Re: [asa] New at the Post-Darwinist: Fr. Coyne's star

There are dots that one can reasonably connect, suggesting that Fr
Coyne was
asked to step down b/c of his outspoken views on theology and science.
Several responsible publications have connected these dots.

There are also dots that one can reasonably connect, suggesting that Fr
Coyne decided some time ago to step down, owing to his advancing age and
declining health. Several responsible publications have connected these
dots.

My own suspicion, for which I do not have any evidence that is not
widely
available to everyone else, is that both are partly true. Fr Coyne was
probably thinking of retiring about now, and the Cardinal's comments
probably set him off, so he decided to make a formal statement,
expressing
views he has held for a long time but that weren't widely publicized in
earlier years. In the current political climate, this might perhaps
have
hastened his formal retirement slightly--and (if so), probably only
slightly.

My other comments on this follow.

Cardinal Schoenborn's statement was pretty much drafted for him--this
is a
common practice in the Roman Catholic Church, not to mention Chuck
Colson's
columns--by someone else, in this case a Roman Catholic attorney
associated
with the DC office of The Discovery Institute (Mark Ryland). Mark is a
neo-Thomist, son of a Roman Catholic priest (a former Episcopalian
priest
who converted as a married man to Catholicist). Unless I
misunderstand Mark
rather badly, he would much prefer that science be Aristotelian, not
mechanistic in the sense of the scientific revolution and since.
Philosophically, that is, he would like to turn back the scientific
clock
several centuries. That isn't going to happen--whether we like it or
not,
mechanistic science of the Boyle/Descartes variety, according to
which the
particles of matter are unaware of any intelligent causes and behave
individually as if there were none, is with us unrevokably. It's far
too
successful in so many branches of science, esp in chemistry,
biochemistry,
and molecular biology but also in physics, geology, and ... well, you
name
it. If atoms and molecules and forces are employed, they use it. I
don't
mean to suggest by all this that neo-Thomism requires one to reject
atoms
and molecules, but for some neo-Thomists this seems an attractive way of
thinking. Benjamin Wiker all but does this in his very unhelpful -- and
highly inaccurate -- book about "Moral Darwinism." He's also a Roman
Catholic attracted to Thomism; indeed, for Wiker, Augustine and the
various
theologies following in its wake, such as Calvinism, Lutheranism,
etc., are
very much part of the problem when it comes to science. Those of
that ilk,
such as Boyle, Newton, and others, are the "bad guys" in his book.

The larger issue here, if in fact Fr Coyne retired a little earlier
than he
had planned, is the church's stance on Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard
was
pretty much heretical 50 years ago, but in recent years a whole lot of
Catholic priests and theologians have gotten into him, big time.
There is a
society with a journal devoted to his ideas, some of the leading
Catholic
writers on science and religion (most notably Jack Haught, but also
others
including some high up in the church hierarchy) are major fans of
Teilhard,
etc. It's hard to say whether or not Teilhard's "omega point" is a
kind of
divine transcendence; it's hard to know whether or not to classify
him as a
process theologian; but it's easy to see that he is probably the most
important and influential Catholic thinker on science from the past
century.
  Apparently the church is trying to make up its mind about his
orthodoxy,
now that so many Catholics are interested in him.

Now for this part:
Behe and Schoenborn accept that evolution happens. But so? That doesn't
prove that Darwin was right about the power of natural selection or that
the
neo-Darwinists are right about anything at all. And those who revile
Behe's
views would be unwise to hope for much better from the Vatican.

If Behe's views on common descent, the age of the earth, and the
ultimate
causes of evolutionary changes (which he accepts) were more widely
praised
in the ID camp, we might not need statements like that of the
Cardinal to
bring us back down to earth. Here is one of Mike's more recent
statements
(from his essay in "Debating Design," 2004): "[Ken] Miller doesn't think
that [divine] guidance is necessary in evolution, but if it were (as I
believe), then a route would be open for a subtle God to design life
without
overriding natural law. If quantum events such as radioactive decay
are not
governed by causal laws, then it breaks no law of nature to influence
such
events. As a theist like Miller, that seems perfectly possible to me."
etc. He goes on to claim this as a form of ID, and I'm fine with
that, but
most IDs it seems to me are not fine with that. I've very often said
that
there isn't much intellectual space between Behe and Asa Gray, a
classic TE
who clearly and consistently confessed the Nicene Creed side by side
with
evolution by natural selection. This is yet another illustration of
that
fact. Ironically, even the more conservative TEs are seen as far too
liberal by many in the ID camp. We have been seen as "mushy
accommodationists." I say, we aren't the ones who need to make up their
minds on this; if there is mushy ground somewhere, it isn't under our
feet:
does Behe count, or not? Is he in the tent, or outside? Can one
believe in
such a subtle God (as many TEs do) and be a traditional theist, or not?
I've always said that, *before* one starts to think hard about
evolution,
one ought to think hard about quantum mechanics and mechanistic science
(which are not the same thing at all, and which raise different
theological
questions). Only then, IMO, should one start to ask about evolution and
natural selection.

Ted

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Tue Aug 29 12:03:24 2006