From: Steven P Crawford <stevenpcrawford@juno.com>
>I was reading a book today entitled Darwinism Defeated? which featured a
>written debate between Phillip Johnson and Denis Lamoureaux (sp?).
>Johnson held to his usual position, except for a few comments that seemed
>to indicate he was vacillating from some of his ideas written in the
>early 90's. In contrast, Lamoreaux holds to a "teleological evolution"
>aka "evolutionary creationist" position, which seems to be nothing more
>than a new name given to an old idea (theistic evolution).
>
>A big point of tension in the debate was whether or not the idea of
>evolution, in and of itself, is anti-God and anti-theistic. Johnson's
>thesis was that the whole evolutionary hypothesis is automatically and
>inherently atheistic. To hold to evolution is to give up on God or at
>least relegate Him to the sideline or the backstage, turning Him into a
>deistical being. Lamoureaux vigorously challenged this assertion. He
>claimed that, while some scientists have believed this (e.g. Richard
>Dawkins), it is not a logical necessity for evolution to have any
>metaphysical implications one way or the other. It is strictly a
>physical theory of origins, and anyone who tries to extend it to the
>moral, spiritual, social, etc., realms is making a philosophical leap of
>logic. This would include Johnson.
>
>I found Lamoureaux's statements to this effect to be fascinating and
>provocative. This is such a new notion to my thinking that I'm wondering
>if it's a commonly held concept. I would appreciate anyone's critique of
>the idea that evolution -- in and of itself -- carries no necessary
>metaphysical claims either for or against God.
I would say that no scientific theory makes any *metaphysical* claims. (The
scientific method makes certain metaphysical assumptions, but that's another
issue, which has been discussed here at length.)
The theory of evolution gives an explanation of how humans evolved by
naturalistic processes, and, is as far as I'm concerned, the only reasonable
scientific explanation. But that doesn't preclude a non-scientific
explanation. If one applies the scientific method to the question of the
existence of God, one should conclude that God does not exist. However,
no-one is obliged to apply the scientific method to all their beliefs about
the world. (And, in practice, no-one does.)
Some might also say that science can tell us nothing about the supernatural.
But I don't know what "supernatural" means in this context.
By the way, it isn't clear to me quite what theistic evolutionists believe.
(They probably don't all believe the same thing.) Perhaps one or more of the
theistic evolutionists here could explain. Do you believe that God
interfered in the process of evolution, guiding it towards some goal? If so,
then the TOE is not logically inconsistent with belief in God, but, since it
makes belief in God scientifically redundant, it is IMO inimical to belief
in God. I wouldn't descibe it as "anti-God" because that implies that the
TOE is motivated by opposition to belief in God. Since many (most?)
evolutionists are theists, this makes no sense. The primary motivation for
the TOE is a desire to know the truth about the world.
Richard Wein (Tich)
"The truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it; ignorance may deride
it; malice may distort it; but there it is." -- Winston Churchill
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