Stephen quoted me
>BH>1. I believe one of the most compelling reasons for creationist
>>opposition to evolution is a concern that children will interpret it
>>to mean that God is at best unnecessary and at worst nonexistent.
>
>Not just "children". Creationists are equally concerned that as the
>evolutionary paradigm takes hold it becomes much more difficult to
>evangelise adults.
My experience has been that adults who will not listen to young-earth
creationist arguments _will_ listen to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Sometimes you have to assure them that you don't have to accept a
6000-year-old earth to be a Christian, but once that assurance is
made, they are willing to listen. I doubt that there would be much
resistance to PC views, since they are able to accomodate the scientific
evidence. But what Walter ReMine says of evolution is also true of PC: it
_accomodates_ (as opposed to _explains_) the scientific evidence.
>
>BH>2. Re Terry's remark about "Phil Johnson's view that if God's
>>activity is not evident then he is a superfluous add-on to our
>>thinking". An implication of this view, IMO, is that however God
>>goes about performing His oversight of nature, man can detect it.
>
>There is here the usual TE blurring of Creation and Providence. :-)
Here is the usual creationist assertion which implies that the
demarcation between creation and providence must be drawn in a particular way.
Perhaps it must, but I doubt that we know, with our current imperfect human
knowledge, how it must be drawn. (Actually, we know it's a fractal
:-)) You want to attribute life itself, or certain features of it, to
creation, because naturalistic explanations to date are inadequate. But what
naturalistic explanations can deal with changes as knowledge
progresses. If you attribute life itself to creation, the very real advances in
understanding some aspects of the biochemical basis of life create the
risk that some people will make an unwarranted extrapolation from those
advances to life itself and conclude that there is no reason for God. If you
fix on some aspects of life, you run the very real risk that those aspects
will be understood. And an individual who has based his faith on those
aspects has a problem.
>There is no dispute that in His regular "oversight" of the world, God
>acts largely through secondary causes, and therefore in general a
>naturalistic explanation is adequate.
>That eukaryotic cells with
>mitochondria and chloroplast organelles reproduce "after their kind",
>and this can be describes naturalistically, is not in dispute. What
>is in dispute is the *origin* of those eukaryotic organelles. The
>naturalistic and theistic evolutionists would argue that because the
>*operations* of such biosystems can be described fully
>naturalistically, therefore the *origins* of the same biosystems can
>also be described fully naturalistically.
That looks like a nonsequiter to me. And we have seen numerous
quotations in this reflector from evolutionary theorists who consider the origin
of life a puzzle. The postulated origin of organelles in eukaryotes --
originally separate organisms -- may be a reasonable assumption from a
biological point of view. If it is, biologists should consider it and
work out its implications. Someday it may be rejected, or may become
pretty firmly established. I don't see that the outcome of that particular
issue has any serious implications for the _fact_ of creation. From a
Christian point of view it's an argument about the means God used to develop one
particular aspect of His creation, not about whether He
created/creates in the first place.
>
>OTOH creationists (both Fiat and Progressive) would question that
>assumption. They would argue on the analogy of Genesis 1 (eg. Gn
>1:11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation..." ), that it is
>possible (if not probable) that the origin of higher taxa such as
>eukaryotes, cannot be described fully naturalistically, and required
>the creative intervention of God.
As I've mentioned before, one possible interpretation of "Let the land
produce vegetation..." is that it is actually a command to nature to
produce something God has equipped it to produce. Then the creative
acts are in endowing nature with the ability to carry out God's commands
and in issuing the command to make a particular (divinely) designed object.
>
>It is indeed possible that God has created the living world in such a
>way that man cannot detect it, but this would mean that it is
>indistinguishable from naturalistic evolution. This seems at odds
>with the general expectation that God's works in nature should resist
>a naturalistic interpretations of origin (see ReMine W.J., "The Biotic
>Message", 1993, p20),
One of the weak points IMO of Walter's book, is that he doesn't
clearly establish _why_ anyone other than a theist should have that
expectation.
>in order that man is "without excuse" (Rom 1:20).
Of course man is without excuse. But I would also draw your attention
to John 6:44: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws
him;..." I grant that some people do become Christians after having
concluded that nature requires a creator. But the Father drew them,
or they would never have sought Him. It's also possible for people to be
drawn to the Father without having given up their current views about
the origin of life. These people may have to rethink their views of
ultimate causation, or may even become PC's, but first they have to come to
Christ.
>
>BH>Isn't that giving men credit for abilities they don't necessarily
>>have? People like Richard Dawkins of course fall into the same
>>error when they claim that since they can find no evidence of God
>>from their investigations, God doesn't exist. Again they're assuming
>>that no matter how God goes about His oversight, if He indeed were
>>doing so, they could detect it. Both views seem to me to be
>>man-centered. God's instructions for how men can know Him include
>>Hebrews 11.
>
>There is a difference between all men being aware that God exists so
>that they are "without excuse" (Rom 1:20) and them knowing that God
>personally (Heb 11).
Agreed. That's exactly the point. "Without faith it is impossible to
please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that
He is a rewarder of those who seek Him". How do origins arguments instill
faith?
>
>If we Christians grant that atheists like Dawkins can indeed "find no
>evidence of God from their investigations", then we would be
>hard-pressed to deny that they would be perfectly justified in
>claiming that "God doesn't exist".
>
What is lacking in Richard Dawkins is not better investigation, or
even better thinking about what he should conclude from his investigations.
Materialistic investigations are not going to tell him unequivocally
whether God exists. What is lacking is the faith Hebrews 11 tells us
about, and that faith is lacking because the Holy Spirit has not (yet
I pray) brought about a realization in Dr. Dawkins that there _is_ a
sovereign God of the universe. What should we do? Some Christians
love to lambaste him. Some try to argue with him, I'm sure. The best we can
do for him is pray for him.
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