Differences within EC... Classic Providential Naturalism?

[Casper_Hesp]

Hi Jon, thank you for your gracious response. I understood the manifesto was published two years ago, and that much could have shifted in the meantime. However, I also assumed that your belief statement would have been updated if attitudes had changed significantly by now.

I suppose that “distancing” would be too strong of a word for it, but BioLogos does seem to have made clear on multiple occasions that they are not identifying themselves with the positions of those who were part of it in the past. For example, in the discussion under the post on Nanotechnology, @jstump said the following in a discussion with @Eddie:

@jstump

So I think we’d make some further headway on our disagreements if when you’re objecting to “BioLogos” you’d confine that to the people who are actually part of BioLogos now (unless you’re addressing history). These include the staff members, our Board of Directors, and members of the Advisory Council. These people don’t agree on every point, but they are the only people who have publicly identified with BioLogos and with whom BioLogos has publicly identified. I don’t mean this in the silly “distance ourselves from our founder” way that these guys tried to spin it, just that we are an organization that develops (and adapts?!) over time.

I like the things you’re saying on the relationship between historic Christian doctrines and developments in current science, philosophy, and theology. If you have any crucial readings that you would like to recommend, I’d be happy to hear about it.

@Jon_Garvey

But since there are big gaps in what it is interested in publishing as articles (as opposed to the merry anarchy of the comments board), it’s hardly fair to criticise us for making such stuff available to serious thinkers elsewhere.

Far be it from me to criticize such initiatives. Keep it up!

[Jon_Garvey]

Thanks Casper.

To be precise, it looks as though Jim was addressing the question of those who were never official spokesmen for BioLogos, “unless [Eddie] is addressing history.” Organisations that change over time need to address history, or find themselves judged by past utterances and policies.

I think, for example, of the constant dredging up of the Wedge Document or “Pandas and People” by the opponents of ID - here as well as elsewhere - who would not be satisfied by the reply “I’m not Phillip Johnson or Dean Kenyon”. One has to justify or separate oneself from one’s past - up to and including your founder.

As an aside, it’s sometimes amusing to hear long discussions here about what a particular paragraph of The Language of God means, as if Francis Collins were some long departed sage rather than alive and well and running an important government program; though I appreciate that the US has a big problem with the separation of church and freedom of speech, so he’s prevented from saying, “This is what I meant…”

Crucial readings … you’re not counting The Hump of the Camel, then? All my recommendations - other than blogs and papers - get on to the Hump’s booklist. More people should read Wallace to get Darwin in perspective (Lamarck is probably essential for the future, now that he’s coming back into the fold via epigenetics). The historical treatment of providence, divine action and chance is vital - and Aquinas isn’t a bad investment of time on such matters, as he is on chance and the nature of final and formal causation (Ed Feser waves his flag well on that on the web). Information theory is poorly understood by most TEs - Yockey’s a good place to start.

But there are so many strands, ancient and modern, the bottom line being to shake one’s reliance on modern received “self-evident” wisdom as if it were timeless and universal, be that in science, or theology, or philosophy or whatever. It’s a bit like suddenly being confronted with the reality that demons aren’t just mediaeval superstitions (thanks for your comments on that, by the way).

[beaglelady]

I think that disturbing article speaks for itself.

[fmiddel]

@Casper_Hesp

Theistic Evolutionism (aka BioLogos [Collins] or Evolutionary Creation [Falk]) is the re-branding, with a completely new recipe, of Warfieldian Theistic Evolution, which for various reasons scarcely survived the twentieth century. All its titles are arguably misleading, since (to cut the long story we all know short) it is more deistic than theistic, has little place for the Logos of God (and often a marginal one for the Bible as logos) and delegates much of creation to “Nature” as an unacknowledged Demiurge.

Frankly, this is news to me. I’ve never gotten this impression from Biologos. Maybe I haven’t read enough on here? But given some of the contributors, I find that claim surprising.

[jstump (Jim Stump)]

Before my involvement with BioLogos, I was involved in a multi-year project with a colleague to write a history of Christian Thought (coming out in a 2nd edition this summer!). I was the junior partner of the author team, but did a lot of reading and research in the primary and secondary literature. The overwhelming take-away for me from that project was an appreciation for the breadth and diversity of the Christian tradition. I’m sure that has affected the way I’ve approached theological disputes here. So long as I have influence on the BioLogos “What we believe” statement, we’re not going to adopt official positions on things like historical Adam and Eve, Sovereignty, Atonement, Open Theism, or Eschatology. There is room for discussion. The frustration from our side with the Hump crowd has been that too often the messaging has felt like: “Unless you accept our brand of the Reformed Christian tradition, what you are doing is pointless at best, and more likely, heretical.” My gut reaction to such a message is to walk away saying, “There is no point in trying to have discussion and dialogue there.” Now, most days I know (as opposed to feel) that there is value in continuing discussion. Sy is absolutely correct that he was instrumental in the reversal of our decision to suspend commenting on the site (though it was only a week, instead of a couple of months). And I will continue to support open commenting as long as we can find moderators like Casper and Christy who donate their time to try to keep things civil. My suggestion for more fruitful dialogue is to refer to individuals and their positions whenever possible, instead of using the generic “TE/EC leaders”. I’m not trying to deny or distance ourselves from our history. Enns, Giberson, Sparks, Collins, etc. have their personal views. And so far as I can tell, they are still viable and valuable interlocutors with the BioLogos crowd. But to find something one of them said and proclaim it to be the BioLogos view (or more subtly, to be what EC leaders say), is unproductive. Theology is a human construction; it was not handed down from heaven. Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin have been helpful guides for lots of Christians. And I think they are still worth reading today. But all were working within a metaphysical paradigm that is different from ours today, and as such we must be open to working out new ways of understanding our history (I was reading Gadamer last night). Certainly we’d expect that not everyone will agree on the best way to do that. So we make the best case we can, and open ourselves up to the other and their insights (more Gadamer… now there will probably be some article on uncommondescent about BioLogos jumping in bed with postmodernism!!).

Thanks for the stimulating conversation.

[dscottjorgenson (Scott Jorgenson)]

Of course when I said “I need…” that was just a manner of speaking. What I mean is that there is a hunger in the human soul, I think, for goodness and love to be at the root of what God is, and to disregard that is to disregard a huge part of the human experience in longing for God. We are a unity not just of intellect but of spirit, intuition, and emotion as well, and we are made less if any parts of that unity are not honored and listened-to but are rather subjugated to the others.

Evangelical distrust of the human mind and soul, due to our sinfulness, can sometimes be so great that it leads us to distrust what our very hearts are crying out for. It leads us to subjugate our hearts to intellect and doctrine - but not only is that a cop-out, it is not even Biblical in itself (just look at the prophets and the psalms).

The Bible attests to this too, I think, in how it posits God’s goodness and love just as much, if not more so in John at least, as his other attributes; and how it then makes no real attempts to intellectually reconcile the tensions. I know this drives some people crazy; it is probably why Job’s prologue and epilogue read as they do, so great was the urge to make some ‘sense’ of Job’s suffering (ie the heavenly wager) even while the main body of the poem just leaves it to mystery and lets Job’s heart speak.

[Sy_Garte]

Thanks, Jim. My memory is not what it used to be (which was never great), and I guess a week must have expanded to months in my recollection. Speaking for myself first, I am in total agreement with your points on keeping the “What we Believe” section open to many diverse viewpoints. I don’t actually see how it could be otherwise. There certainly are not enough evolutionary creationists in the world to start splitting into factions, and there is no reason that any of us should agree entirely with anyone else on either theological or scientific questions. (The extent of disagreement in science is highly under-reported, or ignored by many non-scientist observers of the science scene).

But having said this, let’s also agree that while Biologos fills a critical niche in science faith discussions, it is also a good thing (in fact a vital thing) that Biologos not stand alone on the internet in this niche. Jon’s blog has been a valuable and informative asset to all who are seeking guidance in this journey to reconcile God’s two books. So is Ruth Banewicz’s blog at the Faraday Institute, several Pantheos blogs, several facebook groups (including Celebrating Creation by Natural Selection), James McGrath’s blog, and so many more (even including my own recent addition to the Blogosphere Thebookofworks). Each of these will be flavored by a somewhat different viewpoint, each should refer to all the others, cross post when useful and consider themselves part of a community. It was in this spirit that the people mentioned in Caspar’s original post agreed to spend more time at Hump, and even post some articles there at the time that we thought Biologos would be forever closed to outside input.

As Merv, Eddie and Jon have already pointed out, there was never any thought of a “distancing” or splitting off from Biologos, at least none that I was aware of. I am glad to see that Caspar does admit that some of his “quotes have been made selectively” which might contribute to a misleading impression, at least in my own case.

Not very long ago, on November 15 2015, (which was before Caspar joined us) I expressed my overall thoughts about Biologos in a response to my brother in Christ, Eddie (with whom I have had many disagreements about ID and TE). At the risk of totally alienating anyone still reading this, I would like to repost the entire comment here without editing, since I think it speaks well to the question of how I have always viewed Biologos.

"@Eddie

I really should let someone from Biologos respond, but I will try my best. I dont think Biologos is perfect, nor does anyone else. But consider if you will what this web site, this foundation and this entire philosophical point of view (which we call TE or CE) stands for. I will give you a personal account. With a great deal of struggle to overcome my long history and upbringing as an anti theistic atheist, I finally was able to admit that Christ’s call to me to follow him had gotten through, and I allowed the joy of salvation to overcome and overwhelm my liberated soul. I spent quite some time in an emotional roller coaster, as the scales fell from my eyes, and I began to see and feel the amazing grace of God’s love.

But there was a problem. I was an active scientific researcher, and I didnt know a single other scientist who was a professing Christian. I didnt even know OF any such scientist. I had heard of creation science, and like all of my peers I simply rejected it. I knew that there were wonderful theologians who also claimed that science and Christian faith could be compatible. But all actual scientists (I thought) were either atheists or agnostics, or if they did profess some religion, I saw no sign of the evangelical fervor that was gripping me. I felt completely alone.

And then I found The Language of God. I knew who Francis Collins was, of course, and I had even met him at a small symposium on Genetics and Ethics. I had had no idea that he was a Christian. Reading that book was electrifying for me. I must have shouted “YES” a hundred times to an empty room. I knew I was not alone after all, praise God.

I began to participate in discussions on this web site, and was fortunate enough in due course to meet almost everyone at Biologos, including Darrel Falk, the past President. I have worked with Kathryn, I have talked with Deb Haarsma, and Jim Stump and Brad Kramer, Jeff Schloss and Ard Louis, Dennis Venema and Jeff Hardin. These are the names of some of the folks you are referring to when you talk about Biologos and TE leaders. For me, all these people, like Francis himself, are saints. Some of them had been YECs, some had been atheists or agnostics. And all of these people had seen a light, and then were called to fan the flame so that it could shine into the souls of the lost, like me.

Students who were on the verge of rejecting Christianity, forced to choose between their faith and the science they were learning in college, found a third way, a way to see that you CAN be a Christian and a scientist. Pastors, struggling to keep their congregations aware of, and not afraid of the blows from secular society using science as a weapon to create doubt, have come to Biologos workshops and gone home with renewed vigor in their knowledge of the compatibility of Christian faith with the reality of science. Youth leaders, Church lay leaders, seminary students have seen the beauty of the Biologos message of reconciliation of the two books of God’s works and word. Agnostics and people of spiritual yearnings, who shunned Christianity because of fears of being trapped in an anti scientific world view, have found in Biologos the path to allow the joy of God’s grace to fill their souls, without any sacrifice to their reason .

At Biologos meetings I have heard and met some of the true Christian heroes of our time, like John Walton and Tom Wright. These giants of Christian theological scholarship are humble, amazing people, who have heard the call of Christ to come and help Him lead his flock out of darkness into the light of a new understanding of Gospel and Scripture.

Do I agree with everything that everyone who is connected with Biologos says? That would be impossible, because there is no dogma here, and everyone is in the process of learning and teaching, thinking and studying.

My point is simple. This is a blessed place, this Biologos web site, and the people who work there are blessed beacons of truth. They do not have all the answers, that is true. Sometimes I, like you, dont agree with some of them. But I know that you (and Jon, and GJDS, Roger and Beaglelady and so many more) know that there is really something special here, since I know you were all here from the beginning and you havent left, and you are devoted to the same cause as I am. To defend and protect the cause of Christ, to let the world know the beauty and majesty of the Christian faith, and of God’s great Creation as not only a jewel of great beauty, but of reason and deep understanding.

I think it is fitting and just for us to argue, to disagree, to develop ideas, and even sometimes to get frustrated when we feel we are not being listened to. But I happen to know that the Biologos folks do listen to all of us. They, like us, are part of this struggle to learn and grow, to get it all right, to be the people of God we all feel called upon to be.

There are answers to all of our questions, answers known to God, and slowly revealed to us human mortals through his two great Books. We don’t know if ID or TE are part of those answers, or if even some parts of creation science might be. We don’t know if the newer evolutionary theories are correct, or if life originated on some other planet or if the galaxy is full of other Christ worshippers, or if we are all there is. We don’t know how God intervenes, and how much He does intervene in any part of our lives. There is a lot we don’t know, but it is a lot less than it was.

Our task is twofold: to continue the hard work of learning from Scripture and from Nature all we can about God and our place in His creation, and second, to ensure that the faith endures, stays strong against all foes, and allows and encourages all who seek Truth to gain the same peace, joy and love that I finally found in my long journey. God bless Biologos, and God bless all who come here to take part in this holy work."

Eddie and others gave me some positive feedback on that comment, and I think it sums things up pretty well. Peace.

[Jon_Garvey]

fmiddel - it shows the truth of the old adage that a text without a context is a pretext. In this case, the context was three years of essays on The Hump of the Camel exploring the history of contemporary theistic evolution - its academic antecedents and its popular writers - in comparison to the first generation of TEs lije Warfield, back in Darwin’s day.

The passage quoted wasn’t about why there is a Hump as well as a BioLogos. One of the principles of The Hump is that you can never get to a deep understanding through superficial reading.

[Jon_Garvey]

Jim

I wonder if you could suggest in what ways you think the metaphysical foundations today differ from those of, in particular, early moderns like the Reformers? I mean, of course, amongst those likely to be involved with EC, not the materialistic atheistic naturalists.

I ask because some of us feel that it may be the shortcomings of contemporary metaphysics that are a big part of why it is so difficult to reconcile science and faith now (when it wasn’t so hard for them). Indeed modern metaphysics appears to create trouble with dealing with a number of issues within both science, (such as quantum indeterminacy, the “mind body problem”, the nature of species, form, teleology, etc) and theology (divine action, the “problem of evil”, final causality and so on).

[Relates (Roger A. Sawtelle)]

@Casper_Hesp
@Jon_Garvey

As someone who both disagrees and respects both sides in this discussion, I would like to comment.

I disagree with the science and theology of both indeterminate TE and determinate ID.

I reject the notion that Christians must make the choice between a God Who is Sovereign and a God Who is Love. That is a false choice dictated by an inadequate called Western dualism. Clearly the God of the Bible, the God of Jesus Christ, and the God of the Trinity is both Sovereign and Loving, and Wise to boot. God is One, but God is also Three.

We have allowed Western dualism to tell us that we live in an either/or Reality, that God must be Loving or Sovereign and we must make the choice, that evolution must be determinate or indeterminate and we must make the choice. That simply is not true.

We need to stop arguing over these false dichotomies and build a fresh Christian Trinitarian world view which will unite us and give new life to the Church and the sciences as well.

[jstump (Jim Stump)]

@Jon_Garvey

I wonder if you could suggest in what ways you think the metaphysical foundations today differ from those of, in particular, early moderns like the Reformers?

Well, that’s a pretty huge question. Fortunately, I wrote my dissertation on it, so I have some material to draw on. Unfortunately, the answer doesn’t come in a neat package of individually analyzable claims. At least in my understanding of how this works, our metaphysical commitments are not “plug and play” modules that can be swapped out leaving the rest of the system intact. Instead, there is a massive overhaul that uses many of the same words (e.g., matter, force, energy) but comes to mean something very different by them. Alexandre Koyre (the most insightful historian of the Scientific Revolution on these matters (in my book)) describes the change as going from The Closed World to the Infinite Universe.

So the Reformers were basically Aristotelians in their metaphysics. There are lots of things we like about Aristotle as helpful correctives to the “materialistic atheistic naturalists” you mention. But we can’t just go back to Aristotle, thinking that we can use his notion of, say, substantial forms or final causes, and import them into our worldview today without reworking them. We live in a different “world” than Aristotle did, and the world of the Reformers had more in common with his than with ours (uh oh… my Gadamer is coming out again).

Besides the Koyre book mentioned, I highly recommend E.A. Burtt’s The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science and the more obscure Emile Meyerson’s Identity and Reality for working through this issue of the changed metaphysical framework wrought by modern science.

Just briefly, the change from Aristotle’s categories to laws of nature as explanatory principles has significant (and usually overlooked) implications for how we think about nature and our place in it. The categories pertain to individuals and are based on the inherent properties of those things. Modern science appeals to universal governing laws and relations between things. So the analogia entis of the Aristotelian worldview conditioned people to think that each entity behaves according to its own nature, which is defined by its position in the Great Chain of Being; universal laws of nature condition us to look for patterns that apply to all things, regardless of the kind of thing they are. This forces us to rethink things like essentialism, whether nature is more like a machine or an organism, and the extent to which reasons are treated as causes. I’m afraid that when we pull on one of these threads, there is an unraveling of the whole cloth that ensues.

I’m happy to go on record claiming that most scientific discussion today–by Christians and non-Christians alike–is woefully ignorant of the current metaphysical framework of our thought and (especially) of the history of its change over time. I can’t end a discussion of this topic without tossing in one of my favorite quotes of all time:

" In the last analysis it is the ultimate picture which an age forms of the nature of its world that is its most fundamental possession. It is the final controlling factor in all thinking whatever." (Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, p. 17).

The difficulty that people like Gadamer try to point out, is that even our thinking about the picture of the world that another age had can only be done through the picture of the world we have. This makes the postmoderns claim that everything is relative and we might as well try to out-power our rivals. Gadamer’s suggestion is different: dialogue–encounter the other and open oneself to trying to see what they see.

Dialogue. That’s why we’re here. (sorry for the dissertation)

[Mervin_Bitikofer]

@jstump

The difficulty that people like Gadamer try to point out, is that even our thinking about the picture of the world that another age had can only be done through the picture of the world we have.

I guess it doesn’t get any deeper than this [with an eye to your favorite quote from Burtt)].

And the enlightenment response to this is to mount an escape plan (or pretend that the ‘escape’ has already happened, more typically) which should be captured in this objection that they mount: “We can’t have just ‘whatever’ picture of nature that we want, because if it doesn’t match with the real one, then our picture will develop problems by not matching with the reality we are observing; so therefore by insisting that our ‘picture’ of reality continue to match our ongoing observations of reality, we are closer to ensuring that our picture (as opposed to others that came before) is accurate.”

And so, our scientific thinker imagines that s(he) has “stepped out into the vacuum” by which s(he) purports to evaluate all other pictures of reality. And what an ongoing surprise to discover that this whole process was still trapped inside an encultured mind! Does it make any difference if this was a collective mind rather than an individual one?

It’s like thinking … I’m really awake now; all others before me were just dreaming.

[Jon_Garvey]

Thanks Jim - some things need a dissertation.

The situation you describe is more or less as I envision it. I like the idea of Aristotle (and others) being a corrective, but needing to be reworked to be so effectively. That’s always been necessary, at least in terms of tweaking Aristotle’s science as more information became available.

That essentialism becomes a problem with a “natural law” viewpoint is true - but we also can’t do without essentialism in some form when we speak of any category - such as the human being. “Christ died for all humanity” becomes problematic when there is no such essence as “humanity”.

Classic gradualistic Darwinism is a clear example of a theory seeking to free itself from essential forms (whilst paradoxically seeking to describe how they arose in the very title of the book). One is tempted to ask if the science proves the metaphysical issue, or is derived from it - what would happen if some “neogoldschmidtism” provides evidence that the fossil record suggesting saltations is truly representative? Already some epigenetic transformations reveal a saltational process.

Then again, natural law as a viewpoint has posed its own problems once you try to conceive what these laws actually are and where they reside (especially once they are no longer, as they began, held to be laws in the mind and sovereign governance of God). Does the metaphysics emerge from knowledge, or (as per Merv’s post) is it just a choice of what set of colour filters you choose to simplify a much richer reality?

[Argon]

@Jon_Garvey

Classic gradualistic Darwinism is a clear example of a theory seeking to free itself from essential forms…

Atoms are still atoms in any evolutionary account. Physics is still physics. The arrangements of matter differs but the underlying particles comprise ‘essential forms’. It’s like the planets. There are many of them and none are identical or what could be considered ‘essential’ forms of planet types. With a preferred metaphysics that leans toward ‘essential forms’, I can understand your attraction to Denton or ‘next-generation’ evolutionary theories invoking ‘epigenetics’ but at the moment, they’re pretty thin gruel, scientifically. It’s not clear: a) they’re necessary, b) could perform the job claimed, or c) exist as described. Having followed some of the field over the years and having more than a few times encountered “revolutionary, paradigm shifting concepts” contrasted against what is often a caricature of current evolutionary biology, I’m a bit more ‘phlegmatic’ when it comes to these claims. Adopt cautiously; more so if it seems to align with a cherished metaphysics because the emotional attraction may cloud judgement.

[Jon_Garvey]

Hi Argon

We’re talking here not about what is necessary to science, but what is necessary to reality, of which scientific truth may be an important part - though, actually, like theology, an important part of the human understanding of it. Metaphysics serves reality, not primarily science - except in scientism.

Planets may not constitute an essential form of physical reality - but they constitute an essential form in your discussion above, or the word would be meaningless. Scientists define planets, search for them, classify them as gas giants or whatever, argue vigorously over whether Pluto is or isn’t one, live on one, try to save one from climate change, and so on. All that may be arbitrary and human - but if so, we can’t have much of our scientific reality without such arbitrariness.

But here, on BioLogos (or on The Hump come to that) we’re believing in a theistic universe, and must ask whether the classes that we find necessary for discourse, like planets, also exist in God’s purposes. Did God create planets (as the Bible says he did), or just the essential forms “atoms” (or quarks, or whatever other irreducible entities we reduce “form” to)? If the latter, then all the beauty, wisdom and diversity in God’s creation, including “man created in God’s image” is epiphenomenological. We don’t even rise to deism.

So our metaphysics, as Christians, can’t marginalise the essences required every day in human discourse, nor those which appear necessary to any theistic conception, whether you’re dealing with it “in the vernacular” (God is my Father, he made the world, he loves people, etc) philosophically (with all the jargon), or in terms of revealed truth. Neither can it treat material reality as if it were divorced from the personal reality (essence) that created it (God) and, at theother end, from the personal realities (essences) which, alone, can investigate it (people).

If I’m emotionally attached to the metaphysical reality of essences it’s partly because without them there can be no “I”, no “thou” and no “Father, Lord and Spirit”. If they’re truly not necessary to science, then science is sitting loose to the totality of reality, or is at least a highly abstracted and limited part of reality. And if our metaphysics can’t acount for such essences, then it’s clearly deficient, because those things are what both God and humans are in a theistic, let alone a Christian, understanding.