On Tue, 7 May 1996 DRATZSCH@legacy.calvin.edu wrote:
> > can you, Denis, provide support for that historical claim you've made?
>
> Well, I am not totally sure what you are asking.
>
> Nothing underhanded. You had, I thought, made a historical claim about
> the origins of PC - a claim which I had some vague suspicions of, and
> for which I wanted some further details. My perception was that the view
> (and other species of its genus) had indeed originated with people
> working directly in the sciences.
Great, now I understand. And you are 100% right, PC (though not under
that rubric then) does indeed come from the scientific community, but the
scientfic community of the 19th
century. After Lyell made his contribution (1830-33), accomodation for an
old earth was appearing in science and theology. However, my perception
(and please underline 'perception') is that there has been a discontinuity
between PCs of the late 19th century and those who have emerged in the
last 10 or so years (eg Hugh Ross). I often wonder if the popularity of
Stephen Hawking and Big Bang cosmology was a precusor to this renaissance
of PC. Do you agree that there is a schism emerging in North American
evangelicalism/fundamentalism between YEC and PC? If so, why? Maybe
Hawking's influence?
> Onward:
>
> DL: However, by the turn of this century I don't
> believe there was a major work using this paradigm by a scholar in a
> world-class university.
>
> DR: That might well be true, although by later in the century I think
> that
> that was in part a sociological artifact. One did not say anthing about
> that in one's _works_. But I do know professional university-faculty
> biologists who - although not, so far as I know, having hinted about it
> in print - take a PC approach (although perhaps privately identifying
> themselves as TEs).
So are you suggesting that all the PCs went underground at the turn of
the century? Or how about, there just weren't many PCs in academic
circles?
DL:
> I would be concerned for the skewing of the data, as seen in the Levy
> case. If you come to your science with the notion there MUST be
> interventions in the origin of life, then you are not doing science.
> Don't get me wrong I believe in a God who intervenes (eg miracles). And
> I
> am willing to consider evidence to suggest He did so in the origin of
> life. However, to say I must practise science with the notion that God
> did intervene in origins a la PC approach because the Bible says so is
> not science, but bad hermeneutics.
DR:
> Maybe we're at slightly cross purposes here. A PC-er, as I think of it,
> may begin with simply an openness to the possibility of intervention -
> perhaps on a micro-scale, and perhaps only rarely, and perhaps not even
> directly visible to science - and then only subsequently become
> convinced - or even just come to suspect - that some intervention has
> probably occurred. That need involve no stance that one _must_ find
> interventions, that Scripture dictates interventionism, or anything of
> the sort. But the upshot would be someone who thought that natural
> means were not _wholly_ capable of getting us from there (very
> beginning) to here. That would involve no hermeneutic agenda, no
> apologetic agenda, and not even necessarily (it seems to me) any
> scientific incompetence. One of the things that I was trying to take
> issue with in the original post was what seemed to me to be the
> underlying presupposition that there was no rationally respectable and
> scientifically legitimate route to a PC view. One _can_ of course get
> to that position in all sorts of abysmal ways. (And one can, of course,
> get to competing positions by such routes.) But that's a different
> issue than the one I meant to be addressing.
I quite agree with what you've stated here, and I believe the problem is
the term PC and what exactly PC is. And that's a problem--because you can
have "big bang" PCs and "little bang" PCs like the type you are describing
above (and similiar to the PC Stephen Jones tends to ascribe to at times).
There is no doubt that when I use the term I use it for those
(which I believe are the majority of PCs) who employ dramatic
interventions (eg, a de novo Adam and Eve, as seen in Gen 2). And in my
discussions with these folks I also see a common hermeneutic--they are all
concordists of varying stripes.
> Onward:
>
> did
> Newton use the Biblical text to inform his science as PCs do? I don't
> know. And if he did, what's your point?
>
> DR:
> I can't answer that at the moment, and since I hadn't addressed that
> issue, I have no point concerning what if he did. The point I was
> making in this context was simply that an underlying apologetic
> motivation does not undercut scientific legitimacy, and Newton was
> simply exhibit A.
Del, in principle I very much agree. You are right, but you're talking
like a philosopher (which makes sense because you are ;-). But what
exactly is going on today with the PCs? And again, my *perception*
through discussion with them is that there is an apologetic agenda
operative, and one that seems to be held tacitly. They don't dissect out
the apologetic agenda from the theory building as cleanly or
judiciously as you state it.
> You continue:
>
> I would fear the skewing of data to fit the apologetic program.
>
>
> That's a legitimate fear, but it is perhaps balanced at least to some
> extent by a countervailing tendency to skew theory to fit other agendas.
> Adopting a naturalism or even a hard line methodological naturalism
> commits one to rejecting any theory - no matter what the data - that
> doesn't reduce to either deterministic or indeterministic mechanism. It
> isn't clear to me why the risks on the one side are considered to be
> more pernicious risks than those on the other.
Well, of course, they are both pernicious and closed systems of thought.
However, despite the philosphical suicide of methodological naturalism, it
certainly has a good track record. It works very well. It is not a
complete picture of reality, but its explanatory power and
predictability (as seen in particulary with evolutionary theory) is quite
remarkable. The problem with PC is that it sets us up for a
God-of-the-gaps embarrassment--the gaps get closed/narrowed with advancing
scientific research.
> DR:
> > But suppose that it _is_ true that PCs accept their interventionist
> > position simply because they are convinced that Scripture tilts in
> that
> > direction. What exactly is supposed to be the conclusion from that?
> > That their view is false? That hardly follows.
> >
> DL:
> It would certainly be so, if indeed they err hermeneutically.
>
> DR:
> I'm not sure that I see why. Suppose that some people think that
> Scripture tilts toward intervention, and other people think that
> Scripture tilts toward non-intervention. Suppose that in fact, both
> sides are reading the relevant passages wrong - that Scripture in the
> relevant passages has not intention of even addressing that issue and is
> not tilting either way.
Amen to the latter!
> Both would have mistaken hermeneutics, but
> given that either there are or there are not interventions, at least one
> side would be right concerning the facts of the matter concerning
> intgervention or non-intervention. So again, I don't see why having a
> mistaken hermeneutic and basing a scientific theory on Scripture as read
> according to that hermeneutic would make it certain that the resultant
> theory was mistaken.
I'm confused here . . . especially your last sentence.
> Continuing on: I ask if it would follow
>
> > That their view is not
> > legitimately scientific?
>
> To which you reply:
>
> It is not scientific, because science does not operate from Biblical
> tenets.
>
>
> I'd like to see a convincing _argument_ for that which did not rest upon
> a suspect philosophy of science.
>
>
> You then ask:
>
> But if a primary tenet of a theory is built on poor
> hermeneutics, then what is the sense in going any further?
>
>
>
> Well, that would depend, wouldn't it? If the faulty hermeneutic was and
> remained the only grounds for the theory, then maybe there would be very
> little sense. But the mere fact (if it is so) of a foundation in a
> faulty hermeneutic needn't be the final consideration. Early on,
> impetus theory was defended on grounds having to do with a particular
> doctrine of the sacraments. Impetus theory turned out to be on a
> promising track, and a crucial step to later theories of inertia. Had
> it turned out that those original doctrines were based on a mistaken
> hermeneutic that would not have affected the legitimacy or the
> usefulness of the associated theory. Or nearer the present,
> creationists were among the first - maybe even the first - to raise
> questions about OOL assumptions concerning the earth's early atmosphere.
> Their suspicions _may_ turn out to be right. And those suspicions were
> based firmly on a hermeneutic you've said is defective.
>
> Again, if a defective hermeneutic was and remaind the only grounds for
> some theory, then perhaps the theory should be unceremoniously dumped.
> But that is different than a theory springing from a defective
> hermeneutic automatically being mistaken, useless, etc.
Ah! I think I've got it. Are you saying that if we start from a
defective hermeneutic it is better to start there than not start at
all? If so, then I am one with you. For example, I started my grad
school "adventure" in 1984 as a hard core YEC. I am grateful for the
influence YEC had in getting me back to school. However, I have since
dismissed the YEC hermeneutic.
Good discussion. Merci.
Blessings,
Denis
PS Quick questions:
(1) Are you a PC or an EC?
(2) What is the genre of Gen 1, and does it contain some
"VCR" historical statements of the origin of the
universe?
And yes, I'm baiting you, and now I'm really kicking myself for not
spending more time with you at Wheaton last March. Are you going to ASA
in Toronto this July?
----------------------------------------------------------
Denis O. Lamoureux DDS PhD PhD (cand)
Department of Oral Biology Residence:
Faculty of Dentistry # 1908
University of Alberta 8515-112 Street
Edmonton, Alberta Edmonton, Alberta
T6G 2N8 T6G 1K7
CANADA CANADA
Lab: (403) 492-1354
Residence: (403) 439-2648
Dental Office: (403) 425-4000
E-mail: dlamoure@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca
"In all debates, let truth be thy aim, and endeavor to gain
rather than expose thy opponent."
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