At 02:06 PM 5/10/00 +0100, Richard wrote:
>From: Brian D Harper <bharper@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu>
>
>[...]
>
> >OK, this might be a place to clarify our differences. Would you say that
>this
> >provides any evidence for the non existence of a god or gods?
>
>I couldn't work out what your "this" refers to, so I'll read it as
>"anything".
That's OK since you answered the question I had in mind, sorry for
the confusion.
>Strictly speaking, we can only say that gods are poor explanations of the
>facts currently available to us, and therefore there is no rational basis
>for accepting the existence of gods.
>
>However, more loosely, I consider the absence of evidence for
>gods to be evidence of absence, because I find it hard to believe that
>something as significant as a god would leave no evidence.
>
>In any case, in a sense, it doesn't really matter whether gods exist; what
>matters is whether they have any effect on anything. I take the view that if
>something looks like a duck (a godless universe) and quacks like a duck, I
>should treat it as if it is a duck.
I would say it a lot differently :). I finally, grudgingly :), admitted
there may be
some conceptions of gods which would allow a formulation of testable
hypotheses.
I also stated I had no interest in these sorts of gods. gods that respond
predictably
to manipulation are really puppets, to my way of thinking. So, I would
modify your
statement and say "therefore there is no rational basis for accepting the
existence
certain types of gods."
But you do raise an important question. If God exists (a real God, one
worthy of
the name), then why doesn't he reveal himself more clearly? This is a good
question, but a theological one. Since the question ties in nicely with what I
want to say about TE below, let me give a quick answer. If God could be found
through the force of reason and logic alone, then people able to see the
argument
would be compelled to believe in God as a matter of logic. I believe, instead,
God wants those who will come to him, not by reason alone, but because they
love Him, as a child loves their parents. I know this is an argument which
would
not sway the skeptic, but that's kinda the point.
>[...]
>
> >Thanks for the challenging questions. It was fun thinking, hope I
> >won't have to do it too often :).
>
>Thanks to you too. If you're up for another question, I'd like to know what
>role you think God played in evolution. Did he just set up the initial
>conditions and then let the laws of physics run their course, or did he
>intervene along the way? Or something else that I haven't thought of? And
>would you call your view "theistic evolution" (the term seems to mean
>different things to different people)?
I do consider myself a TE, but prefer the term evolutionary creationist.
I believe God plays a role in everything. I believe the Universe would
cease to exist without God's continually sustaining it. I do not
believe "he just set up the initial conditions and then let the laws of
physics run their course". If you've read much philosophy of science
you're probably aware that its not such an easy thing to explain
just what a law is. One view, which I tend to lean towards, has laws
being concise descriptions. If laws are descriptive, then I'm not quite
sure what it means to let laws run their course.
Let me illustrate it this way. In his memoirs (What do *You* Care
What Other People Think -- p.16) Richard Feynman recalls a
question he asked his father when very young:
"Say, Pop, I noticed something. When I pull the wagon,
the ball rolls to the back of the wagon. And when I'm
pulling it along and I suddenly stop, the ball rolls
to the front of the wagon. Why is that?"
His dad answered:
"That, nobody knows. The general principle is that
things which are moving tend to keep on moving, and
things which are standing still tend to stand still,
unless you push them hard. This tendency is called
'inertia,' but nobody knows why it's true."
Feynman added "Now, that's a deep understanding. He
didn't just give me the name."
The point Feynman is trying to make is that giving a name to
something (calling it inertia) doesn't explain it (in the usual sense
of the word "explain").
Well, OK, I have a bad habit of getting side tracked. To summarize,
I'm not a deist, I believe God both sustains and intervenes in the
world, but have a hard time explaining exactly what it means to
sustain and intervene.
Very generally speaking though, I do not believe it is necessary
for God to intervene in the formative history (to borrow Howard's
terminology) of the Universe. Again, generally speaking, God's
interventions are in the lives of men. God is always sustaining,
the laws of nature themselves may very well be regularities produced
by that sustenance.
I think a great deal of Howard's view of functional integrity. This is a
very beautiful idea even from a purely theological point of view.
For some, accepting evolution inevitably implies some compromise
in their theology. For me its the opposite. To go back to my former
views would be a compromise.
Sorry to make this so long, but there is another very important
aspect of evolution I want to address. Something likely more
controversial :).
From previous conversations on determinism vs free will perhaps
everyone now knows that I think very highly of freedom. As we
switch to theology, the problem of free will surfaces again. How
do you balance an all powerful God against free beings?
Let me start by saying that, in my view, One God's main intentions
in creating was to create real, honest to goodness real, physical
beings capable of real choice. Here's the tie in to what I wrote above.
God's wants us to submit to him freely, out of love not by compulsion.
This is only possible if the beings he creates can genuinely choose.
Now comes a problem. How does an all powerful God create beings
that are not overwhelmed by that power? How can God cut the causal
connections between himself and his creation? Of course, since God
is all powerful, this could only occur by a free choice on his part. But
how would he do it? One way, or so it seems, is to create a world with
chance and to create by a process involving chance.
Thus, I view evolution and chance as part of God's gift to us, the gift
of freedom. It is a gift which, I believe, cost God a great deal. Some
people talk about the seeming wastefulness of this process, I view
this as part of the tremendous price God was willing to pay for us.
How he must love us to pay such a price.
A couple of disclaimers. (1) This is speculation (2) when I say chance
I'm talking from man's point of view. How does what we call chance
appear to God? I have no idea :).
Sorry for the length, but you *did* ask :).
Brian Harper
Associate Professor
Mechanical Engineering
The Ohio State University
"One never knows, do one?"
-- Fats Waller
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