Re: [asa] Creation and Incarnation

*YEC and intelligent design advocates use MN all the time. They print
articles instead of assuming that their views will be miraculously revealed
to all true believers. They assume that things around them will behave
according to the laws of nature. They only reject it when the evidence goes
against their views.*

I don't think I'd totally agree with this characterization. They would also
believe, I'm sure, that God uses the articles they print to work in people's
hearts and minds in ways they would characterize as miraculous or at least
not explainable by natural laws, and they also I'm sure would believe that
things around them sometimes do and sometimes don't behave according to
natural laws -- for example when someone in their church fellowship is
healed from an illness or blessed in some other way that seems to be God
working directly merely than simply natural laws. And all of us would
probably believe the same things as well, OEC, TE, or whatever, so "they"
could just as well say of "us," "they believe the supernatural intervenes in
the natural in other areas of life -- why can't they believe it happend in
natural history too?"

On 8/11/06, David Campbell <pleuronaia@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have just finished reading the first third of "Three Views on Creation
> > and Evolution", edited by J.P. Moreland and John Mark Reynolds. The
> > first third contains the young earth creation view, including their view
> > that methodological naturalism is a faulty viewpoint because it limits
> > science to not consider all causes, which could be supernatural in origin.
> > Instead, they argue for what they call an "open philosophy of science" which
> > they say means that when science looks at a phenomenon to find out its
> > cause, it should be allowed to consider a wide variety of causes, natural
> > and supernatural.
> >
>
> Part of the issue here is also the exact definition and role given to
> both MN and to science. Is MN considered a good first thing to try, or the
> only possibility for science, or the only possibility for anything? Is the
> assciation of MN and science a statement of the limits of what science can
> do, or is science assumed to aswer everything?
>
> As you note, there is no way to get further data on the exact mechanism
> involved in the virgin conception of Jesus. Such unique events are not
> amenable to scientific analysis. Even if we could get data, e.g., a DNA
> sample that proved to have a totally unique component to it, science could
> only bring us to the conclusion that science did not provide any answer
> (assuming that the result was scientifically mysterious).
>
> Superstition-like or magical supernatural explanations can be amenable to
> scientific tests, if they claim that a particular phenomenon will
> consistently occur under a given set of circumstances. E.g., newspaper
> horoscopes do not provide a better description of the experiences of those
> who are supposed to go with one sign than with another, whether or not you
> adjust the dates by two months to match astronomical reality. Randi can use
> sleight of hand, etc. to replicate what Geller claims to achieve
> psychically.
>
> However, that's not how God works. The Journal of Irreproducible Results
> a while ago had a paper purporting to test the suitability of angels as lab
> animals. Ability to go through walls and disinterest in food made them much
> less suitable than rats for maze tests. More seriously, God is not to be
> put to the test, and is free to act above the ordinary laws of nature that
> He created.
>
> On the other hand, creation behaves in very orderly ways. Not only is it
> the creation of a rational being, and no rival powers outside His control
> are going to mess things up (unlike in polytheistic or dualistic views), but
> also as He created us to be stewards over creation, He must have given us
> the ability to understand how it works and what the consequences of our
> actions will be.
>
> Science can deal with things that obey regular physical laws, though these
> laws could in theory be supernatural and often in practice are statistical,
> highly contingent, or otherwise not amenable to a precise universal result.
> It can't deal with things that don't obey regular physical laws.
>
> YEC and intelligent design advocates use MN all the time. They print
> articles instead of assuming that their views will be miraculously revealed
> to all true believers. They assume that things around them will behave
> according to the laws of nature. They only reject it when the evidence goes
> against their views.
>
>
> > How would a Theistic Evolutionist respond to the Incarnation in this
> > context? Would they allow for a non-scientific (non-naturalistic)
> > discontinuity as the "first cause" for an otherwise natural human
> > development? I mean in the sense of a scientific phenomenon, rather than a
> > religious ideology. If so, then why could there not be similar
> > discontinuities in the Creation, as with the OEC view? I am writing this
> > with the understanding that the Theistic Evolutionary view of creation is
> > that God did not act outside of normal, methodologically natural processes (
> > i.e. they reject the periodic supernatural interventions claimed by
> > OECists). Or would the TE say the birth of Christ (miraculous in its first
> > instant, but fully natural thereafter) illustrates how God created a "fully
> > gifted creation" in the first instance, which has ever since been operating
> > according to marvelous but natural processes?
> >
>
>
> The exact boundary between TE and OEC is somewhat vague, as there are a
> full range of views from separate creation of species (even the ones we
> observe evolving from other species at the present) to full continuity of
> natural law for the whole physical process of creating organisms. There's
> also the Arminian-Calvinistic continuum which influences how one pictures
> God interacting with creation.
>
> As far as I know, those who would identify more or less with the TE label
> typically accept God's ability to act miraculously but hold that the
> evidence suggests that He did not do so in the process of creating
> organisms. Rejecting God's ability to do anything that does not follow
> natural law seems more deistic than theistic, though it is a common
> characteristic of anti-TE caricatures.
>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Dr. David Campbell
> > 425 Scientific Collections
> > University of Alabama
> > "I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
> >
>

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Received on Fri Aug 11 21:27:12 2006