RE: "Hidden" Theological Issues with Theistic Evolution (was Re: [asa] E.O. Wilson "Baptist No More")

"Love thine enemies? Turn the other cheek? Not so rational, but more
powerful than either reason or primitive instinct alone can achieve.
Life is about far more than we can possibly reconcile with reason alone
and the our sacred texts are all about giving us transcendent rationales
(values) for what's important in life."

It is interesting that famous atheist Bill Hitchins says he disagrees
with the morality of "turning the other cheek" and "loving enemies." He
proposes rooting out and killing all Islamic terrorists (and maybe also
those who just think like Islamic terrorists). No negotiation.
However, God's way is to reach out to them in love. Sure, there's also
justice, but the big picture is to love and pray for your enemies,
rather than seek them out and kill them.

...Bernie

________________________________

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of mlucid@aol.com
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 12:27 PM
To: philtill@aol.com
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: "Hidden" Theological Issues with Theistic Evolution (was
Re: [asa] E.O. Wilson "Baptist No More")

From: philtill@aol.com

        Why is theology secondary to the "reductionist program?" Why is
theology not primary to our epistemology in some sense?

I think it is. But in our theology, we eventually got to the place
where we learned that God isn't going to tell us about gravity, and then
at that point we devised science as the process God wants us to use to
continue where revealed theology doesn't go. In this science we might
learn things that require us to go back and re-assess our prior
theology, but there is no point in worrying about the things that
science hasn't told us about, yet. So we continue in the reductionism
as our primary epistemology in those areas simply because God has chosen
not to reveal anything directly.

I agree that God is totally down with us practicing science. I think
that the objectivity given us by science is part and parcel of our
earning an ever greater component of the image of God by studying the
immanence of God in Creation. If God is indeed immanent in Creation,
how could it be any other way? The Bible is not about the immanence of
God in Creation. The Bible is about how humans ought to behave under a
transcendent God.

Personally, I don't see where rational understanding is important in the
Bible. The rational specifics of the Bible are only important to the
extent that they might make it easier for our reason to go along with
our faith in deciding what is of value in life. Reason should stay in
reason's corner as the detail facilitator for our more comprehensive
instinct. Reason is not the larger part of life. Instinct, emotions,
feelings, compulsion, desire, libido etc, etc collectively play a larger
role in life (even though reason will post-rationalize them all in its
own preferred self-image). The Bible is about how we ought to go about
dealing with the enormous task of regulating and supporting our
instinctive, emotional, feeling-driven psyches, not about how many 24
hour periods were required for the earth form.

How we should regulate our relentless, dominating libidos has not been
covered anywhere nearly as well in any scientific text as it has been
comprehensively covered in the Bible. How we deal with treachery and
sin in our own family is nearly non-existent outside of the Bible (or
Koran etc). And on and on. The Bible has nothing to do with the
rational examination of the details of the construction of the natural
world. It's got everything to do with how we should think and feel
about the dominant, a-rational primary motivator of all human activity
right up to and including our most evolved instinctive survival trait of
all: faith.

Love thine enemies? Turn the other cheek? Not so rational, but more
powerful than either reason or primitive instinct alone can achieve.
Life is about far more than we can possibly reconcile with reason alone
and the our sacred texts are all about giving us transcendent rationales
(values) for what's important in life.

-Mike (Friend of ASA)

But you are concerned about areas where the apparent contradictions have
already been uncovered. I think that here, too, that theology is always
primary. But God's revealed theology gives us an epistemology that
treats nature as _real_, and which must be treated with is common sense.
Therefore, the epistemology God gives us requires that we don't accept
theological reasoning contrary to something we can clearly see in nature
with our eyes. If God had not given us a common-sense epistemology in
his revelation, but had insisted that we deny what we clearly see, then
the further conclusions of theology beyond that point would seem to be
more up-front than what we have today. But in fact theology actually is
up front all the time, insisting that we not abandon our common sense.

By the way, science is simply the process of extending what we can
clearly see with our eyes. Today, the quesiton of numan origins is
still a bit murky, but one day it will be seen just as clearly as we can
see that Earth is round and moves around the sun. The idea that science
or theological reasoning -- one or the other alone -- must take
precedence in the murky areas is fighting over a thing of very limited
value. That murkiness will dissolve so quickly that its hardly worth
fighting over that turf.

Phil

-----Original Message-----
From: David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
To: philtill@aol.com
Cc: rich.blinne@gmail.com; steven.dale.martin@gmail.com; asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 4:33 pm
Subject: Re: "Hidden" Theological Issues with Theistic Evolution (was
Re: [asa] E.O. Wilson "Baptist No More")

Phil said: So we press on in the reductionist program as far as we can
go, and we don't worry what lies beyond the limits of reductionism nor
how it may affect the limits of theology.

But this is what bothers me. Why is theology secondary to the
"reductionist program?" Why is theology not primary to our epistemology
in some sense? Indeed, as John Milbank contends (with strong adjuncts
in the Reformed tradition), why is theology not the foundation of our
epistemology? This is one of the broader things that bothers me about
evangelicals and TE. It seems that a sort of positivistic reductionism
governed by the heuristic of evolution is the unexamined epistemic
foundation for the current version of this program, rather than God and
His revelation in Christ, in the Word, and in the world.

On Nov 30, 2007 3:42 PM, <philtill@aol.com> wrote:

Also, I contend as I always have that Godel's proofs have given us an
amazing insight into the limits of reductionism in physics.
Reductionism sees physics as acting in the mode of a Turing machine
that operates upon a finite set of axioms or initial conditions of
reality. The goal of reductionism is to identify those initial
conditions and to identify the physical laws that constitute the Turing
machine. But a Turing machine operating upon a finite set of axioms is
exactly where Godel's proof applies (assuming that the axioms are at
least complex enough to produce an arithmetic, and indeed arithmetic
does appear to be a part of nature since we can count electrons, for
example).

So, if the present course of scientific reductionism is working with a
correct view of nature, then Godel's proof applies to nature. Note that
I'm not saying it applies to our understanding of nature or to science,
which is an epistemological question, but that it applies to nature
directly, which is an ontological question. Nature itself cannot be
complete and cannot ensure its own internal logical consistency -- its
own being -- if it were the sort of thing that could comply with the
reductionist program in physics all the way to the end. Hence, reductio
ad absurdum, the reductionist program in physics cannot be ultimately
successful. At some point prior to explaining everything, reductionism
stops. There must be an infinite number of axioms required to describe
nature, _and_ there must have been an uncountable number of computations
performed outside of the Turing machine processes of physics in order to
obtain a set of axioms that w ill be internally consistent. But this
assumes something exists outside the Turing machine of nature to perform
the computations, which cannot be treated by scientific reductionism.

So if ultimate reductionism is not possible, then the whole process
David outlines must break down at some point. But we don't know what
that point is. So we press on in the reductionist program as far as we
can go, and we don't worry what lies beyond the limits of reductionism
nor how it may affect the limits of theology. We don't yet know what
those limits are, and whatever lies beyond them will probably be outside
the purview of science as long as we live in this universe, unless some
alternative to reductionism can be devised, or unless we find some way
to describe nature that does not operate as a Turing machine.

Phil

-----Original Message-----
From: Rich Blinne <rich.blinne@gmail.com>
To: David Opderbeck < dopderbeck@gmail.com <mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com>
>
Cc: Steve Martin <steven.dale.martin@gmail.com>; asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 2:31 pm
Subject: Re: "Hidden" Theological Issues with Theistic Evolution (was
Re: [asa] E.O. Wilson "Baptist No More")

On 11/29/07, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:

Steve said: And even if Natural selection *may* have *some* explanatory
power for levels above biology, I don't think that necessarily means we
are being reductionist.

Yes, I agree, and I'm ok with that notion. But what I wonder is whether
this is really being consistent in how TE's, at least evangelical TE's,
approach the science. Isn't the truly consistent view to swallow the
whole package? Maybe another way to put it is, why posit a "gap" in
evolution at the level of the human mind / soul? Isn't that imposing an
a priori theological view, drawn from special revelation, onto the
science?

I don't think it is necessary to swallow the whole package. If you
compare and constrast the TE's gap with ID's gap the one thing that
sticks out is the TE's gap is immaterial and thus beyond the explanatory
capabilities of science. It is possible to get reductionistic here like
Descartes did who said the place where the soul and body merge is the
Pineal Gland (because it formed a point and thus appealed to Descartes'
reductionism.) But, I don't believe reductionism is necessary and given
the anthropology found in Scripture if you find that you are being
reductionistic that should be a warning sign that your variety of TE may
be on the wrong track. To do so is to as the saying goes is a foolish
consistency and is thus the hobgoblin of little minds.

One other thing that differentiates the two gaps is one is an argument
from silence while the other one is based on a positive statement of
Scripture. Gaps are not per se the problem with ID but rather the
argument from silence. We should oppose something merely because there
are "gaps" -- and I am afraid Collins does this while not seeing his own
"gaps". If you believe in First Causes like evangelicals do, then there
will be gaps. But, because there are also Second Causes some apparent
gaps are not really so. If Scripture posits supernatural causation for
something -- like it does for the creation of the human soul -- then you
are more likely to be correct about your gap then if it does not.

Rich Blinne (member ASA)

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Received on Mon Dec 3 12:38:11 2007