But I really DO think that Christian Darwinism is an oxymoron

_{Denyse O'Leary

December 11, 2010

Darwinism, Religion}

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Something I wrote recently seems to have sparked quite the little discussion. (Dang! Everybody talks to Barry, nobody talks to me … 🙂 )

Briefly, I noted that a friend’s post had been removed from a Christian Darwinist site because the moderator felt that he had intimated that Theodosius Dobzhansky was not a Christian. (He was not a Christian by any reasonable standard.)

How can one tell if a person is a Christian, many wanted to know. Isn’t that just making a judgement (judge not, lest ye be …)?

Barry Arrington made the excellent point that asking the person to affirm the Creed may be setting the bar a little high.

Fair enough: When I have used the Creed that way, I aimed to sort out situations where the person darn well knows what the Creed says and how it may differ from his private convictions. And I had good reasons for asking; otherwise, I wouldn’t bother. I have neither time nor inclination for hunting down heresies. (And none of this is written with prejudice to any other religion. It’s just that salesdarwinists currently target confused Christians more than other confused folk. So, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and others, please pardon us Christians as we set the record straight.)

We must say something when someone like Dobzhansky is fronted as a “Christian” to advance the Darwinist cause. I don’t object in principle to other rational criteria for assessing whether someone is a Christian, ones such as Barry offered. The main thing to see here is that a person cannot in good faith believe two doctrines that oppose each other at the most basic level.

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.

Now, if the Darwinist also believes that Christianity was the result of God’s admittedly spectacular self-revelations (cf the Creed**), then he believes that God created man. Which is it?

More to the point, if the Darwinist also believes that God can do all that the Creed commands* good Christians to believe, he cannot rationally go on to insist that

🙂 man is a part of nature, and Darwin proved it

🙂 God never intervenes in nature, but does it all by Darwinism

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?

So yes, I do think Christian Darwinism is an oxymoron, if the Christian Darwinist is unconfused enough to know what he is saying.

It is hardly irrelevant to this discussion that 78% of evolutionary biologists are “pure naturalists” (no God and no free will).

* You cannot become an adult Catholic, so far as I know, without assenting intellectually to the Creed.

**For those for whom the Creed may be a bit challenging, due to age, haste, extreme suffering, emergency, etc., there is also a more basic prayer, the Act of Faith :

O MY GOD, I firmly believe that Thou art one God in three divine persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit; I believe that Thy divine Son became man and died for our sins, and that He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived. Amen.

. Now that is either branch of Christianity or Darwin’s neural noise.

Comments

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_{December 15, 2010
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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_{December 15, 2010
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[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_{December 15, 2010
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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_{December 15, 2010
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---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_{December 15, 2010
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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 TKIkairosfocus_{December 15, 2010
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---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_{December 15, 2010
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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_{December 15, 2010
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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 TKIkairosfocus_{December 15, 2010
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F/N; FWIW, my thoughts are here. Might be helpful, so shared. All best.kairosfocus_{December 15, 2010
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My question for "christian darwinists"- What is the difference between your God (one who uses blind, undirected processes) and no God at all?Joseph_{December 15, 2010
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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_{December 15, 2010
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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_{December 15, 2010
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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_{December 15, 2010
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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_{December 15, 2010
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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_{December 15, 2010
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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_{December 15, 2010
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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_{December 15, 2010
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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_{December 15, 2010
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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_{December 14, 2010
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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_{December 14, 2010
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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_{December 14, 2010
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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_{December 14, 2010
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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_{December 14, 2010
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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_{December 14, 2010
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If a process can potentially produce any number of outcomes, but without constraint will only produce one outcome...uhmUpright BiPed_{December 14, 2010
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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_{December 14, 2010
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--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_{December 14, 2010
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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_{December 14, 2010
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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_{December 14, 2010
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