David, thanks for your excellent posts. You get right to the heart of
some important issues.
You wrote:
> Can a statement about undirected evolutionary change be
> complementary to a statement about God's craftsmanship?
> I fully accept that chance events and stochastic processes
> are determined by God, and I can understand that in some senses
> these events can be said to be directed. However, the context
> here is craftsmanship - and stochastic processes are not the best
> way of carrying out any creative activity. Using the analogy of
> human creativity (which seems legitimate, as we are made in God's
> image), we emphasise manual and cognitive skills and recognise
> that a human creator acts with deliberation. I can see
> stochastic direction as "providence" but have not been able to
> make the connection with "creation".
[...]
> (b) even allowing the analogy, the tension between adaptation
> processes and intelligent design remains.
If you focus your attention entirely on the level of individual organisms
or lifeforms, then I accept your objection to using stochastic/adaptive
processes in intelligent design. But if you consider the level of the
entire _system_ of inter-relating, adapting organisms, then I see no
such tension.
If one thinks in terms of a "watchmaker" creator using macroevolution,
then the details of each lifeform's biological features are not
"intelligently designed" in the usual sense of the term. Rather, they are
the products of an intelligently designed system. I think the idea of an
intelligently design system is compatible with the theology of "creation."
Moreover, if we then drop the idea of a "watchmaker" and consider the
biblical, transcendent creator who can exercise providential care via
natural processes, we can again consider each biological detail -- as well
as the entire system -- as intelligently designed (albeit using an
assembly process different than fiat creation).
Let's compare both the Progressive Creation hypothesis and Theistic
Evolution hypothesis from a "design" perspective.
PC: Natural processes (which can be subtly guided) are used for
providential care, but supernatural processes must be used to create
biological novelty. Evolution is used for stabilization and minor
adaptations. New lifeforms and new complex features appear only with
supernatural intervention.
TE: Natural processes (which can be subtly guided) are used for both
providential care and creation of biological novelty. Evolution is used
for stabiizaton and minor adaptations, but under certain circumstances can
also result in the appearance of new lifeforms and new complexity.
Which system shows more/better intelligent design? I wouldn't say. Both
have their appeal. Both could fit the description of "God's
craftsmanship."
(For a more eloquent treatise on how stochastic processes can be an
important element of God's craftsmanship, I strongly recommend a short
book by John Polkinghorne, _Science_and_Providence_)
> From a BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE, two considerations stand out
> in my mind (and I will be brief - there is always scope for
> further discussion if needed!).
> (a) The Scriptures consistently refer to creation as a finished,
> completed act of God. (The TE position MUST eventually blur the
> distinction between creation and providence - but these are not
> blurred in the Scriptures).
(There are many scriptural passages -- mostly in Job, Psalms, and the
poetic sections of the prophets -- which use the same language
side-by-side to describe God's creative acts and God's providential acts.)
Stephen Jones and I had an exchange a few weeks ago about creation
being "finished":
>SJ> Some of God's providential care may involve the miraculous, just as some
>> of God's creative activity involved natural cause. I had prepared a long
>> analogy of an artist who paints a painting, but scrubbed it. I saw a painting
>> as involves two stages: 1. A creative phase in which the conception in
>> the artist's mind is brought into being. This stage involves processes that
>> may be identical to the maintenance phase. The creative phase ends
>> when the artist decides his work is finished, ie. his conception is
>> realised. 2. A maintenance phase when the artist maintains his painting
>> in the original condition. This involves protecting it from harm, cleaning
>> it, and occasionally touching it up. But no new feature is introduced.
>>
>> This analogy may be inadequate, because it is purely on a natural plane.
>> It differs from God's creation in that a human artist cannot truly create
>> ex-nihilo like God. But otherwise it is probably apt.
>>
LH> That is a useful analogy, thanks.
>
> Might I suggest that there are four stages of the artisan's "creative
> phase," which occur semi-chronologically this way:
>
> 1) Conception and planning.
> 2) Procuring basic materials. (_Ex_nihilo_ creation when God does it.)
> 3) Assembly.
> 4) Some amount of using, testing, and maintenance during assembly.
>
> TE argues that God's supernatural actions in the first two stages could
> have been of such a nature that the third stage, assembly, does not
> _require_ explicitely supernatural acts; rather, God's activities of
> "assembly" could be of the same kind as his providential care and
> maintenence (which does not _preclude_ the miraculous).
>
> I still don't see how the concept of creation being "finished" favors PC
> over TE.
Your argument seems to be this: if the present-day biological forms were
created through natural processes, and those natural processes still in
action today, then the act of "creation" isn't finished yet. But please
note that natural processes which (presumably) were used to create the
present-day _physical_ forms (the trans-helium elements, the sun, the
planet, the atmostphere, the oceans) are still in action today.
> (b) The proposed processes of evolutionary change (involving
> mutations and natural selection) invoke features which belong to
> the world subject to "bondage to decay". To associate such
> mechanisms with God's creative activity is to darken his
> character. It is effectively to say that God created a world
> which carries the consequences of Adam's sin - and even
> unbelievers find this thought unpalatable.
Could you be more specific? Which features belong to "bondage to decay"?
Physical death? Pain? Harmful mutations? As they apply to animals?
Humans?
Steven Jones and Bill Hamilton have raised some good points in response to
this. I would simply add that mutations and natural selection are just as
much a part of a PC biological history as they are of TE.
> From a SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE, Phil Johnson has much to say.
> He points out that the evolutionary explanations of origins are
> far from descriptions. His analysis focuses attention on the
> role of naturalism in evolutionary theory.
I agree that many people are motivated to believe in macroevolution
because of a philosophical commitment to Naturalism. HOWEVER, I am also
convinced that it is entirely consistent for a Theistic Realist (to use
Phillip Johnson's term) to decide, from the data, that macroevolution is
probably true. (I defended this in a lengthy treatise (800 lines) back in
February, so I won't re-post it now, but I'll e-mail it to anyone who
wants a copy.)
God bless,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I like maxims that don't |
encourage behavior modification." | Loren Haarsma
--Calvin (_Calvin_and_Hobbes_) | lhaarsma@opal.tufts.edu