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

Jack - thank you for this gutsy and forthright observation.

Your's is a perspective that I've come to as well, that evolution is
"good" and the mistakes you mention are in fact providential.

For many folks, it seems hard to get past the value assignments to come
to an appreciation of the stunning (read that mind-boggling) power of
these remarkably simple mechanisms of (preconditions for) evolution.
Evolution does not work without the "mistakes". And, it does not work
without some form of selective attrition. But when paired, these two
have the potential, not only to manifest some things which are
disagreeable from our perspective, but on the other side have the
capacity to bring into being functionality and sophistication that have
never been before. That is true creativity, and it is embedded in active
form into Creation (is there something sort of fractal here?).

Classing death, disease, calamity and such as "evil" is a distinctly
human thing. One should make a distinction between "evil" in a generic
form, that which afflicts us out of the way Creation functions, versus a
synonym for "satanic". If one backs up (of focuses in) just a tad from
the human-only perspective, death and other forms of attrition are
observed to woven ubiquitously into the fabric of our existence. They
are the evolutionary forcing function that over time selects for greater
sophistication and/or survival potential in whatever forms they might take.

Interestingly enough, it seems to me that much of the theodicy problem
just seems to go away if these nasty things (as unpleasant as they might
be to us) are understood as integral to the workings of a Creation that
also gives us all the good stuff, including free will and the ability to
on occasion nuance the rough way that nature takes its "natural" course.

In a broader sense, I love the fact that there are seeming
contradictions at work here, strength from weakness (in the
susceptibility to genetic modifications, for example), and more abundant
life from death (death here being the active selective event in the
evolutionary process).

To my way of thinking, these seeming contradictions should ring a
sonorous bell with their kinship to the Bible's consistent thread of
selecting the unlikely, even the rejected, to accomplish a greater purpose.

Finally, I get real nervous when I consider the possibility here of
calling "evil" that which may be of God.

So it seemeth to me.

JimA [Friend of ASA]

Jack wrote:

> But I am not talking about mans choice here. No one chooses to be
> afflicted with a chromosomal deletion. Things happen to people that
> you cant, in any reasonable way, attribute to man's sin. God's chosen
> method of creation depends upon mistakes; mistakes in transcription,
> spontaneous mutations, gene rearrangements etc.
> there are mechanisms in the genome to promote diversity, but sometimes
> these mechanism go awry and create an abomination. These mechanisms
> have been present since the conception of life. It is not tainted as
> a result of the fall of Man, or even judgment on Satan. That is why I
> see this as a unique problem for TE, invoking Satan, God's judgment,
> the fall of Man, doesn't work.
>
> I think that the mechanisms in nature, that of evolution, is "good",
> and the presence of these mistakes is not evil, but providential.
> But, that is based on belief in God's word alone.
>
> You see, I am fighting two fronts here. I am fighting against YEC
> members of my church who cant accept evolution in part because of
> these problems. And I am also having trouble explaining why God does
> things in this way to non-believers that accept evolution but cant
> conceive of an omnipotent God who would create in such a way. We need
> something more than just saying "because the Bible says so."
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: David Opderbeck <mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> To: Jack <mailto:drsyme@cablespeed.com>
> Cc: Randy Isaac <mailto:randyisaac@comcast.net> ; asa@calvin.edu
> <mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 9:59 PM
> Subject: Re: [asa] Neo-Darwinism and God's action
>
> But even a YEC theodicy has to answer the question, "if God knew
> man would rebel, and that this rebellion would cause such
> suffering, why did he create man at all?" So, in a sense, the YEC
> theodicy simply pushes the problem back a little further.
>
> One classical answer to this problem -- not limited to YECs -- is
> that God created free beings because of love. In his love, God
> desires us to have freedom; but freedom implies the ability to
> choose wrongly.
>
> One can still ask, however, whether it would have been more
> consistent with God's love not to create free beings whom he knew
> would choose wrongly. Here there are a couple of possible
> responses. One is that it is better to have some free beings who
> choose rightly than to have no free beings at all. Another is
> that as God foreknew that free beings would make wrong choices, he
> also planned from before the foundation of the world to empty
> himself and suffer in the person of Christ. And this can be
> extended to God's plan for the whole creation -- God participates
> in the suffering of creation in Christ's death and ultimately
> transforms all of creation through the power of Christ's
> resurrection, bringing about a greater good than if God had not
> created at all.
>
> I don't think this "kenotic" view of creation really "answers" the
> problem of evil, but I don't think anyone seriously argues that
> any theodicy provides ultimately satisfying answers, nor does
> scripture seem to suggest that we are entitled to completely tidy
> solutions here (see Job).
>
> On Feb 18, 2008 8:36 PM, Jack <drsyme@cablespeed.com
> <mailto:drsyme@cablespeed.com>> wrote:
>
> I think there is a specific problem for TE's that others do
> not have. This is not to say that theodicy is not a problem
> yet to be solved elsewhere. But I think YEC certainly can
> explain away the problem of death by denying its
> existence before the fall, and attribute many of these issues
> directly to mankind's sin and its effect on creation. Dont
> get me wrong, I dont think they are correct, but I think they
> skirt the issue more easily.
>
> I am not sure about PC views exactly, but dont they see each
> species as a new creation? They would deny random mutation
> and selection. While they dont deny death before the fall,
> they could deny the existence of suffering as a consequence of
> creation, but TE requires it (because most mutations are
> harmful.) I have little doubt that God created living beings
> via evolution in the Darwinian sense. But, I have yet to hear
> a convincing TE explanation of this problem.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Randy Isaac <mailto:randyisaac@comcast.net>
> To: asa@calvin.edu <mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 4:21 PM
> Subject: Re: [asa] Neo-Darwinism and God's action
>
> I would rather think that we all have a big problem of
> theodicy which no one has fully resolved. Whether someone
> has a "bigger" or "lesser" problem, I don't know how to
> judge nor do I know if it matters. Are you implying that
> TE's have a "bigger problem" because they see divine
> guidance in all things and are therefore attributing
> disease, suffering and death directly to divine will? If
> so, wouldn't anyone else, ID or PC or whatever, have an
> equally "bigger problem" because they see divine
> intervention as something that occurs as needed to
> generate the organism that God willed into being? How
> would that lessen the problem of disease, suffering, and
> death? Does the perceived absence of such intervention
> absolve God of responsibility in those cases?
>
> Randy
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: drsyme@cablespeed.com
> <mailto:drsyme@cablespeed.com>
> To: David Opderbeck <mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com> ;
> Rich Blinne <mailto:rich.blinne@gmail.com>
> Cc: 'Randy Isaac' <mailto:randyisaac@comcast.net> ;
> asa@calvin.edu <mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 12:38 PM
> Subject: Re: [asa] Neo-Darwinism and God's action
>
> But many random mutations cause disease and suffering,
> or death. This imo is a bigger problem for TE than
> God's mechanism of action is.
>
>
>
> On Mon Feb 18 11:50 , Rich Blinne sent:
>
> i
> On Feb 18, 2008, at 7:36 AM, David Opderbeck wrote:
>
>> You might also add: 3: is "neo-Darwinism"
>> metaphysically random? It depends on how one
>> defines the term.
>>
>> On Feb 17, 2008 9:05 PM, Randy Isaac
>> <randyisaac@comcast.net
>> <mailto:randyisaac@comcast.net>> wrote:
>>
>> Thank you all for a lot of helpful comments.
>> Let me wrap up and summarize this thread.
>>
>> 1. Is the biological theory of evolution
>> truly random? While there are elements of
>> randomness, boundary conditions and
>> environmental factors provide a great deal of
>> direction. Simon Conway Morris has shown a
>> lot of evidence of convergence though the
>> underlying factors for it are not yet known.
>>
>> 2. Does the randomness of evolution mean that
>> it is undirected? Yes--from a natural
>> viewpoint. This means we know of no physical
>> mechanisms that influence genetic
>> variation on the basis of the needs or
>> characteristics of any subsequent organism.
>> No--from a divine viewpoint. This means that
>> God's purposes in guiding evolution need not
>> involve a scientifically detectable influence
>> on genetic variation.
>>
>> Randy
>>
>>
>
> If you want more precision and avoid Gregory's
> deliberate (and I would suggest slanderous)
> mis-definition of terms, I would let the
> proponents define the term neo-Darwinism. Such a
> definition could goes something like this:
>
> The synthesis of population genetics with
> evolution as originally proposed by Darwin of
> descent with modification. Population genetics
> study allele frequencies under the influence of
> the four evolutionary forces of natural selection,
> genetic drift, mutation and gene flow.
>
> Note there is no explicit reference anywhere to
> random. Random is implied by genetic drift and
> mutation both of which has been observed many,
> many times outside of an evolutionary context,
> e.g. in the current HapMap project (www.hapmap.org
> <http://www.hapmap.org/>). The concept of allele
> frequencies is also random. In classical Mendelian
> genetics the allele frequencies distribute
> randomly allowing the binomial theorem to be applied.
>
> Note that randomness, however defined, only comes
> from the genetics portion of the neo-Darwinist
> synthesis. I don't hear any creationist or ID
> proponent berating the (shudder) materialist
> genetic worldview. It cannot properly be called
> Darwinist because modern genetics post-dates
> Darwin. Both YEC and ID have conceded genetics at
> which point they have conceded the whole
> randomness question. It is also interesting to see
> what else Michael Behe has conceded:
>
> 1. Common Descent
> 2. Natural Selection
> 3. Random Mutation
>
> What he hasn't conceded is that the random
> mutation has enough reach either on the basis of
> not being able to produce irreducibly complex
> "machines" or having an insufficient rate with
> so-called double mutations (e.g. drug resistance
> in the Plasmodium parasite). Behe's analysis
> is fraught with problems that has been raised
> here, in PSCF, and elsewhere I will leave it to
> the reader as a Googling exercise to explore this
> further.
>
> At this point the question might be raised give
> all this randomness is this somehow inconsistent
> with design and by implication Christianity since
> Christianity rests on a Creator God? Consider the
> example of Ruby Red Grapefruit. In 1927, Hermann
> J. Muller found that ionizing radiation causes
> (shudder) random mutations. Since then chemical
> mutagens have been found.
>
> Botanists have taken advantage of the randomness
> to produce better crops by increasing the mutation
> rate through radiation. See here:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/science/28crop.html
>
>> Pierre Lagoda pulled a small container from his
>> pocket and spilled the contents onto his desk.
>> Four tiny dice rolled to a stop.
>>
>> "That's what nature does," Dr. Lagoda said. The
>> random results of the dice, he explained,
>> illustrate how spontaneous mutations create the
>> genetic diversity that drives evolution and
>> selective breeding.
>>
>> He rolled the dice again. This time, he was
>> mimicking what he and his colleagues have been
>> doing quietly around the globe for more than a
>> half-century -- using radiation to scramble the
>> genetic material in crops, a process that has
>> produced valuable mutants like red grapefruit,
>> disease-resistant cocoa and premium barley for
>> Scotch whiskey.
>>
>> "I'm doing the same thing," he said, still toying
>> with the dice. "I'm not doing anything different
>> from what nature does. I'm not using anything
>> that was not in the genetic material itself."
>>
> Thus, we have neo-Darwinist evolution in action
> controlled by an intelligent designer. This should
> not be surprising since Darwin used this exact
> same analogy in Origin when defining natural
> selection. If a human breeder is compatible with
> all this "randomness", then certainly the Lord of
> Heaven and Earth is.
>
> Rich Blinne (Member ASA)
>
>
>

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Received on Tue Feb 19 11:12:16 2008