From: Howard J. Van Till (hvantill@chartermi.net)
Date: Wed Jul 23 2003 - 16:56:33 EDT
Josh & Richard,
Our conversation is degenerating into a shouting match. You've had the last
shout re the details, and that's OK with me.
We do have substantive theological differences, and that is unlikely to
change. I am inclined toward naturalistic theism, which entails RFEP in both
the physical and biological arenas. You, on the other hand, are committed to
supernatural theism, which welcomes ID and other approaches that portray at
least some of God's creative work in the vocabulary of supernatural
interventions that compensate for formational capabilities (like those for
biogenesis or for the formation of the bacterial flagellum, for instance)
not given to the Creation at the beginning. [Richard: "The miracle of God's
creation of DNA is that it is adaptive, though I doubt it could "adapt" to
the point of creation of new irreducibly complex organs." That strikes me as
a very delicate balance to try to maintain. DNA is wonderfully adaptive,
which brings glory to God as its Creator; but not so wonderfully adaptive as
to make form-conferring intervention unnecessary.]
You are content with picturing God giving being to a universe that is
cosmologically fine tuned but not biologically fine tuned. You are correct
to point out that such a choice is logically permitted, but nonetheless I am
more comfortable with the consistency of fine tuning in both. [By the way,
fine tuning is not something done in the course of time (within a universe
that already exists); it is in the selection of properties to be manifest in
the nature of the universe at all times.]
Howard Van Till
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