Re: [asa] Collins' book is reviewed by the Arizona Origins

*Of course ID folk don't say that God had to "fix it", but
if we take the irreducible complexity (IC) argument seriously,
then it means that at various points, God had to intervene,
as it were, in the creation and change it so that some new
function would appeared. In effect, that means he didn't have
it right in the first place. Far more spectacular and profound
is a creation that God need not periodically "fix" to get right.*

I don't think so. There's no reason to assume God "had" to intervene,
because there's no reason to assume God "had" to make a creation with
certain irreducibly complex compnents that would be added by Him over
time. The creation is contingent on God's will and has unfolded according
to His eternal decree. He could have made any kind of creation He chose,
but He chose this one, through His own counsel and for HIs own purposes. He
"had it right" from eternity past, including any interventions in history
that have occurred at specific points in time. If He intervened in natural
history, it wasn't because He was surprised, it was because He in His
perfect forknowledge He had planned to do so from eternity past.

The same is true for the atonement. Christ didn't die on the cross because
God realized He had messed up in making humans and had to jump in and fix
things. The plan of salvation was part of God's eternal plan from before
time.

And *exactly the same thing* would be true in the case of theistic
evolution. All of the zillions of tiny changes that have occurred over time
were not "mistakes" God was fixing, if He created through a long
evolutionary process. Every one of them was known by God from eternity past
and happened in accordance with His complete knowledge and perfect will.

In this regard, there's no principled difference theologically between a
"punctuated equillibruim" OEC or ID theory and theistic evolution.

On 10/8/06, Dawsonzhu@aol.com <Dawsonzhu@aol.com> wrote:
>
> David commented
>
> But statements like this -- *"ID portrays the
> Almighty
> as a clumsy Creator, having to intervene at regular intervals to fix the
> inadequacies of His own initial plan for generating the complexities of
> life"* -- are bunk. Nothing I've read in the ID literature suggests any
> such value judgments about the capabilities or purposes of the
> designer. Even if we assume ID is really a religious theory about the
> "Almighty," from a Christian theistic perspective, we'd say that if
> God did
> "intervene" in natural history, that intervention was perfectly good and
> wise, fully in accordance with God's character, even if we don't know
> the
> ultimate reasons for that "intervention."
>
>
>
> I have not read Collins' book yet, but we had
> similar discussions here before some 3 or 4 years ago.
>
> This is not an argument denying God's intervention in history,
> it is an argument against God having to "redesign" the
> creation because he didn't get it right the first time.
>
> Of course ID folk don't say that God had to "fix it", but
> if we take the irreducible complexity (IC) argument seriously,
> then it means that at various points, God had to intervene,
> as it were, in the creation and change it so that some new
> function would appeared. In effect, that means he didn't have
> it right in the first place. Far more spectacular and profound
> is a creation that God need not periodically "fix" to get right.
>
> It certainly could suggest that the creation is half baked. God
> said "Let the ....", not "now we fix the .... ". God said that it
> was "good". Moreover, the all IC doesn't correspond so strongly
> with a particular command that God purportedly made in Gen 1:
> Though perhaps one can force something there.
>
> I suppose if one can really show that a particular biological
> component is irreducibly complex and therefore, Xxx indeed
> did have to intervene, well, I suppose that Collins would have
> to back off on that point. At least at this point, it does not
> look like the IC argument carries a significant weight. Hence,
> we might best infer that God didn't have to intervene and the
> creation is a truly incredible work of art.
>
>

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Received on Sun Oct 8 17:04:07 2006