Re: More fusillades in the ID wars

Dick Fischer wrote:

"...What ID proponents seek to do is invoke divine intervention in the natural realm. And then do it without owning up to the consequences when life's experiments fail, or when the deleterious effects of gene mutations are passed from generation to generation without divine impediment...."

Dick, what you say on this subject assumes something that we don't know for sure is true, namely, that it was possible for life to go from single cells to humans without divine intervention. It's an assumption that practicing scientists make, because science concerns itself exclusively with natural causes and implicitly assumes everything has a natural cause. But it's important to keep in mind that this possibility of going from single cell to human without intervention is an assumption.

What if it is impossible for life to form spontaneously from some chemical soup or whatever? What if it is impossible for life to go from single cells to the multicellular organisms of the Cambrian explosion without special intervention? Scientists can't and shouldn't assume such events are impossible, but that doesn't mean such events are therefore possible. In other words, it is at least within the realm of possibility that life as we know it would not exist had there not been special divine intervention at crucial points.

Additionally, what if God for reasons of his own wants his creation to function as much as possible without such special interventions?

Combining the "what if's," we have the kernel of a theology that allows for ID and at the same time exonerates God from responsibility for the "foul ups." God intervenes only when he must.

As I said several months ago, your views assume God has certain motives which he may not have, namely, that if he intervened anywhere, he would intervene everywhere to make the world into one you'd say would be worthy of him as intervener. Unless you know God's intents and purposes you can't make that assumption.

Don

 
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Received on Thu Feb 3 03:04:45 2005