In a message dated 1/21/02 5:00:19 PM Mountain Standard Time,
robert.rogland@worldnet.att.net writes:
> But the anthropic principle can be maintained by those like myself who
> believe that God created a universe fit for life and then created the first
> life forms supernaturally.
This position, which I agree is not as incoherent as some here have claimed,
divides anthropic arguments into two categories:
A) Making the universe "fit for life" such as making matter and organic
molecules stable, having the Earth at the proper distance from the Sun, etc.
B) Arguments that make the universe "fit for evolution" such as the Earth
being old enough to give evolution time to happen. This second category does
not make sense if used by anti-evolutionists.
But I think there is a different incoherence in the RTB position. With
regard to the evolution of the universe, the Sun, the Earth, the land and the
oceans, pretty much everything but life, they accept the standard scientific
story that these happened through "natural" processes, and see those natural
processes as the way God works and as in accordance with Christian theology.
Yet, when it comes to explanations via natural processes of the evolution of
life, their position is that God *cannot* have done it that way, and my
impression is that their basic objection in this area is theological
(somebody correct me if I'm wrong). There would seem to be no grounds in
Scripture for allowing natural explanations for most of creation and then
disallowing them for living creatures, since similar language is used for all
God's creative activity (if anything, the language of Genesis 1 is more
suggestive of creation mediated through natural processes for the living
creatures). So what is the justification for these people to say it is
theologically OK for God to use natural processes as his tools to create
stars, etc., but that it is theologically unacceptable for God to have worked
similarly in making living creatures?
Maybe I've misheard RTB and Ross et al. really have no theological objection
to evolution of living creatures -- maybe they would say it is theologically
OK but that they reject it based on scientific evidence. That would at least
not be incoherent, but that isn't the impression I have gotten. Nor is it
the way anti-evolution arguments are received by most people in evangelical
churches.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Allan H. Harvey, Boulder, Colorado | SteamDoc@aol.com
"Any opinions expressed here are mine, and should not be
attributed to my employer, my wife, or my cats"
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