Fw: [asa] Resolution affirming Creation and Evolution

Hi, Randy,

I forwarded your response to the Episcopal Church resolution affirming
creation and evolution to the members of our committee. Paul Julienne,
whom you met at the Ecumenical Round Table in Brighton, MI, this spring,
allows me to share his response, which appears below. For those of you
unfamiliar with Paul, he is a physicist with NIST.

The issue you raise, Randy, simiply did not come up on our deliberations
about this resolution. Our main focus was on the recent flurry of ID
activity, including the Dover, PA, case, and our concern that
Episcopalians become better acquainted with what is good science. We do
plan to supplement the Catechism of Creation with a series of readings
on our electronic resource page intended to provide more detailed
information on topics than can be covered in a catechism. The topic you
raise is one of those on the list. I think we all agree that it is
important for Episcopalians and others to be able to distinguish science
from scientism and evolution from evolutionism.

As for your comments, I think that the resolution says clearly that
evolution is not contrary to faith in creation and that theologians have
provided models of divine action in an evolving world. I surely hope
that the consensus of the scientific community would not become "the
lack of divine providence in evolution." If it ever did, you can bet
that we'd get another resolution out there pronto.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Julienne
To: Robert Schneider
Cc: Paul Julienne ; Canon Johnnie Ross ; James Jordan ; John Miers ;
Neil James ; Norm Faramelli ; Sandra Michael ; Stephen Stray ; Susan
Youmans ; Thomas Lindell
Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 8:54 AM
Subject: Re: [asa] Resolution affirming Creation and Evolution

Randy makes a significant point, although it is too late to consider it
with respect to the resolution. It would seem to me that part of our
task as Christians who also affirm the value of good science is to speak
not only against religious "fundamentalisms" that deny legitimacy to
science but also against the "scientific fundamentalism" of many who
would have science say to us that any form of religious belief in a
transcendent reality is contrary to and contradicted by the findings of
science: that is to say, that science requires a metaphysics based on
naturalism, materialism, reductionism, or whatever one choses to call
it. We should help help clarify this issue.

The fundamental issue is that science is limited, and does not deliver
unto us the metaphysical scheme [by definition, beyond "physics" or
beyond the level addressable by physics or science] by which we are to
interpret it (consistent with the Duhem-Quine thesis). This is
especially evident in fields like quantum physics, where the
interpretation of the quantum laws and rules with respect to what they
say about ultimate reality is not agreed upon, although all physicists
agree that the quantum rules give an account of all of the observable
data we have discovered so far. There are several mutually exclusive
metaphysical interpretations of quantum physics. John Polkinghorne says
"questions of the nature of causality are always ultimately
metaphysical in character, as the unresolved dispute between Bohm and
Bohr about whether quantum theory should be considered deterministic or
indeterministic make only too clear." Science does not deliver to us
metaphysics, or answer ultimate questions concerning meaning and
purpose. Consequently, there is more than one metaphysical framework
that is consistent with good science. Getting this point across is an
important aspect of good science education. Those who advocate strongly
that the necessary methodological naturalism in the sciences necessarily
implies a strong metaphysical naturalism are going beyond what science
is capable of saying. This should be part of the discussion surrounding
issues of science and faith. Consequently, I support what Randy says.

Paul

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Received on Sun Jun 25 16:57:50 2006