Re: [asa] Fw: November Newsletter from Reasonable Faith

Ted,

"which is the source of the order we find in nature"

If that is the case then I would have to agree with you. Dembski is
positing a transcendental intelligence. So, I guess you made your case.
However, Dembski seems to have contradicted himself, or changed his mind.
It may be a slip, it may be an evolution in his thoughts, or it may be
cognitive dissonance. I wonder?

-Dave C

PS,

I've never doubted comological design. I think it is reasonable to doubt
biological design. It is reasonable to doubt specific types of God's
intervention in history, and the engineering events of biological
evolution are in this category.

My objection to all of this design debate really has to do with folks who
boldly declare that science has determined that God didn't intervene in
history and God didn't intervene via engineering events that perturbed the
course of biological evolution. How do they know? It seems to be
overclaiming.

On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 9:10 AM, Ted Davis <TDavis@messiah.edu> wrote:

> Schwarzwald,
>
> We entirely agree that natural theology in any form, including ID, just
> can't produce the Christian God. No need for me to say more about the depth
> of our agreement on that.
>
> However, I do think that an "unevolved mind," which Dembski has elsewhere
> called an "unembodied mind," which is the source of the order we find in
> nature (whether biological or physical), is a functional equivalent of a
> "god" in the usual sense. I see nothing unreasonable about this statement.
>
> If we were talking more simply about an "unevolved mind" that was
> responsible merely (if that's the right word, which I doubt) for order in
> the biological world, and not also for the order in the physical world that
> makes biology possible in the first place, then I might be less quick to
> draw this identification. In the context of what I quoted from Dembski, you
> could fairly say that is as far as it goes, and if that were the end of the
> story I would concede the possibility of something other than a "god."
>
> But, we're not--so far as I can tell, every ID proponent thinks that the
> order in the physical universe comes from the same designer; or, at least,
> they will say that the universe itself is designed, no less than biological
> organisms. I agree with them on both points, incidentally, but I'm not
> reluctant to call the designer "God," i.e., a specific kind of "god." My
> main contention is that if you can design universes, than you can fill in
> the job description with "god," if not "God."
>
> Ted
>
>
>
> 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 Fri Nov 13 10:39:46 2009