At 06:18 AM 7/5/00 -0400, you wrote:
>In a message dated 7/4/2000, Bryan Cross wrote:
>
><< I believe the solution is to approach every problem with a genuine search
>for natural explanations, but with the willingness to acknowledge the
>possibility of (direct) divine action. That avoids the error of occasionalism
>(which you describe as
>'God-of-the-Gaps theology eating everything up) on the one hand, and the
>error of
>methodological naturalism on the other hand. >>
>
>It seems to me that this statement sums up the arguments on the thread of
>"Johnson and intelligent design." Is this not a statement on which we can
>all agree?
>
>Bob
If only it was that simple! Methodological naturalism has been (and will
continue to be) so powerful in learning about the properties of the natural
order exactly because it does not give up whenever things aren't
immediately explained. Evolutionary biology (and all natural sciences)
have been so fruitful in generating understanding of nature because they
have always kept looking with the assumption that every phenomenon can be
explained. From what Bob has been arguing, we would give up on the
Trilobite eyes as having been formed by natural evolutionary processes; yet
if we do, scientific inquiry on the matter grinds to a halt. Until we meet
God in eternity and we know fully, as God has known us, NATURAL science
should proceed methodologically with naturalism.
What we can agree on, I hope, is that God in Christ upholds it all, whether
in its natural or supernatural order, by his powerful Word and according to
his purposes.
Doug
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