George,
I agree with most of what you wrote, but not this:
> Paul says in Romans that the information about God in nature means that
> people who construct idols are "without excuse." It has only a negative
> function.
>
I disagree that Romans 1:20 has only a negative function. If something
viewed incorrectly leaves you without excuse, it presupposes, it seems to
me, that the same thing, viewed properly, must leave you without the *need *for
an excuse. Otherwise, going out of the way to indicate that it leaves you
without excuse is a bit redundant. I think Romans 1:20 does imply a positive
function, not just a negative one. As a Calvinist, I would say that God
would have mercy upon whom he would have mercy, and those whom he
regenerates, even if they have not heard the gospel, are obligated to
respond favorably to general revelation.
And I think that's my fourth post today, so I shall go into lurker mode.
David Heddle
Associate Professor of Physics
Christopher Newport University &
The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 5:28 PM, George Murphy <GMURPHY10@neo.rr.com> wrote:
> In the post I just sent I noted the necessary qualifications about God's
> "revelation" in nature but realized I should comment further. As I have
> noted many times, Paul's point in Romans 1 is not that we are to learn about
> God from nature but that people consistently misinterpret what they know of
> nature and construct idols. Nature can be understood as revelatory *when
> considered from the standpoint of Christian faith*, but we do not learn
> from it about the true God independently of God's historical revelation.
> Besides failing to recognize this, Dembski's statements involve at least 3
> other errors.
>
> 1) Barth's position, which rejects a natural knowledge of God and natural
> theology, may well be judged too extreme, though in view of the excesses of
> natural theology such a negative view is understandable. But it's more than
> slightly excessive to label Barth's position "anti-Christian" & to insist
> that the idea of natural revelation is "part of the Christian worldview."
>
> 2) Paul says in Romans that the information about God in nature means that
> people who construct idols are "without excuse." It has only a negative
> function. The Intelligent Designer can be as much of an idol as any statue
> or mental image of the cosmic philosopher, dictator &c.
>
> 3) Whatever natural phenomena Paul (or the writer of Ps.19) might have had
> in mind, they were things with which ordinary people of 2000 or 2500 years
> ago in the Mediterranean world were familiar with. So it's preposterous to
> cite such texts in support of the notion that they have anything to do with
> the design of the bacterial flagellum, the blood clotting cascade, or for
> that matter the anthropic coincidences.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/ <http://web.raex.com/%7Egmurphy/>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Dennis Venema <Dennis.Venema@twu.ca>
> *To:* David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> ; David Heddle<heddle@gmail.com>
> *Cc:* ASA <asa@calvin.edu>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 17, 2008 4:15 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [asa] Theistic Evolutionists Clos e Ranks ‹ Let the
> Bloodletting Begin!
>
> More gems from the comment thread at UcD:
>
> "I would have preferred peaceful co-existence with the TE's. My first
> choice was to agree to disagree—to seek common ground—to dialogue in a
> spirit of friendliness and mutual respect.
>
> But it was they who decided to go on the attack, defending their
> materialist atheist friends. It was they gave theological respectability to
> the atheist lie that ID scientists smuggle religion into their science. It
> was they who appeared in a court of law for the sole purpose of
> institutionalizing that lie, even as they swore on a Bible to tell the
> truth."
>
> So, TEs "went on the attack" by defending someone? Doesn't that imply a
> prior attack by another party? The author seems to think TEs should just
> stay out of their nice anti-science culture war against the "atheist
> materialists."
>
> "In any case, it is the TEs who have abandoned the Christian world view.
> According to the Bible, God reveals himself in scripture AND in nature. This
> is not some mere exegetical reflection, it is an undeniable declaration of
> fact. To deny it is to take an anti-Christian position. If a design is not
> detectable, then it can hardly be a revelation."
>
> If design / God's revelation is limited to a small number of gaps in
> natural causation, then ID has severely restricted God's revelation in
> nature, and is very reluctant to point out exactly what is revelation and
> what is not. So, the flagellum still counts in the ID world (I think). Is
> that it? Dembski / Behe have consistently refused to answer the question of
> what is designed and what isn't, yet detection of design is apparently
> necessary for nature to count as revelation.
>
> No thanks. TEs view ALL of nature, including the process of evolution as
> God's revelation, which is the intent of what Paul is getting at in Romans.
> IDers are forced to say that only a small subset of nature can be viewed as
> revelatory, and that any advance in evolutionary understanding reduces that
> subset.
>
>
>
>
> On 6/17/08 12:58 PM, "Dennis Venema" <Dennis.Venema@twu.ca> wrote:
>
> Gee, wonder why Dembski has to resort to quoting old editions of Miller's
> textbook?
>
> Now Dembski is claiming "well, they started it!" as if no one has ever
> heard of the Wedge Document. Culture warfare has been warp and weft of ID
> since its beginnings. TEs have been responding to ID as a result of its
> warfare approach. If they weren't pushing ID as science into schools this
> would be merely an interesting debate among academics.
>
> From the comments on UcD: (I'd respond there but my comments are always
> blocked.)
>
> "The problem with *some* theistic evolutionists is that they are
> two-faced. One the one hand they deny ID - that there is any discernable
> Divine design or purpose evident in creation (or, at least, in biology). On
> the other hand, they turn round and say (when amongst Christians or when
> talking to the media as spokesmen for theo-evo) that they believe that there
> is a God who is behind creation (ie. they do subscribe to a form of ID)."
>
> Not so. Believing that God is behind creation through well-evidenced
> natural mechanisms = TE. Believing that God's activities can be detected
> scientifically as (undemonstrated) gaps in natural causation = ID. Notice
> how the author of the comment above believes that to deny ID = to deny God,
> and also misunderstands that "purpose" is to be equated with ID (and claims
> that TEs deny purpose).
>
>
>
>
> On 6/17/08 12:37 PM, "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What does Miller call himself then?
>
> On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 3:33 PM, David Heddle <heddle@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dembski is "sort of" going after TEs yet again:
>
>
> http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/theoevo-vs-id-hey-who-started-this-anyway/
>
> But not really, because at the 99% level he is going after Ken Miller. I
> talked with Miller not long ago. He said (paraphrasing) "Even my friends
> call me a theistic evolutionist, *but I am not **a theistic evolutionist*
> ."
>
>
> So Dembski is bashing TEs—by using quotes from Miller—who by his own words
> is *not* a TE. It makes no sense.
>
>
> David Heddle
> Associate Professor of Physics
> Christopher Newport University, &
> The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
>
> http://helives.blogspot.com <http://helives.blogspot.com/><http://helives.blogspot.com/>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 10:03 AM, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Right. We all know that the history of "war" in the Church is long, sordid
> and sad. Sigh.
>
> As to name calling here -- yes its different because it's not a major
> "movement" website and the name-callers weren't public figures. It's also
> significantly different because when I complained to the ASA leadership,
> they reprimanded the person and there were both public apologies and private
> reconciliation.
>
> I don't often agree with Ed Brayton, but he's spot on about this one,
> unfortunately:
> http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/06/dembskis_latest_silliness_1.p
> hp#more
>
> On Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 11:32 PM, Stephen Matheson <smatheso@calvin.edu>
> wrote:
>
> David O. asks:
> "What I don't understand is, why respond this way? Why not let a soft
> answer turn away wrath?"
>
> I assume that David is referring to the disturbing words of Bill Dembski.
> And I think the answer to David's question is very clear. Indeed, I don't
> think Dembski left any doubt. If the question is "why not let a soft answer
> turn away wrath?" the answer is "because WAR IS THE GOAL." In fact,
> Dembski's crazed rage is so unrelated to the actual words to which he is
> "responding" that I think it's reasonable to assume that he wants nothing
> more than an "ugly war" and is willing to set aside both rudimentary ethics
> and basic reason in that wicked pursuit.
>
> How sad that the regular defenders of ID on this listserv haven't stepped
> forward to condemn Dembski's virulent speech. It's not too late, and now is
> the time. I'm afraid that Bill Dembski is beyond our help, but those who
> might look to the ASA for leadership/guidance on how to discuss design and
> natural explanation, in the context of Christian unity and devotion to the
> Creator, can be expected to carefully observe our response to the
> viciousness of his rhetoric.
>
> For Christ's sake, let's make it clear that Dembski's behavior is the
> antithesis of the ASA's basic values, and that no matter what we might think
> of the proposals of the ID movement, we will never countenance such
> destructively malicious conduct in the Lord's name.
>
> Steve Matheson
>
> P.S. David, I'm sorry that you've been called names here, and if I'd been
> here I would have strongly condemned it. But we're in a different galaxy
> here, don't you think?
>
> >>> "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com> 06/15/08 7:33 PM >>>
> What I don't understand is, why respond this way? Why not let a soft
> answer
> turn away wrath? The LAST thing the Church needs is an additional ugly war
> between two "camps" that really have more in common than not at the end of
> the day.
>
> On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 6:45 PM, Dave Wallace <wmdavid.wallace@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/theistic-evolutionists-close-ranks-let-the-bloodletting-begin/
> >
> > Quote from Dembski:
> >
> > You know, I would be happy to sit down with theistic evolutionists and
> > discuss our differences. I think they are wrong to baptize Darwin's
> theory
> > as God's mode of creation. But I don't think they are immoral or
> > un-Christian for holding their views.
> >
> > It seems to me that in earlier parts of his posting he did question or
> come
> > close to questioning the faith of ECs. Did not people like Ted, Rich and
> > other try to have a dialogue a few years back on UCD and get booted and
> had
> > their Christianity doubted, or am I becoming senile. Miller may well
> have
> > gone too far in his attack on ID but Dembski's taring all of us the way
> he
> > does seems very unfair.
> > Could someone please explain how if ID is supposed to be religiously
> > neutral, this post belongs on UcD.
> > Dave W (ASA member)
> >
> >
> > To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> > "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
> >
>
>
>
> --
> David W. Opderbeck
> Associate Professor of Law
> Seton Hall University Law School
> Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Received on Tue Jun 17 17:52:56 2008
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