But I really DO think that Christian Darwinism is an oxymoron

---ilion: "Was it not you who insisted, @92, that the above is correct? Even though it isn’t correct, as it is backward?" I did, indeed, say that, from a Christian perspective, God created humans exactly as He wanted them--with no variation from His original intent. If you think that position is incorrect, I would like for you to explain yourself. We are, after all, discussing the Christian world view, not necessarily my world view or your world view. In that context, did God allow happenstance to decide the outcome of His creative process, working around and adjusting to the finished product, whatever form it might take? Or, did He insure that the finished product was exactly what He wanted? --"Was it not you who, at @107 and 109, began to acknowledge that I wasn’t totally wrong?" You introduced new subject matter, namely that pro-agency and anti-agency are incompatible, and so they are. You are totally right about that. You also asserted that such was the only significant contradiction between Christianity and Darwinism. On that point, you were wrong. Christianity and Darwinism are manifestly incompatible in many important ways. Thus, you were partly right. StephenB

ilion RE 184 Please point out to me when I have exhibited an attitude of arrogance and condenscension as it relates to you and me. Furthermore please address my post in 183. Do you really hold to the illogical and irrational position that nothing determines our choices. That our choices poof into existence from nothing and no where without a reason? Vivid vividbleau

"Nice attitude you got going there." Listen to you! Do I *really* need to point out the hypocrisy of your attitude? Ilion

ilion RE 180 Nice attitude you got going there. Since I am in the Christmas spirit I will try to do give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you really are not positing the irrational and illogical proposition that choices come from nothing and no where!! They just poof into existence from nothing. Your response to me just happened and came from that which rocks dream of ie nothing. Now my choices are either determined, non determined or undetermined. To say they are non determined, that nothing determines them is to say something comes from nothing. I cant imagine you embracing this position but who knows? To say they are undetermined can be taken to mean either we do not know what determined them or that each choice can go one way or the other. The former does not posit the irrational and illogical position that nothing determines choices rather what actually determined my choice is unknown or not well understood. The latter also does not entail the irrational and illogical position that something can come from nothing. Even though my choice can go this way or that there still is something determining which way or that I end up choosing. Merry Christmas Vivid vividbleau

StephenB: “I don’t think that you even know my position on the matter [of determinism as applies to the Christian metaphysic and the atheistic metaphysic.] since I have been discussing something else.” Do I not, really? Was it not you who wrote @65: “… Thus, assuming evolution is true, and it may not be, the Christian world view of the evolutionary process is incompatible with the Darwinist world view of the evolutionary process because the former will admit of only one outcome while the latter will admit of any outcome at all” Was it not you who insisted, @92, that the above is correct? Even though it isn’t correct, as it is backward? Was it not you who, at @107 and 109, began to acknowledge that I wasn’t totally wrong? Ilion

---ilion to vividbleua: "In any event, if I make the time to get involved again in this thread, it should be to nudge StephenB further along the trail of realizing that I am right (and he is wrong) on the specific matter of determinism as applies to the Christian metaphysic and the atheistic metaphysic." I don't think that you even know my position on the matter since I have been discussing something else. For my part, I think contingency does exist in nature, [ID argues on behalf of both Law and Chance does it not] but that doesn't mean God can't use and direct contingency to get the results that He wants. I think some things have been specifically designed, while others may not have been. I also agree that materialism is consistent with determinism. Everyone knows that--I think. Did God intend for the Grand Canyon to be exactly as it is? I have no idea. Maybe so, maybe not. Did God intend for mankind to be a unity of mind and body. Yes, indeed. Would He allow a variation of that intended outcome and just make the best of whatever turns up. I say no. What do you say? On that critical and decisive matter, you remain silent. After having cited several Darwinists who agree with me that Darwinism is synonymous with a purposeless, mindless process that produces a different result every time, I asked you to cite one Darwinist who agrees with you, namely that a purposeless, mindless process will produce the same result every time. On that point, you remain silent. In case you missed it, that was a challenge. How can God, as the Christian Darwinists insist, "use" such a process to produce us. On that important matter, you remain silent. When God created man, Did He get the exact result outcome He intended or didn't He? If He used the evolutionary process, did it produce the desired outcome, or didn't it? On these most important of all matters, you are also silent. If you want to get in the game, then get in the game. StephenB

Vividbleau: “Ilion I would be glad to engage you on this subjct but I do not want to go down a rabbit trail that is not germaine to my discussion with Bilbo.” Ah, but on this subject there is nothing to argue about, since “I do not accept the premise that if my choices are determined they are not free” expresses a self-contradiction. In any event, if I make the time to get involved again in this thread, it should be to nudge StephenB further along the trail of realizing that I am right (and he is wrong) on the specific matter of determinism as applies to the Christian metaphysic and the atheistic metaphysic. Ilion

---nullasalus: “Bilbo clearly agrees that God can and does in fact foresee the outcomes and events of evolution – “ Yes. Bilbo agrees that God knows the events and outcomes of evolution. ---“I assume he believes God is and was entirely capable of altering the events and outcomes in any way He so chose – so I hold out for the possibility that there is simply miscommunication here.” Again, Yes. Bilbo also believes that God is and was entirely capable of altering the events and outcomes in any way he choses. Here is the rub: For Bilbo, God need not have designed the evolutionary process that produces the outcome. According to this view, the process is just a given and its origin needs no explanation. That is why Bilbo always speaks in terms of God’s foreknowledge and never in terms of God’s apriori intent. Under these circumstances, God “knows” what is going to happen, God “allows” and “approves” of what is going to happen, but God didn't “make” it happen. With this scenario, we are told, God could let a purposeless, mindless evolutionary process play out and get exactly the result He wants without having decided ahead of time how he wants it to play out-- without designing the process with all the necessary ingredients to insure the desired outcome. This world view is what defines unguided, undesigned Christian Darwinism, and it makes no sense. Theistic Evolution, properly understood, allows for design, and is, to that extent, reasonable. Unfortunately, Theistic Evolution has come to mean Christian Darwinism and is, in that context, unreasonable. . StephenB

StephenB, I think you may be misreading Bilbo just a little. He is on board for the allowing and knowing part, but He will not commit to any kind of apriori intent on the part of the knower. I know because I have pressed him on this several times. If he did acknowledge apriori intent, we would have no dispute. Perhaps, but then I simply don't get how he can say what he is saying. To create in the first place that which will lead to a process and certain outcomes, to know with certainty and in advance the paths of these processes and their results, and to have it in one's power to choose whether or not to allow said processes to come to pass (to change the processes, the results, or to choose whether or not to instantiate anything at all) leaves one with a being who had to, at least in some ultimate way, have therefore intended that which came to pass. (I suppose you could argue that God did not intend event X specifically for its own sake, but that permitting it was essential to a greater plan - say, the later achievement of Y which was reliant on X. But that would be a different kind of 'lack of intent' than is being discussed here. Rather like how a surgeon doesn't "want to slice someone open with a scalpel", but they do want to remove a near-bursting appendix, therefore..) Either way, in that case I wonder what Bilbo could mean. Perhaps that the process in the abstract is not itself one which would definitely always lead to result X. Rather like how I can make a house out of legos, but there's nothing 'about the legos' which guarantees that a house will be made with them. Bilbo clearly agrees that God can and does in fact foresee the outcomes and events of evolution - I assume he believes God is and was entirely capable of altering the events and outcomes in any way He so chose - so I hold out for the possibility that there is simply miscommunication here. Of course, there's always the possibility there isn't, and I'll just be forced to disagree and explain why. But what can I say - I like to be optimistic sometimes. nullasalus

---"Nullasalus to Bilbo: “You keep talking about how evolution is ‘random’, but the sort of randomness you mean doesn’t preclude God knowing, allowing, or even intending the results.” I think you may be misreading Bilbo just a little. He is on board for the allowing and knowing part, but He will not commit to any kind of apriori intent on the part of the knower. I know because I have pressed him on this several times. If he did acknowledge apriori intent, we would have no dispute. I agree, and always have agreed that, logically, God could program an evolutionary process [perhaps using variations and selections] to get the exact result he wants. What I am arguing against Bilbo’s proposition, namely that God can get the result he wants WITHOUT programming or planning the process. As I have pointed out multiple times, if God used the process to produce the desired outcome, then God would have to plan or program the same process that he used. Bilbo has contested that proposition, arguing that God can use an unprogrammed, unplanned process to get the desired result. Bilbo is appealing to Darwinism, which, precisely because it is not designed to produce a desired outcome, will produce a different result every time. It is this same process that produces a different result every time that Bilbo claims God can use to get exactly/the result he wants the very first time. That is why we differentiate Christian Darwinism [God uses an unprogrammed, undesigned, naturalistic process] with Theistic evolution [God uses a programmed, designed, naturalistic process]. Bilbo is arguing for Christian Darwinism. StephenB

Ilion "If your “choices” are determined, they’re not only not free, they’re not even choices." Ilion I would be glad to engage you on this subjct but I do not want to go down a rabbit trail that is not germaine to my discussion with Bilbo. Vivid vividbleau

"I do not accept the premise that if my choices are determined they are not free." If your "choices" are determined, they're not only not free, they're not even choices. You might as well speak of a computer program having choices. Ilion

Bilbo RE 169 Some house keeping but I do not want to chase rabbits as the following is not germaine to our discussion. You should know... I do not accept the premise that if my choices are determined they are not free. Even if my choices were not certain that does not mean they would be random. I dont think any choice by a rational individual is ever random. Certain means that I will choose only that which God foreknows I will choose. My choices will never deviate from what God foreknows I will choose. I agree with Stephen when he says you need to address this whole issue regarding Gods foreknowledge. How can God foreknow something if it in fact has the possibility of not happening? If it did not happen then God did not foreknow it. If it had the possibility of not happening then it is not knowledge it is more properly foreguessing. So I ask again how can God foreknow something if it in fact has the possibilty of not happening? Vivid vividbleau

Given an omnipotent God, and assuming macro-evolution for the sake of argument, only two possibilities exist: [A] God designed a process that would infallibly produce the result He wanted, that is, in his one and only try, or [B] God produced a non-design, Darwinian process, which would almost certainly not produce the result He wanted, indeed, one that would likely require trillions upon trillions of tries until He got exceedingly lucky and finally achieved His goal, that same goal that He could have achieved in one try with a design process. Moreover, [B] is ridiculous on the face of it because God would not work against Himself and design a non-design process. ---Bilbo: “Or reflects the efforts of a designer who is satisfied with what He foreknows will be the results of the Darwinian process, just as He foreknows the results of human free choices.” As I explained earlier, you are mistakenly assuming that God’s knowledge about the outcome of the evolutionary process is unrelated to God’s role as the originator of that process—as if it was only after evolution came into existence that God came to realize that its outcome was what he wanted. In fact, God had to know evolution’s outcome before evolution came into existence since He designed it for the sake of that outcome. You need to address that point, not ignore it, because it defines the error in your thinking. StephenB

Bilbo, Yes they would be incompatible. I dispute (A). Darwinism requires that the mutations be random with respect to fitness. This is in no way incompatible with God foreknowing what the mutations will be. Ruse et al are terribly confused about this. Between this, and what you're saying, I think this whole argument can come to an end, can it? You're asserting that even if nature is in some way 'Free', it's not the sort of freedom that precludes God knowing or permitting the outcomes of nature. As near as I can tell, by the standards of Kairos, Stephen and others, you are not a 'Darwinist' - nor are you one by Ruse's standards. Now, you say Ruse is mistaken, 'not Christian Darwinists'. But I'm going to note: Ruse didn't make his statement on his own website, or in some newspaper editorial. This was part of a guest post series on Biologos, TE central. I have defended TEs on this very site - ask StephenB, ask Kairosfocus. I've argued repeatedly that accepting evolution does not necessitate accepting a process that God did not plan or guide, etc, particularly in the sense of "God did not know or permit the outcomes". But there really are some 'Christian Darwinists' who do believe such things, or who certainly present themselves as believing such. The fact that Ruse was invited to make the claims he did on Biologos should at least put up some warning flags to you. I think that's where everyone is tripping up. You keep talking about how evolution is 'random', but the sort of randomness you mean doesn't preclude God knowing, allowing, or even intending the results. Then they say 'But that's not Darwinism', and you insist that it is, which leads back to the 'Then you DO believe it's random!' and the clarification of 'No' and... etc. It seems by.. let's call it 'House Rules', your (hypothetical?) views would not be Darwinist. Not by the standards Ruse gives, not by the standards StephenB or other hears have. You insist those views would be Darwinist.. but at that point you're not argued about ideas, but definitions of words. nullasalus

StephenB: Humans have the free will to choose a course different from the one God intended. Nature cannot do that. But if the most basic events of Nature are indeed random, then yes, Nature can "choose" a different course from the one God intended. Given an omnipotent God, and assuming macro-evolution for the sake of argument, only two possibilities exist: [A] God designed a process that would infallibly produce the result He wanted or [B] God produced a non-design, Darwinian process–one which, by definition, will produce a different result every time–one which, by virtue of its random nature, would almost certainly not conform to a designer’s specifications–one which, in fact, reflects the efforts of a designer who doesn’t design. Or reflects the efforts of a designer who is satisfied with what He foreknows will be the results of the Darwinian process, just as He foreknows the results of human free choices. Bilbo I

StephenB: Truer words were never spoken. The last thing Christian Darwinists want to do is define their terms, and when they are forced to do so, they take jolly good care to keep them as vague as possible. I understand this to be a veiled criticism of me. That means that you think that I am a Christian Darwinist. I'm not. The fact that someone can argue for the reasonableness of a position that they disagree with is a sign of open-mindedness and intellectual honesty. Apparently I have argued so well that you mistake me for the position I am defending, even though I don't hold it. Thank you for the compliment. Bilbo I

Vivid: Since God foreknew my choices my choices are certain and thus not random. To know with certainty what someone will choose does not mean that that choice is not free. I had assumed that the reason you thought foreknown events could not be random was because foreknowing them meant that they were determined. Thus it would follow that foreknown "free" choices were also determined, which would mean that they were not free. But apparently that is not what you mean by "certain." So what do you mean by "certain"? Bilbo I

[Again, I am assuming macro-evolution for the sake of argument. I do not accept it as an unassailable scientific fact.]. If an evolutionary process is capable of producing an outcome that God doesn’t want [Darwinism], then it cannot infallibly produce the outcome that God does want. ----Bilbo: “Infallibly? No. But since God knows what outcome it will produce, if it is the outcome He wants, then it will produce the outcome He wants. If God knows that a human being will freely choose to do what God wants, then even though that human cannot infallibly choose to do it, he can choose to do it.” You are still comparing apples with oranges. Humans have the free will to choose a course different from the one God intended. Nature cannot do that. Worse, you write as if God’s knowledge about the outcome of the evolutionary process was unrelated to God’s knowledge about the origin of that process, as if it was only after the fact of its coming into existence that God came to realize that its outcome was what he wanted. In fact, God had to know evolution’s outcome before the fact because He designed it for the sake of that outcome. To design something is to design it for a reason. Given an omnipotent God, and assuming macro-evolution for the sake of argument, only two possibilities exist: [A] God designed a process that would infallibly produce the result He wanted or [B] God produced a non-design, Darwinian process--one which, by definition, will produce a different result every time--one which, by virtue of its random nature, would almost certainly not conform to a designer's specifications--one which, in fact, reflects the efforts of a designer who doesn't design. StephenB

Bilbo —"Not really. If God knows ahead of time what the Darwinian process will produce, He may decide that He wants that outcome and allow it to proceed unhindered.” If God decided that He want that outcome and allow it to proceed unhindered did God decide this on purpose? Bilbo "Therefore, since a Darwinian process will produce varying results, it CAN fail and, therefore, CANNOT infallibly produce the results God wants.It also follows that if the process can infallibly produce the results God wants, it cannot be a Darwinian process. Again, this is basic logic." But if God foreknows the results of the process it must infallibly produce the results God wants so it cannever be a Darwinian process yet you insist that it is. Vivid vividbleau

bilbo "If God foreknew these acts of human free will would occur, then their occurrence is not free since they were certain to occur." Since God foreknew my choices my choices are certain and thus not random. To know with certainty what someone will choose does not mean that that choice is not free. Now enough with the distraction let me repeat "If God foreknew these mutations would occur then their occurence is not random since they were certain to occur." Bilbo how can something that is certain be random? Vivid vividbleau

Oops. Pressed submit button before I finished answering. And I'm out of time. Bilbo I

StephenB: I wrote: If evolution happened, however it happened, God was its cause. —Bilbo: “That can be understood in a number of different ways. Did God create the universe in which evolution occurs? Yes. Does God sustain the existence of each and every event that occurs in nature? Yes. Did God determine exactly what each event would be? Maybe yes. Maybe no.” You are trying to address an issue that was not raised. I am not speaking right now of results. God either caused the process that you are trying to describe or he didn’t. He may have caused it directly or indirectly, but the fact remains that he caused it. Please either acknowledge that point or deny it. Your statement is ambiguous. I wrote: At the moment, you are saying that God could choose a purposeless, mindless process that is almost sure not to work. Earlier, in this same correspondence, you stated, “I don’t think that it can produce a different outcome from the one God intended.” This is a contradiction. Bilbo —Not really. If God knows ahead of time what the Darwinian process will produce, He may decide that He wants that outcome and allow it to proceed unhindered.” Question: Do you believe in the law of non-contradiction, or the proposition that a thing cannot be true and false at the same time and under the same formal circumstances? Yes. If a process is capable of producing an outcome that God doesn’t want [Darwinism], then it cannot infallibly produce the outcome that God does want? Infallibly? No. But since God knows what outcome it will produce, if it is the outcome He wants, then it will produce the outcome He wants. If God knows that a human being will freely choose to do what God wants, then even though that human cannot infallibly choose to do it, he can choose to do it. In keeping with that point, if a process can infallibly produce the product that God wants, it cannot be a Darwinian process, which is capable of producing a result that God doesn’t want. This is basic logic. So far, so good. —“But since God already knows what the outcome of the Darwinian process will be, He won’t “fail.” If He chooses that process, it’s because He knows it will produce what He wants.” You are confusing God’s knowledge of a process with the capacity of the process itself. Either a Darwinian process [A] CAN fail to produce the results that God wants or a Darwinian process [B] CANNOT fail to produce the results that God wants. We have already established the fact that a Darwinian process will produce a different result every time. Therefore, since a Darwinian process will produce varying results, it CAN fail and, therefore, CANNOT infallibly produce the results God wants. It also follows that if the process can infallibly produce the results God wants, it cannot be a Darwinian process. Again, this is basic logic. Bilbo—“ But you have no problem saying that God used human free will to create you, even though it might possibly have not produced you, but produce someone else instead.” You are comparing apples with oranges. Humans co-create with God. They may well, by virtue of their free will, beget other human beings at the wrong time, the wrong place, and under the wrong circumstances. After free will creatures entered the picture, God allowed results that varied from His will. On the matter of his original creative process, however, God did NOT allow results of his creative process to vary from his original intent. From a Christian perspective, He knew that he wanted humans with rational souls and He made sure that he achieved that aim—infallibly—without any possibility of error. A Darwinistic process cannot infallibly produce an outcome that conforms to specifications because it will produce a different result every time. 160 StephenB 12/20/2010 10:17 pm —Bilbo: “It’s Ruse who is trying to make up definitions, not Christian Darwinists.” Truer words were never spoken. The last thing Christian Darwinists want to do is define their terms, and when they are forced to do so, they take jolly good care to keep them as vague as possible. Bilbo I

Vivid: If God foreknew these mutations would occur then their occurence is not random since they were certain to occur. If God foreknew these acts of human free will would occur, then their occurrence is not free since they were certain to occur. Bilbo I

bilbo "I mean that events at the level where mutations occur seem to be random — not determined." If God foreknew these mutations would occur then their occurence is not random since they were certain to occur. "if preventing it happening it would not happen and not the determoiner of that thing happening?" Should read "and not be the determiner of that thing happening" Vivid vividbleau

Bilbo "I mean that events at the level where mutations occur seem to be random — not determined. If this is truly the case, then it’s possible that God did not determine some, many, most, or all of those mutations, but allowed them to happen." "But since God already knows what the outcome of the Darwinian process will be, He won’t “fail.” If He chooses that process, it’s because He knows it will produce what He wants." Two questions. How can God know something is going to happen, allow it to happen, if preventing it happening it would not happen and not the determoiner of that thing happening? Exactly when did God know the Darwinian process would transpire? Before he created or after? Vivid vividbleau

---Bilbo: "It’s Ruse who is trying to make up definitions, not Christian Darwinists." Truer words were never spoken. The last thing Christian Darwinists want to do is define their terms, and when they are forced to do so, they take jolly good care to keep them as vague as possible. StephenB

I wrote: If evolution happened, however it happened, God was its cause. ---Bilbo: “That can be understood in a number of different ways. Did God create the universe in which evolution occurs? Yes. Does God sustain the existence of each and every event that occurs in nature? Yes. Did God determine exactly what each event would be? Maybe yes. Maybe no.” You are trying to address an issue that was not raised. I am not speaking right now of results. God either caused the process that you are trying to describe or he didn’t. He may have caused it directly or indirectly, but the fact remains that he caused it. Please either acknowledge that point or deny it. I wrote: At the moment, you are saying that God could choose a purposeless, mindless process that is almost sure not to work. Earlier, in this same correspondence, you stated, “I don’t think that it can produce a different outcome from the one God intended.” This is a contradiction. ---Not really. If God knows ahead of time what the Darwinian process will produce, He may decide that He wants that outcome and allow it to proceed unhindered.” Question: Do you believe in the law of non-contradiction, or the proposition that a thing cannot be true and false at the same time and under the same formal circumstances? If a process is capable of producing an outcome that God doesn’t want [Darwinism], then it cannot infallibly produce the outcome that God does want? In keeping with that point, if a process can infallibly produce the product that God wants, it cannot be a Darwinian process, which is capable of producing a result that God doesn’t want. This is basic logic. ---“But since God already knows what the outcome of the Darwinian process will be, He won’t “fail.” If He chooses that process, it’s because He knows it will produce what He wants.” You are confusing God’s knowledge of a process with the capacity of the process itself. Either a Darwinian process [A] CAN fail to produce the results that God wants or a Darwinian process [B] CANNOT fail to produce the results that God wants. We have already established the fact that a Darwinian process will produce a different result every time. Therefore, since a Darwinian process will produce varying results, it CAN fail and, therefore, CANNOT infallibly produce the results God wants. It also follows that if the process can infallibly produce the results God wants, it cannot be a Darwinian process. Again, this is basic logic. Bilbo—“ But you have no problem saying that God used human free will to create you, even though it might possibly have not produced you, but produce someone else instead.” You are comparing apples with oranges. Humans co-create with God. They may well, by virtue of their free will, beget other human beings at the wrong time, the wrong place, and under the wrong circumstances. After free will creatures entered the picture, God allowed results that varied from His will. On the matter of his original creative process, however, God did NOT allow results of his creative process to vary from his original intent. From a Christian perspective, He knew that he wanted humans with rational souls and He made sure that he achieved that aim—infallibly---without any possibility of error. A Darwinistic process cannot infallibly produce an outcome that conforms to specifications because it will produce a different result every time. StephenB

Kairo: PS: Christians who are Darwinism supporters, do not get to make the definitions up, and are operating at-sufferance of the materialist power brokers. It's Ruse who is trying to make up definitions, not Christian Darwinists. Bilbo I

StephenB: What do you mean if God “allowed” it to happen? I mean that events at the level where mutations occur seem to be random -- not determined. If this is truly the case, then it's possible that God did not determine some, many, most, or all of those mutations, but allowed them to happen. If evolution happened, however it happened, God was its cause. That can be understood in a number of different ways. Did God create the universe in which evolution occurs? Yes. Does God sustain the existence of each and every event that occurs in nature? Yes. Did God determine exactly what each event would be? Maybe yes. Maybe no. Therefore, if God designed it, it could not have been a Darwinian process, because a Darwinian process is, by definition, an undesigned process. This also can have different meanings. Does it mean that God designed the process where natural selection acts upon truly random events? Then God designed the Darwinian process. Somehow, you seem to have difficulty with the fact that a “naturalistic” process, even one that uses variations and selections, may be designed to produce a specified outcome, and need not be a “Darwinian” process, which has no specified outcome. No, I don't have difficulty with that idea. Yes, it could be that there are unknown natural laws that govern even the most basic events in nature. In which case, it would seem possible for God to determine the outcome of evolution by setting up the initial conditions at the time of creation. At the moment, you are saying that God could choose a purposeless, mindless process that is almost sure not to work. Earlier, in this same correspondence, you stated, “I don’t think that it can produce a different outcome from the one God intended.” This is a contradiction. Not really. If God knows ahead of time what the Darwinian process will produce, He may decide that He wants that outcome and allow it to proceed unhindered. Bilbo—“But if your parents did not cooperate, you would not exist. So God’s will would have been frustrated.” That’s right. Free will agents frustrate God’s will all the time. What does that have to do with the fact that nature, which has no free will, cannot frustrate God’s will? You are looking for a contradiction here that doesn’t exist. Yes, there is a contradiction. You insist that when God creates something, then it must be exactly as He wants it to be. So given that God has created each and every human being (or do you dispute that?), then each and every human being is exactly as He wants him/her to be, even though many of them came about through very sinful means. How do you reconcile that? What is it about the difference between a natural law and a human will that you do not understand? Nothing. What is it about the similarity of randomness and human will that you do not understand? Bilbo—“You claim that God wouldn’t use Darwinian evolution, because it might possibly produce something that wasn’t His will.” Yes, of course. A Darwinian process will produce a different result every time. Why would an omnipotent God set himself up to fail with a formulation like that? But since God already knows what the outcome of the Darwinian process will be, He won't "fail." If He chooses that process, it's because He knows it will produce what He wants. More to the point, A Darwinian process is, by definition, one that God didn’t use. Not proven. As I have stated multiple times, If God used the evolutionary process, then God designed the evolutionary process. If God designed the evolutionary process, then it can’t be a Darwinian evolutionary process, which, by definition, is undesigned. No. By definition, a Darwinian evolutionary process is one where natural selection acts upon random mutation. If God decided to use such a process, then whether we say God "designed" it or not, it is the process that He chooses to use. Bilbo—“ But you have no problem saying that God used human free will to create you, even though it might possibly have not produced you, but produce someone else instead.” Here we go again. Nature, which must obey God’s laws, is different from humans, who are free to do all kinds of things. If something is different, that means that it is not the same. Yes, but you need to explain how it is that God has created each and every human, if each and every human has come about through free and often rebellious will. Bilbo I

PS: Christians who are Darwinism supporters, do not get to make the definitions up, and are operating at-sufferance of the materialist power brokers. That is what Ruse is serving notice of. Time to wake up and smell the coffee -- beginning to burn in the boiled out pot. kairosfocus

Bilbo: A cosmos full of dice taking up the 10^80 atoms generally accepted, for the thermodynamically credible lifespan of 50 mn times the generally taken time from the big bang, would not be able to sample 1 in 10^150 of the configurations of just 1,000 bits. In short, a universe full of resources sometimes is not enough. And, Null has aptly cited Ruse on the point that brings out the contradiction or its kissing cousin. G'night GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Stephen, the library is closing. I'll get to your "one more try" tomorrow. Bilbo I

Kairo: [b] is trying to assert that we get to a design result through an inherently non-design process that lacks the required horsepower to do the scope of design required. My comment is that {ii} [b] is where there is either a contradiction or its kissing cousin. There is no contradiction. Nor a kissing cousin of one. The only question is whether there have been enough tosses of the die. You and I would say that there haven't been by a long shot. Darwinists would disagree. That is an empirical matter. Not a theological or logical one. Bilbo I

Nulla: So let me ask you this question: If A) Darwinism requires that even God not know the outcomes of evolution, and B) Christianity maintains that God knew what the outcomes of evolution would be, then C) granting this, then Darwinism and Christianity are incompatible. Yes they would be incompatible. I dispute (A). Darwinism requires that the mutations be random with respect to fitness. This is in no way incompatible with God foreknowing what the mutations will be. Ruse et al are terribly confused about this. Bilbo I

---Bilbo: “ I’m saying that IF God allowed Darwinian evolution to happen, then it was because it would produce ends that He desired.” You are probably worth one more try. So here goes: What do you mean if God “allowed” it to happen? Who do you think made it happen? You continue to write as if the evolutionary process was something that needed no cause, as if it could have developed on its own, outside the domain of God’s creative act. If evolution happened, however it happened, God was its cause. If God used it, then God caused it and God designed it. Continually, you refer to evolution in the passive voice, [something that was “allowed” to happen] as if someone or something other than God may have brought it into being while God was off doing other things. Please absorb this. If evolution happened, whatever kind of process it was, God designed it. Therefore, if God designed it, it could not have been a Darwinian process, because a Darwinian process is, by definition, an undesigned process. Somehow, you seem to have difficulty with the fact that a “naturalistic” process, even one that uses variations and selections, may be designed to produce a specified outcome, and need not be a “Darwinian” process, which has no specified outcome. ---“I’m saying that God can choose such a process [a purposeless process] if He so desires.” At the moment, you are saying that God could choose a purposeless, mindless process that is almost sure not to work. Earlier, in this same correspondence, you stated, “I don’t think that it can produce a different outcome from the one God intended.” This is a contradiction. Either the process will infallibly produce the specified outcome or it will not. There is no middle point. ---“But if your parents did not cooperate, you would not exist. So God’s will would have been frustrated.” That’s right. Free will agents frustrate God’s will all the time. What does that have to do with the fact that nature, which has no free will, cannot frustrate God’s will? You are looking for a contradiction here that doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, you are missing a multitude of contradictions that I have identified in your own position. ---“And if your parents had married other people and had sex with them, then different people would exist, who do not exist now. And again God’s will would have been frustrated.” What is it about the difference between a natural law and a human will that you do not understand? ---“You claim that God wouldn’t use Darwinian evolution, because it might possibly produce something that wasn’t His will.” Yes, of course. A Darwinian process will produce a different result every time. Why would an omnipotent God set himself up to fail with a formulation like that? More to the point, A Darwinian process is, by definition, one that God didn’t use. As I have stated multiple times, If God used the evolutionary process, then God designed the evolutionary process. If God designed the evolutionary process, then it can’t be a Darwinian evolutionary process, which, by definition, is undesigned. ---“ But you have no problem saying that God used human free will to create you, even though it might possibly have not produced you, but produce someone else instead.” Here we go again. Nature, which must obey God’s laws, is different from humans, who are free to do all kinds of things. If something is different, that means that it is not the same. StephenB

PS: It is only now that the more aggressive evolutionary materialists have had a generation or two in US culture to build up a critical mass in a cluster of institutions so the people do not have a memory of the fading Christian consensus. This gives them a level of integrated, unchecked, un-balanced systemic power they have never had hitherto, and that is what the new atheists and other radicals such as those trying to redefine marriage against biology, child nurture requisites and history are sensing. Europe passed that point by the turn of C20 in its decision-making elites, and that is a big part of why the C20 was so bloody, focussed on Europe. kairosfocus

Bilbo: A 6 on a die is odds of 1 in 6, or about 17%. 6 configs is not even 2 4-state base pairs worth of configs [i.e. 16 possibilities]. Just 500 base pairs worth -- about 1,000 times smaller than unicellular animals -- is beyond the configuration-searching resources of he observed cosmos. That is part of why I have objected to darwinism as a claimed body plan level macro-evo mechanism. Going beyond that, the claim is that this is the mechanism that has moved us from an initial unicellular common ancestor to the diversity we see in the world. Which on observed life forms requires 10's - 1,000's of MILLIONS of additional base pairs worth of genetic information, dozens of times over. So, as baseline, the darwinian mechanism is a non-starter once we look at the FSCI-generation challenge. Going beyond that, the canonical Darwinist claim is that random, undirected genetic variation feeding into incremental change in reproductive success of sub-populations in environments, gave rise to the biodiversity in the fossil and current worlds. Randomness, as already noted, is as opposed to purposeful design, and it has different signatures in the information-bearing elements. Not only is it the case that the DNA -- which bears a functional coded information structure -- bears the signatures of purpose, but to claim that a purposeful result on that scope comes about by chance generation, is infeasible. It also is a trying to claim that design came about by non-design. Remember, canonical darwinism asserts that ALL the DNA information came about by non-purposive processes that generate contingency and variation. Chance, in short. My objection is on two levels:

[i] it can't work, and [ii] the attempt to bridge purpose and randomness not only

[a] cuts across the empirically well- warranted signature in the information, but [b] is trying to assert that we get to a design result through an inherently non-design process that lacks the required horsepower to do the scope of design required.

My comment is that {ii} [b] is where there is either a contradiction or its kissing cousin. A design can indeed use constrained, small configuration space random searches as a part of how it works, but it cannot create the large scale functionally specific organisation and associated information that same way. To try to conflate the two is to confuse two different scopes of design challenge. The extrapolation fails, and your die tossing analogy only reveals the gap. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Bilbo, How would Darwinists be able to determine that God could not know the future? Good question: They can't. Guess what? It doesn't matter for many, even most of them. It's a dogmatic commitment, not some empirical conclusion. Don't take my word for it. Did you read the Michael Ruse article I linked to recently? He's the one saying that if you believe God knew and determined/permitted the outcome of evolution, even in an utterly "hands off" way, you're forsaking Darwinism. I want to stress that point: According to Ruse, and according to numerous other Darwinists, if God did what it seems you're suggesting - letting evolution unfold and, while He may not be intervening directly, He still knows, determines, and desires the various outcomes of evolution - then what you've described is not Darwinism. It's a guided, purposeful, intentional evolution. It's evolution of some variety, but Darwinism it ain't. So let me ask you this question: If A) Darwinism requires that even God not know the outcomes of evolution, and B) Christianity maintains that God knew what the outcomes of evolution would be, then C) granting this, then Darwinism and Christianity are incompatible. You'd agree? Mind you, if you dispute A or B, that's fine, but at least let me knowing if - granting those assumptions - C would be correct. It's obvious, but I'm hoping this will put everyone on the same page here. nullasalus

Kairo: On oxymorons, SB does have a point. By canonical definition, Darwinism entails denial of purpose and goal-directed process. You are either at a contradiction in terms or perilously close to try to shoehorn design as an implicit, invisible undercurrent to an inherently non-design process. There is no contradiction. The question is one of probability. Assume that I want to get the number six on a die. If I role it six times, I have a very good chance of getting what I want. So I used an "inherently non-design process" to "design" a specific outcome. The question is how many times must I role the "die" to get a living cell? We IDists claim the answer seems to be more times than there have been chances since the universe came into existence. Christian Darwinists, on the other hand, claim that there have been enough chances to get a living cell at least once. Which side is correct? I think IDists are. But I will not reject Christian Darwinists as being theologically inconsistent. As far as the reigning orthodoxy, materialism has been "in" for quite a while, now. Bilbo I

Bilbo: Christian Darwinism tries to find a bridge to those who don't want to be bridged. For the moment, due to the balance of social power, there is still some admission at sufferance. But a de facto policy of toleration is always subject to shifts in balances of power. And, what recently happened to people like Francis Collins shows the longer term trend as more aggressive darwinists gain enough power to have their way without fear or retaliation from the general public. Appeasement does not work with the fundamentally insatiable. And how this is liable to work out is that Darwinism, from the outset was anti-theistic in conception. Christian Darwinists are heretics in the Darwinist camp. In intellectual terms, as well, to infer to an invisible design is much like the story about he invisible, undetectable gardener. Sooner rather than later someone is coming along to say that the undetectable gardener is undetectable for the excellent reason that he is imaginary. Actually, that is the gist of a dismissal argument I learned in a university survey course over 30 years ago. Design, if it is real, will have signs such as discussed above. And if there are no detectable signs, then design is unlikely. Moreover, a random process -- the claimed source of the contingency on a darwinian process, runs into the config space problem long before you can get sufficiently complex novel function. On oxymorons, SB does have a point. By canonical definition, Darwinism entails denial of purpose and goal-directed process. You are either at a contradiction in terms or perilously close to try to shoehorn design as an implicit, invisible undercurrent to an inherently non-design process. That is why so many key canonical darwinists keep on saying the sort of things they say about a non-foresighted process that did not have us in mind, and if run again would not come up with us. Indeed, the randomness means that something is indeterminate in the process. I can see constrained, relatively small scope random searches within a general functional system that allow some adaptability, robustness and optimisation, but he overall information generation challenge points beyond what darwinian mechanisms could reasonably do. And 1,000 bits of bio-info is not a lot. More seriously, the evidence points to design, if we do not allow a priori imposition of materialistic assumptions. And, unless that is pointed out and backed up now, the politics of institutional capture may make a system that is ill-founded on the merits, evolutionary materialism, seize such control as to become a dogmatic reigning orthodoxy. This is beginning to happen, as the new atheist rants show. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Phaedros: Are you certain about this? Scientists believe that one moment is not dependent on a previous moment? They don’t believe that one state determines the outcome of the next? That’s absurd. I think scientists would say that one moment is dependent upon a previous moment, but is underdetermined by it. Bilbo I

StephenB: I know that you take this proposition seriously, which is why you think that an evolutionary process could exercise its equivalent of “free will” and produce an outcome different from the one God intended. No, I don't think that it can produce a different outcome from the one God intended, unless He allows it do so. But then He would still know what the actual outcome would be. You are trying to define God’s purposeful creative act and its intended outcome in terms of Darwinistic purposelessness and its attendant unpredictable outcomes. Thus, you are reduced to saying that God had to get spectacularly lucky in order to achieve His desired ends. Wrong. I'm saying that IF God allowed Darwinian evolution to happen, then it was because it would produce ends that He desired. Further, you assume that an omnipotent God chose a process that requires luck. I'm assuming nothing. I'm saying that God can choose such a process, if He so desires. Further, you have forfeited any possible explanation for the existence of the immaterial soul that informs the human body. You cannot even approach that subject with your world view. If the soul is made of a different substance than the physical world, then yes, I agree that a physical explanation for it does not exist. As I said to vjtorley, though I tend to favor substance dualism, I'm not sure it's the only explanation for mind. It might be possible that God has endowed physical nature with emergent mental properties that become apparent when living things reach a certain level of organized complexity. To create homo sapiens with the power to procreate exactly as God intended, a set of circumstance over which nature had no control, is not the same thing as creating me personally through the free cooperation of my parents, a set of circumstances over which my parents did have control. But if your parents did not cooperate, you would not exist. So God's will would have been frustrated. And if your parents had married other people and had sex with them, then different people would exist, who do not exist now. And again God's will would have been frustrated. How is it that you do not see the inconsistency of your position? You claim that God wouldn't use Darwinian evolution, because it might possibly produce something that wasn't His will. But you have no problem saying that God used human free will to create you, even though it might possibly have not produced you, but produce someone else instead. Bilbo I

Hi Kairo, Yes, I think you're argument for ID is probably right. This is different, however, from arguing that Christian Darwinism is an oxymoron. Bilbo I

Bilbo- "The view of many scientists is that events at the most basic level of nature are stochastic or random, not determined. This is why events would be analogical to free will, where events are also not determined." Are you certain about this? Scientists believe that one moment is not dependent on a previous moment? They don't believe that one state determines the outcome of the next? That's absurd. Phaedros

---Bilbo: "The view of many scientists is that events at the most basic level of nature are stochastic or random, not determined. This is why events would be analogical to free will, where events are also not determined." I know that you take this proposition seriously, which is why you think that an evolutionary process could exercise its equivalent of "free will" and produce an outcome different from the one God intended. You are trying to define God's purposeful creative act and its intended outcome in terms of Darwinistic purposelessness and its attendant unpredictable outcomes. Thus, you are reduced to saying that God had to get spectacularly lucky in order to achieve His desired ends. Further, you assume that an omnipotent God chose a process that requires luck. Further, you have forfeited any possible explanation for the existence of the immaterial soul that informs the human body. You cannot even approach that subject with your world view. ---"Now you claim that God created you." Yes, of course. ---"Yet that happened through a long series of free, undetermined events. Not solely. God created man and woman with the capacity to reproduce, just as He created them with the power to think and choose. He did not create “nature” that same way. Parents are, in a sense, co-creators with God with respect to reproduction. The former freely choose when and if to mate, but only because God designed the conditions that made it possible. God created me with the co-operation of my parents, and my parents begat me through that same process. To create is not to beget. A creator is always on a higher level than the creature, but a begetter is equal to the one begotten. In keeping with that point, nature has no free will. The human reproductive process cannot decide to start operating differently than it does. That is because God created things to have a nature and only free will human beings can pervert their own nature. A human heart, a physical organ, does not have the freedom to start functioning like a liver. "You find no inconsistency with that thought." There is no inconsistency. Nature has physical laws, people have free wills. God's creative power is involved in every birth. --"Yet you insist it is inconsistent to think that God created homo sapiens through undetermined events." To create homo sapiens with the power to procreate exactly as God intended, a set of circumstance over which nature had no control, is not the same thing as creating me personally through the free cooperation of my parents, a set of circumstances over which my parents did have control. StephenB

PS: This is of course relevant to the Christian Darwinist position. For, if we have reliable empirical signs of design that show us that no random genetic variation mechanism will be likely to generate significant increments in functional biological information -- culling on differential reproductive success requires prior bio-functional viability and it is to get to such viability in cases of 500 and more additional DNA base pairs that is the question -- then the viability of darwinian explanations as mechanisms for macro-evo, at body plan level is severely undermined. kairosfocus

Bilbo: While the random and the volitional exhibit high contingency alike (by contrast with mechanical necessity), they do so in very different ways. The volitional reflects intelligence, goals, means-ends matching, and purpose. The random simply reflects a chance distribution of one kind or another. So, for instance, while it is possible to generate random alphanumeric strings with the statistical patterns of English writing, once we get to any significant string-length [say 130 - 150 characters] it will be plain that the volitional will be meaningful relative to sentences, but the stochastic will be overwhelmingly meaningless. The same would hold for a random bit string contrasted with a program code. The irregularity will be common to both, but one will be meaningful the other meaningless. The reason for this -- apart from the difference between the intelligent choosing mind and randomness -- is that meaningful strings are an utterly tiny fraction of the relevant configuration space, once the strings are of significant length. Indeed, this is one way to see the point of digitally coded, functionally specific complex information as a signature of intelligence. And this, too is a reason why we can sharply dispute the concept that out of chemical noise in some warm pond or volcano vent or whatever, language wrote itself, meaningful codes wrote themselves, and algorithms wrote themselves, even as molecules that just happened to be there arranged themselves into executing machinery. Going beyond that, the increments in such dFSCI to get to novel. embryologically feasible body plans by chance contingency is even more vastly remote. So much so that it is practically impossible. For, even though in principle random distributions can mimic any intelligent message, the deep isolation of the intelligent arrangements in the config spaces means that this is not a realistic expectation on the gamut of our observed cosmos. This -- though at first it sounds like glorified common sense -- is in fact one of the core, revolutionary insights of design theory. For, it means that we have an empirically reliable signature of intelligence: meaningfully functional, specific and complex information is a sign of purposeful intelligence at work. Thus, on the manifestations of dFSCI, cell-based life is designed, and major body plans are designed. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Nullasalus, How would Darwinists be able to determine that God could not know the future? Bilbo I

StephenB: Nature, by my definition (my dialogue partners never define their terms, they just throw them out there) consists of the material universe, nothing more. I can live with that. Why would you expect nature, which obeys physical laws, to operate like a free will agents, who use physical laws to serve their own ends? The view of many scientists is that events at the most basic level of nature are stochastic or random, not determined. This is why events would be analogical to free will, where events are also not determined. If such is the case, then God has created nature with something very similar to free will. Now you claim that God created you. Yet that happened through a long series of free, undetermined events. You find no inconsistency with that thought. Yet you insist it is inconsistent to think that God created homo sapiens through undetermined events. I find your thinking processes to be very inconsistent. Bilbo I

above @126. To me, rationality requires the ability to grasp reason's principles, apprehend the natural moral law, reflect on one's own moral behavior, execute moral acts for which he is morally responsible, and, by extension, conceive of such a thing as justice and form opinions about what it means. In keeping with that point, a human, unlike an animal, can militate against reason, pervert his will, and, in time, his nature. StephenB

---nullasalus: "A minor technicality, but: Wouldn’t evolution have also been ‘designed’ to produce quite a lot more than that? Animals, plants, and so on?" Absolutely. Thanks for the fraternal clarification. StephenB

StephenB, I am arguing only that, if evolution happened, it was designed in a very precise way to to produce the bodies of homo sapiens. A minor technicality, but: Wouldn't evolution have also been 'designed' to produce quite a lot more than that? Animals, plants, and so on? nullasalus

---Bilbo: ""But it’s not at all clear that evolution needs to be guided in order to achieve whatever outcome God wants. God wanted you to exist, but He did not control all the decisions that were made that resulted in your birth." I am arguing only that, if evolution happened, it was designed in a very precise way to to produce the bodies of homo sapiens. That point has little or nothing to do with what went on later. Nor does it have anything to do with man's immortal soul, which cannot be produced by evolution or any other physical process. With the arrival of humankind, free will agents began making design decisions of their own, none of which were directed. ---Those were made by a very long series of human choices, most of them made freely." Yes, of course. ---"Though you insist that Nature cannot have free will (or its analogical equivalent — randomness), it is not at all clear that God agrees with you." Nature, by my definition (my dialogue partners never define their terms, they just throw them out there) consists of the material universe, nothing more. A will is an immaterial faculty of the soul by which we make decisions. Why would you expect nature, which obeys physical laws, to operate like a free will agents, who use physical laws to serve their own ends? ---"If natural selection acting upon random mutation can produce us, then it could be that God allowed natural selection to act upon random mutations to produce us." As I wrote earlier, if God used the process, then God designed the process. Your use of the word "allow" suggests that God was using a process that he didn't design. That would make no sense. Inasmuch as God designed the process he used, he would certainly "allow" it to play out and produce the results he wanted. What else would he do--design a process that would not produce the results he wanted? We are, after all, talking about an omnipotent God. By your language, it appears that you think God carefully designed a process that would most likely not have produced the results he wanted. ---"There is no inconsistency to that." I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that your world view is eminently inconsistent. StephenB

above: I'd like to suggest that you immerse yourself a lot more into the research literature on animal cognition before making judgments one way or the other. A good place to start are the articles referenced in the dolphin paper you address. A comment on a specific complaint you had with the paper in question: "the best that can be inferred from the research is that the dolphin merely recognizes resemblance between objects and sounds but not the notion of “same”" How did you as a child learn the meaning of the word/concept "same"? Probably by being shown items with great resemblances versus items without. And I assume your notion of "same" is still based on exactly that: items that resemble each other closely are the same kind of item, items that don't, aren't. I don't see how it should make a difference that the dolphin can't say the word "same". It can't say the word "resemblance" either. Looks like it could still figure out the concept of resemblance/sameness. molch

above, I have no thoughts on this, if only because I have no access to the paper itself it seems. Just the abstract, which seems like "not enough". That said, I'd generally share your skepticism. Not to mention how much "interpretation" is at work in such a study. nullasalus

@Nullasalus Having interracted with you in the past a few times I found myself sharing a lot of common ideas with you. I would be very interested in hearing your opinion about the dolphin experiments I cited earlier. I don't mean to impose in any way of course, but if you have the time and are in any way interested I would really like to hear your thoughts. above

Bilbo, If natural selection acting upon random mutation can produce us, then it could be that God allowed natural selection to act upon random mutations to produce us. There is no inconsistency to that. If you're saying that God knew what the outcomes of evolution would be (and also permitted these outcomes to come to pass), you're rejecting Darwinism at least as Michael Ruse and many others portray it. The sort of "randomness" they speak of is a randomness that means no one, not even God, foresaw the outcomes, much less preordained them. nullasalus

@Bilbo -"Though you insist that Nature cannot have free will (or its analogical equivalent — randomness)" Nature (whatever its definition might be on any given day - materialists are notorious in redifining it as they wish - does not have free will. Nor is randomness analogical to free will, nor is randomness (metaphysical) even remotely possible. Now if by randomness you mean something like unpredictable that's a different story. If that's what you mean then no worries. above

Hi Stephen, But it's not at all clear that evolution needs to be guided in order to achieve whatever outcome God wants. God wanted you to exist, but He did not control all the decisions that were made that resulted in your birth. Those were made by a very long series of human choices, most of them made freely. Though you insist that Nature cannot have free will (or its analogical equivalent -- randomness), it is not at all clear that God agrees with you. If natural selection acting upon random mutation can produce us, then it could be that God allowed natural selection to act upon random mutations to produce us. There is no inconsistency to that. Bilbo I

Althought I am addressing kairosfocus, I would still really enjoy everyone's opinion on the matter of animal capabilities and their relation to humans. Hopefully its a topic that others might find interesting too. I hope I'm not the only crazy one. above

@kairosfocus, You are right about the conditioning and the clever hans effect and those were definitely issues that critics of the possibility of animal language have cited as well. Chompsky and Terrace are two of the harshest critics of the possibility of animal language. To my surprise I also found out that pinker too is categorically against it and claims that the research is always exaggerated. If I am not mistaken however, in this particular research there was a double blind. Meaning that the individual giving instructions to the animal was not its trainer, so to try and avoid clever hans effects. Still, that does not disqualify it from being an important factor that may have influenced the animal especially given the fact that both the trainer and the individual giving the command in the experiment are human with common gestures and common subtle cues. At any rate. What herman claims in his research about abstract concepts is that dolphins were shown 2 objects and were then requested to provide a response (for which they were previously trained for) to indicate whether the two objects were the same or different. For example they were shown 2 balls and then “asked” (via some signal) to provide a response indicating how the dolphin perceived the objects. The choices were same and different. They were of course trained to associate stimuli coming from objects with a given behavior that was interpreted as a “yes, they are the same” and another meaning “no, they are not”. Then they were shown new objects that they apparently did not use in previous trials and were asked to do the same. According to the research there is reason to believe from the data that the dolphins were capable in some cases to respond correctly to the stimuli of the two objects and signify that they were same or different. My major point of skepticism on this has to do with several things: 1. How can a dolphin create an abstract concept without language? The claim made by the researcher that a dolphin can understand the difference between same/different sounds very sketchy to me. In my opinion, the best that can be inferred from the research is that the dolphin merely recognizes resemblance between objects and sounds but not the notion of “same”. So basically, there really is no same/different but rather a sensory stimuli that merely resembles another that the dolphin picks up on and thus behaves accordingly to receive its reward, as per its training. 2. I am also very skeptical of terms such as “rational”, “logical” and “abstract concepts” thrown around because they are extremely anthropomorphic. In addition, these abilities in humans are so highly developed in humans that to compare them to some rudimentary behavior seen in animals is very misconstrued if not inapplicable. Also, such potentialities such as reasoning and abstraction in humans have near infinite potentiality in their meaning and application that is so far divorced from animals behavior that I think would be plain silly to even compare in the first place. 3. I have a feeling that there is some underlying word game as usual in such work that attempts to sensationalize and impress readers rather than inform. It’s not really that difficult to redefine words, as herman does in the book ‘Rational Animals?’, to mean something different. Specifically he builds his whole case on the rationality of dolphins on the following definition: “A rational animal is one that can perceive and represent how its world is structured and functions and can make logical inferences and draw conclusions that help it function effectively in that world. It can also incorporate new evidence into its perspective of this world and alter its behavior accordingly to revise its model of the world. “ Isn’t that definition a little too loose? Can we not say that most animals acquire information from their environments and act accordingly? And at which point does an animal make a logical inference? How does the animal make logical inference without the ability to grasp logical truths? To me, the definition he provides is one that deals with an animal’s ability to adapt to new situations rather than one where it has anything to do with rational thought. What do you guys think? above

@118 should read, "When all else fails, including putting words into someone’s mouth, simply read what he writes and assume that he means what he says." StephenB

"Essentially your argument is that humanity is the pinacle of special creation and that if you don’t believe that, you’re no true Christian. There’ll be no persuading you to see otherwise. Your absolute incapability to grasp Bilbo’s excellent points is clear demonstration." Geez man?!?! How many times can a person say it over and over and you still don't get it? See this word --> GUIDED Now, see this word --> UNGUIDED See the difference in the two? One is different than the other. The difference is the "UN" prefix. It means "NOT GUIDED" whereas the former means just plain ole regular GUIDED. Here is another one: STUCK and UNSTUCK See the difference? Its the "UN" prefix again. It means something like "not". One means that you are STUCK, as in unable to rid yourself of a braincramp and think clearly. The other means you are UNSTUCK and no longer suffering from that particular impediment. Here's some others you can practice on: intended, UNintended planned, UNplanned aided, UNaided arranged, UNarranged ordered, UNordered - - - - - Go head now, give it a try... Upright BiPed

Above Over many decades there have been all sorts of claims about language capacity and reasoning capacity of many animals. The burden of proof is on the claimers. Dolphins are smart, but the experimenters have a pretty stiff row to hoe, to claim abstract concepts and logic, in the face of issues not only over conditioning but subtle cues from trainers. (Clever Hans effect.) GEM of TKI kairosfocus

@Stephen, Kairosfocus and anyone with an interest in the unique nature of human beings -“ A purposeless, mindless, physical process cannot produce human minds or a human wills, nor can it produce a rational goal for those minds and wills to pursue.” First, let me state that I agree with that quote wholeheartedly. Interestingly though, yesterday I run into some research conducted at the dolphin institute, where the head researcher, named Luis Herman claims that dolphins have a sense of rationality. The article can be found in the book ‘Rational Animals?’ on page 439. In another article called “BOTTLENOSE DOLPHINS CAN GENERALIZE RULES and DEVELOP ABSTRACT CONCEPTS“ that can be found at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-7692.1994.tb00390.x/abstract The researcher claims that dolphins are capable of abstract concepts, a claim that I have never heard made before. I think this ties in well will the idea being discussed here regarding the nature of human beings as rational entities. I am very interested in hearing people’s opinion on the matter and how they interpret such research. Do you guys think that such conclusions from the research are warranted? Do you think they have any impact on how humans are to be perceived? Or does it not matter either way? Thanks in advance and I really look forward in hearing everyone’s opinions. As always, when I come here with a question that I would alike addressed, I find myself leaving with a better understanding thanks to everyone’s insight. above

--Prof: Gumby: "Essentially your argument is that humanity is the pinacle of special creation and that if you don’t believe that, you’re no true Christian." No, essentially my argument is that Darwinism, defined by its advocates as unguided evolution, cannot be reconciled with Chrisitanity, which will admit only of guided evolution. When all else fails, including putting words into someone's mouth, simply read what they write and accept the fact that they mean exactly what they say. --"There’ll be no persuading you to see otherwise. Your absolute incapability to grasp Bilbo’s excellent points is clear demonstration." But I do grasp Bilbo's points, and, as I indicated to him, he has not taken into account the source of the evolutionary process. Please absorb this very basic point: If God used the evolutionary process, then God designed the evolutionary process. A process designed by God is not compatible with Darwinism, which is defined as an undesigned process. Christian Darwinists, on the other hand, want to have it both ways, arguing on behalf of an undesigned process while using the rhetoric of design. What is so hard about this? StephenB

PS: A 101 survey of problems with wider evolutionary materialism and with [neo]darwinian-style body-plan originating macro-evolution. kairosfocus

Onlookers: Two things jump out at me from the overnight exchange here: 1: From Bilbo: perhaps He would have said, “That’s exactly what I want,” and gone ahead and used Darwinian evolution. Thus, no surprise for God. No disappointment that Darwinian evolution didn’t get it exactly right. This in effect infers to a sort of simulation run of possible worlds then setting up physically the one that produces the desired result. Apart from the problems that Q-th outcomes apparently cannot be so programmed, this boils down to design by front loading. It would then be "indiscernible" from a Darwinian process of evolutionary origin of life in its diverse forms. A neat way to say that by faith one infers to God as creator while holding to Darwinian mechanisms as the way life took the forms it has. But this has the immediate problem that the darwinian mechanism is -- empirically -- simply incapable of the task in hand. That is we are accommodating a bad scientific theory. It is also precisely the sort of heresy against Darwin that hopes to be allowed on sufferance that I mentioned above. Further to this, it invites the materialist rebuttal that the invisible, untraceable gardener is an imaginary one. An objection that is in fact longstanding. (Far better is to note the evidence of design of the cosmos, of life and of its diversity, also to address what is the source of credible mind and conscience.) 2: From Prof Gumbo: your argument is that humanity is the pinacle of special creation and that if you don’t believe that, you’re no true Christian. There’ll be no persuading you to see otherwise. Let us notice: this is a theological objection, not a scientific one. So, we need to address primary sources of Christian theology. Now, in Heb 2 we may read an excerpt from the 8th Psalm:

5 Now it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. 6 It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? 7 ????????You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor,1 8 ????????putting everything in subjection under his feet.”

Here, we see the paradox of the incarnation, a stooping to exalt. There is no biblkical inference that humanity is the pinnacle of creation, nor will we find such a claim above. What we do find is something else: God has specifically made man in his image [to the point where by direct implication of Jas 3:9 to mistreat or disrespect another person is to disrespect God], endowed him with mind and conscience, and set him in a world such that:

Rom 1:19 . . . what can be known about God is plain to [men], because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made. So people are without excuse . . . . Rom 2:14 . . . whenever the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things required by the law, these who do not have the law are a law to themselves. 15 They show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, as their conscience bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or else defend them, 16 on the day when God will judge the secrets of human hearts, according to my gospel through Christ Jesus.

That is, the world without is stamped with signs of its Creation by a Divine Author. And, as we reflect on our own rationality and conscience, we see that the stamp of God's image is borne by us within. Thus, to turn from God in resentful ingratitude and willful ignorance is inexcusable. These are not obscure, little known, hard to understand texts; they are pretty plain in import and are central to Christology and to the bad news first -- why we need salvation -- part of the main detailed theological exposition of the gospel in the Bible. The second in particular happens to be an empirical test point for the biblical world view. If there is not an evident design of the world without, and there is not a consistent stamping in of the core principles of reasoning and morality on the mind and conscience, then the foundations of the Biblical theology of man would collapse. Of course, it is a commonplace that there is a consistent core of morality, especially when we are at stake or those we care about: neighbour love and fairness. (When we are immoral, we are as a rule seeking self-serving "exceptions" to principles we expect others to respect in treating us.) Similarly, despite the objections of hose who try to reject first principles of right reason, even language itself shows how central the preservation of identity, non-confusion of things and their opposites, and the distinction between the two are to our thought. Paul of Tarsus put this aptly:

1 Cor 14: 7 It is similar for lifeless things that make a sound, like a flute or harp. Unless they make a distinction in the notes, how can what is played on the flute or harp be understood? 8 If, for example, the trumpet makes an unclear sound, who will get ready for battle? 9 It is the same for you. If you do not speak clearly with your tongue, how will anyone know what is being said?

These things are very familiar, so familiar that we may miss their significance. Likewise, both to the people of old gazing into the glory of the heavens, and to the modern scientist examining the finely balanced operating point of the cosmos that facilitates the existence of C-chemistry cell based life, the heavens declare the glory of God. Life is so chock-full of evidence of design that Dawkins has had to make a telling admission in his very terms: designoid. That is he hopes to blunt the inference from the complex, functional organisation of life to the empirically best supported explanation of such complex funcitonal organisation and associated information, design. But, his mechanisms, chance and necessity simply cannot credibly account for the functionally specific complex information and especially the code-bearing algorithm-effecting digital information systems that are at the heart of the cell's operations. And that holds whatever one's views on the timelines of creation, or the specific mechanisms used. G'day GEM of TKI kairosfocus

I'd thought to take the time this morning to write a considered response to some of the arguments SB and KF have been making. Now that I see the last few comments, I don't think I'll bother. Essentially your argument is that humanity is the pinacle of special creation and that if you don't believe that, you're no true Christian. There'll be no persuading you to see otherwise. Your absolute incapability to grasp Bilbo's excellent points is clear demonstration. Prof. FX Gumby

Bilbo, thanks for your comments. You write: ---“Please correct me if I’m mistaken, but I get this sense that you believe that if God had used Darwinian evolution in order to get a desired outcome, then He would have been surprised by the outcome and it wouldn’t have been exactly what He wanted.” ??????????? Since I have been arguing the opposite position, it is safe to say that you are getting the wrong sense. If God could be surprised by the outcome, then God would be neither omnipotent (unable to get the result he wants) nor omniscient (unable to know the future). I am baffled that you could misunderstand me so completely. Indeed, you were the one who objected to my insistence that God achieved the exact outcome that he intended, which would certainly rule out any possibility that he would be surprised by that same outcome. ---“Since God knows the future as well as He knows the present, then before He created the universe, He would have known exactly what Darwinian evolution would have produced.” There is a gaping whole in your comment. Who or what is the source of this “Darwinian” evolution? If God is needed to program it then it cannot be a Darwinian process, which, by definition, doesn’t need God’s program. Either God is needed to set up/direct the process {Christianity, teleology} or else God is not needed to set up/direct the process {Darwinism, non telelogy}. Of course, we also have the schizophrenic position of Christian Darwinism: God is needed, except that he isn’t. ---“And perhaps He would have said, “That’s exactly what I want,” and gone ahead and used Darwinian evolution. Thus, no surprise for God. No disappointment that Darwinian evolution didn’t get it exactly right. ??????? Obviously, an omnipotent God will not be surprised by the outcome of the process that He designed. God may well use naturalistic processes that involve Darwinistic components, such as Random Variation and Natural Selection, but those processes, by virtue of the fact that they are being used, have been designed to produce the desired outcome. By contrast, Darwinism holds that Random Variation and Natural Selection can do the job all by themselves—no design needed—no direction needed—no God needed. Of course, we also have Christian Darwinism, which holds that God designed a process which, as it turns out, doesn’t really need a designer after all. You heard that right. ---“Now we may object that Darwinian evolution wouldn’t have produced much, if anything, and certainly not us human beings. And perhaps we are correct.” Again, you are ignoring the source of the process. If God is using the process, then God designed the process he is using. Darwinism, on the other hand, refers to a process that doesn’t need to be used in order to produce the desired results. ---““ On that all of us Christians are in agreement. What method did He use? On that we hold differing opinions. Let’s discuss and debate those opinions. But please, let’s refrain from calling each other heretics.” I have never called anyone a heretic, although another blogger called me a heretic. What I did say is that Christian Darwinists are irrational, and so they are. Without shame, they argue that a purposeful, mindful God used a purposeless mindless process to create an outcome that may or may not have been His intention. It doesn’t get any more irrational than that. Why not just accept the obvious point? IF EVOLUTION OCCURED, God designed the process to produce a specific result. Why identify with those who say that God designed the process, except that he didn’t. StephenB

StephenB:

There should be no doubt among Christians that God created humans exactly as he wanted them, with no allowable variations.

So where do our sinful natures fit in? Are we (and by 'we' I mean all of us; not just the first two) created exactly as he wanted us, or is our sin nature an 'allowable variation'? jurassicmac

StephenB, I asked this earlier, but it got stuck in moderation so I didn't know if you'd catch it: If I were to decide to throw a handful of dice onto the floor, would God know beforehand what numbers the dice would land on, or would the roll be random? jurassicmac

Hi Stephen, Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but I get this sense that you believe that if God had used Darwinian evolution in order to get a desired outcome, then He would have been surprised by the outcome and it wouldn't have been exactly what He wanted. If my view of your thoughts on this are correct, then I think you have it a little backwards. Since God knows the future as well as He knows the present, then before He created the universe, He would have known exactly what Darwinian evolution would have produced. And perhaps He would have said, "That's exactly what I want," and gone ahead and used Darwinian evolution. Thus, no surprise for God. No disappointment that Darwinian evolution didn't get it exactly right. Now we may object that Darwinian evolution wouldn't have produced much, if anything, and certainly not us human beings. And perhaps we are correct. But Darwinists (whether they are Christian or not) would disagree with us. And that is where I think the real debate should be. NOT on who holds the correct theological view. I disagree with Christian Darwinists who think ID is bad theology. And I disagree with Christians who think Darwinism is bad theology. God created the universe and everything in it. On that all of us Christians are in agreement. What method did He use? On that we hold differing opinions. Let's discuss and debate those opinions. But please, let's refrain from calling each other heretics. Bilbo I

There should be no doubt among Christians that God created humans exactly as he wanted them, with no allowable variations. Made for a definite end, “in His image,” and capable of rational and willful action in order to pursue that end, God would not allow for any other set of combinations and permutations. I don’t hesitate to say this boldly, or to insist that God would not permit any other outcome. Would God have permitted contingency to provide for the body and leave out the soul? Of course not. Would He have formed a soul with an intellect but without a will? Not if he planned to hold man accountable for the misuse of that will. He formed homo sapiens with the same exactitude that He formed angels—exactly as he wanted them. From the Universal Catechism: “What made you establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself! You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good.” God created everything for man. Is it conceivable that He would have allowed man to form in such a way that the remainder of His creation was no longer appropriate for him? Of course not. Contingency comes into play only after man, endowed with free will and made in God’s image, assumes the role of a causal agent, which explains the arrival of sin in the world as well as the infinite variety of possibilities with respect to who will be born, or, for that matter, who will be aborted. . None of this can be reconciled with Darwinism. A purposeless, mindless, physical process cannot produce human minds or a human wills, nor can it produce a rational goal for those minds and wills to pursue. Such a scenario is not simply improbable. It is both impossible and illogical. Darwinism is completely incompatible with Christianity. StephenB

PS: The heresy in question is in the eyes of the canonical, evolutionary materialistic Darwinists. kairosfocus

Prof Gumby: I observe your:

104: You’re simply interpreting a particular part of the Bible as you like and requiring all “true” Christians to believe in it . . . . Furthermore, you and KF are relying again on loose generalities and general tendencies of Christianity and “Darwinism” to set them unnecessarily at odds.Furthermore, you and KF are relying again on loose generalities and general tendencies of Christianity and “Darwinism” to set them unnecessarily at odds.

1 --> I note here that Jude 3 tells us: " 3 Dear friends, although I have been eager to write to you1 about our common salvation, I now feel compelled2 instead to write to encourage3 you to contend earnestly4 for the faith5 that was once for all6 entrusted to the saints." 2 --> We don't get to define the faith, it is specified on the apostolic deposit. 3 --> And a key summary of that is found in 1 Cor 15, the AD 55 summary of the official apostolic testimony, c, 35 - 38 AD:

1 Now I want to make clear for you,1 brothers and sisters,2 the gospel that I preached to you, that you received and on which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message I preached to you – unless you believed in vain. 3 For I passed on to you as of first importance1 what I also received – that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures,note 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive . . . . 11 Whether then it was I or they, this is the way we preach and this is the way you believed.

4 --> Now, what is sin? What is a Christ? What scriptures and what prophecy, by what God? 5 --> Thus, we see the centrality of the creational perspective that is in the Biblical context. Nor is this a matter of picking and choosing texts arbitrarily or out of context, this is central and consistent. 6 --> As I already documented and as is notorious, canonical Darwinism was intended form the outset to capture the cultural credibility of science for "free thought," and so was intended to put God out of a job. 7 --> That is why, as it came to prominence, it decisively contributed to the rise of atheism. Facts, already documented and easily accessible. 8 --> There was an accomodationist movement from the C19 on, that sought to integrate evolutionary and theistic thought. (Indeed, many of the original early C20 fundamentalists were of this ilk.) 9 --> However, in recent decades, it faces the stringent emphasis on the chance + necessity, evolutionary materialistic view that is emphasised by those who dominate the academy. (As any number of cases up to and including the way Francis Collins was viewed when he stood for a Govt post, will testify.) 10 --> So, as I stated above, it is possible for a Christian to be a Darwinist in some fashion, but not one in line with the canonical form and the form that dominates the academy. Such are tolerated for the moment at sufferance, not of right. 11 --> When it comes to purposefulness and creation, this is what is crystal clear:

Isa 45: 12 ???????I made the earth, I created the people who live on it. It was me – my hands stretched out the sky, I give orders to all the heavenly lights . . . . 18 ???????For this is what the LORD says, the one who created the sky – he is the true God, the one who formed the earth and made it; he established it, he did not create it without order, he formed it to be inhabited – “I am the LORD, I have no peer.

12 --> Nor is this an obscure text, it is in fact the passage that is the basis for the creedal hymn in Phil 2:5 - 11. 13 --> God is in charge of creation, and is deeply purposefully and directly involved in creation. Creation that manifests all sorts of signs of just such purpose save to those disinclined to see such. 14 --> As such, while God can use random processes as a part of the design, such contextualised and constrained randomness or laws exist in a framework that is designed and manifests strong empirical signs of design. 15 --> So, the Darwinian mechanism is empirically challenged to account for especially body plan level diversity entailing digital information systems and data. However, it dominates the academy and insists that no reference to any shadow of purpose may be permitted. 16 --> Those are the matches Christian -- thus, "heretic" -- Darwinists are playing with. ________________ GEM of TKI kairosfocus

--ilion: "So, you’re asserting that all organisms – all God’s creatures — are utter automatons? You’re asserting that Christianity, which asserts freedom in its metaphysics, somehow requires the denial of freedom in what it says about the physical world and creatures in the world." No, I am not making that argument, but I have decided to abandon the Scriptural reference I have been using since it can be misleading. I am arguing that God allowed for only one outcome until man arrived, and after that, free will became a factor which does, of course, allow for many outcomes. StephenB

---Prof: Gumby: "You’ve failed to make a case that your definition of Christianityis better than relying on the Apostle’s Creed." I am not providing a comprehensive definition of Christianity's legitimate response to Darwinism, rather I am providing a definition of Christianity's response to Darwinian evolution, as I have pointed out many times. What is your definition of Christianity's response to the proposition that we arrived here by way of a purposeless, mindless, process? ---"You’re simply interpreting a particular part of the Bible as you like and requiring all “true” Christians to believe in it. No thanks." OK. I will drop that Scriptural reference. I wrote: "Thank you again for acknowledging that you believe that God did not intend the final result and that he was prepared to adjust to any eventuality no matter how alien to his original intent." ---"I never said the final result was not his original intent." To tell me what you were not saying is not to tell me what you were saying. Either the finished result was his exact intent or it was not. I am not, by the way, arguing that God's original and exact intentions were all carried out AFTER man arrived, which is another good reason that I decided to abandon the Scriptural passage that I have been using. What is at stake is the process by which God created man just as He intended. Was it with or without purpose? ---"How do you know what it was? Please let me know what sort of a lens you’re using to look into God’s mind." I didn't say that I knew his intention. I am saying that HE knew his intention and would not settle for anything less, at least until man arrived. --"Furthermore, you and KF are relying again on loose generalities and general tendencies of Christianity and “Darwinism” to set them unnecessarily at odds." Tell me how to reconcile a purposeless, mindless process with a purposeful, mindful, creation. -- "It’s strange as one of you was just complaining about defining terms and the other is always complaining about strawmen." I don't know what that means. StephenB

---ilion: "The incompatibility of the two is rooted in the fact that one affirms agency/freedom and one denies it." That is only one of many aspects of the incompatibility. Another is the ridiculous prospect of purposeless, mindless, process producing a purposeful, mindful, outcome. I could list a number of others. Are you suggesting that the irony you perceive is the only irony that exists? ---"So, you’re asserting that all organisms – all God’s creatures — are utter automatons?" No, I am not asserting that. I have already explicitly stated that I believe in free will. As I wrote to Bilbo, "As God’s rational creatures, we certainly possess the gift of free will. While we can do nothing without God’s sustaining power, we can, nevertheless, do things as causal agents in our own right. The elements have no choice, meaning they must follow the laws of nature, but we may choose not to follow God’s moral laws. "I don’t think any of this challenges God’s sovereignty. Indeed, as Norman Geisler Points out, God “sovereignly delegated free choice to some of his creatures.” So, human freedom is a sovereignly given power to make moral choices. Only absolute freedom would be contrary to God’s sovereign power." Do my own words mean nothing? I am, however, open to the argument that God did not get exactly the result he wanted from his creative act. If someone would care to make the case, I will read it and study it with rapture. Even those who agree with me on most other matters are free to weigh in on this and provide fraternal correction if it is needed. Perhaps God did not mean what he said ["I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb."] Perhaps he meant, "Knowing that some creature or biological organism, something remotely like you, would be a part of the final outcome, I was content to love that dim adumbration of a mystery, and that is good enough for me." Perhaps he meant, "If, as it turns out, you do not arrive as a blue-eyed human, but rather as a long-neck giraffe, I will make the necessary adjustments and infuse rationality into all the giraffes and save them, long necks and all." I am open to any argument at all from anyone who will take the trouble to make their case, which, I hasten to add, is not the same thing as trying to find holes in mine. ---"So, you’re asserting that Darwinism, which is explicitly mechanically deterministic in its metaphysics, somehow allows for creaturely freedom — except, of course, for the awkwardness that Darwinism asserts that there are no creatures, but only organisms." Again, I am asserting what I am asserting, expressed by my words as they appear in my sentences. Darwinism, which is a purposeless, mindless, process will, as its advocates insist, produce a different result every time. I agree that their scientific claims would seem to conflict with their materialistic metaphysics, but you will have to take up that difficulty with them. Darwinists, and Christian Darwinists, seem to contradict themselves with every other word. Meanwhile, I provided a number of quotes from Darwinists to make mypoint. Did you miss those quotes? What is your response to them? Perhaps you can provide quotes from Darwinists who claim that unguided, undirected, purposeless, mindless, evolution can produced only one result. Would you care to take up that challenge? I am open to your point of view if you [or anyone else] can defend it, and I am not too proud to say that I was wrong. Go for it. StephenB

Bilbo I (#97): I'd like to comment on your excellent question, which you put to StephenB:

There is a further problem. I think both of us believe in free will. That means it was possible that our parents never chose to have sex with each other and produce us. According to you, this possibility would be inconsistent with God’s intent that we both exist. How exactly do you reconcile that? And how would it be different than how a Christian Darwinist would reconcile things?

I'd like to sharpen your question, by focusing on an even more difficult case: the case of a child sinfully conceived outside marriage. All of us have ancestors who were conceived in this way, so this is a question that applies to everyone. For if God did not intend the coming-into-being of one of my ancestors, without whom I would not be here, then He did not intend my coming-into-being either. I would say that since illegitimate human offspring result from human sin, it follows that they cannot be part of God's original plan for the cosmos. They can only be part of God's backup plan (or Plan B) for the cosmos, in the event of a human agent choosing to commit a sinful sexual act: God does not intend that the agent commit the sinful act, but He nevertheless allows this act to generate a new human life. However, God loves this new human being unconditionally, even though his or her coming-into-existence was not part of God's original plan. "But what about Jeremiah 1:5 - 'Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you?'" I hear you ask. Two comments: (1) The fact that God intended Jeremiah's coming-into-being does not entail that his existence was part of God's original plan for the cosmos. We know that Jeremiah was sent as a prophet to a sinful people. Had they not been sinful, there would have been no reason for God to send Jeremiah, and hence no special reason for him to exist. Thus I would see Jeremiah as part of God's back-up plan. (2) The fact that Jeremiah's existence was willed by God even before his conception - I am using the word "before" in a logical rather than a temporal sense here - does not mean that my existence is willed by God in the same fashion. Jeremiah was a special case: a prophet sent by God, a man with a mission. This mission was his principal raison d'etre as a human being, and hence part-and-parcel of Jeremiah's very identity. My mission in life, whatever it may be, is not part-and-parcel of my very identity, as Jeremiah's was. My identity as a human individual is determined simply by virtue of my having the parents I had, as well as the fact that my body was formed from this sperm and this egg of theirs. (Had it been a different sperm and egg, then "I" wouldn't have been "me.") Finally, I'd like to point out that there's an important dis-analogy between the coming-into-existence of a human being and the coming-into-existence of the various life-forms we see on Earth. The life-forms we see on Earth are part of God's original plan for the cosmos. In my reply to Professor F. X. Gumby in #93, I quoted the words of St. Augustine (De Civitate Dei v, 11): "Not only heaven and earth, not only man and angel, even the bowels of the lowest animal, even the wing of the bird, the flower of the plant, the leaf of the tree, hath God endowed with every fitting detail of their nature." Aquinas endorsed those same words. The faith of the Christian Church has always been that the various kinds of living things we see on Earth were planned by God. They are part of God's original design; we as individuals are not. At this point, you may have a few difficult theological questions of your own: what about malaria, for instance? Did God plan that? Good question. I address this issue at further length in http://www.angelfire.com/linux/vjtorley/thomas2.html . (See especially sections 4 to 7.) vjtorley

SB, You've failed to make a case that your definition of Christianityis better than relying on the Apostle's Creed. You're simply interpreting a particular part of the Bible as you like and requiring all "true" Christians to believe in it. No thanks.

Thank you again for acknowledging that you believe that God did not intend the final result and that he was prepared to adjust to any eventuality no matter how alien to his original intent

I never said the final result was not his original intent. How do you know what it was? Please let me know what sort of a lens you're using to look into God's mind. Furthermore, you and KF are relying again on loose generalities and general tendencies of Christianity and "Darwinism" to set them unnecessarily at odds. It's strange as one of you was just complaining about defining terms and the other is always complaining about strawmen. Prof. FX Gumby

Still it is a human construct and an exclusive club that decides who is Christian. The gnostics, who I regard as the truest Christians, did not believe in a bodily resurrection. I am not even sure what "Jesus is Lord" actually means. Whether or not I am a Christian is less important than this: I am a follower of Jesus. I doubt the trinity truly contains 3 persons, for then we are not monotheists. I do not know and cannot know how Jesus was conceived, whether he rose from the dead and whether such resurrection was bodily. All these things detract from his mission as I see it: To reconcile the hearts of men with God and to show us the goodness of God so that men might admire and love this God; to have the Holy Spirit assist us in a personal transformation so that we would learn love and compassion, forgiveness and honesty, enabling us to live in heaven. Those are the things of real importance. avocationist

StephenB: “… Thus, assuming evolution is true, and it may not be, the Christian world view of the evolutionary process is incompatible with the Darwinist world view of the evolutionary process because the former will admit of only one outcome while the latter will admit of any outcome at all” Ilíon: Not at all, backwards, in fact. A Christian view of “evolution” allows for multiple potential histories of the world within the broad outline set down by God; a Darwinistic (which is to say, anti-theistic) view of “evolution” is mechanically deterministic, and thuse allows for only one outcome. The incompatibility of the two is rooted in the fact that one affirms agency/freedom and one denies it.

StephenB: “Incorrect. You have it backwards. A Christian world view of evolution requires that God directed the process to a specific end. ["I knew you before you were in your mother's womb"] God is the Creator and the Creator gets exactly the result he wants and only the result he wants.”

So, you're asserting that all organisms – all God’s creatures -- are utter automatons? You’re asserting that Christianity, which asserts freedom in its metaphysics, somehow requires the denial of freedom in what it says about the physical world and creatures in the world.

StephenB: “Incorrect again. A Darwinist view allows for an almost infinite variety of outcomes. A purposeless, mindless process will produce a different result every time. Random variation does not know where it is going and is liable to end up anywhere.”

So, you’re asserting that Darwinism, which is explicitly mechanically deterministic in its metaphysics, somehow allows for creaturely freedom -- except, of course, for the awkwardness that Darwinism asserts that there are no creatures, but only organisms. Ilion

Bilbo, I am disturbed because I think the REAL Bilbo would have long seen through Sauron's madness. Obviously, you are not him. :-) You say: "I still didn’t see a logical contradiction between God creating and using a Darwinian process." I HAVE to be missing something. Darwinian process = God not doing anything. Unless you call the random effects of physical laws and sub-atomic particles "doing something." But even if you say that, it is still impossible for physics to explain life (see above). So how is that not a logical contradiction to God creating? tgpeeler

StephenB, I've got a question for you. If I were to decide to throw a handful of dice onto the floor, would God know beforehand what numbers the dice would land on, or would the roll be random? jurassicmac

Greetings Bilbo: You wrote: --"I agree with you that if God had a specific outcome in mind, then a random proc…er, a random series of events would be incredibly unlikely to produce that outcome. So that if someone believed that God used such a series of events, then even though they hadn’t committed a logical contradiction, they were being irrational. What isn’t clear to me is that God must have had a specific outcome in mind." If I understand you correctly, you are saying that, while it is virtually impossible for Darwinistic processes to produce the exact, none-other-will-do-kind of result, there is no reason to believe that God would demand that kind of precision. I answer that if God doesn’t achieve that much precision, then the end result will be different from the one he had I mind. You, I, and every other human that has ever lived, lives now, or will ever live, must conform exactly to the image God had in mind even before the process began. That means that no other manifestation or variation will do. Every detail, every trait, every physical characteristic must be in place for every human. Is there not only result that could serve this purpose? This brings us to my Biblical quote, “I knew you before you were in your mother’s womb.” Here, God is speaking about every human that ever lived, all of which are products of his creative process. ---“But this could be compatible with God using a Darwinian process. God would foreknow what the outcome of the process was and therefore know everyone who was going to be born.” The point about how much precision God demands of the end result is an altogether different issue than the question of whether Darwinian processes could achieve it. In any case, I think we have already agreed that it is not reasonable to think that God could get that kind of precision using Darwinian processes. That only issue in question, if I understand you correctly, is whether or not God demands that much precision from his own process. I submit that an omnipotent God need not or would not accept an outcome that varies with his original intent in any way. Why should He? ---“There is a further problem. I think both of us believe in free will. That means it was possible that our parents never chose to have sex with each other and produce us. According to you, this possibility would be inconsistent with God’s intent that we both exist. How exactly do you reconcile that? And how would it be different than how a Christian Darwinist would reconcile things?” As God’s rational creatures, we certainly possess the gift of free will. While we can do nothing without God’s sustaining power, we can, nevertheless, do things as causal agents in our own right. The elements have no choice, meaning they must follow the laws of nature, but we may choose not to follow God’s moral laws. I don’t think any of this challenges God’s sovereignty. Indeed, as Norman Geisler Points out, God “sovereignly delegated free choice to some of his creatures.” So, human freedom is a sovereignly given power to make moral choices. Only absolute freedom would be contrary to God’s sovereign power. With respect to Christian Darwinists, they typically “reconcile” things by subordinating their faith to their Darwinism. If the two world views were compatible, they would not need to make all those concessions—and make them they do. StephenB

vjTorley, I still didn't see a logical contradiction between God creating and using a Darwinian process. What you seemed to show is that it would be very improbable to get a desired result with a Darwinian process. This seems to depend upon evidence that things like the origin of life and the evolution of intelligent (not necessarily rational) animal life are extremely improbable. I agree with you about the evidence. But a Christian Darwinist probably wouldn't. Further, I agree with you that mere physical life couldn't result in rational minds. But I'm not sure that God couldn't have endowed physical existence with emergent mental properties, so that when it reached a certain biological level of organization and complexity, rationality would emerge. In other words, though I tend to favor substance dualism, I'm not sure we can rule out other explanations of mind. Bilbo I

Whoops. Forgot to close . Bilbo I

Hi Stephen, I agree with you that if God had a specific outcome in mind, then a random proc...er, a random series of events would be incredibly unlikely to produce that outcome. So that if someone believed that God used such a series of events, then even though they hadn't committed a logical contradiction, they were being irrational. What isn't clear to me is that God must have had a specific outcome in mind. Your prooftext is the verse, “I knew you before you were in your mother’s womb.” But this could be compatible with God using a Darwinian process. God would foreknow what the outcome of the process was and therefore know everyone who was going to be born. We need stronger evidence that God wanted only this world. There is a further problem. I think both of us believe in free will. That means it was possible that our parents never chose to have sex with each other and produce us. According to you, this possibility would be inconsistent with God's intent that we both exist. How exactly do you reconcile that? And how would it be different than how a Christian Darwinist would reconcile things? Bilbo I

VJT "i.e. we’d have no abstract notion of a rule that must be followed, no ability for long-term planning, no ability to justify our actions, no language, no art, no science, no philosophy and no religion." To follow up a bit on Dr. T's comment. I can't believe I actually have to work this afternoon, and such an interesting conversation, too. But I do have a minute so let me get a couple of thoughts out here. It helps me to think of the issues in terms of information. After all, that is what distinguishes living from non-living things. All living things have a genome, biological information encoded in DNA, and non-living things do not. So it occurs to me that there are several pre-requisites for the existence of information, and I speak now only of human information. It seems that there must be language (symbols and rules) for without language there is no method of encoding immaterial information into a material substrate of one kind or another. It also seems like there must be free will, i.e. the ability to select from among the symbols, according to the rules, in order to communicate what one wants to communicate. This leads me to think that purpose is required for information. If I did not intend to be communicating I would not be communicating. But I am communicating. Therefore I am PURPOSEFULLY communicating. No purpose, no information. Penultimately, rationality is also required. Information (communication) is not possible without the uber rules of rational thought - the first principles of reason - identity, non-contradiction, excluded middle, and causality. So what is it that does this manipulation of symbols, according to rules, rationally, freely, and purposefully? I also say it is an immaterial mind, apart from our brain but enabled by our brain, to do these things. Interestingly, naturalism denies every thing about what makes us human except for the being alive part. According to the naturalists, and their story of life, even humans have no free will, no rational thought, no mind apart from the brain, and no true intentional action. How odd that the reigning paradigm of life, human life, would simply deny the existence of everything (except life itself) that makes us what we are. Given naturalist premises, that the material, or now physical world, is all that exists, and the causal closure of nature, we can see immediately how naturalism is sheer nonsense. It goes like this: If naturalism is true then physics can explain everything. But physics cannot explain information. Therefore naturalism MUST BE false. Physics has nothing to say of symbols or rules, i.e. language. Physics also has nothing to say about free will, rationality, intentionality, or mind. Therefore, physics cannot possibly ever explain information. Therefore naturalism is false. One could make, although not before my meeting starts, the same argument with the modifier "biological" for information and come to the same conclusion about the naturalist story of life. How anyone can believe the garbage that one has to believe to accept any naturalistic story of life, that is one ultimately explained by physics and not by a living, eternal, immaterial, rational, intentional Being is beyond me. Choose insanity indeed. tgpeeler

Christianity = "God created the heavens and the earth." Darwinism = "We cannot allow a Divine foot in the door." Theistic Evolution = "Let's not let a Divine foot in the door and say that we did." StephenB

[A] The Christian: “"The Lord called me before my birth. From within the womb he called me by my name...He said to me, `You are my servant'..." (Isaiah 49:1,3 TLB); "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb" (Psalm 139:13). [B] The Darwinist: The Lord did not knit me in my mother’s womb. Indeed, He knew not what my name would be, what I would be like, if I would be his servant, or if I would even exist at all—not until the process gave him a surprise product to work with. The Christian Darwinst. “Hey, both those world views look good to me. Let’s integrate them. StephenB

Professor F. X. Gumby (#89) Thank you very much for your post. You write:

If evolution had worked differently and a self-aware species with two extra legs had emerged, then Jesus would've had to pay extra for sandals. Or if no intelligent life had evolved here, then what about all the other planets? Or are Christians supposed to believe that we're alone in the universe?

It appears that you admit that there is a genuine contingency in Nature itself, and not just in human choices. On your view, then, God's (timeless) knowledge of future outcomes - including how evolution would turn out - is a posteriori, and is (timelessly) derived from His creation. Interesting. However, given that the number of planets in the universe is finite (about 10^23), your own scenario entails that there is a (non-zero) probability that intelligent life would not evolve on any planet. What then? Would that mean that God's creation was in vain? I would also point out in passing that according to Christian teaching, we cannot speak of intelligent life evolving, as you appear to believe. We can speak of the bodies of intelligent beings evolving, but God has to deliberately infuse these bodies with immaterial souls. If God hadn't done this to the first human beings (and to us), we'd just be big-brained apes, capable of some sophisticated feats of imagination and estimation (e.g. making tools like Betty the crow, or carefully co-ordinated hunting behavior), but no genuine intellection - i.e. we'd have no abstract notion of a rule that must be followed, no ability for long-term planning, no ability to justify our actions, no language, no art, no science, no philosophy and no religion. These difficulties aside, the whole Christian tradition goes against the scenario you put forward, according to which there is genuine contingency in the evolutionary process. I'll confine myself to two "heavies": St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine of Hippo. Aquinas clearly taught that God is a micro-manager: for each and every kind of organism in the natural world, each and every one of its characteristic features was personally designed by God. Hence none of the anatomical features which characterize different kinds of organisms are accidental. "Where does Aquinas say this?" you might ask. In his Summa Theologica I, q. 103 art. 5 (see http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1103.htm#article5 ) (Whether all things are subject to the Divine government?), Aquinas addresses the question of whether all things are subject to the Divine government. First, he enumerates some common objections to the view that everything is subject to God's government. After that, he approvingly cites the words of St. Augustine of Hippo, who asserted that all the fine details of Nature had been planned by God:

On the contrary, Augustine says (De Civ. Dei v, 11): "Not only heaven and earth, not only man and angel, even the bowels of the lowest animal, even the wing of the bird, the flower of the plant, the leaf of the tree, hath God endowed with every fitting detail of their nature." Therefore all things are subject to his government.

Then he concurs with St. Augustine's opinion. Here's a brief excerpt from Aquinas' response:

I answer that, For the same reason is God the ruler of things as He is their cause, because the same gives existence as gives perfection; and this belongs to government. Now God is the cause not indeed only of some particular kind of being, but of the whole universal being, as proved above (q. 44, arts. 1, 2). Wherefore, as there can be nothing that is not ordered to the Divine goodness as its end, as is clear from what we have said above (44, 4; 65, 2), so it is impossible for anything to escape from the Divine government.

Finally, in his Summa Contra Gentiles Book III, chapter 76, paragraph 9 (see http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles3a.htm#76 ) (That God's Providence applies immediately to all singulars), St. Thomas clearly declares God to be the ultimate micro-manager, who exercises providence even over individuals (or "singulars," as he calls them):

[9] Besides, if God does not immediately by Himself take care of these inferior singular things, this can only be either because He despises them or because His dignity might be lowered by them, as some people say. But this is unreasonable. It is indeed a matter of greater dignity to oversee the planning of the order for certain things than for it to be produced in them. It is in no sense something to be despised by Him, or something that might besmirch His dignity, if He exercises His providence immediately over these singulars.

As regards aliens, I don't know whether they're out there or not. All I know is that if they are, God planned their existence, too. vjtorley

---ilion: "A Christian view of “evolution” allows for multiple potential histories of the world within the broad outline set down by God; Incorrect. You have it backwards. A Christian world view of evolution requires that God directed the process to a specific end. ["I knew you before you were in your mother's womb"] God is the Creator and the Creator gets exactly the result he wants and only the result he wants. --- "a Darwinistic (which is to say, anti-theistic) view of “evolution” is mechanically deterministic, and thuse allows for only one outcome." Incorrect again. A Darwinist view allows for an almost infinite variety of outcomes. A purposeless, mindless process will produce a different result every time. Random variation does not know where it is going and is liable to end up anywhere. StephenB

prof Gumby Kindly cf here, including:

Heb 11: 1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see. 2 For by it the people of old received God’s commendation. 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were set in order at God’s command,2 so that the visible has its origin in the invisible . . . . 6 Now without faith it is impossible to please him, for the one who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

It seems to me that he content of valid Christian faith therefore includes:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic [= "universal," i.e NT, gospel-based, thus authentically apostolic] Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN.

When one responds to Rm 10:8 - 10, there is a specific God in view, and the creeds describe that God based on the content of scripture. One may indeed be some species of darwinist and still accept the creed [as I discussed in the first linked], but one will not be an orthodox darwinist. (And that will increasingly bring one under suspicion and pressure, as has for instance happened with Francis Collins, or for that matter Michael Behe, who in fact believes in common descent.) We must never ever forget that from Darwin on, an underlying intent and import of orthodox darwinism is to put God our of a job. Dawkins' remark on how darwinism allows one to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist -- on the evidence of design in the cosmos and in life, not really so -- draws out the point. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

---ProfessorGumby: "There is nothing in the Apostle’s Creed that is in necessary opposition to Darwin’s theory of evolution." Nor is there anything in the Apostles Creed that says we may not murder one another. The appropriate Scriptures are, among others, Romans 1:20 and Psalm 19, which declare the fact that God's handiwork is evident in nature, which rules out Darwinism in principle. Christianity = God revealed himself in nature. Christian Darwinism = God hid himself in nature. The two world views are incompatible. What is it about the conflict between reveal vs. hide that you do not understand? I wrote, "To be a Christian, one cannot believe in a purposeless, mindless, process that did not have man in mind or one that could have produced an outcome that was not in perfect accordance with God’s will." ---Professor Gumby: Says who? Says God in the Scriptures, when he declares that he knew you before he formed you in your mother's womb. ---"What justification do you have of requiring all Christians to believe the bolded part above?" Where have you been? Darwinists argue that your formation in the womb was pure happenstance, and could not, therefore, be the specific intention of God's creation. How many examples from Darwinists do you want? If you believe that God purposely formed you in your mothers womb, you can certainly be an evolutionist, but you cannot be a Darwinist. ---"I contend that nowhere are Christians required to accept a humanocentric view of creation." What in the name of sense are you talking about? It is your position that is humanocentric/ You claim that Darwinism, a purposeless, mindless process produced you and me. Theists argue that God set up the process. Darwinists argue that the process set itself up. The schizophrenic Christian Darwinints argue that God set it up by not setting it up. They live in an intellectual madhouse. --"If evolution had worked differently and a self-aware species with two extra legs had emerged, then Jesus would’ve had to pay extra for sandals." Well, thank you for admitting that you think God did not necessarily intend the final result. So, you think that is consistent with Christianity do you? ---"Or if no intelligent life had evolved here, then what about all the other planets? Or are Christians supposed to believe that we’re alone in the universe?" Thank you again for acknowledging that you believe that God did not intend the final result and that he was prepared to adjust to any eventuality no matter how alien to his original intent. StephenB

I can see I've been away too long. If I can just back up the train to StephenB's comment at 65 responding to me. SB differs with me on the definition of a Christian.

—”Let me define my terms. A) Christian – someone who believes in the Apostle’s Creed as per the OP.” I agree completely with that definition in the context of a Christian’s theological beliefs. However, we are trying to define the Christian response to Darwinism answer to the problem of origins, because that is where the conflict lies. Darwinism doesn’t speak to the issue of the Apostles Creed. We are looking for a common context.

What you've said above that I've bolded is the kernel of my point. There is nothing in the Apostle's Creed that is in necessary opposition to Darwin's theory of evolution. You as much as accept that. To get around this problem of yours, you need to invest your definition of Christian with something else:

To be a Christian, one cannot believe in a purposeless, mindless, process that did not have man in mind or one that could have produced an outcome that was not in perfect accordance with God’s will.

Says who? What justification do you have of requiring all Christians to believe the bolded part above? (The second non-bolded part is not at issue, given that God is creator as stated in the Creed.) You're simply assuming your conclusion here. I'm using the Apostle's Creed as my defnition of Christian, as per the OP. Where does yours originate? If you want to argue that "Darwinism" is incompatible with your particular interpretation of Christianity, go ahead and I'll not contest this. But if you want to argue that "Darwinism" is incompatible with all Christianity, you'll have to do better. I contend that nowhere are Christians required to accept a humanocentric view of creation. If evolution had worked differently and a self-aware species with two extra legs had emerged, then Jesus would've had to pay extra for sandals. Or if no intelligent life had evolved here, then what about all the other planets? Or are Christians supposed to believe that we're alone in the universe? Prof. FX Gumby

Joseph: I think Ken Miller may point to a solution from his perspective: God set up a cosmos in which live would emerge and evolve, producing eventually intelligent creatures such as us. remember, cosmological evidence of design is INDEPENDENT of that in life forms, and that without the cosmos ate a pretty carefully balanced operating point, C-chemistry cell based life will simply not be possible. I also happen to think that there is a mountain of evidence that such life shows design by a very sophisticated computer and chemical engineer who was also a solid materials and mechanical engineer. Then when I turn to the mind and conscience of man, I see it all coming together: we are morally governed contingent creatures, grounded in the necessary being who is the good Creator and loving redeemer. Disputes over specific detailed mechanisms and timelines are IMHO, secondary. Just think: genetic algorithms publicly demonstrate for the world to see that constrained and performance filtered random searches set up in the near vicinity of mountains of peak performance are a viable design strategy! GEM of TKI kairosfocus

F/N; FWIW, my thoughts are here. Might be helpful, so shared. All best. kairosfocus

My question for "christian darwinists"- What is the difference between your God (one who uses blind, undirected processes) and no God at all? Joseph

Indeed, Nullasalus: modern-day DarwinDefenders do anything and everything they can get away with doing so to avoid defining their terms. The one core commitment of Darwinism, the one non-negotiable assertion upon which no compromise or back-tracking is possible, is: “Whatever it is, God didn’t do it!” Ilion

Actually, since Ilion brought up the definition of Darwinism - and I never tire of talking about that - I want to share an exchange I had with an evolutionary biologist. (This person, by the way, is no ID proponent by a longshot as near as I can tell, though he's critical of Neo-Darwinism.) I have seen many manifestations of the tendency to apply the label "neo-Darwinian" to anything that seems reasonable and that invokes genetics, regardless of what Darwinism actually means as a theory of evolution distinct from other theories. For instance, Maynard Smith once wrote that he did not see any reason why a neo-Darwinian should not embrace the Neutral Theory. An eminent population geneticist said to me a few years ago that neo-Darwinism means "whatever we decide it means". In other words, neo-Darwinism isn't a coherent logical construct anymore, its a school of thought, and the "theory" is whatever is fashionable now. The late David Hull, a philosopher-historian who wrote the Oxford Encyclopedia of Evolution article on neo-Darwinism, blessed this idea by presenting it as a bold new way of understanding theories in science! It's this slipperiness of terms that always catches my attention. And I bring this up only to again illustrate the very real possibility that the "Darwinism" one TE says they believe in may not be the "Darwinism" an ID proponent says he rejects. (Of course, it also may be the same thing in both cases too.) nullasalus

StephenB: “… Thus, assuming evolution is true, and it may not be, the Christian world view of the evolutionary process is incompatible with the Darwinist world view of the evolutionary process because the former will admit of only one outcome while the latter will admit of any outcome at all” Not at all, backwards, in fact. A Christian view of “evolution” allows for multiple potential histories of the world within the broad outline set down by God; a Darwinistic (which is to say, anti-theistic) view of “evolution” is mechanically deterministic, and thuse allows for only one outcome. The incompatibility of the two is rooted in the fact that one affirms agency/freedom and one denies it. Ilion

StephenB: "The definition does not reflect the fact that the Darwinist scheme allows for any outcome at all. According to Darwinism, if we played the tape of life again, it would likely have produced a different outcome" That assertion by some Darwinists is, of course, just another example of either the self-contradictions of Darwinism or the radical misunderstanding of Darwinism by many (most?) DarwinDefenders. Darwinism is the creation-myth for naturalism/materialism/atheism: it is, by the nature of its assigned task, wholly mechanically deterministic. Thus, if DarwinDefenders were logically consistent (or cared about being so), they’d realize that the common claim by prominent DarwinDefenders that “if we could re-play the tape of life, it would produce a different outcome” is inconsistent with, and contrary to, Darwinism. Ilion

Ilion, If words were always used in a logical manner, then “theistic evolutionist” would be but another way of saying “theistic IDist.” Well, those "theistic IDists" also go on to assert that this guidance is 'not discoverable by science' in their view, even if it can be arrived at through reason and argument, if I recall right. That seems to be the linchpin. nullasalus

TGPeeler: "p.s. On the free will thing, all human communication would be impossible apart from free will." Indeed it would -- as would the human ability to know truth, and to engage in reason, and to reason from known truth to previously unknown truth, and to discern error in our prior reasoning (and based upon that discernment, to correct it). *Everything* which make us us hinges upon “free will” -- as I keep saying, it’s not that we “have” free wills, it’s that we *are* free wills. Ilion

Nullasalus: "… some TEs have said outright that God determines those outcomes. Granted, I’ve seen the ID response that if TEs are serious about that, they are at least in principle making an ID claim, and thus aren’t ‘true’ TEs or such. Perhaps." If words were always used in a logical manner, then “theistic evolutionist” would be but another way of saying “theistic IDist.” But, words are always used in a logical manner, and so “theistic evolutionist” means “inconsistent and irrational Darwinist” (not that anti-theistic Darwinists are rational, it’s just that the theistic ones have an extra layer of irrationality, due to the self-contradiction of trying both to affirm and to deny atheism). Ilion

VJTorley (to Prof Gumby): "And if a natural process occurring at time T0 is a cause of some effect occurring at a much later time Tn, then it too must be directed towards that end. The fact that the Director is outside time is neither here nor there." The view you're arguing against is akin to saying that when I (or Gil Dodgen, or anyone else who writes computer code) write a computer program or section of code, since I am outside the code, I cannot direct the code toward an end. And, the belief that God cannot intervene in the world is akin to saying that when I execute I program I have written, I cannot monitor and/or intervene in its execution. Shoot! even when I was writing mainframe assembler for a computer so basic and primitive that it didn’t even have harddrives, much less a GUI interface, I could both monitor the execution of programs and modify either the data being acted upon or the program’s executable binary code itself, on the fly. Now, and of course, the above is analogical: it must not be pushed further than it can go nor be burdened with more than it can carry. For example, to speak of God’s intervention in the world is to speak from our time-bound perspective; from God’s perspective, his “intervention” and his “initial creation” are the same act. === To slightly expand the scope (and the metaphor) of this comment so as to touch upon determinism, whether theistic (Calvinistic) or atheistic -- Modern authors frequently say things like “the characters of my story took on lives of their own and in a real way ‘directed’ much of the story’s development -- they did things ‘independently’ which I hadn’t planned.” This literary conceit is a good analogy for reality and for the truth that human beings are free wills. The problem come from the propensity of determinists push the analogy too far: theistic determinists push one part too far and atheistic determinists push another part too far (while simultaneously denying that there is an Author). The world is a Story, of which God is the Author, and in which we are Characters. But, in this Story, the imaginative conceit of human authors about their stories and characters is actual: we Characters really are free to move the Story this way or that within the overall scope or bounds set by the Author: the Story is a cooperative effort (and effect) of the Author and his Characters. Theistic determinists place too much weight on one aspect of the analogy, that being that everything a human author’s characters do or say or “think” is, in fact, fully determined by the author himself. Thus, the theistic determinists assert that the Characters of God’s Story are no more free than are the characters of a human-imagined story; for, as the reification of the analogy goes, all stories, being stories, and are fully determined by their authors. In general, the theistic determinists assert that we are not free because they incorrectly believe that our freedom lessens God. On the other hand, atheistic determinists place too much weight on the *fact* of the analogy – they reify not an aspect of the analogy, but the fact that it is an analogy -- they deny that there even is a Story; they insist that the analogy of the Story is but an artifact of the fact that humans tell themselves stories, and understand the world, and their lives, primarily via story-telling. Thus, the atheistic determinists assert that we only imagine that there is a story (much less a Story), and only imagine that we are free to choose this or that option presented us in the (non-existent) story. In general, the atheistic determinists assert that we are not free because they correctly see that our freedom implies God’s existence. That is, if we are thinking clearly and deeply, we can see that determinists, whether theistic or atheistic, are asserting that we ourselves are not real. Ilion

VJTorley, Some scattered comments. A memoryless process is by definition incapable of being directed at a long-term goal millions of years hence. Thus Darwinism by definition paints God out of the picture, in the same manner that Laplace claimed to have done with his physics: “Sire, I have no need of that hypothesis,” as he put it in his famous reply to Napoleon Bonaparte. Darwinism is an explanation of life designed to make God redundant: there is no extra work for God to do. If I understand you correctly, this essentially reduces to the common (and in my view, correct) observation that Darwinism requires (not proves, nor demonstrates, but requires) that evolution be unguided. But if I understand Bilbo correctly (and Bilbo, by all means tell me if I'm wrong), he's arguing that what we model as random may not actually be random. God knows what the outcomes will be, we don't. We, lacking God's knowledge, model things as random - God, having that knowledge, doesn't need to 'model' nature as if it were some thing He needs to study and understand (or as if He were the sort of being that needed to do that at all.) As far as I know, no-one in the “theistic evolution” camp has addressed this basic point raised by Dr. Sheldon. It depends on what that point is. I take Dr. Sheldon's principle point to be that the quantum world has uncertainty that goes beyond our ability to measure or control. But what fixes the outcomes at the quantum level is an open question - some TEs have said outright that God determines those outcomes. Granted, I've seen the ID response that if TEs are serious about that, they are at least in principle making an ID claim, and thus aren't 'true' TEs or such. Perhaps. nullasalus

TGPeeler: "A completely random process cannot, by definition, exist." Bilbo I: "If “process” is the hang up, we can substitute “series of events,” and avoid the contradiction." TGPeeler: "Of course redefining “process” will eliminate the contradiction but that changes the truth claim. If you would be so kind as to restate the new and improved truth claim so I can be sure I understand exactly what it is you are asserting." DarwinDefenders (and DarwinDeniers!) should be encouraged to realize that they are asserting that disconnected “series of events,” rather than teleological "processes," are the cause of all the history and diversity life ... and of life processes themselves, of course. The term "process" isn't a term that Darwinists have the moral right to use in their "explanation" of the world. Ilion

TGPeeler: "BTW, one of the first things I learned from Norman Geisler was that unless people accept the premise that opposing truth claims cannot both be true and that the truth about reality can be known, we are wasting our time with them." As the saying goes, "you cannot reason with a crazy man" ... and those who will not acknowledge such First Principles have *chosen* to be insane. Ilion

Prof Gumby (to StephenB): “This is the point I’m trying to get at. Your entire dichotomy between directed and undirected processes is false.” Well, that’s true enough … in the sense that, properly speaking, there is (nor can be) no such thing as an “undirected process.” Thus, there can be no dichotomy between the two (for the one side doesn’t exist). That it has become a cultural habit (fostered and enforced by Darwinism, naturally) to misuse the word ‘process’ in such a way so as to attempt to divorce it from its inherent and implied teleology doesn’t change reality. ==== StephenB (to Iconoclast): “The possibility of death before sin does not invalidate Christian doctrine. According to William Dembski, God’s punishment for original sin may have been retroactive in much the same way that his plan of salvation was retroactive. Perhaps, in anticipation of the unfortunate event, God allowed ancient humans to experience the effects of Adam’s sin prior to the disobedient act, just as God allowed other ancient humans to experience the effects of saving grace, prior to Christ’s salvific act.” Iconoclast: “There are two separate issues here. The first is imputation of Adam’s sin. Imputation only happens to human beings. Did Adam’s sin get retroactively imputed to proto-humans? The second issue is physical death and decay as a result of Adam’s sin. Note that Christ’s atonement did not retroactively do away with physical death and decay. ...” The idea that there was no physical death before the Fall reflects a misunderstanding of Scripture, and actually makes some of the statements of Scripture senseless and/or pointless. The related idea (for it is the over-arching idea which “justifies” the odd idea that there was no death before Adam’s sin) that the initial creation was “perfect” is also false and senseless; for to be perfect is to be wholly complete, and that which changes is never complete, nor can be. God is complete: only God is complete; that which is not-God cannot be complete-in-itself (for, always, its very existence is grounded in God). And the creation, being physical and time-bound, is radically incomplete. Adam's sin didn't bring physical death into the world -- Adam and Eve could have died had they never sinned, just as the animals did -- rather, it brought spiritual death into the world. Adam's sin separated mankind from God, who is Being/Life itself, but it did not cause humanity’s susceptibility to physical death; that was there from the creation, we have always been susceptible to physical death. 1) If there were no natural death before the Fall, then God’s warning to Adam to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil becomes senseless --- God might as well have said: “On the day you eat of that tree, you shall oomba-goomba” (*), had ‘death’ been a word without referent. (*) And, by the way, God didn’t literally say “you shall surely die” … the Hebrew translated into English as “surely die” uses the word ‘death/die’ twice, once with a modifier (and the Serpent reversed God’s word order when he was tempting Eve, which reversal is probably significant). 2) The Tree of Life was created when the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was created, that is, when Eden was created, before the Fall. God’s stated rationale for driving Man from Eden is to keep mankind from eating of the Tree of Life before it is the proper time (the Tree of Life is a symbol of Christ, in fact). This all becomes senseless if Man was created physically immortal. 3) In the NT, it is taught that sin entered the world through the First Adam, and through sin the rule of death; and that through the Second Adam comes righteousness and thus life, and the “repeal” of the rule of death -- that through Christ death is *already* defeated and revoked and repealed. Yet (as the NT writers were fully aware), still we die. They are not talking primarily of physical death, but of spiritual death, of *real* death, of the ending of the person due to his radical separation from God (who is Being/Life Itself), which *total death* is the ultimate result of sin. Sure, the promise is that ultimately we shall live again physically -- but we cannot be freed of physical death until we are first freed of spiritual death. Ilion

Greetings Bilbo. Thank you for responding on substance and for addressing the argument. ---“First, it’s not at all clear to me that God allowed for only one possible outcome. But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that this is the case.” Only one outcome can conform perfectly to God’s expectations. There are perhaps a trillion to the trillionth power to the trillionth power of outcomes that might come close, but only one would fit. If, out of the 100,000,000,000 humans that have ever lived, even one of them was born with traits different than God intended, the outcome would not fit His requirements. ---I think it’s true, as you say, that, “Evolution, from a Darwinist perspective, allows for outcomes different from the one God intended.” However, even though Darwinian evolution has the potential for producing many different outcomes, it will, in fact, produce only one outcome.” And it may be the one outcome that God wants and knows that Darwinian evolution will in fact produce. Therefore, it is logically possible for Darwinian evolution to produce the outcome that God wants. “ As I am sure you know, the proposition that a solely random process could produce that exact outcome that God intended is, if not logically impossible, virtually impossible. Mathematicians and scientists tell us that an event can become so improbable that it is no longer reasonable to even consider it as a possibility. Darwinists agree with that assessment and they say, consistently, that the outcome produced by evolution was not intended. Ken Miller, Christian Darwinist, insists that man’s appearance here was “happenstance.” Gould, another advocate for undirected evolution, insists that if life’s tape were played again, we would get a different result. George Coyne, Christian Darwinist, insists that God could not know the outcome of such a process. George Gaylord Simpson said that “evolution is a purposeless, mindless process that did not have man in mind. Yet you are asking us to believe that God used this same purposeless, mindless process to produce a purposeful , mindful result. It makes no sense at all. The Christian must believe that God designed a purposeful process that produces an outcome that conformed perfectly to his specifications [“I knew you before you were in your mother’s womb.”]The Darwinist believes that no one designed anything and that the end result was a surprise. Obviously, these two world views are not compatible. I do, however, appreciate the fact that you were forthcoming enough to acknowledge that Darwinism is a purposeless, mindless, process. This puts you far ahead of the typical Christian Darwinist who wants to use the rhetoric of purpose, while arguing on behalf of purposelessness. StephenB

Bilbo I Thank you for your post. In response to my comment (#55):

Asking God to accomplish the very large, long-term goal of designing a world with just the right amount of natural evil, using only memoryless processes that are inherently incapable of being directed at long-term goals, is to ask the impossible. It's a contradiction in terms. Not even a Deity could do that.

you wrote:

I don't see the contradiction. If you had said that it was incredibly improbable, I would agree with you. But a logical contradiction? Where?

As I see it, the contradiction lies in the fact that God cannot both direct and not direct the same process, toward a given long-term goal. If you're a card-carrying Darwinist, then you have to believe that memoryless Markov processes are sufficient to account for the diversity of life we see today. A memoryless process is by definition incapable of being directed at a long-term goal millions of years hence. Thus Darwinism by definition paints God out of the picture, in the same manner that Laplace claimed to have done with his physics: "Sire, I have no need of that hypothesis," as he put it in his famous reply to Napoleon Bonaparte. Darwinism is an explanation of life designed to make God redundant: there is no extra work for God to do. What it boils down to is this: either you believe that memoryless processes that are not directed at any long-term goals are sufficient to account for life on Earth, or you don't. If you do, then the most you can believe is that God is needed to establish the laws of Nature and to maintain the world in being. What you cannot believe, if you are a Darwinist, is that the laws of Nature, in combination with a certain state of affairs at time T0 (say, the first cell, four billion years ago), are (timelessly) directed by God towards the long-term goal of the production of human beings. (When I use the word "long-term," I am speaking from our time-bound perspective, of course.) For there's no way the processes in question could be so directed. Now you might ask: what if God is a super mathematician who planned everything down to the last particle, so that the human body would emerge four billion years later? In other words, the processes giving rise to the human body were memoryless (and hence undirected) but meticulously planned in their particulars. In this scenario, it would not be true that memoryless processes in general are capable of generating life in all its diversity, but it would still be true that this set of memoryless processes, starting from this set of initial conditions, was capable of giving rise to all of the life-forms we see on Earth today. And because God made the selection, there would still be room for Him as a Director, albeit one whose act of direction is invisible to Darwinism. But according to Rob Sheldon's article, The Front-Loading Fiction, even this supposition is impossible. In the first place, the clockwork universe of Laplacean determinism (the idea that you can control the outcomes you get, by controlling the laws and the initial conditions) won't work:

First quantum mechanics, and then chaos-theory has basically destroyed it, since no amount of precision can control the outcome far in the future. (The exponential nature of the precision required to predetermine the outcome exceeds the information storage of the medium.) (Emphases mine - VJT.)

As far as I know, no-one in the "theistic evolution" camp has addressed this basic point raised by Dr. Sheldon. Even today, one still commonly hears objections to ID like the following: "Wouldn't it be more elegant of God to design a universe in which the laws of Nature would generate life automatically?" as if that were a genuine possibility. In the second place, what Dr. Sheldon calls "Turing-determinism" - the modern notion that God could use an algorithm or program to design all the forms we observe in Nature - fares no better:

Turing-determinism is incapable of describing biological evolution, for at least three reasons: Turing's proof of the indeterminancy of feedback; the inability to keep data and code separate as required for Turing-determinancy; and the inexplicable existence of biological fractals within a Turing-determined system.

Specifically, Dr. Sheldon argues that the only kind of universe that could be pre-programmed to produce specific results without fail and without the need for further input would be a very boring, sterile one, without any kind of feedback, real-world contingency or fractals. However, such a universe would necessarily be devoid of any kind of organic life. Dr. Sheldon proposes that God is indeed a "God of the gaps" - an incessantly active "hands-on" Deity Who continually maintains the universe at every possible scale of time and space, in order that it can support life. Such a role, far from diminishing God, actually enhances His Agency. What I'm suggesting is that even God can't make a predictable universe that can generate life in all its diversity. The demand that He do so appears to contain a hidden contradiction - and since God cannot do what is logically contradictory, He can hardly be faulted for not being able to make life in the way that front-loaders would like Him to. Like it or not, if we want a universe with life - especially eukaryotic life-forms like us - then we need a manipulating, "hands-on" Deity. And if that strikes some Christian evolutionists as messy, then I can only say to them: get used to it. vjtorley

If a process can potentially produce any number of outcomes, but without constraint will only produce one outcome...uhm Upright BiPed

Hi Stephen, First, it's not at all clear to me that God allowed for only one possible outcome. But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that this is the case. I think it's true, as you say, that, "Evolution, from a Darwinist perspective, allows for outcomes different from the one God intended." However, even though Darwinian evolution has the potential for producing many different outcomes, it will, in fact, produce only one outcome. And it may be the one outcome that God wants and knows that Darwinian evolution will in fact produce. Therefore, it is logically possible for Darwinian evolution to produce the outcome that God wants. Therefore, a Christian can believe in true Darwinism. We could argue with such a Christian, and point out to him/her that the chances of Darwinian evolution producing the exact outcome that God wants are vanishingly small. And we might succeed in convincing them of that fact. But then they might object to the premise that God wants one and only one outcome. Frankly, I'm not sure the premise is correct, myself. Bilbo I

--Bilbo: "It is logically possible for God to achieve His purposes through a random series of events." Darwinism does not allow for the possibility that God may have constrained randomness toward a specified end. On the contrary, Darwin randomness, by definition, is NOT constrained to produce one result. Quite the contrary, it can produce many different outcomes different from the one God intended. Evolution, from a Christian perspective, can admit of only one outcome, the one God intended. Evolution, from a Darwinist perspective, allows for outcomes different from the one God intended. Put in the simplest terms, a process that must produce outcome [x] cannot also be a process that could have produced an outcome other than [x]. StephenB

vjtorley 55 Asking God to accomplish the very large, long-term goal of designing a world with just the right amount of natural evil, using only memoryless processes that are inherently incapable of being directed at long-term goals, is to ask the impossible. It’s a contradiction in terms. Not even a Deity could do that. I don't see the contradiction. If you had said that it was incredibly improbable, I would agree with you. But a logical contradiction? Where? Bilbo I

vividbleau 56 As they say you are entitled to your own opinion but that does not change the facts. StephenB is correct when he wrote “I have demonstrated it to all those who are capable of rational thought.” Vivid Hi Vivid, long time, no see. You used to have a higher opinion of me. Perhaps you could help me see the errors of my ways, since StephenB certainly can't. Bilbo I

tgpeeler 54 Of course redefining “process” will eliminate the contradiction but that changes the truth claim. If you would be so kind as to restate the new and improved truth claim so I can be sure I understand exactly what it is you are asserting. Thanks. It is logically possible for God to achieve His purposes through a random series of events. Bilbo I

Professor Gumby, thank you for defining your terms. You are a step ahead of everyone else who has entered into the fray. With respect to my definition of the Christian response to origins (assuming evolution is true), you write: --"Two problems actually: - What intended outcome do you mean? - How is your definition of the Christian alternative fundamental to being a Christian?" An example of an intended outcome is you, me, and every other person who was in God's mind prior to our creation. God created us exactly as he originally intended. In the context of man's arrival, a Christian is obligated to believe that God produced exactly the outcome that he wanted, when he wanted it. A process that could have produced something else at some other time [Dariwnism] will not do. ---"Let me define my terms. A) Christian – someone who believes in the Apostle’s Creed as per the OP." I agree completely with that definition in the context of a Christian's theological beliefs. However, we are trying to define the Christian response to Darwinism answer to the problem of origins, because that is where the conflict lies. Darwinism doesn't speak to the issue of the Apostles Creed. We are looking for a common context. To be a Christian, one cannot believe in a purposeless, mindless, process that did not have man in mind or one that could have produced an outcome that was not in perfect accordance with God's will. ---B) “Darwinist” – someone who accepts Darwin’s theory of evolution (as modified by later research) as being scientifically correct. C) Christian Darwinist = A+B. The definition does not reflect the fact that the Darwinist scheme allows for any outcome at all. According to Darwinism, if we played the tape of life again, it would likely have produced a different outcome. ---"Note there is nothing about intended and necessary outcomes in A), nor has it been suggested or accepted yet as an inherent part of the definition of Christian." With respect to A) It is "necessary" that the outcome should perfectly reflect God's will, which is that each of us would be exactly the same person that he had in mind. No other result would do. According to Darwinism, the process would likely have produced a different outcome. Thus, assuming evolution is true, and it may not be, the Christian world view of the evolutionary process is incompatible with the Darwinist world view of the evolutionary process because the former will admit of only one outcome while the latter will admit of any outcome at all. StephenB

VJ, I don't have time at the moment for a more considered response, so I'll leave that be for the moment. I'll only say now that I did not ask SB to leave the discussion. My comments along those lines were in response to his "Adios" in 45, which I took to mean he was leaving. As for the "heretic" comment, I was only pointing out the logical result of someone professing to be Christian yet painting God into a corner. Prof. FX Gumby

SB, I wasn't aware that you asked me to define my terms. I'd have gladly done that. But since you've defined yours first, I'll have a look at them to start with. I'm more or less fine with B) and C) above (though I'm not sure about the "unnecessary" in B) - some outcomes may be necessary/inevitable in the context of a response to natural selection - but that's not central here). I've a problem with A):

The Christian alternative. [God designed the process to produce an intended and necessary outcome]

Two problems actually: - What intended outcome do you mean? - How is your definition of the Christian alternative fundamental to being a Christian? Let me define my terms. A) Christian - someone who believes in the Apostle's Creed as per the OP. B) "Darwinist" - someone who accepts Darwin's theory of evolution (as modified by later research) as being scientifically correct. C) Christian Darwinist = A+B. Note there is nothing about intended and necessary outcomes in A), nor has it been suggested or accepted yet as an inherent part of the definition of Christian. Prof. FX Gumby

There is much confusion in Professor Gumby's remarks. I did not say that God had to be a programmer, or that he was limited to linear methods, or that he must or must not use natural selection or anything of the kind. God could have and can, create at any time, and in any way he chooses. Indeed, he need not have created at all. So, I am not proposing the heresy that God’s power is limited, if, indeed, that is the charge. I have to guess about the charge since my dialogue partners never define their terms. Indeed, they are evidently afraid to define their terms, a fact that speaks volumes. My adversaries tell me, for example, that I am wrong when, after defining Christianity and Darwinism from an origins perspective, I explain that the two formulations are incompatible. They challenge that conclusion, but when I ask them to define their own terms, they head for the tall grass. That means, of course, that they have not even begun to consider the matter or even understand the argument that has been made. One can hardly say with any degree of intellectual integrity that [A] is compatible with [B] if that same person is afraid to tell us what each term means. So, once again, I will make the point. We have been presented with a number of creation stories, including Young Earth Creationism, Darwinism, Old Earth Creationism, Intelligent Design, etc. These are not the only possible creation stories, (are you paying attention Professor Gumby) but they are the ones that have been proposed. ASSUMING EVOLUTION IS TRUE, (it may not be) we are, IN THAT CONTEXT, considering three options: (A) The Christian alternative. [God designed the process to produce an intended and necessary outcome], (B) The Darwinist alternative. [No one designed anything. A purposeless, mindless process produced an unintended and unnecessary outcome, and (C) Christian Darwinism [an attempt to reconcile (A) with (B)]. Now it should be evident to anyone who can reason in the abstract that [Christianity] a process that produces an outcome that had to be exactly what it is cannot also be or reconciled with [Darwinism] a process that produces an outcome that could have been anything at all. Put another way, a process that must produce outcome [x] cannot also be a process that could have produced an outcome other than [x]. The point is so obvious that only a Darwinist or Christian Darwinist could miss it. StephenB

Well, I probably should make a quick return visit as a tribute to Professor FXGumby's recent comments. I wrote: "If God was “using” natural selection, then He was directing it toward a final end, which rules out Darwinism, which holds that evolution has no final end." Professor Gumby responds: ---"These words all indicate linearity, something that has a beginning and an end, something constrained by time. You suggest that God, something akin to a programmer, put in place a process with a specific desired end – humanity. Furthermore, this linear method is the only way you say that God could have used natural selection to create the diversity of life. What you are doing is constraining God the all powerful to operating within bounds of time and space that we can understand. You, sir, are a heretic." I thank VJTorley for his well thought out response @55. I offer my response below. StephenB

"It makes me wonder. Are Arminians predestined to be Arminians? Do Calvinists freely choose to be Calvinists? " In that spirit eeryone knows that the flower that represents Calvinism is the tulip. What many are unaware of is that the Arminians have their own flower, its the daisy. "He loves me He loves me not"! :) Going into duck and cover mode now. LOL Vivid vividbleau

p.s. On the free will thing, all human communication would be impossible apart from free will. tgpeeler

If I may, iconoclast seems to make the typical category mistake regarding God's sovereignty and man's free will. The mistake is concluding that there is any logical contradiction between the two. There is not. One is a statement about the infinite (God) and the other is a statement about the finite (man). Both are true and that's as far as the explanation can go. The infinite cannot be explained in terms of the finite. The reverse is also true even though we recognize that the finite is dependent upon the infinite. So nothing in Romans 9 can be understood, as Vivid correctly says, as God denying mankind the free use of his volition. In my opinion anyway. Not that I want to start that whole "free will" thing again. It makes me wonder. Are Arminians predestined to be Arminians? Do Calvinists freely choose to be Calvinists? :-) tgpeeler

iconoclast RE 41 “Well, God couldn’t find fault if He caused you to be this way, so obviously, He didn’t cause you to be this way.” But is that what the apostle Paul says? Not so fast. Romans 9 is about election. In Rom 9:18-19 Paul is addresing the objection to God having mercy on those He wills and hardening those who He wills. It does not speak to that which you contend which is God is the cause of their rejection of Him. They are the ones rejecting God and God is willing to leave them in their rejected state and withholding His mercy that He is under no obligation to give. Vivid vividbleau

Bilbo RE 53 "I must politely disagree." As they say you are entitled to your own opinion but that does not change the facts. StephenB is correct when he wrote "I have demonstrated it to all those who are capable of rational thought." Vivid vividbleau

Prof. F X Gumby (#17, 29) It appears that you have not read my five-part online reply to Professor Michael Tkacz, in which I address the very questions you have raised on this thread. You write (#17):

...ID in general sterotypes and limits God to the role of an old bearded fellow with a set of blueprints or tinkering at limited times (it's not clear which) with His cosmic spanner. This is why ID is bad theology as well as bad science.

and again (#29):

You would agree that God is omnipotent and omniscient? Then how could God have not created the diversity of life using evolution by natural selection?

In #43, you also suggest that because God is timeless, He has no need to direct natural selection towards a given end:

Do you think time and processes mean anything to God? Everything would be comprehensible to Him in a blink. It makes no sense whatsoever to state that God must have directed natural selection to a specified end. These words simply have no meaning when applied to God's works. This is the point I'm trying to get at. Your entire dichotomy between directed and undirected processes is false.

To add insult to injury, you refer to StephenB as a heretic and you suggest (#50) that he leave the discussion. It's my experience that people who throw around the "heretic" label are rather narrow and judgmental. That's one reason why, in my five-part critique of Professor Tkacz's views, I made it perfectly clear at the outset that clear that I didn't regard him as one. As for suggesting that a contributor "abandon the discussion," might I remind you that you're here as an honored guest, at the moderator's pleasure. To address your points: The fact that God is timeless in no way implies that natural processes (including natural selection) do not have to be directed towards a specified end, as you suggest in #43. Indeed, St. Thomas Aquinas argued that all natural processes were directed to an end:

The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God. (S.T. I, q. 2, art. 3.)

And if a natural process occurring at time T0 is a cause of some effect occurring at a much later time Tn, then it too must be directed towards that end. The fact that the Director is outside time is neither here nor there. As to why God could not have created life using natural selection, the real problem is that according to Darwinian evolution, the processes that gave rise to the diversity of life on Earth are memoryless ones. I address this point in Part Two of my reply to Professor Tkacz, where I write (see http://www.angelfire.com/linux/vjtorley/thomas2.html#section4 and scroll down to the end of the section):

On the theistic evolutionary model, however, Nature has to generate a dazzling array of creatures, starting from nothing more than a bunch of organic chemicals. What's more, Nature has to do this through processes that operate without any foresight of God's long-term goals (namely, the creatures that it will eventually produce). On top of that, poor old Nature has to get the ecological balance between all these creatures just right, so that the world contains just the right amount of natural evil [as Aquinas taught it did - VJT]. Now God could certainly achieve these ends, if He were directing Nature. That would be "guided evolution," and it's the kind of evolution that theistic evolutionists used to believe in when I was a boy, and Teilhard de Chardin was in vogue. But that kind of evolution is quite different from the theory of neo-Darwinian evolution, which most biologists now believe in. Neo-Darwinian evolution is inherently blind to long-term goals. The reason, as Dr. Douglas Theobald points out in his 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution, is that it works through Markov processes - these being the only natural processes that could produce a nested hierarchy. However, a distinctive property of Markov processes is that they are memoryless. A stochastic process with the Markov property, or memorylessness, is one which is conditional on the present state of the system, its future and past being independent. Asking God to accomplish the very large, long-term goal of designing a world with just the right amount of natural evil, using only memoryless processes that are inherently incapable of being directed at long-term goals, is to ask the impossible. It's a contradiction in terms. Not even a Deity could do that.

You remarks on ID as "tinkering" suggest that you need to read Part Four of my reply to Professor Michael Tkacz, at http://www.angelfire.com/linux/vjtorley/thomas4.html . In http://www.angelfire.com/linux/vjtorley/thomas4.html#flaw4 , I also show why the clockwork universe won't work. Must go now - talk to you later. vjtorley

Of course redefining "process" will eliminate the contradiction but that changes the truth claim. If you would be so kind as to restate the new and improved truth claim so I can be sure I understand exactly what it is you are asserting. Thanks. tgpeeler

StephenB 37 —Bilbo: “Sorry, Stephen, but you haven’t shown why it is logically impossible that a completely random process couldn’t accomplish God’s will.” I have demonstrated it to all those who are capable of rational thought. I must politely disagree. Bilbo I

tgpeeler 34 A completely random process cannot, by definition, exist. random: without definite aim, direction, rule, or method process: a natural phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead toward a particular result If "process" is the hang up, we can substitute "series of events," and avoid the contradiction. Bilbo I

Prof Gumby "TG: Opposing truth claims can both be true if they are badly constructed or completely miss the point, which is the case in SB’s." If they are badly constructed or completely miss the point, then they wouldn't be opposing, would they? No, they would not. So, to reiterate, O P P O S I N G truth claims cannot both be true. And from a (largely) disinterested perspective, it is not SB who is confused about these matters of logic. tgpeeler

SB

inform Prof Gumby that I wasn’t limiting God’s power but was merely pointing that He could not have both designed life and not designed it.

Umm, no. You were trying to make a case in 27 above that given natural selection, God could not have used it in a way to create biodiversity and yet have natural selection operate as a random process. Very different points. Your use of "design" as a synonym for using natural selection demonstrates how constrained your thinking is regarding evolution and ID. Given the black and white way in which you view these things, it's not surprising you can't comprehend the TE point of view. I guess it's best you abandon the discussion after all. TG: Opposing truth claims can both be true if they are badly constructed or completely miss the point, which is the case in SB's. Finally, I've just realised that the other thread Denyse mentions in her OP is still live. I thought it was a fossil thread. I think I'll go over there in a while. Peculiar to have two threads with the same topic. What's the point of the thread explosion I wonder? Prof. FX Gumby

SB, good call, I'm afraid. BTW, one of the first things I learned from Norman Geisler was that unless people accept the premise that opposing truth claims cannot both be true and that the truth about reality can be known, we are wasting our time with them. They have already "abandoned reason for madness" (Gandalf to Saruman, Fellowship of the Ring). Still, there's something about trying to get people to see reason that draws us like a moth to a flame. Must resist... Must reeee-sist... :-) tgpeeler

O'Leary @ 4:

- I think they face the declining influence of Judaism and Christianity in Western culture, and they believe that the solution is to remove obvious points of clash.

IF those points of clash are wrong. Did most Christians give up on geocentrism to 'remove points of clash', or did they give up on geocentrism because it was incorrect? Did most Christians embrace the germ theory of disease (as opposed to demons) in order to 'remove points of clash', or did they embrace the germ theory of disease because it was correct?

- Because the atheist materialists will not budge, their solution is to persuade Christians to accept their creation story instead of ours.

Because the atheist heliocentrists did not budge, the solution was to persuade Christians to accept the atheistic model of the solar system instead of the Church's geocentric one. That's what happened, right?

- They are convinced that they are helping Christians by doing this.

Yep. jurassicmac

StephenB @ 2

For my part, Christian Darwinism is both oxymoronic and schizophrenic, I do wonder what it must be like for these people.

Actually, it's quite nice. We don't have to find ways to reject reality when it doesn't square with what we're taught in sunday school.

How do they manage to reconcile two contradictory world views into one rhetorical mishmash and hold it into place year after year without actually going insane?

Actually, when you put it that way, it seems as if all Christians must reconcile thousands of contradictory world views. As a Christian, I believe God is sovereign over the weather, but as a scientifically literate resident of the 21st century, I also concede that weather is completely explainable in natural terms, no supernatural intervention necessary. As a Christian, I believe that God is sovereign over embryological development, but at the same time I understand that embryological development is the result of expression of DNA, and is also fully explainable in natural terms. So StephenB, if you believe that God is sovereign over nature, yet concede that some parts of nature are autonomous and explainable in natural terms, how do you keep from going insane? Or do you just see magic everywhere you look?

What motivates them? Do they fear the establishment so much that they are willing to sell their intellectual soul for a few “attaboys?”

What motivates most people? I can only speak for myself: Truth. I want to know the truth. As far as I can tell, evolution is the best explanation for the diversity of life, and theism is the best explanation for the existence and properties of the universe. jurassicmac

Chris Doyle @ 1:

if there was truly overwhelming evidence that life on Earth evolved then I would become a theistic evolutionist myself.

That's quite the logical fallacy there. The modern day geocentrists say almost exactly the same thing: "If there was truly overwhelming evidence that the Earth orbits the sun, I would become a heliocentrist myself."

What I want to know about theistic evolutionists is why do they seem to concentrate on attacking non-evolutionists rather than attacking non-theists?

Because people who reject common ancestry are demonstrably wrong. Even Behe concedes this. I'm an equal opportunity critic; I also argue against geocentrists and young-earth-creationists, whether they are Christians or not. jurassicmac

OP:

But I really DO think that Christian Darwinism is an oxymoron Yes, but many Christians really DID think that Christian Heliocentrism was just as much of an oxymoron. (Including Luther and Calvin)

jurassicmac

Well, let me assess the current orientation of my beloved dialogue partners. Should I, once again, try to persuade iconoclast the God did not bring sin into the world, or convince Bilbo that a thing cannot be true and false at the same time, or inform Prof Gumby that I wasn't limiting God's power but was merely pointing that He could not have both designed life and not designed it. Nah----- Adios. StephenB

The purpose of the word program, which is, indeed, a simile, is to distinguish between a process that produces a specific, precise outcome...

and

If God was “using” natural selection, then He was directing it toward a final end, which rules out Darwinism, which holds that evolution has no final end.

(My bolding) These words all indicate linearity, something that has a beginning and an end, something constrained by time. You suggest that God, something akin to a programmer, put in place a process with a specific desired end - humanity. Furthermore, this linear method is the only way you say that God could have used natural selection to create the diversity of life. What you are doing is constraining God the all powerful to operating within bounds of time and space that we can understand. You, sir, are a heretic. Do you think time and processes mean anything to God? Everything would be comprehensible to Him in a blink. It makes no sense whatsoever to state that God must have directed natural selection to a specified end. These words simply have no meaning when applied to God's works. This is the point I'm trying to get at. Your entire dichotomy between directed and undirected processes is false. Prof. FX Gumby

I think the reasoning is much the same as in this recent court case -- Person who left keys in car responsible for wreck when car stolen, court says. Much as the TN court ruled that a person who leaves keys in a car, and thereby tempts a thief to steal it, can be held responsible if the thief of the car crashes it, so too (it seems) is God to blame for what happened after he left all that tempting free-will lying around, just waiting to be misused. Ilion

StephenB wrote: "Of course, I don’t hold you accountable for your error because, in your judgment, you were not the cause of those paragraphs you just wrote." Does that sound vaguely familiar? "Why does He yet find fault? For who has resisted His will?" (Romans 9:19) StephenB would want the apostle Paul to answer something like this: "Well, God couldn't find fault if He caused you to be this way, so obviously, He didn't cause you to be this way." But is that what the apostle Paul says? Check out the answer. The answer shows that your whole concept of God is not the Bible's concept of God. This sermon on Romans 9:19 will shake your foundations. iconoclast

Iconoclast, I will leave you to your deterministic fantasies. Citing a long list of badly interpreted Scriptures proves nothing. The world is full of half baked theologians who twist the Scriptures to serve their own agenda. Of course, I don't hold you accountable for your error because, in your judgment, you were not the cause of those paragraphs you just wrote. Good grief! StephenB

StephenB wrote: "If you think God was the cause of sin, I can only tell you that you are so far out in left field with respect to Christianity that you might as well be discussing another religion." Now that's what I like to hear. StephenB is exactly right - those who believe that God causes sin and those who believe that God does not cause sin are members of different religions. Those who believe that God causes sin believe in the God of the Bible (see Romans 9:18), while those who do not believe that God causes sin are the objectors of Romans 9:19. We see how God through the apostle Paul answers the objectors of Romans 9:19 in verse 20: "Yes, rather, O man, who are you answering against God? Shall the thing formed say to the One forming it, Why did You make me like this?" For a series of sermons on Romans 9:17-23, see www.outsidethecamp.org/romansseries.htm. Also see the Christian Confession of Faith that states the following: "God absolutely controls all actions and events; nothing at all happens by chance or merely by His permission. All actions and events happen because of His sovereign decree, including the sins of men and angels. Contrary to the aspersions of the enemies of God, this doctrine does not attribute sin to God; instead, it provides great comfort for believers. [Gen 50:20; Exo 4:21; 7:3; 9:12; Deu 2:30; 32:39; Jos 11:20; 1Sa 2:6-8,25; 2Sa 17:14; 2Ch 10:15; 11:4; 25:20; 36:22; Job 12:14-25; 23:13-14; 26:7-12; Psa 105:25; 115:3; 135:5-7; Pro16:4,33; 21:1; Isa 40:23-26; 42:9; 43:13; 45:6-7; 46:9-11; Jer 18:6; 52:3; Eze 17:24; Hab 1:6,12; Joh 19:11; Act 2:23; 4:27-28; Eph 1:11; Rev 17:17]" Read all of the Scripture references. THAT is the God of true Christianity. iconoclast

---tgpeeler: "He has shown this. It’s called the law of identity. The first law of rational thought. A thing is what it is. A completely random process cannot, by definition, exist." You know, TG, I think I am going to start qualifying my dialogue partners with a few preliminary questions such as, Do you accept reason's first principles?, and Do you believe you are responsible for your own actions? If they say no, or even hesitate, I think I will just make reference to that fact and move on. StephenB

---Bilbo: "Sorry, Stephen, but you haven’t shown why it is logically impossible that a completely random process couldn’t accomplish God’s will." I have demonstrated it to all those who are capable of rational thought. StephenB

---"Finally, the fall was not “unfortunate,” and God did not merely “anticipate” it; He caused it, because it was part of His sovereign plan of glorifying Jesus Christ in the redemption of sinners." If you think God was the cause of sin, I can only tell you that you are so far out in left field with respect to Christianity that you might as well be discussing another religion. StephenB

The same oxymoronity applies to "random cause" as to "random process." Ilion

Returning the favor to SB... :-) He has shown this. It's called the law of identity. The first law of rational thought. A thing is what it is. A completely random process cannot, by definition, exist. random: without definite aim, direction, rule, or method process: a natural phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead toward a particular result So we see that "random process" is akin to saying square circle or intelligent darwinism (or darwinians, for that matter). Does this help? p.s. Definitions courtesy of Merriam-Webster online. tgpeeler

Oops, Prof. Gumby was 17. StephenB is 19: —Bilbo: “It may be logically possible for God to create a completely random system that He foreknows will have a certain desired outcome.” "No, it isn’t. To get the desired outcome, randomness must be constrained and directed. That rules out Darwinism, which does not, cannot, aim for an intended outcome. ["Evolution is a purposeless, mindless process that did not have man in mind"]." Sorry, Stephen, but you haven't shown why it is logically impossible that a completely random process couldn't accomplish God's will. It may very improbable that it can (and I think it is very improbable), but not logically impossible that it can. Bilbo I

I'm afraid I must disappoint Prof. Gumby, who wrote (at 19) "This is why ID is bad theology as well as bad science." I'm afraid I disagree. I don't think Darwinism or ID is bad theology. The only question is which (or some combination of them) best explains the evidence. I personally tend to think God did a lot of "tinkering" with His creation. Bilbo I

"I should also point out that if God is “using” natural selection, there is some question as to whether it is, in any real sense of the word, “natural.” The artful use of a process is not really a “natural” process is it?" The very term 'process' is inherently teleological. "One could even ask this question: If God is using random variation and natural selection to create biodiversity, who or what is doing the mutating and selecting? Is it God or nature? If nature is the SOLE explanation, then obviously God has been ruled out as the user of nature." Not according to Judeo-Christianity, for (according to which) "nature" does not exist independently of God's continual act of affirming its existence. Ilion

StephenB wrote: "The possibility of death before sin does not invalidate Christian doctrine. According to William Dembski, God’s punishment for original sin may have been retroactive in much the same way that his plan of salvation was retroactive. Perhaps, in anticipation of the unfortunate event, God allowed ancient humans to experience the effects of Adam’s sin prior to the disobedient act, just as God allowed other ancient humans to experience the effects of saving grace, prior to Christ’s salvific act." There are two separate issues here. The first is imputation of Adam's sin. Imputation only happens to human beings. Did Adam's sin get retroactively imputed to proto-humans? The second issue is physical death and decay as a result of Adam's sin. Note that Christ's atonement did not retroactively do away with physical death and decay. Had retroactive physical death and decay been a result of Adam's sin, then as soon as God created, all of creation would have been subject to death and decay. The creation would not have been "very good" (Genesis 1:31), and there would have been no garden of Eden. And Genesis 3:16-19 would make no sense. Finally, the fall was not "unfortunate," and God did not merely "anticipate" it; He caused it, because it was part of His sovereign plan of glorifying Jesus Christ in the redemption of sinners. God does not merely "allow" things; He actively causes them. See "Unconditional Reprobation and Active Hardening: A Study on Romans 9:11-22." iconoclast

---tgpeeler: "Prof FX Gumby, you say “how could God have NOT created the diversity of life using evolution by natural selection?” ---"So this means you are on board with the idea of natural selection as the principle (only, really) “force” in nature that is responsible for all of life? Did I make the proper inference? Is that what you are saying?" TG, I think what Prof. Gumby means is "[WHY] could God not create the diversity of life using evolution by natural selection. [Given his context of God's omnipotence]. StephenB

I should also point out that if God is "using" natural selection, there is some question as to whether it is, in any real sense of the word, "natural." The artful use of a process is not really a "natural" process is it? One could even ask this question: If God is using random variation and natural selection to create biodiversity, who or what is doing the mutating and selecting? Is it God or nature? If nature is the SOLE explanation, then obviously God has been ruled out as the user of nature. StephenB

---Prof. FX Gumby: "Apologies. It seems my simile above was incorrect. You are viewing God as an old bearded computer programmer." The purpose of the word program, which is, indeed, a simile, is to distinguish between a process that produces a specific, precise outcome, as opposed to one that produces an unplanned outcome. It is a response to your claim that I insist on a "tinkerer," which indicates added activity after the program has been set in place. While I believe tinkering may well have taken place, I am, for the sake of argument, granting that it did not in order to show that the original set up still had to be programmed [directed, set up, purposeful] in order to produce an outcome that conforms to specifications. ---"Have you read the Book of Job? Yes, well I’m sure you have. The main take home message of Job is that God is very powerful. Omnipotent even. You would agree that God is omnipotent and omniscient?" By all means. That is an agreed upon capacity of the Christian God. ---"Then how could God have not created the diversity of life using evolution by natural selection?" If God was "using" natural selection, then He was directing it toward a final end, which rules out Darwinism, which holds that evolution has no final end. Either the appearance of man was a necessary outcome of the process [Christianity] or it was not a necessary outcome of the process [Darwinism]. This takes us back to the original point, directed evolution [an option for Christianity] vs. undirected evolution [a requirement for Darwinism]. StephenB

Prof FX Gumby, you say "how could God have NOT created the diversity of life using evolution by natural selection?" So this means you are on board with the idea of natural selection as the principle (only, really) "force" in nature that is responsible for all of life? Did I make the proper inference? Is that what you are saying? tgpeeler

The issue is this: Granting macro-evolution [and macro-evolution is by no means a fact] was it programmed or not programmed. Christian Darwinists want to have it both ways by saying that it was programmed, except that it wasn’t.

Apologies. It seems my simile above was incorrect. You are viewing God as an old bearded computer programmer. Have you read the Book of Job? Yes, well I'm sure you have. The main take home message of Job is that God is very powerful. Omnipotent even. You would agree that God is omnipotent and omniscient? Then how could God have not created the diversity of life using evolution by natural selection? Prof. FX Gumby

---iconoclast: "Can a true Christian believe in a common ancestor, a la Behe? NO. This would vitiate the essential Christian doctrine of death as a consequence of sin. Behe believes in death before sin." The possibility of death before sin does not invalidate Christian doctrine. According to William Dembski, God's punishment for original sin may have been retroactive in much the same way that his plan of salvation was retroactive. Perhaps, in anticipation of the unfortunate event, God allowed ancient humans to experience the effects of Adam's sin prior to the disobedient act, just as God allowed other ancient humans to experience the effects of saving grace, prior to Christ's salvific act. StephenB

No answer? Well... For what its worth, I think the question is well beyond just being open - at least from an observational ID standpoint. Information had to have been inputted into nature. Whether that happened just once, or more, is a mystery to be solved. Upright BiPed

Icon, why is it exactly a true Christian cannot believe in a common ancestor? Upright BiPed

---Prof. FX Gumby: "StephenB at 13 and ID in general sterotypes and limits God to the role of an old bearded fellow with a set of blueprints or tinkering at limited times (it’s not clear which) with His cosmic spanner." On the contrary, I granted evolution for the sake of argument so that I would not be subject to that charge. The issue is this: Granting macro-evolution [and macro-evolution is by no means a fact] was it programmed or not programmed. Christian Darwinists want to have it both ways by saying that it was programmed, except that it wasn't. You can't justify their schizophrenia by attacking ID. That argument doesn't work. StephenB

Can a true Christian believe in a common ancestor, a la Behe? NO. This would vitiate the essential Christian doctrine of death as a consequence of sin. Behe believes in death before sin. iconoclast

---Bilbo: "It may be logically possible for God to create a completely random system that He foreknows will have a certain desired outcome." No, it isn't. To get the desired outcome, randomness must be constrained and directed. That rules out Darwinism, which does not, cannot, aim for an intended outcome. ["Evolution is a purposeless, mindless process that did not have man in mind"]. StephenB

This entire thing seems really simple to me. Darwinists have been so successful over the last century in taking over the intellectually respectable world (especially the universities), and convincing people that Darwinian orthodoxy is as well established as heliocentrism and the inverse square law of gravitation, that some people are convinced that, in principle, Darwinism must be true and therefore all contradictory evidence must somehow be wrong. In addition, there is the powerful social stigma and inevitable ridicule associated with questioning chance-and-necessity Darwinism. I was in this camp until age 43. However, one of those dreadfully ignorant, knuckle-dragging, born-again Christians I knew (but a good friend whom I respected) suggested that I read Michael Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. This book detonated me out of the water. Prior to this, I had never read anything that contradicted Darwinism because I knew in advance that any challenge had to be the product of mindless Christian fundamentalism. I must admit that simple logic had previously made me think that there might be a problem with the notion that a lizard could evolve into a bird through the gradual elongation of scales into feathers. I thought, "During this gradual process, it seems like you'd have a lizard that couldn't run very well and couldn't fly at all, so how would natural selection deal with that?" But I figured that all those brilliant Darwinian "scientists" who assured me that their theory was as well established as the inverse square law of gravitation just had to be right. But they weren't right. They were catastrophically wrong. They were mathematically wrong. They were resource-probabilistically wrong. They were empirically wrong. They were logically wrong. And they were information-theoretically wrong. I love Denyse's now famous (or infamous) comment that Christian Darwinism is a solution to a problem that no longer exists. To see why, I suggest reading Don Johnson's Programming of Life, which I just read. It is short, concise, and a masterpiece in my opinion. GilDodgen

I agree with Bilbo (14). StephenB at 13 and ID in general sterotypes and limits God to the role of an old bearded fellow with a set of blueprints or tinkering at limited times (it's not clear which) with His cosmic spanner. This is why ID is bad theology as well as bad science. Prof. FX Gumby

Bilbo @ 14, Noooo, this is you declining to understand what 'random' means. === SMordecai @ 15, Since "Christian" Darwinists are regularly trotted out as somehow being "proof" that Darwinism is not incompatible with Christianity (or Judaism, for that matter), it is fitting that the members (and readers) of this blog punch holes in that lie from time to time. Ilion

I did not know this was a "Christian" site! How about "Judeo-Christian" or perhaps Judeo-Christian-deist, etc. I say all are welcome and lets just follow the evidence where ever it leads. Intelligent Design is not theology! And most theologians seem to stumble at the concept. smordecai

StephenB (13) wrote: Evolution either knew where it is going or it didn’t; the process was either orchestrated or it wasn’t; the end result was either intended or it wasn’t. The Christian Darwinist wants to have it both ways. This is a false dilemma. It may be logically possible for God to create a completely random system that He foreknows will have a certain desired outcome. If so, then it is possible for a Christian to believe in true Darwinism. Bilbo I

---Bilbo1: "It’s not at all clear to me that a Darwinist must believe that Christianity accidentally evolved amid the noise of neurons. If God created the universe foreknowing that eventually human beings would evolve who would have the ability to come to know God, then it wasn’t really an accident. Therefore, it doesn’t follow that man created God." What you have described is not Darwinism, which teaches that man's arrival was an accident. The Christian world view holds that, if evolution occurred, God designed the the process with apriori intent, which rules out Darwinism in principle. Christianity = apriori intent by a designer leading to a desired outcome that conforms perfectly to the designers intention. ["I knew you before you were in your mother's womb"]. Darwinism = no design, no intent, and a surprise outcome. ["Evolution is a purposeless, mindless process that did not have man in mind."] Evolution either knew where it is going or it didn’t; the process was either orchestrated or it wasn’t; the end result was either intended or it wasn’t. The Christian Darwinist wants to have it both ways. StephenB

tgp: "SB, I took your name “in vain” the other night at a talk I gave on naturalism." TG @7, Thanks for getting me in the game. StephenB

Denyse, You wrote: Darwinism opposes Christianity in a much more serious way than is generally recognized: The Darwinist must – and usually does – believe that Christianity accidentally evolved amid the noise of neurons and it spread via natural selection. Thus it was that man created God. It's not at all clear to me that a Darwinist must believe that Christianity accidentally evolved amid the noise of neurons. If God created the universe foreknowing that eventually human beings would evolve who would have the ability to come to know God, then it wasn't really an accident. Therefore, it doesn't follow that man created God. Bilbo I

TGPeeler: "... I attributed to you the pithy and 100% accurate: “Reason’s rules inform evidence, evidence doesn’t inform reason’s rules.” I think if more people really understood that there would be a lot less ignorance in the world." There are too many people who refuse to understand that: it's willful ignorance against which we battle. Ilion

RkBall: "... So, he’s comfy with the darwinist who insists on random evolution, but does not equate randomness with directionlessness." Which reveals either shocking ignorance or intellectual dishonesty. For, definitionally what has direction in the sense you are using the word is not randon. Ilion

When a person values "niceness" or "civility" over truth, it is inevitable that must compromise truth to preserve the illusion of "niceness" or "civility." Ilion

SB, I took your name "in vain" the other night at a talk I gave on naturalism. I attributed to you the pithy and 100% accurate: "Reason's rules inform evidence, evidence doesn't inform reason's rules." I think if more people really understood that there would be a lot less ignorance in the world. :-) tgpeeler

IF neo-darwinian evolution means that God didn't do it, and it does, THEN theistic evolutionists are in effect saying that God did it by not doing it. Either that or they are NOT talking about the same evolution that everyone else is. They are incoherent, at best. Since it's Christmas and I'm trying to be "nicer" I won't comment on the other end of the intellectual spectrum they may occupy. :-) tgpeeler

My meagre understanding of the Christian Darwinist is that he believes a) that life appeared entirely via the mechanism of evolution without any gaps requiring divine assistance, and b) evolution appears to be random from a scientific point of view, but, since God is sovereign, what appears random to us is actually the unfolding a process established by God at work. So, he's comfy with the darwinist who insists on random evolution, but does not equate randomness with directionlessness. RkBall

StephenB, you are definitely invited to the next birthday party I am willing to admit to, and I will see you get a corner slice. Seriously, much thanks for support in a place where I too often hear, "You just don't understand." Actually, what I don't understand cannot be understood while one remains faithful to the principle of logical non-contradiction. In fairness to the Christian Darwinists (CDs): - I think they face the declining influence of Judaism and Christianity in Western culture, and they believe that the solution is to remove obvious points of clash. - Because the atheist materialists will not budge, their solution is to persuade Christians to accept their creation story instead of ours. - They are convinced that they are helping Christians by doing this. I've now met a number of Christians who lost their jobs because they wouldn't toe the Darwin line, not due to any competing ideology but to insufficient evidence. Not one would have been willing to accept the "Christian Darwinist" solution, I am glad to say, because it did not and cannot meet their intellectual standards. So then who gets the job? In many cases, in my experience, it is people who support Darwinism as a faith and are not interested in the true state of the evidence. O'Leary

See Can an Evangelical Christian Accept Evolution? Human Genomics: Vestiges of Eden or Skeletons in the Closet? Harfen

Denyse, the only reason that I don't interact with you more frequently on this subject is because I don't want to bore you by saying "Amen" too often. Frankly, I look forward to your commentaries on "theistic evolution" because I know that you will always find new and creative ways to expose its many ironies. As an example, you write: "So man created God, but no, God created man. Or God created man with the capacity of accidentally evolve an idea of God as an illusion. Why? Because he couldn’t reveal himself?" Very nice. For my part, Christian Darwinism is both oxymoronic and schizophrenic, I do wonder what it must be like for these people. How do they manage to reconcile two contradictory world views into one rhetorical mishmash and hold it into place year after year without actually going insane? What motivates them? Do they fear the establishment so much that they are willing to sell their intellectual soul for a few "attaboys?" Or, dare we suggest that perhaps their education is lacking on matters related to the unity of truth? StephenB

Christian Darwinists (who are all theistic evolutionists) are a real funny bunch, particularly the BioLogos guys. They certainly cannot embrace every aspect of evolutionist faith: it is, after all, the creation myth of atheism. However, if there was truly overwhelming evidence that life on Earth evolved then I would become a theistic evolutionist myself. What I want to know about theistic evolutionists is why do they seem to concentrate on attacking non-evolutionists rather than attacking non-theists? These people happily get into bed with the likes of Dawkins. But really, if they believe in God - particularly the Christian God - then the battlelines are clear: Christians v Non-Christians. In short, what do they hope to gain by allying themselves with the enemies of Christianity while shunning their fellow Christians? Chris Doyle