Re: Dembski theodicy

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.

Ted, I agree with just about everything you said, but I'd take some issue
with the above. I'd say theodicy is "one" driving issue. The other driving
issue, I think, at least at the local level, is "the battle for the Bible"
and inerrancy. My YEC pastors and friends seem more concerned about this
latter issue than anything else. They understand anything other than YEC as
compromising the absolute truthfulness of the Bible and thus as a move
towards liberal theology. They have roots in the fundamentalist-modernist
debates and the later debates about neo-Evangelicalism and inerrancy.

On 5/10/06, Ted Davis <tdavis@messiah.edu> wrote:
> 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 09:52:05 2006