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

Agreed. Many animals do show far more care than we like to admit. Dog
behaviour is a good example.

Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "j burg" <hossradbourne@gmail.com>
To: "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
Cc: "Stephen Matheson" <smatheso@calvin.edu>; <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 9:07 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] Neo-Darwinism and God's action

>I understand your position here. But I simply cannot agree with it
> without a rationale, which you fail to give. OTOH, the book WHEN
> ELEPHANTS WEEP seems to give reasonable counter evidences.
>
> jb
>
> On 2/18/08, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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
>> >
>>
>>
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>
>

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Tue Feb 19 17:17:58 2008