Re: Dembski theodicy

Keith's post summarizes Dembski's view and comments on it as follows:

I would take issue with his claim that his view of natural evil
corresponds to the orthodox one. I will let the more theologically
trained among us respond.

Dembski's solution -- He argues that God, knowing of the Fall, acted
"preemptively" so that the effects of the Fall preceded the
disobedience of Adam and Eve.

****

My comments are as follows. First, I thank Keith for calling attention to
an explicit statement about theodicy and the fall in Dembski's corpus. This
statement makes explicit what I have long felt intuitively concerning both
Bill's own views and the views of most of his friends in the ID movement.
It also underscores my longstanding view that theodicy, and specifically in
the form of death and the fall, is the driving theological issue behind YEC.
 I have discussed this somewhat in the essay I wrote for Keith's volume,
"Perspectives on an Evolving Creation." Others here will be more familiar
with other theological traditions, but evangelical Protestants have mainly
held the view that Dembski calls "the orthodox one." The whole package of
sin/fall/redemption is where the rubber hits the road, in terms of TE.
Those Christians who cannot buy TE b/c they see no satisfactory resolution
there to core Christian doctrines--and this would be a large number of
Christians--have my full understanding and much of my sympathy. There is of
course nothing original about the way in which Dembski speaks about being
heretical either way (ie, in science or in theology), but it hits the nail
on the head.

Dembski's own solution is, as far as I can tell, virtually identical to
that of Edward Hitchcock, the leading American geologist before the civil
war. I know I have often called attention to this, but it that's only b/c
it keeps being relevant to what we talk abou here. I have put two versions
of the theological part of Hitchcock's "Elementary Geology" text on my
webpage, as follows:
http://home.messiah.edu/~tdavis/texts.htm

Once again, I urge people to go there and see for themselves. Hitchcock
believed, as Dembski apparently does, that God foreknew the fall and planned
accordingly, so that the pre-fall world already had death and decay within
it. Indeed, he argues, unless Adam had already seen death he would not have
understood God's injunction not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. There is nothing original in Dembski's view on
this, it only underscores another point I keep making: so much of the modern
discussion of origins is just reinventing the wheel.

My number one criticism of ID--and I have made this criticism very often to
my friends in ID--is that ID disavows theology, and therefore it disavows
theodicy, and without theodicy it has no hope of success. I mean this point
to cut both ways. On the one hand, without an explicit theodicy it is
doubtful that people like Steven Weinberg will ever want God in their
hearts; Weinberg's reasons for rejecting theism have nothing to do with
"evolution" or other parts of science, and everything to do with Alzheimer's
disease and the holocaust. IDs have no chance to speak to Weinberg without
putting the crucified God front and center. On the other hand, *if* IDs
would put theodicy at the center, then they would be forced to decide
publicly the issue of the earth's age--since, as I keep saying, this cannot
be divorced from theodicy, as Hitchcock knew and Dembski knows. Most IDs
would probably side with Bill (and Hitchcock, not to mention many ASA
members) and start finding ways to understand sin and death in terms of
divine foreknowledge of the fall. That's an attractive option, since it
comes right out of the Calvinism that Hitchcock believed and many other
Christians also believe.

For many years, I took that route myself--Hitchcock is close to my heart in
many ways, and one of these years I hope to work more extensively on him
(his work has not been studied much by historians thus far, leaving a large
hole in the history of American science and religion). In recent years,
however, George Murphy and John Polkinghorne have convinced me of the truth
and great value of understanding theodicy in terms of the crucified God. I
think that's a more biblical approach (I think Hitchcock's approach is also
biblical) and also a more satisfying approach both spiritually and
theologically. In "The Problem of Pain," CS Lewis placed the following
epigram, from George MacDonald: "The son of God suffered unto the death, not
that we might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His."
Amen.

Finally, I was interested to see that Bill brings in Newcomb's paradox,
which is the subject of my first article a long time ago in PSCF. As I
said, a long time ago, and it's sobering to think how much water has since
passed over the dam.

Ted
Received on Wed May 10 09:24:28 2006