At 11:04 AM 1/13/98 PST, TdL wrote:
>Dear Jan,
>
>You have, IMO, a totally flawed understanding of the ID movement. To
>accuse them of a God of the Gaps (GOG) Theology (as others have done in
>this list in the last few weeks) is simply to misunderstanding that you
>have taken to the nth degree. I'm sure that you'd agree that we all run
>a high risk of ridicule when we attack or criticize that which we don't
>know very well. So, I highly recommend to you that you read the latest
>issue of Origins & Design, specially de article by Dr. Platinga, that
>you may have a better understanding of what IDT is, what GOG is, and
>where it came from, and other nice things.
I read the excerpts from Plantinga's article on their web site, and also
his similar article in PSCF recently. Plantinga's discussion of GOG in
both places is something I would endorse. But TdL misses the point of
what many of us have been saying. Many ID people (Nelson, for example)
do not make these theological mistakes. But the *effect* of that
movement on the church, especially as spread by its most prominent
popularizer, has been a perpetuation of GOG theology. It is this
(perhaps unintended) effect that is the major concern of many of us. It
would be nice if the defenders of ID actually responded to these concerns
about the health of the church rather than just accusing us of
misunderstanding.
It is likely that there are aspects of ID theory I don't understand. But
I understood my pastor last summer when he effectively told the
congregation that Christianity was OK after all because Phil Johnson and
Mike Behe were disproving evolution (implying that if Johnson and Behe
were wrong, so was Christianity). This idea that "natural" explanations
exclude God is GOG by Plantinga's or any other definition. If the ID
people are really pursuing science and not gap-based apologetics, they
need to work to correct the unhealthy distortion of their work that is
epidemic in the church. Instead of correcting it, however, their most
prominent popularizer seems to revel in it.
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| Dr. Allan H. Harvey | aharvey@boulder.nist.gov |
| Physical and Chemical Properties Division | "Don't blame the |
| National Institute of Standards & Technology | government for what I |
| 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80303 | say, or vice versa." |
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