<<Got to disagree here, the question of how the first life arose is
separate from the question of whether it evolved after that. There is
nothing inconsistent with saying that God created the first life, but
that it evolved subsequently (with or without further intervention).
Darwin did not say that life had to have arisen by chance; he seems to
have been deliberately vague on the question:
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several
powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into
one; ..."
That is certainly compatible with a supernatural origin of life. Was
Darwin also not a Darwinist in your book?>>
I agree with Jim's first two sentences. The problem with "isms," however, is
that they often develop an orthodoxy far from the founder's intent. Darwinists
like Provine and Dawkins, for example, rule out supernatural origins by way of
evolution. This is not only an abuse of science, it is illogical. Here is a
quote from one of my favorite thinkers, Dr. Dallas Willard, from the book
"Does God Exist?" [emphasis is in original]:
****
The "rebutters" [e.g., Dawkins], with almost no exceptions, quite conveniently
manage to forget that evolution, whether cosmic or biological,
CANNOT--LOGICALLY cannot!--be a theory of ultimate origins of the existence of
order, precisely because its operation presupposes the EXISTENCE of some
specific kind that operates upon those entities in some specifically ordered
fashion. It is characteristic of the thoughtlessness and ignorance which
plagues the discussion of these issues that Darwin's book [Origin] is often
thought, by theists as well as anti-theists, to be an explanation of the
origin of life and of living forms generally, when of course nothing was
farther from Darwin's own mind.... Let us say quite generally then that ANY
SORT OF EVOLUTION OF ORDER OF ANY KIND WILL ALWAYS PRESUPPOSE PRE-EXISTING
ORDER AND PRE-EXISTING ENTITIES GOVERNED BY IT. It follows as a simple matter
of logic that not all order evolved. Given the physical world--however much of
evolution it may or may not contain--there is or was some order IN IT which
did not evolve. However it may have originated (if it originated), THAT order
did not evolve. We come here upon a logically insurppassable LIMIT to what
evolution, however it may be understood, can accomplish.
[Willard then cites Dawkins from Blind Watchmaker, where he talks of the
arrangement of pebbles on a beach. "This arranging was really done by the
blind forces of physics, in this case the action of waves. The waves...just
energetically throw the pebbles around, and big pebbles and small pebbles
respond differently to this treatment so they end up at different levels of
the beach. A small amount of order has come out of disorder, and no mind
planned it. Willard contiues:]
Big Bang mysticism is, I find, usually accompanied by an "order out of chaos"
mysticism. After letting him enjoy a small moment of triumph, we can only say
to this highly qualified scientist: "You gotta be kidding! No mind (directly)
planned it, but nothing whatsoever 'has come out of disorder' in this case."
Such an interaction of the waves and the pebbles is a perfectly orderly
process, even if our comprehension of that order can only be statistically
expressed. Moreover, we know for sure that Dawkins himself knows this. What
afflicts him at this point can be very simply described: He is in the grip of
the romanticism of evolution as a sweeping ontological principle, bearing in
itself the mystical vision of an ultimate Urgrund of chaos and nothingness of
itself, giving birth to the physical universe--which is all very fine as an
aesthetic approach to the cosmos, and vaguely comforting. But it has nothing
at all to do with "evidence of...a universe wihtout design," as the dust
jacket of his book suggests.
[pp. 208-210]
*****
Wonderfully clear thinking.