Re: [asa] ID, TE, and the culture war--who is the audience?

Here is one angle I'm not sure you've touched on: the extent to which
ID is related to what I call the "Biola School" of rationalist
evangelicalism. (I call it the "Biola School" not because all those
associated with it hail from Biola, but because there seems to be a
center of energy for it there, not least in connection with the
Evangelical Philosophical Society).

Here is my take on that, which I admit isn't terribly thorough: The
"Biola School" -- typified by folks, like JP Moreland, Doug Groothius,
and Norm Geisler -- is fundamentally committed to (1) a
reliablist-foundationalist, common sense epistemology; (2)
propositional truth; and (3) a strong form of Biblical inerrancy
derived from (1) and (2).

Their epistemology and hermeneutics lead to the view that scripture
can speak in "scientific" terms. This in turn leads to a belief that
the "kinds" of Gen. 1 require, at some level, separate creation and
fixity of species. It is therefore vitally important for them to
refute gradualistic evolution -- even apart from YEC'ism, which most
of them don't hold.

Also flowing from their epistemology is a strong commitment to
evidentialist apologetics and a degree of trust in human perception
and reason that supports a relatively strong natural theology.

The strong ID program fits all the foregoing hand-in-glove. TE,
however -- or any other faith-science paradigm that shies away from
natural theology -- is near anathema to the Biola School's
epistemology and hermeneutics. Any faith-science paradigm speaks of
God's acts in nature being "hidden," or of God acting in creation
through secondary causes, questions the Biola School's epistemic
stance that God's activity is self-evident to natural reason and its
hermeneutical stance that scripture speaks mostly in plain
propositions that transcend culture
and language.

So, I see at least some of the hostility in defence of ID as part of a
bigger tension: that between the rationalist, propositionalist
evangelicals and those evangelical and other Christians who are now
questioning those Enlightenment presuppositions. Similar tensions are
becoming evident in relation to Church-State paradigms. It's the
difference between Geisler and Grenz, Mohler and Milbank, Carl Henry
and Karl Barth.

On 4/27/07, Ted Davis <TDavis@messiah.edu> wrote:
> The conversation we have had recently about ID, TE, and their different
> strategies in engaging atheism prompts me to wonder about a specific
> question. I've copied Bill Dembski and Denyse O'Leary on this, not because
> this post involves them in any direct way (it does not), but b/c I would be
> surprised if they have not also thought about this, and they might want to
> contributed some observations here. It's fine, of course, if they pass, but
> I at least would be very interested in what they may have to say. Obviously
> it relates to recent conversations in which they were involved, but (I hope)
> without some of the tension that came with that. Indeed, I suggest that
> perhaps this thread could be one that would illuminate and benefit all of
> us, whether we prefer ID or TE, and I invite Bill and Densye, and anyone
> else for that matter, to join in the discussion. I very much hope they will
> do so. Or, if not, that they will invite some of their friends to take part
> in their stead. There are some ID supporters on the ASA list now, but not
> that many, and IMO it would be good to have more. It would also be good to
> keep it temperate, all around. We all know that in lots of electronic
> spaces that is simply not the case.
>
> Let me articulate the question. I'll start with an assumption.
>
> Suppose we assume (as I have been assuming) that ID generally takes a more
> confrontational approach to atheism, the "slam dunk" language I've used; and
> that TE is generally less confrontational in responding to atheism, the
> "backdoor layup" as I had called it.
>
> I haven't seen here disagreements with that assumption, but we haven't
> talked about it very much and there well could be dissenters. Dissenters,
> I'd like to hear other views if you hold them.
>
> If this assumption is granted, then let me follow with this question: Is
> either strategy effective at all? If so, for which audiences, and why? If
> not, why not? Here is what I am getting at. Richard Dawkins, Michael
> Shermer, and others in the atheist camp seem to be "worldview foreclosed,"
> if that is the right term. To borrow Darwin's words from the end of "Origin
> of Species," (481-2 in 1st edn) their "minds are stocked with a multitude of
> facts all viewed, during a course of years, from a point of view directly
> oposite to mine.... Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more
> weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain
> number of facts will certainly reject my theory. A few naturalists, endowed
> with much flexibility of mind, and who have already begun to doubt on the
> immutability of species, may be influenced by this volume; but I look with
> confidend to the future, to young and rising naturalists, who will be able
> to view both sides of the question with impartiality."
>
> OK, Darwin of course was speaking about common descent vs separate
> creation, but what I am suggesting is that we assume this is a Christian
> theist, talking to an atheist, about theism itself. A whole bunch of the
> facts themselves (chemical periodicity, the physiology of digestion, the
> size of the earth's orbit around the sun, the charge of the electron, the
> existence of suffering, the existence of many different religions, the Civil
> War, the holocaust, the Rex Sox finally winning the world series, the
> structure of the bacterial flagellum) are going to be the same for the
> theist and the atheist. But that multitude of facts have all been viewed,
> during a course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine.
> Obviously only certain of these facts are important in this context, but I
> think the point should be clear.
>
> Are the kinds of "apologetics" engaged in by IDs and TEs aimed at different
> audiences? Are they aimed more at Dawkins now or our own children in a few
> years time? At the American evangelical person in the pew, or the Hindu
> mystic in Bombay, or the university student at Berkeley? Obviously,
> different books can take similar ideas and package them for different
> audiences; I'm not getting at that. I'm getting at the fundamental
> difference between the "slam dunk" and the "backdoor layup," in terms of
> overall attitude in responding to Dawkins and company.
>
> I'm not at all sure about how I would answer this one myself. Nor am I too
> confident about the following observations, though I've done my best in a
> short space and time to get it right.
>
> I think I'd be inclined to say that ID is aimed more at "calling the bluff"
> (as IDs see it) of mainstream science, concerning the explanatory efficacy
> of unguided mechanisms to account for "irreducibly complex" things (whether
> they be at the level of life itself, bacteria, phyla, thinking creatures, or
> the whole universe), with both eyes clearly on the goal of "proving" the
> existence of a mind above/beyond nature. Whereras TE is aimed more at
> "making rational space" for religious faith, by "finessing" the standard
> scientific story around its metaphysical edges, such as the origin of the
> specific order of the only universe we actually experience, the amazing
> ability of mathematics to describe nature in deep, and deeply surprising,
> ways, and the importance and universal presence of moral instincts. It
> isn't as though ID proponents would overlook the things that TEs often
> stress, but they obviously place much more stock on those things that TEs
> mostly do not stress. If this is at all fair and accurate, would we expect
> different audiences to respond differently to ID vs TE?
>
> ID probably has nothing directly to say about theodicy (please correct this
> if not accurate), but quite a bit of things have been said by various ID
> proponents about imperfect adaptation. I don't know how much has been said
> about apparently devious design, such as parasites or the AIDS virus, and
> why they may imply about the identity of the designer, but I know it does
> come up. As for human wickedness, my sense is that ID doesn't go there as
> ID, but that many (most?) ID proponents when speaking as individuals would
> employ a free will theodicy of one sort or another--as many (most?) TE
> proponents probably do. But I don't see these issues on the center of the
> ID table. TE, on the other hand, usually confronts the "dark side of
> nature" (if I may call it that) and human nature head on, or at least with
> one eye fully gazing upon it. IMO, this is one reason (among others) that
> many TEs are wont to say that God creates mediately, rather than
> immediately, using processes that do employ what looks like "chance" to us.
> If this is at all fair and accurate, would we expect different audiences to
> respond differently to ID vs TE?
>
> Overall, then, (and I do realize this discussion only touches the surface,
> so it's not ideal to say "overall"), would we expect different audiences to
> respond differently to ID vs TE? If so, what might this imply about the
> culture wars?
>
> Whaddya think?
>
> ted
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sun Apr 29 16:07:54 2007