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

Ted's last paragraph catches a key issue.  ID wants science to give "strong support to biblical theism".  This of course ignores millennia of theological arguments that Christians should not expect that to be the case (e.g., Luther's "masks of God"; Aquinas' secondary causation; Maximus' logoi).  ID's biggest problem is not poor science [although there is that], but poor theology.  Their insistence on scientific support (one is tempted to say 'proof'] is actually in agreement with positivists that science is the ultimate decider.

Karl
***************
Karl V. Evans
cmekve@aol.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Davis <TDavis@messiah.edu>
To: Randy Isaac <randyisaac@comcast.net>; David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 8:31 am
Subject: Re: [asa] Neo-Darwinism and God's action

>>> "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com> 2/14/2008 10:34 PM >>> writes,
mong other things, this:

age almost gets to the point of saying what he really needs to say: on the
uestion of causation and God's providence, *there is essentially nothing
eparating TE's such as Collins and McGrath (and Randy I think) from most
on-YEC ID folks such as Behe.* It seems to me that the real difference is
hat "hard" ID folks insist there are "patterns" in the "information" of
ife that empircally demonstrate design, while most Christian TEs argue that
esign is not empirically demonstrable.
***
Ted comments: Exactly so, David. In several of my courses I do a unit (which I
ill be doing as a pre-meeting workshop at our annual meeting this year) in
hich I make the precise point you make in your final sentence above. What is
he difference, at bottom, between ID as expressed by Behe and TE as expressed
y Collins and McGrath? It is simply the issue of scientific detectability.
his was hammered home to me in exchanges I had with many IDs on a list I was
art of for a couple of years. If you can't "see" it with the tools of science,
he IDs kept telling me, then it doesn't really count as "design." I hope my
eading of this is not inaccurate, for this is a crucial point. I hope if I am
istaken in my analysis, that James Mahaffy or someone else will quickly correct
e. But I'll continue with it. Thus, for the IDs, *there must in principle be
gaps" in scientific explanations, at the level of science itself and not simply
t the metaphysical level, in order for someone to say that a particular
rtifact has been "designed."* For many TEs, on the other hand, it is more
elpful to talk about "purpose" in the universe, since "design" has recently
cquired this more specific meaning. Collins and McGrath would be in this
ategory, and probably Polkinghorne also. They all believe (as do most of the
Ds I have talked with) that the universe is in fact "designed," but they do not
ee "gaps" at the level of science pointing to this. Rather they see "gaps" at
 higher level, if I may put it that way. Thus, there are no "gaps" in the
uclear physics of carbon and oxygen, but both the presence of carbon and oxygen
nd their relative scarcity in the universe suggest that "the universe knew we
ere coming," as Dyson has put it. Why nuclear physics should paint the picture
hat it paints is not a scientific question for them; there is no "gap" there
here the scientific mechanisms have broken down and need to have "design"
nserted as a competing explanation. Rather, it is that the science, complet!
e at its
own level, when taken as a whole, quite strongly suggests that something more
ay be going on, that the whole shebbang needs a deeper explanation at a higher
evel.
But, no one is forced to draw such a conclusion, and lots of scientists don't,
o (IMO) most IDs do not see this as sufficient. It won't carry the weight of
ultural transformation, which is their ultimate (perhaps not so ultimate) goal.
hey need the authority of science to give momentum to their religious and
ultural goals, and therefore they need to find real "gaps" within mechanistic
xplanations, not simply limits or boundaries to the scope of those explanations
hat might suggest that reality is bigger than what is contained within our
quations.
If this analysis is correct, then IDs and TEs generally (there will be
ndividual exceptions that are not unimportant) have different overall religious
ttitudes. I can capture them partly, I think, by quoting Asa Gray's anonymous
863 review of the first edition of Dana’s Manual of Geology, which contained a
hort section on cosmogony. Dana’s cosmogony, Gray noted,
   is merely a summary of the views of [Princeton geologist Arnold] Guyot,
ooking to a harmony of the Mosaic cosmogony with modern science, –views which
rofessor Dana has adopted and maintained elsewhere more in detail, and which,
nder the circumstances, are naturally enough here reproduced. We regard them
ith curious interest, but without much sympathy for the anxious feeling which
emands such harmonies. We have faith in revelation, and faith in science, in
ach after its kind; but, as respects cosmogony, we are not called upon to yield
n implicit assent to any proposed reconciliation of the two.
Now, Gray was obviously talking about Dana's concordist version of OEC, not
bout ID (which formally speaking did not exist at the time). But, he was
ointing IMO directly at the same religious attitude which tends to be dominant
ithin ID. IDs for the most part really want a classical kind of "harmony"
etween science and Christianity, in which science (as done by IDs) gives strong
upport to biblical theism. TEs are content with more of a complementarity, in
hich science and its conclusions are seen as fitting pretty naturally within a
arger theological/metaphysical framework that does not arise directly out of
cience itself, but which (they believe) makes sense of science more than other
orldviews are able to do. That's a very different conception, reflecting a
uite different overall religious attitude.
Ted

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Received on Fri Feb 15 11:23:42 2008