Re: [asa] Theistic Evolutionists Clos e Ranks < Let the Bloodletting Begin!

George, are you taking an exclusivist position here?

On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 9:33 PM, George Murphy <GMURPHY10@neo.rr.com> wrote:

> I don't know what to make of the phrase "those whom he regenerates, even
> if they have not heard the gospel". Those who are regenerated are those who
> have heard and believed the gospel - Rom.10:17. While they are elect in
> Christ and chosen to believe "before the foundation of the world", they do
> not in fact believe until they have received the gospel (& I would include
> there the "visible word" in Baptism).
>
> But having said that - yes, as I (& Karl Evens) said, nature can have a
> secondary revelatory function for those who come to faith in Christ and view
> the world from that standpoint. As Torrance put it, a proper natural
> theology must be part of distinctively Christian theology. Otherwise sin
> inevitably distorts things and results in idolatry. & since Christians are
> still sinners, some danger of that persists for them, as the long melancholy
> history of natural theology shows, the ID movement being the latest chapter.
>
> In any case, Paul does not speak of any positive function of a natural
> knowledge of God in Romans. When he's finished demonstrating the universal
> sinfulness of humanity in Ch.3 he doesn't say, "OK, now let's develop a
> proper natural theology." Instead he turns immediately to Christ.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* David Heddle <heddle@gmail.com>
> *To:* George Murphy <GMURPHY10@neo.rr.com>
> *Cc:* Dennis Venema <Dennis.Venema@twu.ca> ; David Opderbeck<dopderbeck@gmail.com>;
> ASA <asa@calvin.edu>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 17, 2008 5:52 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [asa] Theistic Evolutionists Clos e Ranks < Let the
> Bloodletting Begin!
>
> 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
>
> http://helives.blogspot.com
>
> 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/
>>
>> ----- 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
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