But I have some question about the last paragraph of your post, Ted. You
wrote:
"(3) NEVERTHELESS, having said all this in Mr. Johnson's defense, I will now
come down strongly with George Murphy and point out that we dare not expect
the ID movement to aid the cause of Christ. The objections to evolution
being raised by IDers are increasingly sophisticated and may in fact prove
convincing to some of their opponents (though I realize the limits of
cross-paradigm conversations, thanks to Dr. Kuhn). Perhaps they may even
tilt the landscape enough to unlock conversations about science at research
universities (a worthy goal, IMO, though I don't think it will succeed).
But I do not see here--and I'm not surprised, for reasons already given--an
open door for the gospel to flourish. As Dr. Murphy rightly stresses, the
theology of the cross is not a theology of glory. And it is only the cross
that saves, and sacrificial love is the main evidence of its efficacy.
Galileo quoted Cardinal Baronio's maxim that the holy ghost tells how to go
to heaven, not how the heaven goes; I would revise this for our use in this
context (call it Murphy's axiom?): the starry crosses may tell the glory of
God, but a wooden cross is what we should glorify."
Don't we all hold that there are two books that reveal God--the Book of
Nature and the Word of God? Is not reading the Book of Nature (i.e., doing
scientific work) in and of itself, and finding in it a revelation of God, a
legitimate enterprise without necessarily reading the second book. Must
every scientific endeavorer glorify the wooden cross? My hunch is that
George Murphy's criticism of ID is that is in danger of glorifying the starry
crosses rather than the wooden cross, and thus become idolatrous. While this
is a danger, I do not see it as an actuality, do you? Doing no more than
advocating Intelligent Design in nature is enough to be perceived as a hidden
advocacy of the Christian view of nature.
Best regards,
Bob