SJ>May I share with you my main reasons for preferring PC* over TE (not
>necessarily in order of priority)?
This post of yours slipped past me for some reason. Even though it is more
than a month since you posted it, I would like you to clarify some points
for me.
SJ>1. Genesis 1 teaches God creating, making and forming by successive
>acts over time. This involves both God's supernatural word of command
>plus natural processes (apart from ex nihilo creation in Gn 1:1).
>
>2. Genesis 1 depicts a clear discontinuity between the Creation week
>and subsequent Providential work of God.
>
>3. "Evolution" is not a Biblical term or concept, whereas Creation is.
>
>4. Theistic evolution minimises the transcendence of God over against
>His immanence.
>
>5. The overall "flavour" of the Bible is of a God who intervenes
>supernaturally.
>
>6. There are major discontinuities that science has not filled,
>namely: the origin of the cosmos; the origin of life; and the origin
>of higher taxa.
>
>7. TE must include some PC elements to survive as a Christian theory
>(eg. supernatural intervention in origin of life; origin of man, etc)
>
>8. PC has some hope of uniting Christians (eg. Johnson's book is sold
>in YEC book stores), whereas TE has no hope of this.
>
>9. PC has a prophetic witness against our scientific culture. Eg. Phil
>Johnson. TE has little or no such witness and is largely ignored.
>
>10. I expect PC to grow as naturalistic evolution becomes more
>punctuationist and un-Darwinian and YEC wanes. By 21st century I
>predict that TE and YEC will diminish and the main debate will be
>Naturalistic Evolution vs Progressive Creation.
Looking at your above main points for preferring PC (as defined by you
below) over TE (also presumably as defined by you), I note that, out of your
ten points, eight (1-5 & 7-9) are based on theological issues (concerned
with matters of belief), one (10) is a personal prediction, and only one (6)
refers to science and that is purely citing an absence of evidence and
theories rather than the presence of evidence and theories.
In light of this I must ask you, is there ANY existent scientific evidence
(as opposed to absence of evidence) that leads you to prefer PC over TE?
BTW, I hope you're right about the waning of YEC. IMO, it's a pain to
thoughtful and honest Christians and atheists alike.
YEC is a pain to Christians because every Christian who is raised as a YEC
rather than PC or TE is a potential loss to atheism, if the scientific
bankruptcy of YEC becomes known to them.
YEC is a pain to atheists who shoulder an unfair share of the burden of
exposing the scientific bankruptcy of YEC to the general public, since few
qualified Christians appear to be willing to publicly expose their "brothers
in Christ".
Further, YEC provides people who are happy to remain theologically and
scientifically ignorant with an easy, but ultimately untenable, way out.
Also, YEC provides a considerable source of income to those who would profit
by servicing this market with material designed to make them comfortable in
their ignorance.
SJ>Problems of PC include:
>
>1. PC is frankly supernatural and the success of naturalism
>threatens it. Then again, so is Christianity.
This is not just PC's problem , but also TE's. In fact, any success of
naturalism threatens all non-modernist Christianity. Compared to the threat
that naturalism poses to all facets of "conservative" Christianity, the
specific threat to PC should be the least of a Christian's worries.
SJ>2. It is difficult to propose a scientific test between PC and TE.
Difficult or impossible?
SJ>But PC is more in tune with the supernaturalist Biblical picture and
>is at least as plausible as TE.
Since there are many on this Reflector who would (and do) provide a reasoned
disagreement to the above, isn't the above just personal opinion, however
well argued.
SJ>3. PC is falsifiable. If science does succeed in filling in the gaps
>in 6. above, then PC will be increasingly difficult to maintain.
I would not see "PC is falsifiable" as a "problem of PC". Were it not
falsifiable it would have no scientific credibility whatsoever. Why,
specifically, do you consider its falsifiability to be a problem?
SJ>* By PC I mean God progressively creating supernaturally over time
>possibly using existing natural processes. This does not require the
>de novo creation of whole organisms. It may be subtle and involve
>a whole series of planned changes over milennia. The emphasis is
>on new or changed *designs* rather than "kinds". Its nearest human
>analogies are artificial selection (intelligent control of heredity
>and environment to achieve a planned purpose) and genetic engineering
>(intelligently inserting new genetic information and modifying
>existing code).
I still fail to see how this is different to God-directed macro-evolution in
the same sense that our domestic animal and plant breeding programs are
human-directed micro-evolution (or possibly even human-directed
macro-evolution, depending on who is drawing the line and where they are
drawing it).
Further, based on your above definition, my NE (naturalistic evolution)
appears to be different to your PC ONLY in our different beliefs concerning
supernatural involvement. This probably means that we agree on an
interpretation of the scientific evidence that exists, while we don't agree
on how to interpret absences of scientific evidence, and our theologies
continue to be diametrically opposed.
Regards
Derek
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| Derek McLarnen | dmclarne@pcug.org.au |
| Melba ACT | dmclarne@ncomcanb.telstra.com.au |
| Australia | |
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