Re: ID at NRO

On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 19:49:55 -0600, Bill Dozier <wddozier@mac.com> wrote:
> There's been much discussion of ID over at National Review Online (they
> don't like it much; the latest issue had a critique by John Derbyshire
> that I haven't read yet). Here's a concise take-down by Jonah Goldberg:
>
> http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/05_02_06_corner-
> archive.asp#055799
>
>

Jonah is worth quoting in full here. It pretty well sums up my
opposition to ID (particularly ID as a category error and ID
invalidating other teleological argumentation). Being an engineer by
trade, I find teleological arguments quite attractive. It would seem
that I would like ID, but I don't. By focusing only on the gaps, the
extensiveness of God's providence to truly everything is not given its
due. Now, Jonah Goldberg, who is a writer by trade, and thus puts it
more eloquently:

Okay, I think this is all fair. But here's my point: faith and science
are simply different, as Derb has noted. I think people who call for
God-in-the-gaps make a mistake rhetorically -- though almost surely
not in their hearts. God is in the gaps, sure. But he's also in
everything else. He's in the space between stars and atoms but he's
also in the stars and atoms. He is the Prime Mover. The alpha and
omega. By saying that God is only where science isn't seems -- again
rhetorically -- to be a massive surrender of the jurisdiction of the
Almighty. If God's powerful enough to create the entire universe he's
surely capable of doing it without leaving clues unless he wants to. I
believe in God, but I have a hard time believing he burried those
clues in the few areas where science remains ignorant. Those clues are
hiding in plain sight for those who want to see them. Saying that
science will ultimately prove the existence of God almost seems
blasphemous to me because it suggests that God was hiding from human
investigators for all this time but humans finally got smart enough to
see his fingerprints. It's all fingerprints!

I really don't mean any disrespect to anybody in all of this, I just
think there is a huge category error going on here. I also don't
pretend to be speaking for Derb or anybody else.
Received on Fri Feb 11 19:25:35 2005