On Tue, 06 Jun 1995 18:07:22 +0930 you wrote:
>
>There seem to be six positions that could be held which would lie
>in the progressive creationism - theistic evolution spectrum:
>
>4. Creation occured through evolution and there is nothing surprising
>about its success - we would expect evolution to produce something
>like what we see. Nevertheless, creation occurred at God's hand
>and evolution was the tool. However, the fact that evolution got
>started in the first place is surprising.
>
>Deistic Evolution?
>
>Doesn't deism suggest a God who has no further interaction with
>creation after the creation event itself? View 4 is compatible with
>a concept of a God who is concerned with the world today, just that
>he chooses to work within "natural law" to bring about his purposes.
>Could view 4 then be described as deism?
On the description you gave it seemed so. Otherwise it could be a form
of theistic evolution.
>5. As with 4. except the fact that evolution got started is not
>surprising either. What is surprising is that the laws of the
>universe and physical constants are just right for giving conditions
>conducive for the commencement of a successful evolutionary process.
>
>Naturalistic Evolution
>
>No. View 5 needs an answer for why "the laws of the universe and physical
>constants are just right for giving conditions conducive for the commencement
>of a successful evolutionary process." Doesn't NE say that it "just is"
>and that there is no reason why we should consider our universe "surprising"?
I don't know that NE's are not surprised at conditions being just
right for life. Dawkins in the Blind Watchmaker seems to feel wonder
at the living world.
>6. As with 5. except that the fact that "the laws of the universe
>gave rise to a successful evolutionary process" is not really
>surprising. Nevertheless, creation occurred at God's hand.
>
>Deistic Evolution?
>
>Again, one could believe in a God interested in the affairs of the universe,
>but choosing to work in a way which is not easily distinguishable from a
>Godless universe.
Yes.
>I don't know whether my labelling is correct. To my mind they can be
>represented on a decision tree:
>
> NO <- GOD? -> YES
> | |
> NAT. E. DIRECT? -> YES -> SHORT? -> YES -> FIAT C.
> | |
> NO NO
> | |
> THEISTIC E. PROG. C.
>
>It may be this is too simplistic (like all models). Direct means
>supernatural.
>
>All my models had God in them, but in the earlier models, God played
>more of a neccessary role in the _description_ of creation.
OK.
>Look at God's role in each of the models:
>
>1,2: God instantaneously created at discrete time points
>3: God intervened in the evolutionary process to make it more successful than
> it should have been.
>4: God set an evolutionary process going that by natural means, would never have
> got going.
>5: God created a universe which would allow a successful evolutionary process to
> arise. Without a God, such a universe would never arise.
>6: It is not neccessary to fit God into our scientific model of origins, but we
> choose, presuably for other reasons, to believe in God anyway.
>
>In any of the views from 1-4, God plays a definite (but gradually diminishing as the
>list goes on) scientific role in the description of our origins. If one of these
>views is correct, science should, eventually (theoretically at least) be able to
>discover that a postulate of God is neccessary for their theory. For example,
>if 3 is correct, it should be possible eventually to model the evolutionary
>process accurately enough to determine that the path evolution took was pretty
>flukey making the notion of a guiding-God fairly reasonable.
I doubt that a science based on a materialist-naturalist philosophy
would ever discover that God was necessary. They could always
postulate an unknown natural process that they might one day discover.
Or they could embrace Panspermia which would put the question of
origins back to where they would be permanently undiscoverable.
>Do people believe that at some point, God _must_ fit into our model for the
>scientific description of our universe. That is, is God neccessary to fill in
>a gap in our scientific description of the universe?
I believe so, but only at the major discontinuities:
"Criticisms of the Model
Objection 1. The theistic science model utilizes an epistemically
inappropriate "God-of-the-gaps" strategy in which God only acts when
there are gaps in nature; one appeals to God merely to fill gaps in
our scientific knowledge of naturalistic mechanisms. These gaps are
used in apologetic, natural-theology arguments to support Christian
theism. Scientific progress is making these gaps increasingly rare,
and thus this strategy is not a good one.
Reply. First, the model does not limit God's causal activity to gaps.
God is constantly active in sustaining and governing the universe.
Nature is not autonomous...
Second, the model does not appeal to or attempt to explain in light of
God and his activities to cover our ignorance, but only when good
theological or philosophical reasons are present, such as when certain
theological or philosophical reasons would cause us to expect a
discontinuity in nature where God acted via primary causation (e.g.,
the origin of the universe, first life, basic "kinds" of life).
Third, even if the gaps in naturalistic scientific explanations are
getting smaller, this does not prove that there are no gaps at all.
It begs the question to argue that just because most alleged gaps turn
out to be explainable in naturalistic terms without gaps at that level
of explanation, all alleged gaps will turn out this way. After all,
it is to be expected that gaps will be few..."
(Moreland J.P., "Theistic Science & Methodological Naturalism",
in Moreland J.P. ed., "The Creation Hypothesis", 1994, Inter
Varsity Press, Illinois, p59)
>The alternative (theistic) view is that the "acts of God" in our universe (including
>creation, sustaining etc) may all be described at a "low level" by scientific
>theory without resorting to a concept of God, but that "higher level" things in our
>universe _do_ require God - eg answered prayer etc.
Even "answered prayer" could be explained away as coincidence. The
real issue is two major metaphysical views of reality: Hebrew Creation
or Greek Evolution. Where one starts is where one finishes. See my
previous post quoting Carl Henry.
>What do people think about these ideas?
Thanks Mark.
Stephen