Temporarily labeling myself as a TE (though I'm not wholly comfortable
with that), we raise the issue for the following reason:
It may be that, if you held a gun to the head of the leaders in the ID
movement and forced them to say, they would affirm that God gets the
credit for "natural" things. I say "may be" because I tried that
(without the gun) with Phil Johnson and Paul Nelson and got nowhere.
But if they really believe that "natural" processes are valid acts of
God, then they are being inconsistent when they defend their concepts of
ID as though the truth of theism were at stake. You cannot escape the
fact that, pervasive throughout the ID movement (especially in the
writing of Phil Johnson; Hugh Ross also seems to take this position) is
the underlying presumption that "natural" evolution is incompatible with
theism. Even to the extent it may not be there in all of the work, that
is the message that is heard by the time it gets to the people in the pews.
To the extent Phil Johnson (to pick an example) is asking for theistic
explanations to have a place at the table, fine. But he revels in the
image that he is the guy showing that theism isn't false after all
because biological evolution isn't true after all. Others in the
movement are not as blatant, but the overall attitude is still there.
It's more than just "expecting/hoping" God to work in some non-natural
ways (I wouldn't terribly mind that); it is the attitude that God *had
better have* acted in these ways (and that we'd better be able to find
that scientifically) or else theism is not tenable.
This linkage between ID and the viability of theism is an implicit
acceptance of the proposition that God must do some non-"natural" work in
order to have worked at all. If PJ or others in the movement really
believe that, then Lawrence Johnston's "all Christians" statement above
is incorrect. If instead they really do believe that "natural" processes
"count" as works of God, then we need to point out how grossly
inconsistent that belief is with the entire apologetic thrust of their
movement.
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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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