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

I don't agree that creatures other than humans (except perhaps angels) can
"love." Yes, other creatures can exhibit altruism and selflessness, but
that alone isn't "love."

Take, for example, the classic "love" passage of 1 Corinthians 13, and focus
on verses 12 and 13: <em>"Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with
the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always
perseveres."</em>

These notions of "evil," "truth," "trust," "hope," and "persevere" are
foreign to creatures other than humans (and perhaps angels). They imply
moral and relational aspects that other creatures either do not possess at
all or possess in such vastly smaller amounts as to be different in kind
than those possessed by humans. I would suggest that they are involved in
the <em>imago dei</em> itself.

In responst to Rich Blinne -- I am not suggesting that any of these means we
can "detect" God's design in nature by empirical means. An argument from
the <em>analogia entis</em> is inadequate without the <em>analogia
fidei</em>. BTW, a very nice discussion of the analogies of being and
faith, not really relating to ID, is here:
http://millinerd.com/2006/12/whos-afraid-of-analogia-entis.html
On Feb 18, 2008 4:40 PM, j burg <hossradbourne@gmail.com> wrote:

> "But I would argue that the human capacity here is qualitatively and
> quantitatively on a dramatically different level than that of even the
> most intelligent non-human creatures (of which we are aware)."
>
> I understand what you are saying. We can agree on the "quantitatively"
> part (although my lab exhibits quite a bit more "forgiveness and love"
> than his human master <G>)
>
> We appear to disagree on the "qualitatively" part. What specific
> attribute do humans have that no other species have? It is not
> aesthetics, nor altruism, nor love (not even agape love). Nor speech,
> nor tool-making, etc. etc. Actually, I can think of none. Perhaps you
> can. If you cannot, how then would you argue your "qualitatively"
> claim?
>
> Burgy
>

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Received on Mon Feb 18 17:39:50 2008