Re: Scientific theory

At 09:24 AM 08/12/2004 -0800, Don Winterstein wrote among other things
(replying to Rich Faussette )
>
>The proposed mechanisms of evolution are far more open to challenge on
>religious grounds than the facts of evolution. First of all, since we're
>talking science, any proposed mechanism must exclude God as a direct
>cause, because science as we practice it deals only with physical
>causes. For a religious person, this stipulation may be too
>restrictive. ID scientists, for example, imply we should not honor
>it. The reality, however, is that we know of physical mechanisms related
>to DNA, mutation, natural selection, etc., that can produce observed
>life-form changes in principle. No one can prove that any observed change
>in life form in nature owes exclusively to such material mechanisms. At
>the same time there is no widely accepted scientific alternative.

As a believing Christian I cannot exclude God anywhere. Evolution is the
work of God as well, not of "only physical causes". God is ruling
everything, physical "causes" as well. "Material mechanisms" are creations
of God too, and we should not be willing to leave God out of anything
happening, even if we call evolution a "Divine intervention", though I
cannot see why we should call anything God's divine intervention, except
of course Jesus' death for our sins.
Nothing happens for us outside God's creation, as we know it. If God has
another universe, we only know about what God tells us in the Bible and in
His creation.

Jan

>Hence evolution is a very respectable scientific theory: It accounts
>elegantly by means of known physical mechanisms for a huge body of facts,
>and it suggests many avenues for further investigation. As with all
>scientific theories, it may not constitute the final word on the subject,
>nor can it be said to have been "proven."
>
>For religious persons such as I who believe that the created world was not
>competent enough to go from beginning to end without outside help, the
>theory of evolution does not preclude my postulating divine interventions
>from time to time, provided I don't claim that such postulations are
>scientific.
>
>Don
Received on Wed Dec 8 16:13:41 2004