Re: [asa] Van Till

Howard is a good friend, and I do not feel that I can say too much on his
behalf.

This much however I think he would not resent. For several years and for a
variety of reasons--but NOT in his own view related directly to
science--Howard moved from classical theism into process theism. We had
some coversations while he was in this process, if I may jokingly put it
that way.

I do not know whether or not he would say that he is still a Christian. I
certainly will not try to speak for him in that regard. I have not seen him
for a few years, but he is still my good friend, and we talk whenever we are
in close proximity. In some important ways (related to his thinking) he is
not the same person he was when I first go to know him more than 20 years
ago, at which time his ideas and example were very important in my own
vocational and intellectual development--for which I thank him even now. In
other important ways (related to his character) he is still the same
person--for which I am also grateful.

Related to ID, let me stress again the fact--as far as one can discern
it--that evolution per se and other scientific ideas were not prime movers
in Howard changing his understanding of God. Theodicy and personal
experience, I sense, had much bigger roles than any scientific ideas. It
would be wrong for IDs to claim, as I know has sometimes happened, that
accepting evolution necessarily leads one to become a process theologian.
There are examples of that, but Howard isn't one of them. Furthermore, that
type of "evolution" from classical to process theism via evolution is
pattern more typical of people from earlier generations. Since the 1950s,
there has arisen a fairly large group of highly accomplished scientists and
thoughtful theologians, who are orthodox in their understanding of God while
at the same time they fully accept evolution. I've talked about this *a
lot* on this list and won't repeat all of that again. The significant
point, which is almost always missed, is that such a group did not exist in
the 1920s or even I think in the 1940s and early 1950s. It's a post-war
phenomenon, and esp a post-1960s phenomenon. The polarization of evolution
OR orthodox Christianity that did accurately describe the 1920s, and that
does accurately describe what all YECs and many IDs and Dawkins & Co believe
to be true, does not accurately describe the recent landscape. (I mentioned
this in my American Scientist article a couple of years ago.) Jon Wells and
Phil Johnson may be stuck with the wrong glasses through which to view this,
but they've got plenty of company out there; even the late Arthur Peacocke
would have agreed that you need a very new view of God in order to embrace
modern science.

But you don't. It's actually the other way around.

Key aspects of the orthodox Christian view of God (e.g., omnipotence,
freedom to act counter to reason, genuine incarnation and bodily
resurrection) actually help us make sense of the world shown to us by modern
science, in ways that do not make as much sense on other views of God. At
least, that is my view both personally and as an historian of Christianity
and science.

Ted

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Received on Tue Jan 30 16:38:00 2007