Re: [asa] Neo-Darwinism and God's action

I read Gage's letter briefly -- it seems to me he's playing a language game
-- he defines "neo-Darwinian" to mean "random" and "random" to mean "not
involving any cause." So, since Randy suggests God providentially guides
evolution -- meaning, I think, at the level of secondary causation -- Gage
says Randy is suggesting somthing non-"random" and therefore not
"neo-Darwinian."

But then, bizarrely it seems to me, Gage whacks McGrath and Collins for
"slapping God on top of" neo-Darwinism. I read Collins' book, I've heard a
few of his interviews, and I've read bucketloads of McGrath's stuff. To
suggest Collins or McGrath -- particularly McGrath -- deny God's providence
over nature seems utterly ridiculous to me. It makes me mad, really. Has
Gage read McGrath's Scientific Theology? Does he have any inkling at all of
the way in which McGrath appropriates critical realism with its different
layers of reality and hence with its different layers of causation?
Apparently not. Even more basic, has Gage read Aquinas on secondary
causes? Apparently not.

Gage almost gets to the point of saying what he really needs to say: on the
question of causation and God's providence, *there is essentially nothing
separating TE's such as Collins and McGrath (and Randy I think) from most
non-YEC ID folks such as Behe.* It seems to me that the real difference is
that "hard" ID folks insist there are "patterns" in the "information" of
life that empircally demonstrate design, while most Christian TEs argue that
design is not empirically demonstrable.
On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 10:16 PM, Randy Isaac <randyisaac@comcast.net>
wrote:

> Jack Haas just drew my attention to Logan Gage's response<http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/02/of_providence_and_evolution_a.html>to my letter in the Jan 2008 issue of CT. I would greatly appreciate your
> views on the last two paragraphs of his article. We have touched on
> randomness several times in this forum and I believe it continues to be one
> of the fundamental questions. Logan seems to believe that if there is divine
> guidance there will necessarily be evidence of non-randomness. Or have I
> misunderstood him?
>
> Randy
> <http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/02/of_providence_and_evolution_a.html>
>
>

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Received on Thu Feb 14 22:34:57 2008