Re: [asa] Re: [asa] American Scientific Affiliation * Whatever happened to its mission?

I can only echo what's been said here and just deeply sigh at the petty
shamefulness of another blog attack on fellow Christians from Uncommon
Descent. Just sad. I'm tired of it all.

On 4/24/07, Michael Roberts <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
>
> I absolutely concur with Terry and Ted. What could have been another
> attack
> on materialistic scientific atheism has mutated into inter-necine warfare
> with fellow Christians. The root is the considerable dismissal of those
> who
> accept evolution (I shun the word Darwinianism or whatever D- word you
> use)
> whether Terry as vacuous and the list is endless.
> The result is the polarisation of culture wars adn I dread to think of
> there
> damage done to Christ's cause
>
> I would add that various members of the ASA CIS and Aussie and NZ groups
> have done a lot of what they are accused of not doing.
>
> To me it seems that IDers have imitated AIG with thier rubbishing of
> fellow
> Chrsitians. We cant afford that luxury.
>
> I am appalled on the attack on Jack Haas's letter which was simply deal
> with
> one issue at one time.
>
> I appreciate Terry's questioning of Murphy and Jeeves done in the right
> manner, though I am not sure where I stand on the matter..
>
> Concerning the great gulf fixed between Peacocke and Polkinghorne, which I
> noticed several times in their presence, if I can give two squawks for
> Arthur (peacocks make a horrible noise!) he was very strong on opposing
> the
> atheistic reductionism of some scientists even if his theology was sooo
> liberal. Perhaps it is significant that I could converse constructively
> with
> Arthur though we were poles apart theologically.
>
> Finally I think Dembski and O'Leary have given a totally unjustified
> attack
> on the ASA, paralleled by Glen Morton on Theology Web.
>
> Michael
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Terry M. Gray" <grayt@lamar.colostate.edu>
> To: "AmericanScientificAffiliation" <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 6:07 PM
> Subject: Re: [asa] Re: [asa] American Scientific Affiliation * Whatever
> happened to its mission?
>
>
> Ted,
>
> I believe that your analysis is essentially correct here. The sad
> thing is that we have made zero progress over the past 15 years. I
> wrote my review of Phil Johnson's Darwin on Trial in 1992 ( http://
> www.asa3.org/gray/evolution_trial/dotreview.html ). I applauded,
> welcomed, and joined the attack on atheistic materialism. I did spend
> some time criticizing some of the anti-evolutionary arguments.
>
> In late 1993 I became involved with Phil's evolution reflector and
> actively advocated my pro-evolutionary creation viewpoint with all
> the key players of the ID movement--Johnson, Behe, Nelson, Wells--I
> don't remember Dembski being part of that round of discussion. I
> interacted with Mike Behe extensively during this period and as a
> result was invited to "debate" Mike at the ASA meeting at Bethel
> College in the summer of 1994. I still remember the greeting I got
> from several of the reflector participants upon meeting me, "Ah...,
> so you're Terry Grayi." That interaction with Mike is also on-line at
> http://www.asa3.org/evolution/irred_compl.html
>
> Serious discussions between us came to an end in the spring of 1994
> when Phil labeled my position as vacuous (similar to Dembski's
> superfluous as found below). I even got the venerable Alvin Plantinga
> to challenge Phil on that claim but to no avail. The evolution
> reflector eventually migrated to Calvin under my management and the
> ID guys all left within a few months and started another group to
> which I wasn't invited. It has always seemed to me that the ID folks
> are the ones pushing out the TE/EC folks. I have pleaded with them
> from time to time to link arms in the resistance of atheistic
> scientific materialism--the ASA has NEVER lost its commitment to
> that. One of those pleas can be found in my review of Johnson's
> Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds on the web at http://
> tallship.chm.colostate.edu/gray/opening_minds.html . But they won't
> do it--they think that our willingness to accommodate evolution is a
> fatal error and so they, like the YEC's, put us in the enemy camp.
>
> Interestingly, at the Messiah meeting, Bill Dembski admitted that TE
> was a viable orthodox position. Someday, I'll get that video on the
> ASA web site. So, maybe there is progress--although you'd never
> believe he said such things based on recent postings on UcD.
>
> The public version of the evolution group ran for another 5 years and
> is archived on the web at http://www.asa3.org/archives/evolution
>
> The ASA list started in Feb 1996 with the hope that it would be
> broader than the evolution/creation debate. You all can judge for
> yourself whether or not that has been successful.
>
> I think Dembski is wrong in his claim about us. I for one have
> resisted moves to compromise our explicit Christian/evangelical
> commitments. Howard Van Til's move into process theology is
> regrettable in my opinion and I have been outspoken on the list in
> that move. The paper here http://www.asa3.org/gray/
> GrayASA2003OnHodge.html describes some of that. I am troubled by the
> way that we are embracing non-reductive monism in our anthropology. I
> think that it was comments about this topic that first prompted
> Denyse's blog entry. I would argue that the "hiddenness" of God in
> creation is paralleled by the "hiddenness" of the soul in human
> anthropology. Just because we think we can explain many aspects of
> the human mind in terms of known processes, it doesn't mean that
> there's not a non-material "substance" present. [Bill's talk of
> Occam's razor is nonsense in my opinion--my belief in God, his
> governance, design, the soul, etc. is not based on science--it's
> based on divine revelation in scripture and in Christ and personal
> knowledge through the Holy Spirit--of course, unbelievers will scoff
> at such claims--isn't that what we expect?] While some would make a
> Biblical case for non-reductive monism, I'm not convinced and follow
> John Cooper from Calvin (and nearly all theological traditions in
> Christendom) on the exegetical and theological issues. However, there
> is no anthropological statement in ASA's statement of faith so it's
> open for discussion. Also, I have no reason to question the Christian
> faith commitment or the commitment to scripture of folks like Nancey
> Murphy or Malcolm Jeeves. These are hermeneutical issues that the
> Christian community needs to hammer out.
>
> Well, sorry to be so autobiographical and self-promoting here. (While
> I'm at it, I may as well point folks to the accounting of my
> experience on faith/science issues in the Orthodox Presbyterian
> Church, found on the web at http://www.asa3.org/gray/evolution_trial/
> index.html .) The bottom line is that we should stand on our
> convictions, cooperate with those with whom we can, defend ourselves
> if necessary from false witnesses, and carry on in the cause of truth
> and Christ's kingdom.
>
> TG
>
> On Apr 24, 2007, at 8:09 AM, Ted Davis wrote:
>
> >>>> "Jack" <drsyme@cablespeed.com> 04/23/07 8:11 PM >>>quotes
> > "nullasalus" as follows:
> > "Honestly, even if TEs disagree with ID, I can't understand why the two
> > camps don't try to put aside their admittedly big differences and unite
> > against atheistic materialism. It's one of the reasons that I
> find myself
> > more sympathetic to ID on a day to day basis - at least ID proponents
> > engage
> > and argue against those philosophies. For TEs, they just don't seem to
> > make
> > the radar. "
> >
> > ***
> >
> > Ted replies.
> >
> > For a couple of years, I tried to persuade my friends in the ID camp to
> > take a friendlier posture toward the kinds of TE positions found within
> > the ASA (and there are various ones). Mike Behe is IMO a TE--he
> accepts
> > UCD and has no theological objections to the type of position held by
> Ken
> > Miller, Bob Russell, and John Polkinghorne--that God can work subtly
> > through quantum processes to bring about specific results in the
> history
> > of life. See, e.g., Mike's comments on pp. 357-8 of "Debating Design,"
> > ed Dembski & Ruse.
> >
> > But this, apparently, is not good enough for Bill and for many other
> IDs.
> > Let me quote from Bill's essay, "What every theologian should know
> about
> > creation, evolution, and design," as follows:
> >
> > <As far as design theorists are concerned, theistic evolution
> is American
> > evangelicalism's ill-conceived accommodation to Darwinism. What
> theistic
> > evolution does is take the Darwinian picture of the biological world
> and
> > baptize it, identifying this picture with the way God created life.
> When
> > boiled down to its scientific content, theistic evolution is no
> different
> > from atheistic evolution, accepting as it does only purposeless,
> > naturalistic, material processes for the origin and development of
> life.
> >
> > As far as design theorists are concerned, theistic evolution is an
> > oxymoron, something like "purposeful purposelessness." If God purposely
> > created life through the means proposed by Darwin, then God's purpose
> was
> > to make it seem as though life was created without any purpose.
> According
> > to the Darwinian picture, the natural world provides no clue that a
> > purposeful God created life. For all we can tell, our appearance on
> > planet earth is an accident. If it were all to happen again, we
> wouldn't
> > be here. No, the heavens do not declare the glory of God, and no, God's
> > invisible attributes are not clearly seen from God's creation. This is
> > the upshot of theistic evolution as the design theorists construe it.
> >
> > Design theorists find the "theism" in theistic evolution superfluous.
> > Theistic evolution at best includes God as an unnecessary rider in an
> > otherwise purely naturalistic account of life. As such, theistic
> > evolution violates Occam's razor. Occam's razor is a regulative
> principle
> > for how scientists are supposed to do their science. According to this
> > principle, superfluous entities are to be rigorously excised from
> > science. Thus, since God is an unnecessary rider in our understanding
> of
> > the natural world, theistic evolution ought to dispense with all talk
> of
> > God outright and get rid of the useless adjective "theistic."
> >
> > It's for failing to take Occam's razor seriously that the Darwinist
> > establishment despises (yes I say despises) theistic evolution. They
> view
> > theistic evolution as a weak-kneed sycophant, who desperately wants the
> > respectability that comes with being a full- blooded Darwinist, but
> > refuses to follow the logic of Darwinism through to the end. It takes
> > courage to give up the comforting belief that life on earth has a
> > purpose. It takes courage to live without the consolation of an
> > afterlife. Theistic evolutionists lack the stomach to face the ultimate
> > meaninglessness of life, and it is this failure of courage that makes
> > them contemptible in the eyes of full-blooded Darwinists (Richard
> Dawkins
> > is a case in point).>
> >
> > The whole essay is here http://www.origins.org/articles/
> > dembski_theologn.html
> >
> > I like the fact that Bill tells people what he thinks, as clearly as he
> > can--I try to do the same myself. If Bill disagrees with TE for the
> > reasons stated, I have no quarrel with him for speaking
> his mind. Given
> > his unquestioned status as a leader of the ID movement, however, and
> > given the tone and content of the passage above (which I think fairly
> > represents his views, and those of some other ID leaders), it shouldn't
> > surprise anyone on his blog why it's been so hard for well intentioned
> > people from both camps (TE and ID) to come together. Bill just doesn't
> > think that TE has any cash value: it's an irrelevant embarrassment at
> > best and a spineless jellyfish at worst. This view is widely shared
> > among "camp followers" of ID, though it is not universally shared even
> > among fellows of TDI.
> >
> > Thus, when some TEs articulate their view that inferences to
> > purpose/design involve more than science alone--that metaphysics and
> > theology are part of the inferential nexus--they are often seen as
> > attacking ID and/or abetting scientific materialism, even in cases when
> > they are simply stating honestly and fairly what they believe, and why.
> > We are very often seen as part of the problem, not part of the answer,
> to
> > scientific materialism. It is all well and good to raise objections to
> > various forms of TE--I do this often myself--but it is another thing
> > entirely to define TE in such a way that TEs are outside the "Big Tent"
> > of ID, and then complain about an inability to unite against what
> > genuinely is a common enemy. I spent I don't know how many hours,
> trying
> > to get many of my friends in the ID camp to see the cavern that
> separates
> > a Polkinghorne from a Peacocke (it's called a high view of divine
> > transcendence and of Christology, and it is a cavern), but
> (judging from
> > the pos!
> > ts they sent me) many had a very hard time seeing this, I believe b/c
> > they did not have much familiarity with either Polkinghorne
> or Peacocke,
> > to say nothing of many other thinkers who write about science and
> > theology rather than simply ID vs "Darwinism." ID does its best to
> keep
> > theology to one side, so this is not all that surprising--though it is
> > still quite frustrating.
> >
> > I keep coming back to this, with which I close. TE is not a
> "slam dunk"
> > against Dawkins and company. It's too much a faith-based position for
> > Bill and many other IDs. Their cultural agenda, clearly indicated in
> the
> > private "wedge" document and numerous public writings (such as the
> > promotional puff that Bill wrote for "Darwin's Nemesis," which made
> > direct reference to the culture wars and the Dover trial), seems to
> > require a "slam dunk," and that is what ID represents to many
> Christians.
> > The subtler responses of Polkinghorne, McGrath, Barr, and several other
> > theologically orthodox TEs are just not tough enough, in Bill's
> opinion.
> > Indeed, he seems almost to loathe them, unless I am badly misreading
> him.
> > If so, then nullasalus may have part of the answer.
> >
> > ted
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> > "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>
> ________________
> Terry M. Gray, Ph.D.
> Computer Support Scientist
> Chemistry Department
> Colorado State University
> Fort Collins, CO 80523
> (o) 970-491-7003 (f) 970-491-1801
>
>
>
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Received on Tue Apr 24 21:29:29 2007