I read your article, and wonder if I might respectfully offer my criticism, if helpful to your thoughts. Please let me know if/how I misunderstand you if I do…
As you define Detectable Divine Intervention, you offer 3 possible interpretations/definitions:
We can witness miracles (which you see as being required by Christian EC advocates)
We can detect violations of the typically understood laws of nature (which you find problematic for the reasons you mention).
I’m afraid I fail to see how these two are different. How, exactly, are you defining miracle, such that it is not an interference, a violation, or an otherwise inexplicable change in the regularly established course of nature that we call “natural laws”?
Yes, I can detect a miracle, but no, I can’t detect God intervening in the world in a manner unexpected or inexplicable by known natural processes…”
What am I missing? Was the resurrection not a “feature of the natural world that could not have come about by following the natural laws”?
Or, alternately, you mention “ ‘detection’ on this view of DDI necessitates a fair amount of hubris on our part, because we have to claim that we know the laws so comprehensively and in such detail that we can determine things couldn’t have gotten that way through ordinary means.” Does this not also require we cannot therefore detect or witness a “miracle,” since it requires hubris to claim so comprehensively that the resurrection could not actually have been the result of heretofor undetected natural processes?
We can’t detect divine intervention through science. But we can detect it through other ways of knowing. As Jim pointed out in the linked article under discussion, nothing in evolutionary creationism (which is distinct from science, because it combines theological discourse with facts from scientific discourse) disallows looking at nature and interpreting it as the work of an intelligent creator who is active in the natural world.
You can’t investigate that question with methodological naturalism because embedded in the question is the metaphysical commitment to the possibility of intelligent design, and I’m sorry, but hardly anyone else presumes a natural intelligent agent. So the question inherently invokes an intelligent agent that is outside the known natural world.
I think maybe now we are not using detect the same way. In the other thread we were speaking of detect in terms of offering scientific proof. In Jim’s article detect is used more generically like “see and interpret.” I would say we can observe the supernatural and identify it as such. We can’t prove it is supernatural activity using the tools of science. Are we on the same page? I have had spiritual experiences where I do indeed “detect” God’s presence and activity. Maybe I would not say that my senses and my reason are the faculties I use to observe this presence and activity, but again, there are many ways of knowing and various human faculties for arriving at truth.
Sure. But seeing God as the author is an interpretation, not a scientific conclusion. A valid interpretation I would say.
As someone who identifies with ID, are there points that Behe made in his article that you think Jim (representing the EC view) misunderstood or did not address satisfactorily? Do you see the difference between evolutionary science as science and evolutionary creationism as science and theology in dialogue, where multiple discourses can be called on to answer questions, not just scientific discourse?
The theory of evolution (in whatever form it is presented) is the result of scientific study, and as such has limitations, speculations, and errors.
The act of creation by God is total and we take that as given, without speculative theology nor modifications.
From the source mentioned:
As for the modifier “evolutionary,” there is also diversity among ECs about what the science says. Here ECs have typically thought the lowest common denominator should be common ancestry. That is, in order to count as an EC, you ought to at least affirm that all life forms on Earth (including human beings) are related through common ancestors
Thus imo there is a mismatch when using the term evolution with creation.
But philosophically, what that is “supernatural,” literally, can you detect with your senses? Your retina can only observe photons. Not helium, not dark matter, not the “supernatural,” only photons. Your ears can only detect vibrations, and sound waves, generally transmitted through air but other media as well, but you can’t hear something “supernatural.”
You can most certainly not observe the “supernatural,” any more than you argue you can examine it with science.
However, you can most certainly detect the result of supernatural activity by its effect or manipulation natural world that we can sense, which is what I presume you meant. If you witnessed a dead body rise, a multiplication of fish and bread, etc., you would recognize of course that you’d witnessed a miracle. But to be careful with our terms, you most emphatically did not “observe” the supernatural, rather, you observed the effect the supernatural had on nature, or the natural means by which the supernatural manifested himself within nature. “no one has ever seen God”, after all.
A point I have conceded many times I already agree with you… . The actual crux of our disagreement is i find it inescapable that one can scientifically, empirically recognize intelligent, designing purpose in general under certain circumstances; but yes, I concur absolutely that interpreting that intelligence to be the God of the Bible is an interpretation entirely outside the realm of science.
Let me read both articles carefully and I’ll get back to you on your last question. But I already addressed what seems a glaring inconsistency in Jim’s article that jumped off the page at me when I simply glanced over it… a “miracle” is clearly detectable, but a “violation of a natural law” is clearly not…??? This makes no sense to me, and it makes me very confused as to his definition or understanding of a miracle. I would think most people would think “miracle” and “violation of natural law” nearly synonymous, or at least conceptually very similar.
How Jim can say a (Christian) advocate of EC absolutely must concur that the miraculous is detectable, but must simultaneously say that a violation of natural law cannot be detectable… sounds like saying that a certain club should absolutely admit unmarried men as members, but should absolutely refuse to admit bachelors into their membership.
That’s why I said you don’t necessarily detect it with your senses. You use your intuition, imagination, conscience. I don’t think these are lesser faculties than senses and reason.
Well, as you said, you can observe the effects. I think the interpretation that the effects have supernatural cause is arrived at via intuition, imagination, conscience, in addition to reason. Plus, God is a person who communicates with his children in a way we can access. Maybe observe is the wrong word.
I think that is in the context of “did God violate natural laws in his guidance of evolution? Is there a supernatural element to evolution?” Some Christians would say that creation, even if it was through a natural process like evolution, requires divine intervention (violating the natural progression of things). They would see it as incompatible to claim that evolution is a purely natural process with random elements while also claiming that God is sovereign over creation, all things happen according to his will and plan, humans are intentionally created in God’s image, etc.
The whole point of a miracle is to be observable and serve as a sign. But science would say that if God did miracles in evolutionary history, they can’t be proven, and the evolutionary model does not include God’s involvement.
This of course is a false dichotomy. If evolution is not guided by unguided natural forces, then what is Natural Selection? You can claim that Natural Selection does not guide because it is “natural,” but that begs the question. The idea that Natural Selection guides evolution is fundamental to Darwin’s understanding of evolution. He said that Natural Selection will lead to the perfection of each life form. Origin p. 473.
Darwin understood that Natural Selection guided evolution, but he did not understand how and why Natural Selection. Survival of the Fittest is a slogan which attempts to do this, but it is not scientific because it has not been scientifically verified. People assume that it has, no one has shown me where it has been and I have not found it on my own. I*t has not been verified because it can’t be verified, since it is false.
Is biological complexity intelligently designed? No and Yes. No because God did not design organisms de novo. Yes, because God designed organisms through Natural Selection and evolution. This does not take place through Survival of the Fittest, but through Ecology or adaption to the environment as the basis of Natural Selection.
Science would also say that if Jesus did miracles during his lifetime, they also can’t be proven, no? But that doesn’t really speak to the problem I’m seeing.
I’ll have to let Jim further explain directly. I don’t want to impute motives. But It strikes me as special pleading to make such a forced distinction between a “miracle”, which advocates of EC must acknowledge to be detectable, and a “violation of natural law,” which is clearly not detectable. In any context, this sounds like someone trying to have the proverbial cake while eating it, too.
Either a “miracle” is in principle detectable, whether that miracle is causing a dead body to live or causing lifeless organic matter to become a living cell… or it is not. An observable miracle doesn’t magically become unobservable simply because we use different words to describe it. By almost any reasonable definition, a miracle can be defined as and is practically synonymous with “a violation of nature’s laws.” It can’t arbitrarily be both detectable and not detectable depending simply on what words we use to describe it.
By “unguided” I simply mean not “intentionally” or ”purposefully” guided.
In the military we have guided and unguided (dumb-fire) missiles. If one wanted to be pedantic about language, one might say that all missiles are guided… even dumb-fire missiles are still “guided” by wind, gravity, ballistics, etc. but we all simply understand “unguided” to mean “not directly guided by intentional purpose,” but rather their course is undirected by anything other than blind, unintentional natural forces.
I am constantly reminding people that there is a difference between a Scientific discussion and a Theological discussion.
Just recently in a discussion I was in, somebody said that asserting “God never existed” was a metaphysical statement.
In my counter, all I could say is that if even saying God never existed is metaphysical, then EVERYTHING is metaphysical… rendering the word useless.
When I say Paul Bunyan never existed, it should not be interpreted as a statement about the person of Paul Bunyan - - if the person Bunyan is fictional.
Where did you get this phrase “violations of natural law are not detectable”?
That is a formulation we rarely see here … or anywhere. The more usual statement is that “God engaging in guiding natural processes is not detectable”.
What is not detectable about “super-natural” (as opposed to purely natural) events is WHY it happened or who CAUSED it to happen.
If the birth of Jesus is a super-natural event… his birth is nevertheless DETECTABLE!
If crossing the Red Sea was a super-natural event … the crossing would still be detectable!
Directly from Jim Stump’s article referenced above, where he says:
“DDI [detectable divine intervention] here means something like supernatural violations of laws resulting in features we can discover and determine to be otherwise impossible. . . . this version of DDI should not be allowed by EC.”
Jay, however one interprets the meaning and application of the first chapters of Genesis, I think it is beyond dispute that within the narrative itself, God is portrayed as doing miracles to bring the world and life into being, using his supernatural power to bring things into existence rather than allowing natural processes to take their course, and all this before there was anyone to observe it.
And if the design and creation of, say, dolphins was a supernatural event… the dolphins would still be DETECTABLE… but I won’t go there…
More to the point, this illustrates further my concern raised about Jim’s article. He says:
“instead of admitting a gap in our knowledge about how things work, we confidently claim that the gap is due to an intervention.”
How is this critique of his not just as applicable to miracles as to “violations of natural laws”?
Take any recorded miracle, Jesus’ birth, the resurrection, etc… could we not likewise say that we should admit a gap in our knowledge, rather than claiming divine intervention?
Here is where Behe jumps the shark: “evolution: the change over time of physical systems (including living ones) due to the outplaying of natural laws.” No one includes “physical systems” in the definition of “evolution.” Otherwise, plate tectonics is “evolution,” the formation of stars and planets is “evolution,” a river changing course is “evolution,” a lake becoming polluted is “evolution,” etc. The kind of “evolution” referenced in “evolutionary creation” and all of Behe’s own writings is clearly biological evolution, not mere “change over time” in anything and everything. Bottom line: If you are going to argue against the EC position, at least represent it accurately, not as you imagine it for debate purposes.
Does EC take a generally recognized stance on chemical evolution, in addition to biological evolution?
If so, then Behe may simply be referring to the whole process, that EC is viewing God’s involvement in the entire process, both before and after the formation of the first life, and which would by definition include physical processes that are not (yet) biological.
If not, then it sounds like you are right in that Behe would be misrepresenting his opposition.
HOWEVER: For what it is worth: Behe’s characterization of EC strikes me as fair and appropriate, since in the relevant discussion, it was EC’s own representative (James Stump) - to which Behe was responding - who specifically brought up and included such physical processes in his larger description of EC philosophy:
“I believe God has created all things, so when I see lava pouring out into the Pacific from Kilauea, I see it as God continuing to create the land… If this is what is meant by DDI [detectable divine intervention], then I will say that it is allowed by evolutionary creation.”
I’d appreciate everyone’s insight and feedback… in Behe’s response, he defines Evolutionary Creation as follows:
“the idea that God created all the matter, energy, and laws of the universe ex nihilo in a single event, in the beginning, in the knowledge that they would develop over time into the world He intended by the outplaying of natural laws”
Is this accurate? Problematic? Mostly right? Straw man? I’d be curious from those here on this site if this is a fair or accurate representation, or if and how it misses the point?
It’s too restrictive in that most ECs would probably take issue with the implied denial of God’s involvement after the beginning. I think many ECs (at least outspoken ones around here) insist that God continues to be involved in our continued every-day affairs - and that this is a theological observation rather than a scientific one.
The NT also occasionally uses powers (dunamis) and works (ergon) to describe miraculous events. Without going back and checking every occurrence, I believe it is these words that are typically translated as “miracles” in English (see Matthew 11 & 13, for instance).
Since I’m only “expert” in English (and doubt remains about that claim), I can’t speak to whether the “doublets” are synonyms piled up for intensification (as in Heb. 4:12, “dividing soul and spirit”) or are semantically different. To my mind, I would throw “wonders,” “powers,” and “works” all under the same rubric of awe-inspiring acts of God, which could all be covered by the English term “miracle.” (As in @aleo’s Miracle of the Panel Truck.)
I think “signs” fall into a different category. It seems to me that the usage here draws from the prophetic tradition, both in Israel and in antiquity. No one made an important decision without consulting a prophet or oracle in those days, and every crucial historical event was expected to be accompanied by some sort of sign. In English, “omens” comes close to this usage, although I wouldn’t necessarily use it in Bible translation. Good luck!
The only way to prove it would be to rule out every other possible cause, and proving a negative – “Nothing but God …” – is notoriously difficult if not impossible, as ID has discovered.
At this point, I want to come back to John 12:29-30, and the reaction of the people who heard the voice from heaven: “The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him. Jesus said, ‘This voice was for your benefit, not mine.’” Or, even more importantly, Matthew 28:16-17: " Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted…"
Notice, again, that even witnessing a miracle does not guarantee belief. Most people will always doubt and search for a “natural” explanation. (“It thundered!”) The lesson is this: Even if ID were to succeed beyond its wildest dreams and scientifically prove that God miraculously intervened at some point, the majority of people still would not accept or believe it. By definition, ID is a quixotic effort.
I’ve been thinking about this, too. Is God speaking a miracle in itself? I don’t know. The text doesn’t call it such. Also, in his essay, Behe attaches the ex nihilo modifier to creation, creationism, and divine intervention. Is that a valid condition? Consider the incarnation. The angel told Mary that “the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” This is essentially the same language found in Gen. 1:2 (the Spirit was hovering over the waters) and at the Transfiguration (a cloud appeared and covered them…). Whatever miracle God did in Mary’s womb, it involved “existing stuff” – her physical body. Jesus was not created ex nihilo in the desert as a grown man, only to walk directly into Jerusalem and immediately begin his mission. Thus, I see no reason to insist that every miracle or creative act of God must be an ex nihilo production.
Back to the original question: Is God performing “miracles” in early Genesis? Again, I don’t know. Some, like John Walton, interpret the passage as God assigning functions, not creating ex nihilo. Other interpreters disagree with him on that point. For myself, the category of “miracle” is useful but extra-biblical, and the text doesn’t include the typical language of signs and wonders, so the question seems undecided on the basis of exegesis alone.
There is one passage that might clarify things. Psalm 19 starts off,
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
Thus, even though no one was there to observe as it happened, the lasting physical effects of God’s creative activity remain behind to testify that it was, in fact, a miraculous “sign.” As to whether everyone will accept the testimony of the heavens, see the above discussion about John 12.
. The actual crux of our disagreement is i find it inescapable that one can scientifically, empirically recognize intelligent, designing purpose in general under certain circumstances; but yes, I concur absolutely that interpreting that intelligence to be the God of the Bible is an interpretation entirely outside the realm of science.