Wendee Holtcamp wrote:
> (2) I do not believe God wants to be discovered via scientific means.
> I may be wrong, but it seems that if it were so, there would be no
> room for faith, which is what the entirety of Scripture's teachings
> are based upon. This is why I believe - from what I understand of it
> thus far - ID theory will prove wrong. But then again, you never know.
> I do know that unless science takes a major leap in anoither
> direction, the mass of evidence points to evolution via natural
> selection. Maybe there is some middle ground between ID and evolution.
> ??
First, the conflict is not between ID and evolution (a common caricature),
but between (1) ID and naturalism. Among those opposed to naturalism there
is a subordinate dispute: (2) between those who believe that intelligent
design is detectable, and those who do not. The fact that some ID
proponents believe in the formation of all life-forms from a given initial
life form via evolution by natural causes demonstrates that ID per se is
not opposed to evolution per se. Second, faith is not incompatible with
evidence. Belief in the absence of any evidence is not faith, it is an
irrational fideism. Even Kierkegaard did not advocate pure fideism (cf. C.
Stephen Evans's latest book). If faith were incompatible with evidence,
then Christ did not leave any room for faith in Him, for He provided
evidence that He was the Christ by (among other things) His signs and
wonders. Furthermore, there is no fine line between 'scientific evidence'
and evidence per se. Moreover, one cannot say that evidence X is not
scientific *just because the majority of scientists reject it*. (The
majority of people rejected Christ's evidence as well.) If evidence of any
kind has theological implications, it can always be rejected (as shown by
the Quine-Duhem thesis), not matter how clear it is. My point is that if
you claim that the reason that God does not want to be discovered by
scientific evidence is that He wants to leave room for faith, then to be
consistent you must say that He does not want to be discovered by *any
evidence*, for the same reason. But apparently you think God doesn't mind
being discovered by myriad forms of evidence. You write:
>I believe in Jesus Christ because the evidence I have seen - in myriad
>forms - points to the absolute Truth in the Bible, in Jesus teachings,
>and in the power of the Holy Spirit! I believe in Jesus because
>evidence points to it being true.
For some apparently ad hoc reason, in your view, scientific evidence is
not one of those myriad forms of evidence by which God wants to be
discovered. Therefore, 'God wants to leave room for faith' is not a good
reason for your belief that ID is wrong. You seem to think that if
intelligent design were detected in biology, that would leave no room for
faith. But that presumes that the intelligent designer must be interpreted
as the God of the Bible. If intelligent design were detected in biology,
the identity of the designer(s) would be far from determined. There would
still be plenty of room for skepticism concerning the existence of the God
of the Bible, and hence, given your claim above, there would still be
plenty of room for faith.
>Why do you think the data doesn't support the theory? I see masses of
>evidence, and don't see a problem.
Well, it is not surprising that you don't see a problem if you don't even
know what "teleology" and "specified complexity" are. You obviously
haven't read the other side of the story.
>Bryan,
>Thanks for your comments on my questions. How exactly do ID proponents
define "Specified Complex Information"? Sure >genes contain
>"information" and that info is complex. But ID must have a specific
definition for SCI.
Read Bill Dembski's "The Design Inference" (Cambridge University Press,
1998). I understand your desire to simplify (I do that with my students as
well), but it is also very easy (and very common) to oversimplify, so I
recommend reading the original sources.
best,
- Bryan
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