Re: [asa] Apologetics Conference

*But the point is the same, you can't tell if the rock was intentionally
thrown if all the information you have is the bump on the woman's head; nor
can you tell simply from examining the smashed house if the ultimate cause
of the boy's death is a brilliant or very lucky rock-tumbling murderer,
negligent coal company or non-human-induced mountain erosion. You need, at
the very least, other information concerning the path that particular
boulder took, factors that cause rocks on mountains to start moving,
strip-mining practices and the frequencies of tumbling rocks with and
without miners on the mountain.*

True, but you gather all the available information and then make a practical
judgment. You don't assume it happened by chance without any agency and
eliminate eliminate any other possible cause a priori. Nor do you require
precise probabilistic proof before agency can be inferred. In civil trial,
the standard of proof is "preponderance of evidence," which just means "more
likely than not."

On 11/17/06, Freeman, Louise Margaret <lfreeman@mbc.edu> wrote:
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Freeman, Louise Margaret" <lfreeman@mbc.edu>
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 11:35:27 -0500
> Subject: Re: [asa] Apologetics Conference
>
>
>
> I had no intention of moving a goalpost or bringing up theodicy... and as
> a believer I have little to no intellectual disagreement with your
> explanation in the second paragraph (though God will have to forgive me for
> my less appropriate and angry emotional reaction when a tragedy like that
> touches my life)
> My intent was to introduce a more realistic example to the throwing a rock
> out a window analogy. Rocks may not fly out of windows "on their own" but
> boulders do roll down hills "on their own." But the point is the same, you
> can't tell if the rock was intentionally thrown if all the information you
> have is the bump on the woman's head; nor can you tell simply from examining
> the smashed house if the ultimate cause of the boy's death is a brilliant or
> very lucky rock-tumbling murderer, negligent coal company or
> non-human-induced mountain erosion. You need, at the very least, other
> information concerning the path that particular boulder took, factors that
> cause rocks on mountains to start moving, strip-mining practices and the
> frequencies of tumbling rocks with and without miners on the mountain.
>
> It seems to me that to attempt this type of forensic analysis to infer an
> "Intelligent Designer" for the flagellum or a "Fine-Tuner" of the universe
> when the necessary body of knowledge is not known (and, if I understand Big
> Bang cosmology correctly, may not even be knowable) is a fairly futile
> exercise.
>
> So, why does theodicy inevitably rear its head? It's a logical
> progression: the ID theorist makes a case that there is purely scientific or
> mathematical evidence for a Designer or Fine Tuner. The Christian finds it
> incomprehensible that this Designer/Fine Tuner could be anyone but the
> omniscient and ominipotent God of the Bible. Any imperfection or Bad
> Thing in that design, from the backwards-wired human retina to the death of
> a small child by boulder leads to the obvious question of couldn't our
> Omnipotent Designer have fixed things so that Bad Thing didn't happen? A
> question that is hard enough for believers, let alone non-believers.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> To: "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>
> Cc: asa@calvin.edu
> Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 09:56:37 -0500
> Subject: Re: [asa] Apologetics Conference
>
> It's interesting how the discussion of this analogy has shifted. First,
> we debated the question of whether any agency at all was discernible in a
> rock flying out a window; then we debated whether agency could be discerned
> in a boulder tumbling out of a quarry. In both cases, it seems, it is not
> terribly difficult to determine on a practical level, at least to a degree
> of confidence that people use to make everyday decisions, whether any agency
> was involved. But then the discussion moved into the the theodicy problem.
> This mirrors almost exactly how many debates about design in nature go. The
> goalposts shift significantly and the proponent of design now must show not
> only that agency is a reasonable inference, but also that the theodicy
> problem can be solved.
>
> But of course, theodicy wasn't the original issue, and the problem can't
> really be solved. I'd approach it more from a broader view of providence
> and grace. Did God desire that the mining company would act negligently and
> that as a result a little boy would die? No. Did God in His providence and
> grace allow the mining company employees to make free choices that could
> negatively impact others, and are even those free choices and their negative
> consequences for the little boy within the ambit of God's providence and
> gracious care for the boy and His family? Yes. Here it's also important to
> remember that this life is like grass that grows briefly and quickly
> withers, and that God's plans extend through eternity where the pain and
> separation of death will be remedied. I don't think this is a trite way of
> dealing with such awful tragedies; I think it's the heart of our faith.
>
>
>

-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Web:  http://www.davidopderbeck.com
Blog:  http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html
MySpace (Music):  http://www.myspace.com/davidbecke
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.