RE: [asa] (God-guided evolution) Lawrence Krauss Defends New Atheism

Cameron:
"And why should any Christian -- supposing for the moment that we are speaking of a Christian who believes that evolution was God-guided -- have any "lack of zeal" for publically stating that evolution was God-guided? Christians have no "lack of zeal" for making all kinds of other public theological statements. They have no trouble publically affirming the Incarnation, the Atonement, the miracles of the Exodus and the Gospels, the resurrection of Jesus, the post-resurrection appearances, an afterlife, the efficacy of prayer, the divine inspiration of the Bible -- none of which can be proved true "scientifically". They also have no trouble offering strong opinions about war, non-violence, the role of women, abortion, euthanasia, environmental stewardship, etc., none of which can be validated "scientifically". So why would Christians conceal their religious belief in just the one special case of evolution? That would be rather odd, don't you think? "

I used to think I knew it all and had a grasp on the theology, etc., until I came to see the truth of evolution. Once I saw how wrong I could be, and how secure I could be in that wrongness, I am much less dogmatic... on everything theological. I downgraded myself from being an evangelical Christian preacher (I was a lay preacher) to being a Christian seeker. And yes- I put "Christian" in front of "seeker" on purpose. Because I'm first and foremost a seeker now.

You could say that this demonstrates the evil of evolution by showing how it destroys faith. Or you could see the other side of the coin and say it is a pity that the faith of most evangelicals is so scientifically anemic (because they believe in things like Adam being created by fiat and a worldwide flood, both of which are easily disproven by looking at the facts of the world).

...Bernie

________________________________
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Cameron Wybrow
Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 1:26 PM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] (God-guided evolution) Lawrence Krauss Defends New Atheism

Bernie:

In my setup to my three scenarios, I firmly and clearly stated that I was not interested in whether people here thought their view was "scientific" or not. I was only interested in *what they thought had happened*.

I would be very happy if someone said, for example: "I can't prove this scientifically, but I personally believe that God's normal activity of sustaining nature would not have produced the full range of macroevolutionary change, and that he performed some special actions (perhaps hidden under quantum indeterminacy or chaotic ambiguity) at one or more points in the macroevolutionary process." (#3, #4) Or: "I can't prove this scientifically, but I personally believe that God created nature with the full set of powers it would need to produce life, species change and man without any further special action on his part." (#1, #2) That was the sort of answer I was looking for. I am saying that if TEs would just bite the bullet and answer the question in this direct way, instead of offering learned evasions, I think that a surprising level of agreement between ID and TE people might well emerge. This agreement might produce an atmosphere more conducive to the fruitful exchange of ideas than the polarized atmosphere which has been generated when the discussion has focused almost exclusively on the methodology of science.

And why should any Christian -- supposing for the moment that we are speaking of a Christian who believes that evolution was God-guided -- have any "lack of zeal" for publically stating that evolution was God-guided? Christians have no "lack of zeal" for making all kinds of other public theological statements. They have no trouble publically affirming the Incarnation, the Atonement, the miracles of the Exodus and the Gospels, the resurrection of Jesus, the post-resurrection appearances, an afterlife, the efficacy of prayer, the divine inspiration of the Bible -- none of which can be proved true "scientifically". They also have no trouble offering strong opinions about war, non-violence, the role of women, abortion, euthanasia, environmental stewardship, etc., none of which can be validated "scientifically". So why would Christians conceal their religious belief in just the one special case of evolution? That would be rather odd, don't you think?

Cameron.

----- Original Message -----
From: Dehler, Bernie<mailto:bernie.dehler@intel.com>
To: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 3:26 PM
Subject: RE: [asa] (God-guided evolution) Lawrence Krauss Defends New Atheism

Cameron said:
"In reference to evolution, this is why I find it necessary to continually ask whether macroevolutionary change ought be understood in terms of general or special actions of God (or a combination). But I find stout resistance to any attempt to even formulate the question, as if people would prefer that the question not be asked. I don't understand how intellectually serious people can live without at least a tentative or provisional answer to this question, but apparently many TEs can."

Specifically about this part:
"ask whether macroevolutionary change ought be understood in terms of general or special actions of God (or a combination). "

I think the answer is that God can do either or a combination, but whatever He does could also be explained within the laws of probability, so it can't really ever be scientifically discovered. For example, suppose it was necessary, in order to evolve humans, that an asteroid had to hit Earth and destroy a lot of life. There is no way to scientifically determine if it was a random asteroid by chance or if God specially directed it. The same thing when it comes to bit twiddling (A, T, C, G) or inserting viruses into the genome to create higher complex eyes and brains (there's many more ways God could have intervened within probabilities, including natural selection). The key point is that we can be sure it was all done by evolution, rather than by fiat, because of the DNA evidence (the track record in DNA). When I speak of DNA, I'm especially meaning the evolution evidence for humans from apelike creatures, which is the most contentious part of evolution for creationists. If a creationist can accept the evidence for human evolution from apelike creatures, I believe it is a watershed event and all other barriers for accepting evolution can then fall in domino fashion.

So is evolution God-guided? Maybe the lack of zeal on that is because it can't be proven either way, so why waste breath on it?

...Bernie

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Received on Thu Jul 2 17:47:57 2009