Re: Whose Burden of Proof?

Steve Petermann wrote:
>
> Howard wrote:...................................
 
> > I am very familiar with this attempt by Dembski to talk his way out of
> being
> > seen as an advocate of what I call "the hand-like actin of form-imposing
> > intervention." So, does it really make sense to anyone on this list to
> > imagine God sending non-energetic zero-frequency photons into some biotic
> > system to rearrange its base-pairs or proteins?

..............

> Your point about <God sending a photon>, however, speaks to the
> reasonableness issue. This is where I think science and theology can work
> together. The metaphysical model that seems to be pervading this issue is a
> dualistic one that puts God "out there" and the world "here" so that God
> must do something like "send a photon". This model, which I think has its
> roots in the early pre-Socratic philosophers, creates a dichotomy between
> matter and God. So much so that Plato had to create a demiurge to deal with
> the material world. This is not, however, the only metaphysical model that
> is amenable to religion in general and Christianity. There seems to be
> today a resurgence of more organic metaphysical models( de Chardin,
> panentheistic emphases in Christianity, feminist theologies, process
> theology, etc) that offer more reasonable options for divine action. I
> think ID's use of the term "unembodied agent" is a big mistake. It buys
> into all the theological and reasonableness problems of a ontological
> dualism. How an organic model might fit better with science is an open
> question. However, with sciences rapidly changing view and description of
> the most fundamental levels of reality, I think it is too early to reject
> carte blanche that there are divine action schemes that are both theology
> sound and fit reasonably within a scientific view.

        1) I am no information theorist but have a gut feeling that it's going to take
a long time to transmit significant information using ultra-low frequency photons, &
that you can't transmit any at zero frequency (i.e., static crossed E & B fields).

        2) More fundamentally, it's unrealistic to expect a detailed explanation of the
"causal joint" between creator & creatures - at least if one is going to maintain the
distinction between them. (& if that is ontological dualism, so be it.) Divine action
via creatures is not like the interaction between 2 physical systems like the EM field &
charged particles. The best that we can do is to construct plausible models or
metaphors which are based on our understanding of the way things work in the world and
constrained by what scripture says about God's actions. All of the 10 models of divine
action which Barbour presents are of this type & none of them - including process
theology and the "world as God's body" model which some feminists like - really
"explains" how God can interact with physical agents.

        & I say that as somebody who insists very strongly on the embodiment of God in
the Incarnation (& in fact of the omnipresence of that embodiment). Again this provides
some analogies for understanding God's action in the world (especially via theological &
scientific uses of concept of /energeia/, or operation - cf my article in Zygon, Sept.
'94) but doesn't do more than that. It is not only the Son but the Father & the Spirit
- who are not incarnate - who act in the world.

                                                        Shalom,
                                                        George
                        
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Tue Dec 2 14:20:27 2003