Re: On being a noncombatant in the culture wars

>
> Ted: The debate about ID is very substantially about public vs private
> faith. This is surely how it is seen by leading ID advocates such
> as Phil
> Johnson, Nancy Pearcey, and others (here I name the most articulate
> advocates of the dangers of the privitization of religion). And on
> the
> other side, some of the most vociferous opponents of ID, including
> Dawkins
> and certain regulars on pandasthumb, have never met an intelligent
> theist.

This is one of many ironies. In their effort to have ID accepted as
a scientific
proposal they end up loosing their religious voice. It is striking
to me how many
of the ID advocates refuse to discuss theology or to address
theological issues
when publicly advocating for ID. Yet in exactly those same contexts
I am
completely free to argue for my theological views. Respecting the
methodological
limitations of science enables me to publicly advocate for my faith.
This is exactly
the point that Paul de Vries makes in his paper introducing the term
"methodological
naturalism" (thanks to Ted for pointing me to this excellent paper).

Two sentences from that paper:

"By letting our science be freely guided by methodological
naturalism, we will be more free to point out the legitimate
limitations of the natural sciences. ... If we are free to let the
natural sciences be limited to their perspectives under the guidance
of methodological naturalism, then other sources of truth will be
more defensible." (Paul de Vries, 1986, Naturalism in the natural
sciences: A Christian perspective, Christian Scholars Review, v.15, p.
388-396)

This is precisely my observation.

Keith

Keith B. Miller
Research Assistant Professor
Dept of Geology, Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506-3201
785-532-2250
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/
Received on Fri Mar 3 17:52:44 2006