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

> 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.

The majority of mutations have little or no effect, except to provide
fodder for future evolution. The process of development is fairly
effective at weeding out the really severe negative mutations, though
that's no consolation to someone faced with the difficulties of caring
for a person with particular genetically-caused problems.
Some mutations and epigenetic phenomena (particularly factors that
affect gene regulation) do relate to sin, being caused by pollutants,
substance abuse, etc. However, most of the suffering is not by the
culprits. Of course, other sins often have worse immediate effects on
others than on the culprit, too.

In general, God seems to value diversity over comfort, whether in the
distribution of spiritual gifts or in the creation of organisms.

As best as we can tell, the course of evolution can legitimately be
described as random in three ways. First, our best estimates of
whether a particular mutation will occur are probabilistic. Certain
mutations are more likely than others, and there ways in which the
overall mutation rate may go up or down-not all outcomes have equal
probability. Secondly, the long-term patterns are not fully
predictable based upon our biological and paleontological knowledge.
This is a different definition of random-unpredictability rather than
mathematically probabilistic. Finally, evolution is affected by
things that are outside the ability of the organism to predict, such
as climate shifts, asteroid impacts, evolution of some new competitor
or predator, or a mutation within itself.

None of this prevents God from knowing and/or directing what will happen.

The problem with Gage's letter is not whether one defines random as
including guided events; the problem is imposing his definition on
someone who is clearly using a different definition.

Invoking Satan's fall as an explanation for evils will mesh into the
overall question of whether natural evil is a legitimate category. If
we maintain that Satan means his actions for evil, but that God
exercises some sort of control to direct things for good, we will
avoid the heresy of attributing too much to Satan.

Why didn't God make a universe with less suffering? Why does the
universe look indifferent and purposeless? Why does the universe have
so many physical parameters that seem to precisely match what we need
to survive? All these types of questions rest on assumptions that we
know the range of possible universes and we know how God would want to
make things.

-- 
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
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