Thomas Cudworth

In response to our discussion, here and here, of divine action in evolution, Darrel Falk has briefly commented, under #70521 of Dennis Venema’s recent column: “Bilbo and Thomas have not accurately summarized our position.” As evidence for this claim, he provides two links, one to Part 1 of his response to Dembksi, and one to the first part of what he calls a “great series” by Ard Louis: In this column, I will examine only Falk’s response to Dembski. (Time permitting, I may review the series by Ard Louis at a later date.) In the response to Dembski, Dr. Falk writes: “I will begin by summarizing my view of the nature of God’s activity in creation. I think that God created Read More ›

Dr. Dennis Venema, lead geneticist over at BioLogos, whose evasiveness regarding divine action in evolution we thoroughly documented here, here, here, and here, appears to have noticed our efforts. In his latest column over at BioLogos, he writes to Bilbo (70458): “I’ve appreciated your work to hold the feet of certain ID folks to the fire over at UD.” I guess I must be “certain ID folks,” because Bilbo’s recent extensive argument was directed at me. But let’s be clear: Bilbo’s argument was focused wholly on my claim that there was tension between neo-Darwinian evolution and the traditional Christian understanding of divine providence, governance, and sovereignty over nature. He disagreed with me over that. But he did not at all Read More ›

In Part 2A and Part 2B, we analyzed in great depth the discussion between Crude and Dennis Venema. We discovered that Venema consistently evaded Crude’s questions, and that, even when he finally answered them, his answers were unclear and unsatisfactory. And we discovered the source of the lack of clarity – Venema’s self-contradictory commitment both to God’s absolute sovereignty and to the “freedom” of nature which he thinks is implied by his “non-Calvinist” position. And we discovered that, rather than being much distressed by the incoherence of his position, he excused it on the grounds that “mystery” is allowable in his theology. Such a position renders the entire BioLogos venture pointless, since its goal is to convince the public, especially Read More ›

Continuing, from Part 2A of this posting, our analysis of the BioLogos conversation between Crude and Dennis Venema: Crude comes back one more time for clarification (67718): “So then, you believe God knew what evolution would result in, in advance of His beginning the process. And of course, He had and has complete power over that process – He chose what would result. So you’d hold evolution to be – ultimately, and not necessarily in a way that requires intervening miracles – guided and purposeful. Do I have you correct?” Again, a set of clear statements to which it should be easy to respond. Yet, when Venema returns, he again refuses speak to the word “guided” (nor will he speak Read More ›

In Part 1 of this posting, I introduced “the Wesleyan Maneuver,” one of the great BioLogos devices for getting away with an evasive and unsatisfactory account of the relationship between divine action and evolution. Here in Part 2, I wish to illustrate the Maneuver by means of a real example. Perhaps the most memorable example can be found at: http://biologos.org/blog/understanding-evolution-is-there-junk-in-your-genome-part-3 On this thread, a poster named “Crude” ventured to ask Dr. Dennis Venema – the leading columnist at BioLogos on matters of genetics and evolutionary theory – for his view on the role of God in the evolutionary process. The exchange that followed illustrated many of the typical features of discussions on this subject with BioLogos personnel, including the final Read More ›

As readers of UD know, the organization called BioLogos is dedicated to the harmonization of modern science – by which it means, mainly, neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory – with Christian theology. One of the problems that has always bedevilled the BioLogos project is that its leading science-trained figures – directors and columnists alike – have displayed a combination of philosophical ineptness and historical ignorance regarding Christian theology. Their discussions of Christian doctrine tend to be sporadic, brief, and undeveloped; their historical documentation for theological claims is generally non-existent, and only rarely amounts to more than proof-texting (with two endlessly repeated quotations from Calvin and Augustine-via-Galileo constituting almost the entire primary-source case for their arguments); their theological reasoning about matters of creation, Read More ›

Over on Biologos there is a new column, the first of a series on “science and scientism” by Dr. Ian Hutchinson.  Hutchinson is a nuclear physicist at M.I.T.  As Dr. Hutchinson has some impressive credentials based on a long and productive scientific career, his thoughts on the nature of science might be thought to carry a weight beyond that of the regular Biologos columnists.  Thus, I read the first installment in hopes of insight beyond what one normally finds on that site. The column, which is based on Hutchinson’s new book, Monopolizing Knowledge, gets off to a good start.  He distinguishes between “science” and “scientism.”  In a quotation from his book, which introduces the column, he tells us: “Scientism says, Read More ›

Dennis Venema, the “heavy hitter” of Biologos when it comes to evolutionary theory — hands up, professors of evolutionary biology at Chicago, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, etc., if you have heard of Dennis Venema — has recently issued some remarks about ID in an interview.  The remarks can be found on the website of Rachel Held Evans, a pleasant and personally engaging writer and former student of English who has in the past served as a sort of lay cheerleader for the Biologos project. In the interview, Venema says: ‘The ID Movement is a “Big Tent” approach for all and sundry who reject at least some part of evolutionary biology. As such, there are Young-Earth Creationists, Old-Earth Creationists, and Read More ›

Jeffrey Shallit has responded to my new column over at his blog, Recursivity.

Shallit’s reply is interesting.  He starts out on the wrong foot right away, in his subtitle:

“Thomas Cudworth asks why prominent evolutionary scientists did not attend the Evolution 2011 conference in Norman, Oklahoma this summer.”

Actually, I didn’t.  In fact, I pointed out at the beginning of my article several prominent “evolutionary scientists” who were at the conference.  What I asked was why almost no prominent culture-war biologists read or contributed to papers at the Evolution 2011 conference.  Apparently it escaped Shallit’s notice that the whole point of my article was to question the connection between being a loud culture-war crusader for neo-Darwinism and actually being competent in the field of evolutionary biology.

The bulk of Shallit’s response is an explanation, allegedly for my benefit, about how academia works and why academics can’t attend every conference going.  Well, I agree with him that academics can’t attend every conference going (as I clearly conceded in my original article, which he appears to have read hurriedly).

One of the obvious constraints, I acknowledged, is budgetary.  But such restraints clearly do not apply to all the people on the list.  Read More ›

I have often wondered whether the loudness and aggressiveness of many culture-war defenders of neo-Darwinian evolution bears any relationship at all to the actual scientific contributions of those defenders to the field of evolutionary biology.  As it happens, we have at hand some evidence, albeit of a rough and ready kind, relevant to that question.

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I thank Professor Feser for his reply to my latest question. Feser’s reply appears to bring us much closer together, though I am not sure, so I must probe a bit more. First of all, let me clear some things out of the way: 1.  No, I do not expect Feser to agree to bad arguments for a conclusion merely because he accepts the conclusion on other grounds. 2.  Yes, I understand that Feser has allowed that God designed the world and that we can know that He has. 3.  I have never argued or implied that living things are exactly like artifacts; I have argued only that the two have something in common, i.e., an orderly arrangement and co-operation of Read More ›

Over the past several months, Dr. Edward Feser has been engaged in debate with various ID proponents, most recently Jay Richards and Vincent Torley, over the relationship between two types of argument for God’s existence:  on the one hand, arguments from design such as are found in Paley and in the writings of some ID proponents, and on the other hand, philosophical arguments of the sort proposed by Thomas Aquinas.  Whereas ID proponents tend to see Paley-type arguments and Thomistic arguments as different but compatible, Feser sees them as incompatible.  He thinks that the Paley/ID type of argument implies a wrong picture (i.e., a heretical picture) of God, and a wrong understanding (i.e., a heretical understanding) of the relationship between creator and creation.  He thinks that Paley/ID sorts of argument lead to belief in a mere mechanic-God, a God unlike the God of what he calls “classical theism,” and hence a god unworthy of worship by Christians.

I am unconvinced that Paley/ID lines of argument produce a mere “mechanic” God, since I’m unconvinced that arguments that choose to focus on what we might call the mechanics of creation necessarily exclude other (i.e., metaphysical) aspects of creation.  However, in this post I am not going to try to defend Paleyan or ID arguments, or to criticize Feser’s interpretation of Aquinas on creation, or to raise objections to what Feser calls “Thomistic-Aristotelian” thought or “classic theism.”  I leave such detailed arguments to people such as Vincent Torley who have made a special study of Aquinas and of the Aristotelian tradition.  Rather, I want to make sure that I fully understand Feser’s general position regarding design, creation, and the Christian God.  To this end, I am going to ask Professor Feser for clarification by conceding, for the sake of argument, much of what he has said, and then posing a question for him. Read More ›

A couple of weeks ago, over on Biologos, Dr. Ted Davis, a fine historian of science (and one of the few TEs who does not misrepresent the ID position) ran an interesting column.  He invited all readers of Biologos to submit their “top five” books in the area of “science and religion,” i.e., the five books about the relation between science and religion which had most helped Biologos readers to come to terms with the subject.  He asked the readers to indicate very briefly the contents of their top five books and why they found those books significant. Ted’s column set me to wondering whether or not some of the differences between ID and TE people spring from what they Read More ›

In my column of May 18, I sharply criticized Dr. Karl Giberson for an earlier column on Biologos, which in my view argued for a dangerous subservience to scientific consensus.

Dr. Giberson’s article generated quite a lot of controversy on the Biologos site, where two posters named “Rich” and “gingoro” argued firmly (but politely) that Dr. Giberson was being one-sided and one-dimensional in this thinking about scientific consensus and specialist insight.

Now, over at Biologos again, Dr. Giberson has written a rejoinder of sorts.

I say “of sorts,” because it answers virtually none of the questions, and responds to virtually none of the criticisms, posed by myself or the two Biologos commenters.   He responds to no points from the Biologos critics, and to almost none of my arguments; his most substantive comment is a side-argument responding to a statement by William Dembski.

Beyond his reply to Dembski, his article consists of a more intransigent restatement of his original “blank check” endorsement of scientific consensus, coupled with multiple, motive-mongering digs against ID.  The digs against ID are irrelevant because, except for some framing comments at the beginning and end of my article which were not part of my argument, I didn’t even mention, let alone champion, ID, and neither did the Biologos commenters. Read More ›