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

Sorry, Dave, I've been away at the AAAS meeting. Logan's quote of my letter is an exact copy and paste of the way it was printed. His original piece that triggered my letter is online in the November 2007 issue of CT.
Just to repeat it, here's the letter:

  In his critique of Alister McGrath's The Dawkins Delusion? ["The CT Review," November], Logan Paul Gage fails to distinguish between scientific randomness and metaphysical randomness. By insisting that these two concepts are inextricably linked, Gage concludes that McGrath (and Francis Collins) maintain a position that precludes divine providence. Evolution is not a purely random process, though as with all natural processes, there are underlying random events involved. But even if evolution were completely random, God's action is not limited by randomness, just as human creative activity may involve random actions.
     The Bible records several instances when God's guiding action was expressed through the casting of lots. Does Gage have a better explanation than McGrath and Collins have provided for how God carries out his sovereignty through means that appear to us as scientifically random? Randy Isaac Executive Director, American Scientific Affiliation Ipswich, Massachusetts

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: David Opderbeck
  To: Randy Isaac
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 10:20 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] Neo-Darwinism and God's action

  Randy, I'm a little behind on my CT reading and I may have accidentally tossed that issue -- could you post your letter?

  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 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

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Received on Sat Feb 16 09:41:28 2008