Re: Fw: Ohio Votes 13-5 to Adopt Lesson Plan Critical of Evolution

Dick Fischer wrote:

"Opening the door to interventionism, which is the "heart" of ID, is more like the "heart attack" of science....

"Does God's intervention stop at life processes, or does it persist in all physical processes?"

Your criticisms might apply if God's interventions were totally arbitrary, but not if they were purposeful. I favor interventionism, partly because that's what the Bible witnesses of with respect to human history. But the interventions wouldn't be arbitrary in any case. God has intervened in a special way when there's been a need for it. It's easy for me to believe there have been needs for it now and then ever since the Big Bang, as I don't believe the universe is quite robust enough to have made us on its own.

People who insist that God has never intervened in a special way honor philosophical elegance more than truth. Interventions admittedly would make the world potentially messy in terms of our ability to understand it, but at some level the world really may be messy. Like all living organisms.

Now that you raise the issue, scientific data do not establish that God is not intervening arbitrarily in our world as we speak. In any large set of measurements there are always wild points. One could argue that some of the wild points are valid data. I.e., the observer just happened to measure when God was intervening. So for any isolated measurement you still have to append that "God permitting." Scientific theories explain only averages.

That said, I suspect that, unless intelligent humans are involved in the interventions and are led by God's Spirit to see them as interventions, we are never going to be able to distinguish a special intervention from an improbable natural occurrence. So IMO ID has a chance of ultimate success that's nonzero but just barely. Even if ID "succeeds," many still will not believe.

Is the search for ID wasted effort? Is it equivalent to seeking a sign to prove God's existence? I've vacillated on this. My tentative conclusion is that it would be wasted effort if it required great effort but not if it were easy. That is, if you could just point to a human being or other complex creature and say, "That proves an intelligent designer exists," and if everyone would agree, then it would be worthwhile. But if it requires lengthy, convoluted arguments, as it seems to, then people are always going to be able to pick apart those arguments and you wind up with nothing of value. In other words, evidence for ID is useful only if it's obvious. (And what's obvious depends on who's judging.)

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Dick Fischer<mailto:dickfischer@earthlink.net>
  To: ASA<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2004 7:13 AM
  Subject: Re: Fw: Ohio Votes 13-5 to Adopt Lesson Plan Critical of Evolution

  Denyse wrote:

    The ID people may be right or wrong in their assertions, but that must be determined from evidence. As such, I think they are much closer to the heart of science.

  Scientists just love to factor in divine intervention in a sequence of a causal chain of otherwise seemingly natural events. It makes results so downright unpredictable. And we all know how scientists prefer to not be able to predict anything.

  Opening the door to interventionism, which is the "heart" of ID, is more like the "heart attack" of science, to preserve your metaphor.

  Does God's intervention stop at life processes, or does it persist in all physical processes?

  Boyle's Law states that under conditions of constant temperature and quantity, there is an inverse relationship between the volume and pressure for an ideal gas. Allowing for God's sporadic intervention in chemical processes would require a caveat such as: "as God permits," after every scientific theory.

  Let's see how this looks in a science book: Boyle's law - the pressure of an ideal gas at constant temperature varies inversely with the volume, God permitting.

  And of course, we have genetic diseases caused by genetic changes. God's miscues probably. Dabbling in DNA alteration to affect changes in evolving life forms may unleash a few undesirable diseases, but what the heck, we have hard-working scientists trying to correct them. What else would they be doing if it weren't for correcting God's mistakes?

  So, in essence, the Ohio school board is lifting the lid on Pandora's box. It will be interesting to see what flies out.

  Dick Fischer - Genesis Proclaimed Association
  Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
  www.genesisproclaimed.org

<http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/>
Received on Sun Mar 14 04:38:28 2004