William Lane Craig calls Michael Behe a theistic evolutionist

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July 31, 2013

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Here, in a discussion, saying he is better known for theistic evolution than Francis Collins.

Let us hope so. Francis Collins has accommodated Darwinism to the point of founding BioLogos to proclaim to the world that “Darwinism is a correct science.” Despite everything we have heard and read even in the last few months.

Behe, author of Edge of Evolution (the book you should get and read), is a biochemist who first drew attention to the fatuous claims of tenured profs battening on unexamined Darwinism. The latter are often supported by “Christians for Darwin” groups, who don’t get the problem either: Natural selection — a method for killing things—does not result in complex, interlocking, interrelated innovations.

Behe has focused on the issues. He thinks common descent is a reasonable idea. It might not be true, and the giant viruses are making people wonder. But it is a reasonable idea. We are not going to find out what is until we finally get loose from the phantasms of what isn’t, and blow clear of a religiously motivated need to defend them.

Comments

kairosfocus,
we are debating with people unwilling to achnowledge what is immediately present once we have a red ball on the table, A. Namely a world partition W = {A | NOT-A}
I have little time for those here who try to play the mind games that you referred to. They have been here for years denying everything like information, intelligence, life, species etc, redefining anything they like when the normal definition is not to their liking. Never defending what they believe except in generalities. Some are still the same people. It seems like every anti-ID person here engages more or less in these posts which seem mainly to have the goal of frustrating a lot of the pro ID people with tactics and arguments that would get them excluded from any knowledgeable society. They admit by their tactics that their position is baseless or else they would inundate us with science and logic. But on that they are radio silent. And the pro ID people fall for it and take the exchanges seriously. What I am after is something more substantial than this nonsense. The anti-ID people here are not representative of the real divide. The fact that they deny the obvious immediately disqualifies themselves as serious. I believe the pro-ID people too often love the games that are being played and humor them by replying. Some of the time the topics and replies are worthwhile. Using reason and logic in reply to them is though nearly always fruitless. But one has to ask why the divide. Nobody really believes that the ID position is winning in the intellectual sphere even if the evidence is so obvious. Why? The ID position if it was available to all pre-Darwin would have won the day easily and Darwin would have never published. But even when nearly all the Western world believed in Christianity and was actually referred to as Christendom by historians, there were big rifts. It seems anywhere we go in time and place there will always be major divides on central issues. Why? It is not so obvious why. As an aside, I have to thank Timaeus again for the exchanges he has had over time with various commenters. As I said before there should be a Timaeus file. Also Durston is providing some very good information/rationale on the scientific issues as well as the metaphysical ones.jerry_{August 3, 2013
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Elizabeth: If the only problem were that you couldn't say the Creed anymore, you could still become a Jew, a Muslim, a Deist, etc. There are lots of Gods who don't impose the Creed on you. So it's not simply the Creed that you no longer believe in.Timaeus_{August 3, 2013
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KF: Let's say that rather than assume an inherently good Creator we simply assume that good matters Why is the creator part important?Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 3, 2013
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F/N: Pragmatism ends up in all sorts of absurdities tied to radical relativism linked to the notion of what is useful or works being substituted for truth, knowledge and right etc. Start with, how do we ground the utility criterion, above and beyond idiosyncratic, radically relativist choice in a world where nihilists with power is a grim reality? KFkairosfocus_{August 3, 2013
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Jerry: $0.02 if you don't mind. WJM is responsing in light of several exchanges in recent months where it emerged that we are debating with people unwilling to achnowledge what is immediately present once we have a red ball on the table, A. Namely a world partition W = {A | NOT-A} thence LOI, LNC, LEM. Similarly, they slip and slide away in the face of even the weak form PSR that we may on seeing A, inquire as to why A, from which we immediately see necessity/contingency of being, and cause, also the utter causal impotence of non-being (nothing). Believe it or not, in some cases this extends to trying to redefine nothing as something then brazenly asserting that we are getting a cosmos from nothing. The price tag for denying self evident first principles is clinging to absurdity. And in that context, there are some things that one is responsible to know: one either knows and acknowledges them or else SHOULD know them. For instance it can be shown how the import of the above and some generally accessible evidence is that there is a causal ground for our evidently contingent world, ultimately requiring a necessary -- and beginning-less -- being. Multiply that by evidence of fine tuning of the observed cosmos that fits it for Chemistry aqueous medium cell based life and a very challenging picture emerges. I have not got time or energy now to elaborate on the implications of self evident moral truths, such as that we have unalienable rights sufficient to ground that say the kidnapping, torture and murder of a lovely little girl is a patent affront to humanity. I will just say in answer to a lot of recent rhetoric, that rights imply that OUGHT is real (as in you ought to respect that little girl), thus we need a worldview foundation rooted in an IS sufficient to support OUGHT. From the valid bit of Hume's guillotine "surpriz'd" argument as to basis for ought, the foundation of reality is where that has to happen. The only sufficiently strong worldview cornerstone is the inherently good God and creator. Nothing else can bear the weight of ought, on pain of patent absurdities. But you betcha that ever so many are perfectly willing to cling to such. But then, we are also dealing with a case where the Royce proposition, that error exists, is also being ducked. $0.02, KFkairosfocus_{August 3, 2013
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Well, I do not claim that my personal model of reality is true, merely that it is useful. I have a lot of use for most of McCabe's theology, still. I just can't say the creed any more.Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 3, 2013
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Elizabeth: "Well, possibly not what matters to you." Speaking historically, the important thing is not what matters to *me*, but what has mattered to the vast majority of people, including the vast majority of educated people, who have called themselves Christians. I don't have the authority to simply redefine Christianity without regard for what Christians have actually believed. I can of course, if I wish, say that a good number of the things which Christians have believed are bad things to believe. I can pick and choose, and reconstruct my own ideal Christian religion which has in it only a picture of God that I like, only a picture of Jesus that I like, only a picture of grace that I like, only the parts of the Bible that I like, only the parts of the Creeds that I like, etc. (The modern TEs do this all the time, as do modern Christian liberals generally.) But if I'm speaking as a historian, I have to describe Christianity as its followers understood it, not as a modern person with post-Enlightenment sensibilities would like it to be. I, too, can come up with understandings of the atonement which "make sense to me," but which would not pass muster as the orthodox understanding, either Catholic or Protestant. And institutions of Christian higher education -- at least those which still take some minimal care to ensure that what they are teaching is actually Christian, are not going to hire me based on what makes sense to *me*. As for whether Fr. McCabe's view of the atonement would "shock" me, that is neither here nor there; to very liberal Christians, orthodox doctrine is frequently "shocking," and to very orthodox Christians, liberal doctrine is frequently "shocking." The question is not what is shocking -- which concerns subjective reactions -- but what is the traditional teaching. One can accept, reject, or consciously modify the traditional teaching, but one can't simply ignore it as if it doesn't matter. If one is going to call oneself "Christian," one has to be prepared to justify the use of the label to those who would challenge it. As for the long paragraph from McCabe, I understand where he is coming from. It is not adequate to think of God as merely a bigger, more powerful human being. At the same time, Christians have always affirmed that God is like a human being *in some respects*. And even Aquinas, to whom McCabe appeals, did not differ on that. But some of the modern Thomists, especially those active on the internet these days, are so concerned to combat overly-anthropomorphic conceptions of God, that they tend to swing too far in the other direction, and come perilously close to a Stoic or perhaps a pantheistic (depending on your definition) view of God. And the point here is not that such a view of God (e.g., pantheistic) is necessarily false; the point is that it is not Christian. The Christian view of God is actually quite a nuanced and conceptually difficult view, balanced on a fine edge, trying not to fall off toward crude mythological anthropomorphism on one side, or toward an impersonal "ground of being" on the other side. Aquinas tried (I would argue with mixed success) to do this balancing act, as others before and since (Augustine, Calvin, etc.) have tried to do it. I would probably disagree with McCabe on exactly what Aquinas taught about divine activity in creation; I suspect that McCabe's view is close to Feser's, whereas I lean more toward Vincent Torley's account. But I do respect what McCabe is trying to do. There certainly are both theoretical and moral problems that arise upon the supposition of a crudely anthropomorphic God. Whether or not you are "godless" of course depends entirely on what you mean by the word. By the most common definitions, in use in everyday speech, you would indeed appear to be "godless," but you may have in mind some different notion of "god." As for your final statement, I think it is more consistent with what you've said in the past than the puzzling statements that I questioned above.Timaeus_{August 3, 2013
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The smoking gun is blatantly obvious. It’s all around us and within, everywhere we look and in what and how we think and feel.
Obvious of what? You will get a different response from a large section of the world, especially those who have been educated. Go outside of these friendly compounds and you will encounter large numbers who will disagree with you. Why if the evidence is so obvious, is there so much doubt/disbelief? This is from someone who understands the evidence and arguments as well as anyone here and willingly admits it is pretty near obviously intelligence based. But does not know for sure what that means. After all the ID position is to officially not speculate on what the evidence means other than a lot part of it has an intelligence origin. Besides that was not the point I was trying to make. My point was that if it was assumed obvious to either sides position we would have a world that is very different, and one that is very undesirable.jerry_{August 3, 2013
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The curious thing is that there is no smoking gun.
Of course there is a smoking gun. The smoking gun is blatantly obvious. It's all around us and within, everywhere we look and in what and how we think and feel. If there is anything curious, it is that people will deny the obvious even into self-defeating absurdity. But, that's really the whole point of free will - the capacity to deny what is true.William J Murray_{August 3, 2013
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Timaeus
Elizabeth wrote: “… there is still little in McCabe’s theology I don’t still hold to. “(Although those things that I don’t are probably rather important!)” Yes, it is probably “rather important” that you don’t believe in God, which, given that McCabe was a priest and Dominican, makes it odd that you can say “there is little in McCabe’s theology I don’t still hold to.”
True, although I would also quote this:
McCabe: For the moment may I just say that it seems to me that what we often call atheism is not a denial of the God of which I speak. Very frequently the man who sees himself as an atheist is not denying the existence of some answer to the mystery of how come there is anything instead of nothing, he is denying what he thinks or has been told is a religious answer to this question. He thinks or has been told that religious people, and especially Christians, claim to have discovered what the answer is, that there is some grand architect of the universe who designed it, just like Basil Spence only bigger and less visible, that there is a Top Person in the universe who issues arbitrary decrees for the rest of the persons and enforces them because he is the most powerful being around. Now if denying this claim makes you an atheist, then I and Thomas Aquinas and a whole Christan tradition are atheistic too.
I an atheist in the above sense. I am probably an atheist in other senses too, but I am not entirely godless.
Of course, if there is no God, there is no Trinity,
Nor am I entirely Trinity-less
no Christ,
But possibly Jesus
no Fall,
But possibly Knowledge of Good and Evil.
no Redemption,
But possibly forgiveness
no divinely inspired Bible,
But many inspiring writings by people trying to figure out where we stand in regard to the world, and how we should regard it
no Sacraments as vehicles of divine grace, etc.
But grace, nonetheless
In other words, everything that matters in McCabe’s theology, you don’t hold to.
Well, possibly not what matters to you. Some of it matters to me, and I some of it includes what mattered to McCabe. For instance, McCabe's take on the atonement might shock you (I don't know), but it always made sense to me.
What you perhaps meant to say is: “If I still believed in God and was still a Christian, I would hold to something close to the Dominican theology of McCabe, but as this is not the case, I unfortunately have to say that I think that just about everything the man believed and taught about God and Christ was false.”
I'll try to say more clearly what my position is, using your formula:
If I still believed that mind and will could be the cause of the physical world, rather than emergent from it, and that Jesus rose bodily from the dead, I would hold to something close to the Dominican theology of McCabe, but as this is not the case, I unfortunately have to say that I regard what man believed and taught about God and Christ as much more metaphorical than I think he did, and that unlike McCabe, I do not believe in the resurrection of the dead.”
Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 3, 2013
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Jerry: I challenge everyone to think what would the world be like if the evidence was one way or the other.
The evidence is there. Right in front of your eyes, in the fine tuning of the universal constants; in the DNA replicating system of earth's biosystem. That and and the evidence surrounding protein domains have the earmarks of a "smoking gun." A smoking cannon, in fact.CentralScrutinizer_{August 3, 2013
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It seems like everybody is looking for a smoking gun to back their position or given the lack of a smoking gun, generate a position that makes oneself comfortable (either conclusive evidence for or against or a conclusive argument for or against.) Part of feeling comfortable is making the other's position look silly. Just witness the pro ID people pointing out the futility of the current science on evolution and the folks at Panda's Thumb use of derogatory language to characterize the ID people as stupid. There are a lot of other variants of this around the internet or in the realms of various organizations, ASA being one of them. The curious thing is that there is no smoking gun. And I challenge anyone to think what the world would be like if there were. If the information was conclusive either way, the world would be a very different place and I do not think either way would be very desirable. So the most interesting thing is why is the world so balanced between these two completely opposite positions, there is no God or gods and there is/are gods or a God. I first became aware of this issue while looking into the theodicy debate. This was long before I knew there was a controversy with evolution. I thought Darwin's ideas explained it but it was never an issue with me. But the theodicy controversy illustrated some of the same issues with me and it was before one could access the world through the internet to see how ingrained it was in different areas. In pursuing theodicy I came across a lot of ideas about a creator and the nature of that creator. One of the most insightful, were some lectures on the Book of Job. The essential message of Job according to these lectures is that it is impossible to know the mind of God. It is easier for a maggot or worm to understand the smartest human then it is for a human to even to begin to understand God. Yet we are all trying and if we somehow don't like what we see, we want to change God to suit us or say He couldn't possibly exist which is another way of changing God to suit us. This doesn't mean that it is futile to try to understand God, but don't think you will ever actually get there. It is hubris to think one can. One of the lectures included this anecdote, which is probably not true but still makes the point. Aquinas supposedly had a dream where he was on a beach and an angel was going into the ocean and bringing back a spoonful of water. Aquinas asked the angel what he was doing and the angel replied he was doing theology. According to the anecdote Aquinas stopped his writing and died a short time afterward realizing the futility of doing so. But we have millions who are still doing it. Similarly, each new scientific discovery reveals layer after layer of complexity in the physical universe. Will we ever comprehend it. Maybe but it may be like those spoonfuls of ocean. Again, I challenge everyone to think what would the world be like if the evidence was one way or the other. Maybe Leibniz was right, this is the best of all possible worlds. We just do not know what is meant by "best."jerry_{August 3, 2013
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Elizabeth wrote: "... there is still little in McCabe’s theology I don’t still hold to. "(Although those things that I don’t are probably rather important!)" Yes, it is probably "rather important" that you don't believe in God, which, given that McCabe was a priest and Dominican, makes it odd that you can say "there is little in McCabe's theology I don't still hold to." Of course, if there is no God, there is no Trinity, no Christ, no Fall, no Redemption, no divinely inspired Bible, no Sacraments as vehicles of divine grace, etc. In other words, everything that matters in McCabe's theology, you don't hold to. What you perhaps meant to say is: "If I still believed in God and was still a Christian, I would hold to something close to the Dominican theology of McCabe, but as this is not the case, I unfortunately have to say that I think that just about everything the man believed and taught about God and Christ was false." :-)Timaeus_{August 3, 2013
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Ah, thanks. In that case, I recommend McCabe's essay on Freedom. It's on that issue that I came to disagree with McCabe, but it was my view for many many years. I still miss it :(Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 3, 2013
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How would “bare existence” differ from “natural causes” in that interpretation? I think either in a rigid determinism - God sets up a Laplacian system and then drinks coffee whilst the clock unwinds ... or nowadays (when chaos and quantum theory don't really allow for such materialistic determinism) more in an autonomy of nature picture, in which "random" is given as a proxy for "liberty" ... what R J Russell calls "statistical determinism". But in neither case is God intimately involved with how the results play out, or even more importantly, why.Jon Garvey_{August 3, 2013
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Mung:
“I’m rather addle-headed right now.” – Elizabeth Liddle
You really like that quote, don't you, Mung? Feel free to quote it as often as you like. It's often true.Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 3, 2013
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Timaeus: thanks for background on the food fight :)
So can call your former self a “TE” if you like; we will all just translate that as “theistic evolutionist” in the generic sense. But you weren’t ever a TE in the sense we mean here. Your former taste for Thomism (a system I respect, even though I have my disagreements with it) indicates a love of systematic rigor that is utterly lacking in 90% of modern TE authors.
I have some issues with Aquinas, but a great deal of respect for the Thomist tradition as relayed by the Dominicans, and there is still little in McCabe's theology I don't still hold to. (Although those things that I don't are probably rather important!) I still think that essay is really excellent. Mung:
I’d really like to know what you think he is saying in that quote. To me he’s saying that Darwinism can’t possibly be scientific.
I don't think he is saying that, and I'm pretty sure he isn't. I listened to him preach Sunday after Sunday, and never heard anything that implied he didn't think Darwinism, or any science, wasn't scientific. He himself studied chemistry, at university although he then switched to philosophy. I think he is saying that if God is responsible for the entire universe, it is bootless to attempt to distinguish god-made things from non-god-made things. And that therefore no scientific finding tells you that something was not God-made. It just tells you how the God-made universe works.
EL:Is it worth asking what you think is “self-contradictory” about the nuances I have described?
Mung:First and foremost your own stated position is self-contradictory, so if you can’t even recognize that, what would be the point of discussing “nuances” with you?
Petitio principii spotted. Jon Garvey:
Elizabeth, the paragraph you quote, in the context of most modern readers’ total unfamiliarity with Aquinas, sounds almost Deistic, though it is not. Many would assume that McCabe is suggesting Aquinas teaches that God is responsible for bare existence, and that natural causes fully explain everything else, so we look in vain for God’s activity, because he’s busy doing nothing.
How would "bare existence" differ from "natural causes" in that interpretation? Anyway, my response would be: read the whole volume of essays. There's another one out now, called God Still Matters. His literary executor has been busy! Apparently he used to keep his sermons in places like his shoe. He was the best preacher I ever heard. I used to sit in church with my jaw dropped.Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 3, 2013
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Not my claims, Alan - recycling Aquinas, as Elizabeth did but in less detail and filtered through McCabe. And Aquinas is (as is pretty well-known) a philosopher and theologian, not a scientist. Nevertheless, Aquinas is also famous as a natural theologian, so you want beef, you go and study his five proofs of God and the detailed reasoning on which they are based. Or as a shortcut, you could read Edward Feser's short introduction to Aquinas. Theistic evolution, though, is not presented, as far as I know, as anything other than a metaphysical and theological system on which theists may hang science. It avoids the pretensions and confusion of naturalistic science, that claims to be able to demonstrate the absence of not only God, but purpose and planning, by blinding itself to its own metaphysical presuppositions.Jon Garvey_{August 3, 2013
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@ Jon: All very confidently expressed in #72. I might sceptically inquire, "where's the beef"? Why can't I go on thinking "Garvey may believe this but it is just fact-free opinion". What is your basis for these claims about God?Alan Fox_{August 3, 2013
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What God accounts for is that the universe is there instead of nothing.
Elizabeth, the paragraph you quote, in the context of most modern readers' total unfamiliarity with Aquinas, sounds almost Deistic, though it is not. Many would assume that McCabe is suggesting Aquinas teaches that God is responsible for bare existence, and that natural causes fully explain everything else, so we look in vain for God's activity, because he's busy doing nothing. But Aquinas clearly says that, au contraire, God is responsible for all that is (which is why the TE- and skeptic-speak about "interference" is meaningless, as McCabe points out) - and the "universe" means all that exists materially, including each and every event. In other words, God's providence sustains and orders everything, moment by moment, and that providence specifically (see relevant sections of the Summa under "providence") governs what we now call natural laws, chance events, human choices and even the failure of material causes ... plus, of course, Aquinas also believed in miracles as one special facet of God's providence. So to Aquinas, the fact that one could "explain" how lions eat gazelles because they have a fierce, hunting nature and so on, and sometimes are lucky enough to outrun and overcome their prey, in no way removes the necessity for God as the first cause of each and every leonine action, nor diminishes in any way the actual truth of the biblical claim that God himself hunts the prey for the lioness, and satisfies the hunger of the lions. He would therefore regard any scientific explanations of evolution as valid, but woefully incomplete without reference to God as first cause - and also, to final causes in the sense of teleology, both inherent in nature and governed by God, for everything must have a final, as well as a material, formal and efficent cause. Aquinas would also insist that efficient causes be suitable to their ends: evolutionary "laws" that led to uncertain outcomes could not alone explain the creation of mankind, say, by God's stated will, because a wise God directs things towards his own ends, not towards vague generalities. Similarly, chance events would, by definition, be unpredictable to man but, by providence, ordered by God to produce specific ends. So to Aquinas "chance and necessity" are merely two arms of God's providence for the specific fulfilment of his will. Neither, as far as I can see, does Aquinas (who knew, and said, nothing of evolution or of natural processes as part of the biblical creation) actually exclude miracle in the emergence of life - rather, given mediaeval theology, he probably assumed it as part of the original creation ex nihilo. So his thinking needs to applied cautiously by those suggesting that God creates through some natural process, like evolution: whatever part of that were "ex nihilo" would remain miraculous. Information, as in ID, is an interesting case since it corresponds, more or less directly, to Aquinas's "formal cause" category, and ties in with the Christian "Logos" - Christ the wisdom of God - as agent of creation. God gives form (or information) to bare matter, and that combination constitutes the "nature" of whatever is created - a DNA molecule, a star or a bear. Science is the study of the interaction of the effects all those God-given "natures" as efficient causes - so would seem not to be equipped to explain the origin either of matter (ie material existence) or of form (ie information). In summary, traditional Christian teaching such as that of Aquinas renders everything in nature subject to providence, and science the study of "How God did it", rather than limiting his involvement in any way.Jon Garvey_{August 3, 2013
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“I’m rather addle-headed right now.” – Elizabeth LiddleMung_{August 2, 2013
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Elizabeth: As you may have picked up by now, when most of us use "TE" in these discussions, we are (unless we specify otherwise) not referring to the generic idea of "theistic evolution," but to a particular form of theistic evolution which has developed, mainly in the USA (though it has a "branch plant" in Britain, e.g., Denis Alexander), since the early 1990s. This TE is primarily Protestant evangelical in its membership (though Ken Miller, who shares much in common with it, is Catholic). Its sociological base lies partly in the Protestant evangelical seminaries and liberal arts colleges, and partly in the ASA (American Scientific Affiliation), an association of primarily Protestant evangelical scientists. (Though not all ASA members, I add, are TEs, and some are ID supporters, others OECs.) Many of TE's prominent personalities currently associate with, or in the past have associated with, BioLogos. The theology associated with this modern TE, though ill-defined, and varying from TE to TE, is generally speaking, very far from the traditional Catholic theology that you have referenced. Even Ken Miller, though Catholic, has a TE theology that has little in common with the metaphysical language of traditional Catholic theology. Thus, even where the American TEs agree with McCabe's conclusion, they offer different arguments (almost always poor ones) for adopting that conclusion. They don't have the systematic theological training that someone like McCabe has. In order to avoid confusion between someone like Francis Collins and someone like McCabe, I generally say "theistic evolutionist" when I want to indicate the broader, more generic affirmation that "God creates through a process of evolution" -- a belief which has been around for a long time, and which emerged in the 19th century, before modern TE leaders were even born -- and I generally say "TE" to indicate a particular American-centered religious movement trying to harmonize neo-Darwinism with (primarily) Protestant evangelical Christianity. As I indicated to Chris Doyle, to understand TE you have to understand the history of American evangelical Christianity, and particularly the history of its attitudes to the evolution question. Modern TE would not exist without that history, whereas "theistic evolution" has always had an existence independent of that history (in Catholicism, Anglicanism, etc.). In other words, Elizabeth, here on UD, you have walked into the middle of an American evangelical food fight, and your terminology, though etymologically defensible and still meaningful in a rational continent like Europe, no longer obtains in the land where nearly half of the people identify themselves as evangelical and where a strange history has mutated the meaning of previously straightforward terms. So can call your former self a "TE" if you like; we will all just translate that as "theistic evolutionist" in the generic sense. But you weren't ever a TE in the sense we mean here. Your former taste for Thomism (a system I respect, even though I have my disagreements with it) indicates a love of systematic rigor that is utterly lacking in 90% of modern TE authors.Timaeus_{August 2, 2013
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Elizabeth Liddle:
But seriously, I’ve heard some pretty good theology from theologians who have absolutely no problem with the idea of a scientifically undetectable God. To quote once again, my favorite theologian, Fr. Herbert McCabe OP, a Thomist scholar:
I'd really like to know what you think he is saying in that quote. To me he's saying that Darwinism can't possibly be scientific. Do you seriously maintain that ID is about "detecting God"?Mung_{August 2, 2013
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Elizabeth Liddle:
Is it worth asking what you think is “self-contradictory” about the nuances I have described?
First and foremost your own stated position is self-contradictory, so if you can't even recognize that, what would be the point of discussing "nuances" with you? Elizabeth Liddle:
So there are nuances in the Darwinian position too, I’d say
Such as?
However, there has been a recent (and welcome!) shift away from the very gene-based approach taken by the early “neo-Darwinians”, towards a much broader approach to heritability, including such concepts as symbiosis; HGT, the evolution of evolvability (Shapiro); neo-Lamarckianism and heritable epigenetic effects; evo-devo and the role of non-coding sequences; population-level evolution, etc, and some of these people (e.g. Margulis, Shapiro, Noble) have rejected “neo-Darwinism” in favour of something closer to “Darwinism”. Also the Crick’s “Central Dogma” (“DNA makes RNA makes protein”) is no longer dogma (dogmas ain’t healthy in science).
You are asserting that there are "nuances" on the neo-Darwinian view, and that some of these "nuances" are more Darwinian than neo-Darwinian. And now you ask me to to try to make sense of your nonsense? Of course, I'd love to hear why you think neo-Darwinism isn't itself a "nuance" on Darwinism.Mung_{August 2, 2013
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Timaeus;
There are of course TE leaders who fall outside of these generalizations (Polkinghorne, Russell, etc.), but I’m broad-brushing to make a general point.
As one who was brought up with "TE" as the status quo, I find it odd to think of it having "leaders". I guess having a Teihard fan as a mother damaged my brain :) But seriously, I've heard some pretty good theology from theologians who have absolutely no problem with the idea of a scientifically undetectable God. To quote once again, my favorite theologian, Fr. Herbert McCabe OP, a Thomist scholar:
Again, it is clear that God cannot interfere in the universe, not because he has not the power, but because, so to speak, he has too much; to interfere you have to be an alternative to, or alongside, what you are interfering with. If God is the cause of everything, there is nothing that he is alongside. Obviously God makes no difference to the universe; I mean by this that we do not appeal specifically to God to explain why the universe is this way rather than that, for this we need only appeal to explanations within the universe. For this reason there can, it seems to me, be no feature of the universe which indicates it is god-made. What God accounts for is that the universe is there instead of nothing.
From God Matters The quotation is readable in that googlebook selection - it's on page 6. It's a good essay, called "Creation". If you can see it, I really recommend it! (Another quotation I like: "It is not possible that God and the Universe should add up to make two.")Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 2, 2013
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Well, that’s the problem when you try and reconcile reality and observation with dogma and literalism.
Nice polemics, Alan, but wrong facts.
Hi, Jon. Which facts are you disputing?
Asa Gray, Charles Kingsley, Benjamin Warfield – three of the early evolutionists, some of the earliest theistic evolutionists and easily able to assimilate evolutionary theory into orthodox Christian teaching.
Wel, good for them and why not? I really don't see the problem. The Dalai Lama accepts that facts outweigh dogma. If you want to invent or steal some dogma, you begin to look alittle silly when it fails to deliver. Who was that US preacher that predicted the end of the World a while ago?Alan Fox_{August 2, 2013
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Timaeus @ 63 I don't necessarily disagree with your description of the status quo. However, it makes my point that there is no objective dogma and everyone ends up settling for what suits them best (unless you are a woman in Taliban controlled territory, in which case you may not have a choice). It's a shame when people have to pretend just to fit in. Roman society was a bit like that. Make the prescribed sacrifices at the appropriate moments and your thoughts were your own, so long as you outwardly conformed.Alan Fox_{August 2, 2013
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Well, that’s the problem when you try and reconcile reality and observation with dogma and literalism. Nice polemics, Alan, but wrong facts. Asa Gray, Charles Kingsley, Benjamin Warfield - three of the early evolutionists, some of the earlioest theistic evolutionists and easily able to assimilate evolutionary theory into orthodox Christian teaching. Here and ff 5 posts.Jon Garvey_{August 2, 2013
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Alan Fox (62): The problem is not that Christian theology, per se, is incompatible with good natural science, per se. The problem is: (a) that the particular natural science theory employed by most of the prominent TEs -- neo-Darwinism -- is very hard (to be academically cautious, I won't say impossible, but very hard) to reconcile with standard, orthodox Christian creation doctrine; (b) many of the TE leaders don't like standard, orthodox Christian creation doctrine anyway, but prefer to flirt with all kinds of heresies and experimental theologies (open theism, kenotic creation, etc.); ( c ) yet the TE leaders have to *pretend* they are upholding standard, orthodox creation doctrine because their claim is to be part of the evangelical tradition, and their churches and their financial donors will revolt against them if they depart from it. There are of course TE leaders who fall outside of these generalizations (Polkinghorne, Russell, etc.), but I'm broad-brushing to make a general point.Timaeus_{August 2, 2013
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Timaeus:
No matter which way you look at it, TE is a theological dog’s breakfast. It has no clear theology, just a mixed-up mess of theological conceptions tossed together like a salad.
Well, that's the problem when you try and reconcile reality and observation with dogma and literalism. When facts do not bear out dogma, something has to give. Even the Catholic Church had to give up on geocentricism eventually.Alan Fox_{August 2, 2013
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