Chuck,
Thanks for your comments. I'll pick a few for continuing the conversation.
> I don't criticize the view
> that maybe God does intervene and create supernaturally sometimes ....
> I refrain from criticizing such a view because science itself can't
> rule out the supernatural. Our ignorance of how the first living cell
> arose logically allows for the possibility that it happened in a manner
> that in principle could never be explained by natural science.
Correct. I presume that God is able to act in any way that is consistent
with God's being and will. That's why I do not offer the "fully-gifted
creation" perspective or the "robust formational economy principle" as
theses that can be empirically or logically proved, but as concepts that I
am inclined to hold (with the required tentativeness) for various
theological and evidential reasons, even if some are necessarily
circumstantial.
> So-called *scientific* theories invoking "intelligent design" are flawed
> for the simple reason that science also can't tell us when all possible
> natural explanations have been exhausted. We should readily admit that we
> can't even imagine a plausible natural explanation for some things. To
> assert that no plausible natural explanation could ever exist in such
> cases, however, would be presumptuous. How can we dismiss all natural
> causes when we don't even know what we are dismissing? The lack of a
> plausible natural explanation would constitute evidence for "intelligent
> design" only if we could somehow know that we've imagined, analyzed, and
> eliminated all of the "non-design" alternatives.
Well said. I heartily agree. [I assume here that you, as do I, see ID as a
set of claims that certain structures or forms could not have come to be
formed 'naturally' (that is, by the use of their God-given capabilities) but
must have been assembled (at least the first time) by the form-imposing
action of some unnamed extra-natural agent.]
Howard Van Till
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