Re: [asa] Re: Cosmological vs. Biological Design

Isn't there an even stronger aspect to the anti-evolutionism? One that I think has some degree of merit. It's not so much the conflict with the Bible, and therefore fixable with the "proper" hermeneutics. Rather there's that fundamental point that, in large part, prevented Darwin from going along with Asa Gray, if I understand the historians correctly. That is that the processes of mutation and natural selection, at least when viewed microscopically, appear to be inherently random, without guidance or purpose. In contrast, every interpretation of the Bible I know of supports the view of God's guidance and purpose in creation. Darwin, I think, seemed to feel that it not only appeared random but really was random and could not be guided in any way. Gray and most TE's these days seem to feel that the answer is that the randomness is only apparent and that God, in his infinite wisdom and power, has some way of determining the path of evolution. Van Till might say it was all built-in in the beginning. Bob Russell might say it's all hidden in the quantum probabilities. But the truth is that the raw data, as observed by Darwin and a host of nature observers since then, gives no indication of any guidance.

This is where the ID paradigm has such appeal. They claim to find, at the microscopic level, some indication of guidance. No, contrary to the anti-ID rhetoric, they don't say that God is only involved in those indications of guidance, but they do say that without such indication the data point overwhelmingly to the absence of any intelligent guidance.

Following this logic, the claim that ID is a "god of the gaps" fallacy largely applies to a popular misperception of ID. But it's not quite the whole story. It's not about the either-or story of evolution-or God. Well, in a way it is, but not in the "god of the gaps" type of either-or. Rather, it's that evolution inherently teaches unguided progress. TE's jump up and down and say, no, that's philosophy or metaphysics and science doesn't teach that. ok, let's back off the philosophy. It still teaches that there is no scientific evidence of any kind of direction from any source. If there is a non-natural guidance, it is so well hidden that it is essentially ineffective.

Let me give an example from tossing a coin. We often say that the Bible indicates several (someone said seven, I'm not sure) instances of casting lots being guided by God. If we then consider a very large number of coin tosses, if there were any type of influence, natural or supernatural, on the outcome of the tosses, wouldn't there be at least some indication of a deviation from the anticipated distribution of heads and tails? If not, then does it really matter whether there is a supernatural influence.

That's in essence, I think, why ID folks often say that if there's no evidence of any kind of supernatural influence (not to "fix" things but just to ensure that the random mutations and selections go in the right direction to produce a species that will argue about these things), then any type of God's influence that the TE's might postulate is quite irrelevant. And you might as well be a deist.

Randy
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  To: dopderbeck@gmail.com
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 7:48 PM
  Subject: [asa] Re: Cosmological vs. Biological Design
  ...

  But I think this is a separate (even if not unrelated) issue from the "god of the gaps" theology that dominates the ID movement in practice.

  To set out the whole picture as I see it, there are TWO dominant aspects to "popular" anti-evolutionism among Evangelical Christians.
  1) Aspect #1 is the assumption that evolution is in conflict with the Bible. With the various issues mentioned above -- most of which can be dealt with pretty easily by exegesis of Genesis that resepcts its literary and historical context. The stickiest point there being Adam and Eve and the Fall in my opinion.
  2) Aspect #2 is the "god of the gaps" assumption, which is basically the view that "natural" explanations exclude God. If "natural processes" and "God did it" are viewed as mutually exclusive options (as is pretty clearly the case with Phil Johnson), then the Christian who believes God is the creator of life must reject natural explanations like evolution. I think this fallacy maybe reflects insufficient appreciation of God's sovereignty over nature.

  As I have thought about these things in recent years, I have become more convinced that 99% of Christian anti-evolutionism boils down to the two things above, and that they are of approximately equal weight. And I think it is helpful to recognize them as separate problems and deal with them separately.

  Allan
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  Dr. Allan H. Harvey, Boulder, Colorado | SteamDoc@aol.com
  "Any opinions expressed here are mine, and should not be
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Received on Tue Oct 10 21:25:03 2006