Re: [asa] Creation and Incarnation

On 8/11/06, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:

> *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?"
>

"All the time" is ambiguous and I should have made it clearer. Everyone
uses MN all the time in the sense of using it every day and arguably every
second (depending on whether you count ongoing assumptions such as that the
atmosphere, furniture, buildings, etc. will continue to behave in a normal
fashion). However, neither YEC, nor OEC, nor TE hold that MN always covers
every aspect of everything.

Some YEC and ID advocates label MN as inherently atheistic. The fact that
everyone uses it all the time highlights that this is a thoughtlessly
hypocritical way to slander the faith of anyone who disagrees with you
rather than a valid claim. E.g., claiming that MN invariably leads to
philosophical naturalism. Likewise, the fact that one can combine printing
articles in the ordinary fashion with prayer and God's work shows that use
of natural methods is not inherently atheistic.

Attacking MN is a red herring. Even if I assume that God worked
miraculously in a particular situation, that doesn't change the fact that
the physical evidence contradicts many YEC and ID claims.
(any newcomers-Methodological Naturalism, Young Earth Creationism/ist, Old
Earth Creationism/ist, Theistic Evolution/ist, Intelligent Design sensu the
ID movement)

> --
> 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 Thu Aug 17 14:32:21 2006