Re: [asa] God as Cause

*It's not evident to me that Plantinga's critique is rooted in a solid
epistemological base rather than in an effort to dismiss rejection of ID as
naturalistic.*

All I can say is, from what I've read of Plantinga, and making no claim to
be a Plantinga scholar, his critique of MN seems consistent with his
"reformed epistemology."

*You are not just using natural methods. But you are using natural
methods. Therefore, the claim that using natural methods inherently entails
materialism is wrong.*

That's not the Plantinga and later IDists make. The claim isn't that
*any*use of "natural methods" entails materialism. The claim is that
a complete,
absolute, *a priori* exclusion of direct divine agency entails
materialsm. Plantinga and later IDists would say that there may or may not
be direct divine agency evident in any given phenomenon; it may well be that
some phenomena can be described solely in terms of secondary
causes. However, there is no reason, they would say, to attribute
everything in nature to secondary causes alone, and good epistemic reasons
not to do so.

*The main points of Genesis 1-2 are that all things are part of God's
creation and that He has given man a special role in caring for creation.*

Ah, there's the rub! Of course I agree with you, and I think Plantinga
would as well. The question, though, is whether Genesis 1-4 conveys
anything *more* than these "main points."

Let's assume for a minute that Gen. 2:7 unequivocally teaches that an
individual human, Adam, was separately created by God as the progenitor of
the human race. (I know this assumption can be challenged on many grounds,
but just assume it for the sake of discussion for a moment).

*If* God revealed this fact to us, would we be justified in making
conclusions about the origins of man that *a priori* exclude this fact? I
can't see how. Any knowledge claim about the origins of man that excluded
this fact would necessarily be inaccurate, probably grossly so.

Since the interpretation of Gen. 2:7 is so hotly contested (at least on
lists like this), let's move a step back to a bit of a broader picture. For
example, i*f* God revealed to us in scripture that human beings are all
inherently prone to evil, would we be justified in making a knowledge claim
about human psychology and social behavior that humans are fundamentally
altruistic and perfectable? Would we be wise to use such a knowledge claim
to construct social policy that is designed mainly to maximize autonomy so
that people can perfect themselves without restraints? Again, I can't see
how.

But interestingly, I think many TE's would agree with me here. If we're
considering the "science" of social policy, we're more than happy to allow
our Biblical / theological presuppositions into the foundation of our
beliefs about what people are really like.

I think, then, that most of the epistemic arguments by TE's in favor of MN
are misplaced and/ or not theologically coherent. The principle issues are
hermeneutical and epistemological. George's hermeneutic is consistent,
whether it's correct or not. "Generalist" TE books like Francis Collins'
recent book, in contrast, IMHO lack any such consistent hermeneutic. They
seem to resort to hand waving and mumbling about "allegory" concerning Gen.
1-4 without any explanation how this fits into any sort of coherent doctrine
of scripture. From my perspective as a sort of moderate evangelical, I'd
suggest that the most important work TE's need to do is to develop a
coherent, orthodox doctrine of scripture, hermeneutic, and epistemology.

On 1/9/07, David Campbell <pleuronaia@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think it's much more subtle than that, and this is one thing that
> > frustrates me about the impasse between TE and ID. Plantinga's basic
move
> > is an epistemological one. As we've seen, if you approach TE from a
> > theology of the cross, you are making a very similar epistemological
move,
> > but your basis for using MN is grounded in other expectations about the
> > nature of God's self-revelation. If you don't approach TE from a
theology
> > of the cross, and you want to preserve MN, it seems to me that you're
giving
> > up the epistemic high ground, or at the very least your epistemology is
> > muddled. It seems that TE/MN without an epistemology grounded in the
> > cross implies that human reason alone is the proper arbiter of truth
claims --
> > the "classical foundationalism" that Plantinga deftly
critiques. Plantinga's
> > questions about this posture then seem very trenchant. Of what value or
> > reliability is a truth claim based on a faulty foundation that
> > self-consciously excludes basic facts about God and his activity in
nature?
>
> It's not evident to me that Plantinga's critique is rooted in a solid
> epistemological base rather than in an effort to dismiss rejection of
> ID as naturalistic.
>
> > The answer to this question usually is the pragmatic one you give below

--
> > we do this all the time and it enables us to navigate life.  But do we
> > really?  Am I really just using "natural" methods to find out what you
are
> > saying, for example?  Is my mind and consciousness entirely reducible to
> > the "natural?"  I don't think so.  Indeed, my belief that you are an
> > autonomous, rational agent, and that you therefore can make intentional,
> > sensible statements, is informed directly by my presuppositions about
the
> > nature of human personhood, mind and consciousness as components of
> > an "image of God" that is not merely reducible to its "natural" or
material
> > aspects.  (Angus Menuge, in his book "Agents Under Fire," makes, I
think,
> > a compelling argument that materialism is incoherent to the extent it
> > presumes that there is any such thing as intentional action by
autonomous
> > agents.  Belief in intentional action by autonomous agents requires some
> > sort of meta-natural presuppositions).
>
> You are not just using natural methods.  But you are using natural
> methods.  Therefore, the claim that using natural methods inherently
> entails materialism is wrong.  There are some useful things that can
> be achieved by merely focusing on the natural methods.  For example,
> people have greatly improved the ease, efficiency, speed, etc. with
> which messages are transmitted through study of physics, chemistry,
> etc.  That gives no guarantee that the message is useful; science
> can't do much to address that.  Nevertheless, one should not therefore
> blame the science, nor is one justified in disregarding science when
> it doesn't support what one wants it to.
>
> > So, I think Plantinga's epistemic critique of TE is a strong one unless
you
> > ground your approach in something like George's theology of the cross,
> > which includes certain assumptions about how God reveals himself in
> > scripture and in nature.  The question IMHO then becomes how well those
> > assumptions hold up.
>
> Not that the theology of the cross is not very important to
> understanding everything (and often seriously neglected by advocates
> of YEC and ID claims), but an understanding of "methodological
> naturalism" as a proper and normal (though not exclusive) approach for
> Christianity also derives from an understanding of creation.  The main
> points of Genesis 1-2 are that all things are part of God's creation
> and that He has given man a special role in caring for creation.  The
> former implies that there are no rogue powers, rival gods, etc., in
> contrast to polytheistic views.  Thus, everything behaves as God
> directs it to.  As God is consistent, it is reasonable to expect His
> creation to behave in a consistent manner.  Also, because the objects
> and forces of nature are merely created things, they do not have goals
> of their own but rather are parts of God's plan.  As a result, study
> of the objects and forces is not very fruitful in revealing plan or
> metaphysical purpose; however, if we know something about God, we can
> get an idea of how those things fit into the plan.
>
> If God has given man responsibility of stewardship over creation, we
> must be able to predict the effects of our actions on creation in
> order to care for it.  This implies both that creation behaves in a
> regular manner and that we can detect these patterns.
>
> God's sovereignty over creation implies that He is able to do things
> differently than the usual pattern.  However, the observed tendency,
> especially evident in Jesus' life but throughout history, is to
> minimize such changes.  For example, apocryphal accounts tend to stand
> out from the canonical ones in the much higher frequency of miracles.
> This is most explicitly addressed in Jesus' comments on why not to use
> miracles (e.g., in the temptation).  If a sign is to be notable, it
> needs to stand out.  There is a strong pattern of Biblical miracles
> specifically addressing the question of "Which god?", e.g. YHWH versus
> Egyptian and Canaanite deities, YHWH versus Baal or Baal-like
> corruptions of YHWH, Jesus versus alternatives.
>
> --
> Dr. David Campbell
> 425 Scientific Collections
> University of Alabama
> "I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
>
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-- 
David W. Opderbeck
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