God’s interventions?

Faith & Science Conversation
366

@gbrooks9,

I meant what I said. You want to put the emphasis on the mental or subjective. Faith is based on both objective proof and mental interpretation of the truth.

Also faith involves all of life, including science. We never know anything for sure. People who say they do are lying to themselves. Science in particular is based on the view that all knowledge is tentative. Thus I found it interesting when I read that Dawkins told his followers that Christians secretly doubt their faith, assuming that atheists do not.

Of course faith is not certainty, so yes Christians do doubt their faith, but since it is the best understanding of life available based on our experience and the facts as we know them, we live our faith the best we can despite our uncertainties. Thus we are open to new ideas and facts to perfect our understanding of Life in all its aspects.

@Patrick wants to put the emphasis on doubt. If it is doubtful, it is unreal, but everything is subject to doubt. Many people refuse to vaccinate their children today because they “doubt” science. If people lived by their doubts rather than faith nothing would be done as he should know.

Patrick want us to live by science because he thinks that old prescientific knowledge cannot be true. That reminded me of Dawkins who in p. 1 of The Selfish Gene claimed that all attempts to understand humanity and the meaning of life before the publishing of The Origin of the Species are worthless and are best ignored. What Dawkins comes up with is the Self-Centered Gene as the natural, scientific view of Life and Reality.

Then at the end he proclaims that we humans have the ability to turn against our selfish creators. The question, I would ask is from where to we get this power to overturn the science of biology and Darwin, if not from the books and the ideas that present which were written before 1859. If the old ideas were wrong, the you need to show how the new ideas are right. Dawkins has shown how the new scientific idea of the inherent selfishness of life is wrong, and the non-scientific Christian old idea of the need to cooperate is right.

Furthermore as he indicates in Chapter 12 of the 2006 edition the selfish gene, survival of the fittest view of evolution is not true.

367

Not quite. People should be free to live life as they chose. In modern society everyone should have have enough scientific and critical reasoning skills to make decisions for themselves based on the science and reasoning at the time of their decisions.

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@Patrick

First of all people are never free to do whatever they want to do. With that said, how so we get from where we are which is less than perfect to where we want to be. In my opinion we need both good theology and good science to do that. Science does not teach people how to act responsibly, while good theology does.

369

Your right good education is needed. Good science education and good critical reasoning skill (instead of theology) are a good start.

370

so do you mean that they do not treat what they imagine as evidence to justify their belief?

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@Patrick

What are you reasoning about if not ethics (theology) and values (philosophy)?

372

why do you belief that theology excludes ctitical thinking?

373

Huh? Try that one again. I couldn’t decipher it.

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@Patrick

Problem: Most people are not that interested in science. Are you going to force them to learn something that does not interest them?

Another Problem: People like Dawkins do not understand philosophy and theology so they contradict themselves when they discuss these topics.

375

I come to the Biologos site to learn about science and Christian faith. I learn my science elsewhere, but here I can read highly astute blogs and comments by people I respect and admire, whose clear thinking about the relationships between theology and reason inspire me and uplift my soul.

I get very frustrated therefore when any thread (including this one), gets side tracked by the boring, well worn, tired old atheistic arguments about how all knowledge comes from science, (badly defined) and how a belief in things we cant prove is irrational. We have all heard this numerous times, from Coyne, Harris etc, and the song has gotten as boring as it is ignorant and frankly often stupid.

I am an admin at a facebook site called Celebrating Creation by Natural Selection, whose members are mostly TEs, although there are athjeists, IDists and others there. We have a strict rule not to allow discussion about the existence or non existence of God. Not because we want to censor atheists, but because such arguments are a waste of our time, they lead nowhere, and they are a distraction from the interesting and important discussions about faith and science that we encourage. I have asked Biologos to follow the same policy, but they have decided (for probably their own good reasons) not to. I can only imagine that they do not wish to be seen as exercising anything that might resemble censorship. I can understand that.

But I dont think it is censorship to disallow any interesting thread, (as this one has been at times) to become sidetracked into the kind of inane nonsense that appears above. We are wasting time and energy arguing about the nature of faith with someone who despises not only religion, but also philosophy, arts and anything that he cant fit into his narrow scientisitc box.

I propose that we ignore his, and any other atheistic trolling about faith. A phrase like “Faith is pretending to know things you dont know” is far beneath the level of this group, and seems to come from the teenagers who are devoted to Jerry Coyne. There is no reason to answer such drivel.

On another thread, Patrick informed us that his purpose here to make sure we are educated with respect to science. That is very noble of him, but the fact is that there are quite a few commenters here with far better scientific credentials than he has, so his efforts in that regard are not really required. I dont believe him anyway, since the effects of his involvement are rarely educational, but are disruptive to the kinds of theological, scientific and philosophical conversations that Biologos is known for.

Patrick is not the first atheist to assume this role here. There have been many, and more will come. I welcome honest discussion about all issues with atheists, with the exception of any discussion about whether God or Jesus are real. I spent most of my life as an atheist, and I am more familiar with the arguments than anyone. I learn nothing from them, and I cant imagine that any Christian here does either. I do not believe his participation in these boards should be encouraged. Please join me in refraining from engagement with any commenter who tries to drag down this site by pointless refutation of the reality of faith, Christianity or theism. Thank you.

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377

Eddie,
I don’t think you can do it. :grinning: Please give me a little time to think of something. :sunglasses:

378

@Sy_Garte, @Christy, @Jon_Garvey, @jstump, @johnZ (and anyone else interested)

Discussions on God’s power, intervention, and sovereignty may become so general that they fail to impact on the concern of BioLogos, which is TE/EC. On reflection, a focussed outlook would lead us to the incompatibility imbedded within the notion of neo-Darwinism(ND), which has at its core, a belief that ‘things happen’ (we use words like random, non-deterministic, stochastic, as so on) and somehow God may be involved in some mechanistic way (gets a few asteroids to slam in, uses uv light to mutate, and many other ingenious methods) to enable TE to maintain the illusion that ‘God is involved in a particular manner’ in the “grand ND” process.

It is clear (to me at least, and perhaps a few commentators on this site may agree), that such arguments are used to avoid a very uncomfortable belief that has to be imbedded in TE/EC, and that is the sheer incompatibility of the ‘god involved’ theory, with the basic fundamental tenets of ND. The result could easily be a redefinition of god that results in an illusion – that God willingly diminishes Himself so as to suit TE (or a diminished god is put forward).

My suggestions on how TE/EC may be ‘improved’ are to include the following in such an outlook:

  1. Non-negotiable; God is the Creator, and sustains the entire creation from its beginning to its end.
  2. Non-negotiable; we cannot consider the divine act of creation as that of a superior power, as something we cannot do now, but once we have sufficient power, we too may exercise such power.
  3. Non-negotiable; God creating is equivalent to God determining – this means all things. This notion needs to expand on (2) by accepting that determined by God has more to do with what the creation is, has been, and will be. It is not something that limits acts, and limits species, to a range we may set to alleviate our limited understanding of Nature.
  4. All theories of the Physical (Natural) Sciences are testimony to human limitations in seeking an absolute understanding of Nature. ND is one example of an inadequate understanding, but it suffers from a huge amount of ideological baggage.
  5. Specifically, the notions such as random, indeterminate, and similar terms, is imbedded in the outlook professed by evolutionary biologists (and to a lesser extent some scientists of other disciplines). Consequently accepting ND MUST mean that TE/EC accepts this notion – which means it is incompatible with the non-negotiable aspects of Orthodox Christian doctrine.
  6. I was about to include the unique aspects of human beings, but I think these points are sufficient for a single post on BioLogos.

I understand point (5) may lead to angst and argumentation, but I have yet to see any coherent argument from those who promote ND and TE/EC that would be consistent with points (1) to (3).

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379

apologies for indeed feeding him. I find it fascinating to be able to decide that I can imagine and based on that do inductive reasoning which is what makes me a successful scientist in my field. The ability to imagine and reason about the imagined is what allows us to progress in science and the understanding of the ultimate truth - and get closer to God. To help others with the reasoning of what they imagine to be true is the the most exiting part of making progress in understanding our reality.

If new atheists were scientists they would happily take on the burden of proof if they belief the truth to exist, considering that in science the only proof we can generate is to prove something wrong. The fact that they ask others to prove themselves right disqualifies them from schooling others on science as they clearly lack the understanding of the basic concept. It also explains why they are afraid of stating their own beliefs as it would make them vulnerable to be proven wrong, thus proposing that their worldview on being an atheist is based on non-beliefs, e.g. that they do not think about what they don’t know. It makes debating with then rather fruitless indeed. We can however provide them with evidence for our own belief by being a witness to our belief, by living according to what we have accepted as truth. And that is the definition of faith you can find in the scripture - that faith is the evidence of things not seen, e.g. not physically visible. Selfless love is not visible to your eye but visible to your mind. A difficult concept for materialists, as it is to think about the story that Jesus made a blind man see. For a materialist this would have to be a restoration of his eyesight. However that would mean that the substantial things in life were observable by eye, the organ we have to perceive the material world by photons. As if the love of Christ is a projection of a material entity on your retina. But then to me materialism is a very pubertarian concept.

380

good to get back on track of the subject.
To me randomness would not at all be a problem regarding God’s power as God set the rule of logic what randomness can achieve - and that is the powerful thing. The notion of God sitting by the riverbank making mudpie humans is a rather naive one anyhow.
If we accept that God is the cause of our material reality and that our material reality is bound to logic than there is no escape from the notion that he is deterministic for the whole of reality. In fact invoking randomness if a fair principle to cause death on the individual if you love all humans and give them free will. If you do not allow that you are biased or would constrain free will, not trusting your own rule you created. Considering that the physical death is not seen as a loss to God but as returning to him the interpretation of physical death is most likely the materialistic flaw of our thinking. A bit like thinking the comment of God to say that once we eat from the tree of realisation we will die is a punishment from God for doing so instead of understanding it as the explanation of the concept that as soon as we define reality in ourself we will become mortal. Thus the death of Jesus as satisfying the desire for God to punish us is equally misunderstood as it would make Jesus a sacrific towards God as in to die to satisfy his need to take revenge andthus to spare us his revenge and not as a sacrifice for us to allow us to understand how to reconcile ourselves with God thus to escape the curse we brought upon ourselfs by wanting to be our own authority.

381

Yes it is good to get back on topic.

My comment was meant to focus on what I understand (I hope) is the basis for TE/EC. Within this, randomness is taken as a logical notion that permeates ND - this in itself appears problematic to me simply within scientific outlook(s) - stochastic processes can be rendered comprehensible, truly random ones cannot.

When we extend our thinking to theology, the notion of (such) randomness appears nonsense - it is something materialists beg for.

On life and death, and our capacity to choose, I look to the Law as setting the basis for human choice, and the fact that we as a human race has chosen to live contrary to the Law, and are subject to death. I confess this is another topic that would require lengthy discussion in its own right, and I would prefer to stick to comments on TE/EC for this time.

382

GJDS:

Proposition: God instantiates his creation finally via some processes within nature.

If he were to “specify” a species, say, or the changes from one species to a new one, in English, it would, I assume, be quite a long specification! And the text of it would appear random, in the sense of exhibiting Kolmogorov complexity - ie it could not be significantly compressed algorithmically. This is true of any symbolic communication whatosever.

However, any long text in English has a closely-predictable probability for each letter: for example “e” is always commonest, “x” rare, etc. A text from Dickens will probably have a similar distribution curve to one from Darwin.

So to a non-English speaker, it is more or less indistinguishable from any random string, with a probability distribution (and all random strings have such a distribution - hence the distinction above between “stochastic” and “random”.)

If God’s specification were, on the other hand, in French, the same would apply, but the distribution of letters would be different from one in English. Likewise for Italian or any other language whatsoever - it’s fundamental to information theory, not just to written language.

Therefore, if it happens that, at the lowest level, God’s “specification” for change is expressed via genetic change, ie in “God’s genetic/chemical language”, those changes are bound to appear stochastic, that being the nature of information, and the probability distribution in fact tells you what language is being specified… only, of course, you won’t know what language unless you (a) believe it is one and (b) have access to a linguistic database rather than just a probability curve, which in the case of God is privileged information.

Of course it is conceivable that the changes are purely random (in an absolute sense), but a probability distribution indicates “lawlike”, “law” implies a lawgiver and, in any case, the fact that the information produces order rather than chaos is an indicator that information is being communicated to the system.

Conclusion: Stochastic changes in evolution are congruent with God’s purposive action.

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383

@Jon_Garvey

Jon,

I need to consider your proposition: God instantiates his creation finally via some processes within nature.

As I understand it, instantiate means: to provide an instance of or concrete evidence in support of (a theory, concept, claim, or the like).

So I think you may mean, God provides concrete evidence in support of His creation via some processes within nature.

If I understood your proposition, it would appear that you are arguing for some processes within Nature to provide either concrete evidence to support the claim that God is creator, or at the very least, support a theory or concept of that ilk.

Perhaps I misunderstand your comment, since I commence with the statement that God has revealed Himself to us as the Creator of all that is. Science may provide insights to us of the nature of the creation, and we would reason that this is consistent with the revelation, but a human being can easily (and has) come to an atheistic conclusion.

On stochastic notions, these are mathematical treatment that enable us to obtain numerical values for complex systems. I have used an example in the past, in which a finite number of chemical functional groups (or chemical species) may be ‘put together’ using Monte Carlo techniques, to provide all possible conformers that may be obtained. This statistical approach is a way of calculating possibilities that nature may provide for us, and in many cases the numbers can be very large. We may use other methods to find out which conformers are likely, which can be found in nature, and which are just products of the methodology and are not ‘real’ in a sense. This approach is logical, mathematically sound, and cannot be considered ‘random’ in the sense that any and every possibility may eventuate in any instant, or in some past, or imagined future.

I would need some clarification of your proposition before I am able to make any further comment.

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GJDS

No no - I’m not talking about evidence at all, here, but simply about God’s making his creative intentions a reality, on the assumption that he uses some means within the created order. The claim is that “stochastic” data is inevitable if God “informs” the universe at all, whether eternally or during time.

As I said near my conclusion, statistical probabilities of this sort may be explained either as information or noise, and only faith can distinguish them, unless you have access to the language itself. It does not imply intervention, nor exclude it, but simply asserts that stochastic events are evidence of order, not chaos. Further:

Conclusion 2
Therefore, in the light of my last post, anyone who says stochastic events in evolution are “random” is making a conscious choice in favour of an Epicurian metaphysics (chance can be creative - there is no teleology), and against an Aristotelian metaphysics (chance is a merely a subdivision of teleology).

And any “theistic evolutionist” invoking chance as the driving force of evolution is not simply following the scientific evidence, but is making the choice for a dualistic metaphysics with two primary Powers; the first a largely inactive teleogical God, and the second an Epicurian demiurge, the latter of which predominates in nature. It’s effectively Epicurean.

Needless to say it’s logically incoherent to say both that chance can create, and that evolution is unplanned, without the Epicurean metaphysic that is, in essence, anti-theistic.

385

Jon,

Yes, I see what you mean - and you are adding to my previous comment in that chaos or logically random notions are scientifically nonsense, but people may choose such notions to enable atheistic and anti-theistic outlooks. Stochastic approaches enable us to better comprehend complex systems, and as my example suggests, scientists will need to show which of the many possibilities (from computations) conform to studied systems.

On the more general and theological outlook, stochastic processes are ways that maths enable us to comprehend such systems and are thus part of the comprehensible creation, and our theology encompasses such matters. My emphasis is towards showing that science is compatible or consistent with our theology, whereas the ‘Epicurean’ outlook is not.