Re: Defense of Theism pt 1

----- Original Message -----
From: "Glenn Morton" <glennmorton@entouch.net>
To: "'George Murphy'" <gmurphy@raex.com>; <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 3:43 PM
Subject: RE: Defense of Theism pt 1

>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
>> Behalf Of George Murphy
>> Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 6:41 AM
.............
> The thing that always seems ad hoc to me in the approach you take is the
> picking and choosing that goes on.

I don't think I pick & choose at random. To the extent that my arguments
involve some selection there's supposed to be some principle behind the
process.

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

> OK. Glad to hear that. The fact that I am concerned with Christianity is
> because I am a Christian. I guess it is hard for people to concentrate on
> the argument at hand without reading all sorts of background info into the
> argument. That is a shame in my book, but it happens all the time.
> Concerning Christianity, part of the defense of Christianity IS the
> defense
> of theism because if theism is false, then so is Christianity. But
> Christianity can be false and theism ok. Because of this, it is important
> to the Christian that theism is true.

When I said that Christianity was juyst below the surface of your argument &
sometimes became explicit I meant things like the following from your
original post:

"In my opinion, this argument has caused Christians to unnecessarily
cede the
intellectual playing field to those who do not believe God is
involved at
all. The atheistically-minded tolerate scientists who are Christian
because
when the Christian speaks of having God involved in the universe, it is
clear that they are not speaking of any actual evidence but only stating
something which lacks evidence and thus reality. To the
atheistically-minded, a statement that God is involved in the process
is no
more real than stating that Leprechauns are involved in the process.
Leprechauns might be involved in the process but how would one ever
demonstrate their influence? As long as Christians involved in science
retreat from stating any positive about God's involvement, we are
doing what
Tipler says of theologians, preserving an area forever untainted by
science."

Now admittedly this isn't part of your formal argument for theism. But the
fact that in the course of that argument you discuss what you see as a
concern for Christians (rather than Jews, Muslims or philosophical theists)
gives a pretty strong indication of your interest even for those who don't
know your background. That's not a problem just for in-house debate here
but if you intend to develop a statement of the case for theism for a wider
argument you'll need to modify or excise this.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Thu Jun 23 07:41:42 2005