[asa] ID, TE, God's action, and Apologetics

Before the "Neo-Darwinism and God's action" thread diverged into discussion
of open theism, free will, etc. (interesting issues in their own right), Ted
Davis hit the nail squarely on the head in his analysis of the difference in
religious attitude between proponents of ID and those who would fall under
the Theistic Evolution label. I want to go a little further with one aspect of
that.
 
To paraphrase Ted, he pointed out what I think is the key difference in
attitude between the more moderate ID crowd (those like Behe who at least admit
common descent) and most on the TE side. Both groups affirm that the
development of life reflects God's purpose and "design". The difference is that, in
the unspoken theology of the ID group, it is NECESSARY that God's design be
SCIENTIFICALLY DETECTABLE.
 
Ted described the underlying difference in religious attitude this way:
----------(quoting Ted) ----------
IDs for the most part really want a classical kind of "harmony" between
science and Christianity, in which science (as done by IDs) gives strong support
to biblical theism. TEs are content with more of a complementarity, in which
science and its conclusions are seen as fitting pretty naturally within a
larger theological/metaphysical framework that does not arise directly out of
science itself, but which (they believe) makes sense of science more than other
worldviews are able to do. That's a very different conception, reflecting a
quite different overall religious attitude.
--------------------------------------
 
I don't disagree with Ted's analysis in terms of "harmony" and
"complementarity", but it seems like another (not unrelated) strong correlation is with
attitude toward *apologetics*. ID usually goes hand-in-hand with a strong
commitment to evidentialist apologetics, and is often presented as the #1 tool
for such apologetics. Evidentialist apologetics is largely a creature of
modernism, where science and human reason and cold propositional truth reign
supreme. Hence the need for science (as the ultimate arbiter of truth) to provide
evidence for the faith. In my church, the people who are pushing ID are the
same ones pushing Lee Strobel books, Reasons to Believe, the Shroud of
Turin, etc., where apologetics is all about convincing rational arguments for
certain propositional truths. In contrast, those who take a TE position are
likely to take a less "modern" apologetic stance (one could argue about calling
this postmodern or a return to the non-modern Biblical perspective), more
geared toward the story of God in Jesus making sense of our own stories, with an
apologetic that is more incarnational as the church body lives out the gospel.
 
I think this is all tied together with something David O. mentioned a couple
of months ago. There is a substantial Evangelical faction (in which Biola
is prominent) that that is deeply entrenched in modernism. They throw out the
baby with the bathwater in rejecting all postmodern critiques of modernism
and condemning Emergent church movements. This same faction seems to have a
strong preference for the evidentialist brand of apologetics, and they line up
strongly behind ID.
 
Allan (ASA Member)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Allan H. Harvey, Boulder, Colorado | SteamDoc@aol.com
"Any opinions expressed here are mine, and should not be
attributed to my employer, my wife, or my cat"

**************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living.
(http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/
2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sat Feb 16 16:01:03 2008