemies because of the way I say it, even if it is true. It is when the latter occurs that I tend to regret my hasty comments and offer my apologies, and that has happened more than once. I suspect that this would happen far less often if I followed both of your examples and tried to preserve my adversaries’ sense of self esteem with the same vigilance that I preserve my own.StephenB
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
12:39 PM
12
12
39
PM
PDT
If I could just add one other thought (while waiting for both thoughts to emerge from moderation, and also wondering pointlessly what infraction was unwittingly committed to account for my recent demotion to the ignominious realm of the Monitored): Consider the fact that in the most Orthodox of Christianity and Biblical interpretion, God is not incessantly present in our world. He is not in control at this time in anyway remotely the same sense he will be ultimately, otherwise there would be no reason for his prophecied coming. So stated informally, God is not at our disposal to dial up and request and interview - "Please make it clear, Lord, that you did indeed create us, and what that method was, etc. He is perfectly willing to stand off at a far, far distance, and let man argue and speculate and debate and philisophize endlessly about how it all happened. And if we fall silent for a moment in fatigue, and stop and listen, all that can be heard is the profound unending cosmic Silence of the universe. So there is this profound disengagement we perceive of the Godhead in our present world. Things do run along as they will without his active involvement. Would it defy credulity to suppose the creation itself had attributes of this same disengagement? This came off more sacreligious than I had intended, and perhaps reflect adversely on my current spritual state of mind. But it is nevertheless a point of view, and a plausible and coherent one, I think. Let's get even more provocative. If God is not actively involved continually, then who is? Would it be hard to imagine that Satan was the intelligent designer responsible for a lot of what we see in the world (Certainly we can attribute some designs to evil I.D.) So if Satan is the designer, the fact that he is isn't cause to venerate him, and better yet why not just ignore him. So the materialists may have it right, marginalize the contributions of that particular "intellgent designer". Actually, I think the devolving coherence of this particular post may speak to the diminishing and marginal benefits of pure philosophy.JunkyardTornado
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
12:22 PM
12
12
22
PM
PDT
Hi Jerry, picking up the tail end of your discussion here I was about to respond to this:
And the only evidence we have of that is the fossil record. If there were no fossil record there would be no book by Darwin because the concept of a new species would be mute. We only have evidence for new species from the fossil record and not from any other experience.
I was intending to rebut your claim that the fossil record is evidence and the inspiration for the theory of evolution when I decided to look over the rest of your posts. I completely agree with you - the fossil record does not support the gradualistic claims of Darwin, neo-Darwinism, gradualism of any kind, or the addition of God to Darwinism. Stephen B is right about first principles and the philosophy and theology underlying arguments, but I fear he did miss your point - if I am getting your point myself. He says TEs' arguments are philosophical but it looks to me that he misses the point that their philosophical arguments are piggy-backing on the shabby philosophy of darwinism which is not supported in the first place by the evidence. I can understand not wanting to argue, again and again after all these years the inability of the fossil record to evidence Darwinism, or Theistic Darwinism, but the point of the contradiction is well-made and the reminder is necessary. On the other hand, you obviously have some back issues with StephenB and I think that is colouring the exchanges both of you are having. And I saw nothing in Kairofocus' response to you that did not agree with what I took to be your point (prior to your downgrading of philosophy to class C). That Darwinian evolution fails scientifically and empirically is not contradicted by showing that it fails philosophically as well. A little more charity in reading and responding all around would seem in order from my observation.Charlie
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
12:15 PM
12
12
15
PM
PDT
Ted, I have no idea what you are talking about. You life challenges, however bad they may be, have nothing to do with ID. I found absolutely NOTHING redeeming about your post. ID is not taking science too far. If it was then we would not be able to have any faith in a SETI like program, yet there is perfectly good reasons to think SETI would be very successful if ETs used waves to communicate information. I wish you the best in your battle against whatever it may be that you are confronting. However you are never going to do ANYTHING to strengthen others faith if you go around denigrating other's persuit of capital T Truth. And that is what both Christianity and ID share in common and are all about. You also said, "The one exception I would make here is that I don’t believe Judge Jones was incompetent" "Incompetent" here does not refer to Jones' IQ. It refers to his understanding of ID and Evolution, of which he had next to none. This is not an opinion it is an obvious fact that is supported by all of the circumstantial evidence.Frost122585
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
12:11 PM
12
12
11
PM
PDT
kairosfocus: "However, right from the beginning, phil matters lie at the heart of scientific research programmes, indeed, there are almost always key unobservables in major scientific theories: Ever seen energy directly, or an electron? Etc?" Thank you for bringing the attention to that point. This morning I was just thinking of how difficult it is to trace boundaries between philosophy and science, and how instead almost everybody seems so sure to know where they are. Once philosophy and science were one and the same thing. I am not too sure we have gained much with our present, often gross, distinctions. The first point is, IMO, that both philosophy and science deal in essence with the nature of reality. It is important to remark that, when we start on our path towards truth, or if we want to be more humble towards knowledge, we really have no idea of what reality is: if we want to be serious, we cannot start dividing reality in subsets before even having started to understand what it is like: this is scientific reality, that is philosophical reality, that is religious reality, and so on. Reality is, probably, nothing else than what really exists. Our knowledge of reality is a different thing, more a map than the territory, and we should always be aware of that. Science, even in a very modern sense, cannot even be defined without using philosophical categories. On the other hand, philosophy cannot be serious if it does not take into account our present scientific knowledge. Epistemology is an important middle field, whose importance is fundamental for religion, science, philosophy, philosophy of science, and practically any cognitive activity. It is sad to observe how the general culture today takes for granted a concept of science, and of scientific method, which is at best gross, at worst frankly stupid, uncultured and irritating. Science seems to be the new source of popular certainty, the new God of the masses. Practically every day we can see some magazine in the news-stand stating something like: "What does science tell us about that issue?", as though science were the new Sibilla, the new guideline from the Powers that be, the ultimate rockstar or priest. It seems that Polanyi, Kuhn and Feyerabend have never reached the general culture, not even indirectly, and have never got to the titles of newspapers, which are easily populated by the likes of Dawkins. That kind of science has nothing to do with what I regard as science. My science is humble, is made more of uncertainties than of truths, more of sicere desire to understand than of the desire to have already understood, more of a sense of mystery as ultimate connotation of reality, than of the trivial mystery of not having yet understood all the details. Science is the product of human mind, and as such, although it arises from observation and facts, it is utterly populated of human mental creations: forces, energy, particles, fields, charges, and so on. Nothing of that probably exists. They are just maps. But they are good maps, and they have opened our way towards deeper understanding, and we ought to be grateful to the people who drawed those maps. But there are other maps, ugly maps, for which we are not necessarily obliged to feel the same gratitude. Maps filled with false references and unlikely monsters which are intended only to make the path more difficult. Those maps hide and do not reveal, they deny what exists instead of trying to explain it. And, even if they deny purpose, they definitely have purpose, although it is not a good one at all. Those maps are all around us, and are highly praised everywhere. It is to us not to be fooled by them, and to stick to what is cognitively sound. The territory, obviously, is all another matter.gpuccio
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
12:06 PM
12
12
06
PM
PDT
I applaud the many thoughtful posts above, and wish that the circumstances of life (which for me at this time include some serious challenges that I will not discuss on the internet) and the choices I've made (to do as much as I am able to do in the limited time God gives me to help create a new history of science & Christianity) did not prevent me from responding carefully to each and every one of you. This type of interchange is stimulating and helpful--helpful not only to me, I hope, but also to others. There is however only one of me, and only a small part of me can be here. I apologize for disappointing many who will go unanswered. Please do not interpret my silence as meaning that your questions and points are not worth replying to--quite the opposite in most cases. Not all of the threads here are like this, IMO, and the same goes for PT or the ASA list. If you wish to infer anything from the silence that most of you will have to receive, please apply the maxim that silence gives consent--even when it would lead you to the wrong conclusion. In many cases, it would. I am able right now to reply to a single partial paragraph, from Mr Cudworth, as follows: "If I had to retrench, I’d call them philosophical inferences, but strong philosophical inferences, and inferences based on the known facts of science and mathematics. Further, I’d say they were inferences fit not for fools or ignoramuses, but for very competent philosophers, mathematicians, computer programmers, biochemists, astrophysicists, engineers and other intelligent and well-trained people. Finally, I’d say that they are inferences which ought to be discussed openly (not endorsed, but discussed openly) whenever they naturally surface in relation to a the subject at hand, whether in science class or other classes, and which ought not to be forbidden in public institutions by atheist-dominated lobby organizations or by scientifically, historically and philosophically incompetent judges." Amen. We entirely agree here, and I've written to this effect in national magazines. My views on intellectual freedom, the monopolistic nature of public education, and the legitimacy of asking the kinds of questions you are asking are not hard to locate. The one exception I would make here is that I don't believe Judge Jones was incompetent--assuming that he is intended as the target at the end of this passage. He took what was presented to him by the very capable attorneys for the plaintiffs, studied the relevant precedents that were shown him by the plaintiffs (esp through the structure of their case), and connected those dots. I understand why many here are angry about him making a wider rather than a narrower ruling, but frankly the plaintiff's case was not adequately rebutted in his courtroom, and he acted IMO with judicial restraint: existing case law, quite clear in its conclusions, was applied to a new case that was shown by the plaintiffs to be related to those earlier cases. I disagree with some parts of his ruling, but if there was ignorance on his part, IMO it was b/c the defense was unable adequately to rebut, and b/c the facts in Dover (as many here realize) so closely tied ID to YEC, in that time and place, that any positive outcome was simply unlikely. Ms Forrest's testimony has already been discussed here. Let me add this. Suppose we say that Pandas was an ID book from the get-go. If so, then ID smells even more like YEC than I had even realized. I have the edition cited in the Dover case, not the original (though I saw that many years ago), and even there in that version favorable references to the conclusions of the historical sciences are so rare (as I recall, not having the book in my hands) that it's almost impossible to tell where the authors (collectively) are coming from on a very fundamental issue that is central to YEC: the very legitimacy of the historical sciences as means of investigating natural history. The YECs utterly reject their legitimacy. Most IDs I have interacted with do not. Why that is not clear in the book, IMO, can only be understood by the "big tent" approach, which would involve some leading YECs in the project and ensure that the book is (almost) completely unobjectionable to schools that want to advance YEC. The same thing happened when (for example) the book, "The Privileged Planet," which IMO is one of the better popularizations of science on the market, was converted into a DVD. I attended the Smithsonian showing of that film, and it was clear to me during the film and from overhearing comments from YEC advocates afterwards that none of the "old earth/universe" assumptions that are ubiquitous in the book had made it into the DVD. I liked the book so much, partly b/c of the way in which it took so much good science and explained it so clearly to us non-experts, while raising the kinds of larger questions about design that are discussed with so much interest here. None of that made it in, as best I can recall. That had to be a deliberate choice, somewhere, and IMO a regrettable one. It's no accident that you can find (in some cases, used to find) the DVD for sale on creatinist web sites, but not the book. Some Christian booksellers, likewise. My point in saying this is as follows. If the ID program is content to be agnostic about the historical sciences -- the DVD being a nice example, Pandas another -- then it can't object too strongly when it's lumped in with the folks who just reject the historical sciences. Futhermore, the agnosticism means that ID has no alternative theory to compete with "Darwinism," which does have an historical narrative tying together the stars, the earth, and life on the earth. (OK, maybe it's wrong, but it's a grand narrative that will need to be *replaced*, not simply critiqued, if ID wants to replace "darwinism" in the schools.) To be perfectly honest, this is a very big reason why I am not able to identify with ID myself. I agree that ID can make compelling arguments about detecting design (though I've indicated my belief that this goes beyond science while drawing on science), and in at least two cases (cosmological fine tuning and DNA) I also agree with the examples on offer. But, I just can't accept the willing agnosticism about large parts of what I see as very good science. I don't see that changing, and it'd probably be too late for me if it did, anyway. That isn't (as you've gathered) my only major reservation, but that one's fatal in my case. I may be gone for awhile now; I was fully honest about some of those other challenges.Ted Davis
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
11:42 AM
11
11
42
AM
PDT
PS: Ouch on spellcheck . . .kairosfocus
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
11:06 AM
11
11
06
AM
PDT
Jerry: Sorry to have to be insistent, and to repeat what I just said:
SB was pointing out that there are some issues that may arise incidental to a discussion of empirical data but which are then actually logically prior.
SB, in that sense, we do as a matter of personal path begin to ask about phil matters out of our puzzling experience of the world, and so we discover that there is more than mere "experiences" or "facts." Indeed, we encounter thigs that are true based on experience, some thast are true based on definitions, and some that are true as a matter of the self-evidence provided by our experience as conscious, intelligent, moral agents in a real world. When we turn our backs on these last, we end in absurdities. So, it should be plain that I think both sides here have a point. But the undelrying point is that on ID related issues, the experience points tot he reality and credibility of design in some telling circumstances. To rejectt hat EM and TE thinkers often end up imposing a priori grids that block the natural conclusion form say seeing FSCI. They then proceed to impose these rules as demarkacviton lines between science and not-science. Question-beggingly. However, right from the beginning, phil matters lie at the heart of scientific research programmes, indeed, there are almost always key unobservables in major scientific theories: Ever seen energy directly, or an electron? Etc? Gkairosfocus
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
11:04 AM
11
11
04
AM
PDT
KF: You brought up some passages from the Bible, presumably because they demonstrated to you, theologically at least, how TE is an untenable postion. But that you would bring up these passages was highly ironic to me, because I have considered them specifically before, and what they indicate to me is entirely different from what they indicate to you. Psalm 139... 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful,I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. OK the passage seems to imply that God personally fashioned you in the womb. But we know that the process that actually accomplished this was completely automated, mechanical, unsentient, unaware and "unintelligent". And yet God chose to characterize this purely mechanical process of epigeneisis as if it were him personally that was acting. Is this not redolent of the postion of TE, which would say that God acted through another blind process extant in the physical universe with the ultimate outcome being mankind. You completely neglected commenting on the most provocative aspect of the above passage - "My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth". David is describing some sort of physical process taking place the center of the earth that ultimately resulted in Mankind! Is that not what it says? Furthermore, God's role in that particular process is characterized in the passage as passive. David says in the passive voice that he was woven together in the center of the earth, not that God personally did it, but that God merely looked on. So to me, this passage bespeaks very strongly of God acting indirectly through mechanical physical processes extant in the physical universe in order to create the world. (Note: I recall reading briefly in a commentary speculation to the effect that the "center of the earth" was no more than a poetic metaphor for the womb. However, if you really respect the Bible as being divinely inspired you start to see these supposed metaphors as having great significance. Consider the prophetic elements of David's Psalms when he inavertently and completely unaware, prophecies specific details of the suffering of Christ, even though David was in actuality talking about his own personal predicament. Your other passages: Psalm 19: 1 The heavens declare the glory of God;the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. 3 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Does not ID essentially consider the universe as Junk DNA? Wasn't that was the whole point of calculations concerning probabilistic resources in the universe, to say that no physical process out there has any relevance to the origin of human beings. And yet here, the Psalmist is characterizing the heavens as highly intelligent, and capable of "speech", in some sense and displaying knowledge. Once again, doesn't TE say that God acts passively through phyisical mechanisms extant in the universe. Regarding Romans 1, TE would not deny that God has invisible qualities that are manifested in what exists in the universe. After all, they are not athiests. Even the Romans 1 passage you quoted describes the creation in a passive voice, i,e, " what has been made" 18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Once again, the heavens themselves are potrayed in scripture as equally marvelous as mankind. In what sense are they thus, and to what end? What have the heavens accomplished that would justify the laudatory praise of them in Psalm 19 above? The latter part of Romans 1, reagarding glorifying birds and animals: The passage did already say that such things are a direct reflection of God's glory, so in actuality, its a rather subtle transition that is not at all easy to articulate, wherein someone starts literally worshipping phyiscal things as if they were deities. Several days ago ba77 quoted a long poem that was rhapsodizing about sunsets and how the majesty of God was reflected in them. But consider the prevalence of sun (and moon) worship in the ancient world. Consider how Job in the Bible in attempting to exonerate himself said (paraphrased - look up "moon" in Job): "If I have beheld the rising moon so that my heart was enticed, and I lifted my hands in recognition, that would be a thing to be accursed." But here you had BornAgain77 going on and on about how great the Sun was. So the point is, that the transition to idolatry (while I'm not denying it) is rather subtle. I'm not sure that a philosphical conviction regarding the importance of physical mechanisms as intermediaries in the creative proces is a clear example of idolatry. It seems to me that people idolize man when they assert that creating a 747 is essentially a supernatural act and directly comparable to how God himself functions. And briefly, regarding an unrelated comment you made previous to the above: (KF:) "...beneficial body plan mutations expressed early in development) apparently don’t occur. Your link fails, and - 25 years after McDonald wrote - I do not easily see a relevant list of [a] observed AND [b] beneficial, [c] embryologically early, [d] body-plan transforming mutations in your blog, or for that matter elsewhere. [The sort of body-plan level change that would transform the embryo of a cow into that of a whale or the like. That is, you need to show OBSERVED cases of such embryological transformation, all at once or with known to be viable intermediates.]" Since you allow for changes happening "all at once" as sufficing, then what about the Cambrian Explosion? (Just and observation.) ---------- I started to post the following several days ago, and then decided not to for reasons that may be subsequently apparent. I'm just adding it here, not as a response specifically to anything that you, KF, said. Parts of the last paragraph may be seriously in error, so hopefully that should be an adequate enough disclaimer. Thomas Cudworth wrote God is helpless before chance; there can be no providence. This is not my personal doctrine of God. It is the theological absurdity that follows logically if the Christian insists on strict Darwinism... A Christian evolutionist must say, straightforwardly and without weaseling, that Darwin is at least partly wrong about the mechanism of evolution. Chance and natural selection, even if they were sufficient to explain the biological phenomena (which they aren’t, as has been shown ad infinitum by Denton, Behe, Dembski, Wells, Meyer, Berlinski, Sewell, etc.) would be unacceptable theologically to any orthodox Christian. It's kind of late, and I haven't really carefully studied your entire post, but I've seen variations on the above argument floating around for the last few days. There's something you're missing about the sovereignty of God, that if you are a Christian, I would say was inexcusable, except for the fact that the huge majority of Christians do miss it, for whatever reason. Most Christians are absolutely committed to something that they term "free-will" that is not actually developed anywhere in the Bible as a doctrine. On the contrary, God in the Bible is portrayed as being absolutely sovereign over the outcome of all events. The ultimate example of this is the death of Christ which would be perceived by man as the ultimate evil, but God in fact planned it all along, and turned it into the ultimate good (for starters in the Resurrection). But whatever the vagueries and seemingly meaningless twists and turns of the affairs of men, God is always behind the scenes with an ultimate outcome in mind, and something completely unexpected, they no one in creation would have ever anticipated. "The lot is cast but its every outcome is from the Lord". This verse is one of many portraying God as the supreme master, even over apparent randomness. Ultimately God is in control of everything. So if God is in control in the seeming randomness of the affairs of men, why not in nature as well. I tend to see the physical universe, the created order, as being directly tied somehow to the rebellion of Satan (And actually I very well could be mistaken here, but its a framework I've been viewing things in, and its hard to get away from). But anyway, suppose that the rebellion of Satan was a catalyst for a mass unleashing of chaotic energy we call the physical universe, where that chaotic energy was tapping into the Godhead in a random fashion. I tend to see nature as 50% randomness and 50% diety. But anyway, the unfolding of the physical universe is a drama that has been watched with great interest, both by the powers of darkness (Satan and his Angels) and the powers of light, with both sides having a keen interest in the outcome. But then out of this chaotic phantasmagora we call the physical universe occasionally emerge things that are a direct reflection of the eternal beauty of the Godhead, for example Man. I would guess it defies comprehension even to the powers of darkness how such an event could have possibly happened, but it did happen, and ultimately God knew all along it would happen. This last paragraph may actually be heresy, I don't really know. It could probably be stated more artfully as well, and perhaps someone already has. Just to close the loop here, in regards to the ultimate outcome: Even rebellion, chaos, and the powers of darkness serve a purpose in God's ultimate plan, but after the powers of darkness have served their purpose, they will be judged, and consigned to eternal torment, along with the powers of evil that exist on earth, and then only good will be left, for all eternity. And please no one ask me to debate this. ---------------JunkyardTornado
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
11:02 AM
11
11
02
AM
PDT
Jerry, you assume a great many things and then become offended when someone challenges one of those assumptions. You wrote: "My understanding of philosophy and theology is that it is always based on empirical data and how to interpret it." That is not even close to being the case. Maybe the problem has less to do with my reading comprehension and more to do with the fact that you carry around a lot of unwarranted assumptions that you don't even know that you have.StephenB
July 1, 2008
July
07
Jul
1
01
2008
10:44 AM
10
10
44
AM
PDT
1 2 3 7

Leave a Reply