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

Dead-on, I think, Allan -- and this is why I think the missional / emergent
movement can be something of a partner in discussions about the relation of
evangelical Christian faith and science. Significant portions of the
missional / emergent movement are not so much "postmodern" as critical
realist; and even those who are "postmodern," such as James K.A. Smith of
Calvin College (http://www.calvin.edu/~jks4/), are not the relativists
they're sometimes caricatured to be, but rather are focused on how Truth
emerges from community and situated narratives. The apologetic of missional
/ emergent folks tends to be much more relational than propositional, and
resonates with some things McGrath and others have written about the ways in
which scientific and faith claims can be complementary even when they
explain something in different ways.

On Feb 16, 2008 1:00 PM, <SteamDoc@aol.com> wrote:

> 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"
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
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Received on Sat Feb 16 23:21:08 2008