Re: ID at NRO

I find this a very good statement of why ID is wrong

Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Blinne" <rich.blinne@gmail.com>
To: "Bill Dozier" <wddozier@mac.com>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2005 12:24 AM
Subject: 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 Sat Feb 12 09:44:11 2005