@christy Would you be interested in a free introductory college course on Genetics and Evolution? It’s taught by Mohamed Noor of Duke University, The next session starts Dec 7. It’s a wonderful course; I’ve taken it myself. There are assistants who can answer any questions you have. As I said, it’s free unless you want college credits. So here it is: Introduction to Genetics and Evolution
You can read more about the professor here
Sure. I’ve even looked it up before. I’ve also gotten a “rough definition” of ID from the internet before, and that went over really well. 
(My “books to read” list is long, and a book on Neo-Darwinian evolution isn’t going to make the cut, because I’m not that interested. I am happy to let other people explain it to me.)
It was the blanks I was having trouble filling in. Obviously this is not an atheist website, so I didn’t get the guilt by association thing that evidently goes on when “evolution” is equated with “Neo-Darwinism.” You and Jon have explained quite nicely what the issue is. So, thanks for that.
Well, I was wondering when you would finally open up and tell us what you really think.
All you science-y types may have to spend your time reading up on Neo-Darwinism and New Atheist philosophy in order to know what people around you are arguing about, and I have to read up on the philosophy of language because current models of linguistic communication, meaning construction, and translation are fundamentally postmodern in their points of reference. But I would take Gadamer and Ricoeur over Derrida any day.
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Thanks @beaglelady
I am taking three courses right now for credit, so my brain is full. I will finish this degree in the spring and then I probably won’t want to think about classes for a while, but I will keep the info in my back pocket. There are so many areas that actually relate to the field I work in that I would like to learn more about too.
I got an Usborne book on genes and DNA to do with my kids next year, so that will have to do for now.
Hi Christy,
I think I agree with most, if not all, of your comments. My main criticism of ND is it is extended beyond evolutionary biology. To add further to determines and creates; we need to begin with definitions otherwise we become lost in confusion. I use the term ‘determines’ as a way of saying when a thing is created, the creator decides the outcome, that he will ensure his creation comes out in a particular way. Since nowadays we understand that time and space are included in the act of creation (or these properties were also determined by the creator to be his creation), then we end up imagining the creation as complete within the perspective of the creator (but not necessarily to us, as we are subject to time and space).
When we include choice and freedom to human beings, I take this to mean we have a manifold, or setting, as it were, which presents us with inexhaustible possibilities, and we are free to choose any of these. This context is part of the creation and thus has been determined to be so by the Creator God. Sin and the ‘brokenness’ of human nature is due to human choices, but the factor (or cause, temptation) is external to human nature.
The problematic is to understand how an external factor may be found in the creation that would be capable of deceit and tempt us, or corrupt our nature. TE/EC cannot account for this (by definition this is external to human nature), while the Christian Faith teaches of spiritual entities that are external to our existence but are able to operate in some manner in our world, and by choosing to act according to spiritual rebellion and contrary to the Law, death is part of the entire creation.
Obviously we would move away from science on spiritual matters, and we would discuss why God would permit such choices that would corrupt the creation. That is another discussion; I agree other matters are boring and an exercise in futility. Thus I make some matters non-negotiable.
One way to discuss the Law and human nature may be indicated by this portion taken from “The Life of Moses” by Gregory of Nyssa, “… it is possible to learn from this that human nature at its beginning was unbroken and immortal … since (it) was fashioned by the divine hand and beautified with the unwritten characters of the Law, the intention of the Law lay in our nature in turning away from evil and honouring the divine.”
I read this to mean that initially humanity was created with an intrinsic attribute of lawfulness, and all normal choices we would make were good and according to the divine Law. The choice contrary to the Law was due to external factors (Adam and Eve were deceived), and by acting on the external factor (believing deceit) they in effect, broke away from their divinely created nature.
Evolution as understood nowadays sees all external factors as environmental, and all outcomes are happenstance – random in the sense there is no purpose or choice involved. The way to try and wiggle out of this theologically is to decide that God was not involved and the notions of good and evil are simply a type of naivety, and anyhow, it would be convenient to argue that if God determined everything, He should have known the choice Adam and Eve would make, so it comes down to God whatever happened. I make this comment by way of example, and not as an analysis of TE/EC, because I cannot see how they can deal with the problem of a choice contrary to the Law.
On stochastic processes (and at times described as random), I start with the assumption that if a mathematical formula can be made, and data inputted to obtain testable values, then strictly speaking, the system is not random, but complex and described via probabilities. This distinction is minor in science, but it can be a major point theologically.
Amen to that.
Thanks for your response and sorry for my lay men approach to the subjects at hand, but I am an Engineer and a Christian, not a theologian.
You would expect God to have known that his children will go through puberty wanting to become self deterministic having made them in his image. He also would have known that by doing so they would experience mortality, but why would that stop him from sending them on their journey as they would come back anyhow to be selected into those that continue to exist and those that go into recycling. In other words going through mortal life might well be a training exercise / QC step for the “souls”. As a Christian I would have to say that he even showed us how to get out of the materialistic mortality trap.
The fact that he made a law for reality to obey suggests that he knew it to be necessary, why make a law if it would not be subject to things that would require a law.
Evolution as understood nowadays is a contradiction as it is not understood but “assumed to operate” I would indeed say that it operates under the law and if the purpose if the glorification of creation and the love for others the “otherness” needs to be created to enable the law to to be fulfilled.
Much of what is discussed may be reduced to the language we use and the resulting clarity or confusion.
I take the approach that as Christians, we are to grow into the attributes shown by Christ, and discussed by Paul as the fruits (or outcomes) of the Holy Spirit. These are spiritual matters and cannot be subject to views put forward by materialists. The Law is Holy and Sacred because by it we can comprehend what is good and avoid what is evil. As my previous response suggests, the Law points us to a time when humanity had the opportunity not to sin. Since then, it has required Christ to intervene and annul the outcomes empowered by the Law (death) and in this way provide, as an act of Grace, redemption. This requires conscious choice by us - God does not force us to repent, but teaches us the importance of repentance. The calling is predetermined, our response is our choice. The Law is fulfilled by Christ (ie what the Law could not do, Christ accomplished, but by freely accepting death when the Law could not require it).
I have added extra detail to illustrate that evolution is in no way relevant to these matters. In terms of understanding the Creation, ALL of the Natural (Physical) Sciences inform us of this, albeit imperfectly. In this context, human extension (proposed by a former blogger Gregory) has more to say.
But with Derrida, that’s the whole point, isn’t it?
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take it that puberty bit needs explaining but it is in principle the fall as it represents the rejection of the authority over your self by your creator, e.g. parent. By the realisation of your self you consequently also become responsible for your actions. Responsibility however can only exist if there is order and a law which to follow.
To me mortality is the logical consequnce of being separate from God, e.g. your own self. As long as man was part of God death was not possible due to the nature of God being eternal, e.g. even if your physical body dies you do not die as you are part of something bigger.
I am a but at a loss as what you refer to as “the law” My understanding to Jesus fulfilling the law and the prophets meant that he completely fulfilled its conditions as to accept the authority of God to practice selfless love as being a servant to mankind and he fulfilled the prophets as to fulfill their prophecies. He did not abolish the law or any bit of it nor annul its outcome and emphasises that in the sermon of the mount, as we still have to follow it - or am I missing something here. .
Thank you for putting something down in writing - that is definitely the most productive way to have a discussion. I could comment on many of the posts that followed what seems to have been @GJDS’s post that initiated the current thread of discussion but I’d rather first address the perceived fundamental incompatibility in the original point 5:
I am probably missing something here but I see no conflict between “true randomness” and God’s predetermination of all that was, is and will be. Consider the very simple example of a fair coin toss, which we know is not “truly random” but let’s assume it is for the sake of argument - I do not know whether the next coin toss will be heads or tails (probability 0.5 each) but I know with absolute certainty whether my last coin toss was heads or tails. In other words, even when considering true randomness as a part of our existence, the past is always completely determined by events that have already happened.
Now before you quit reading just because I’m stating the blatantly obvious, note that the one-directional linearity of time is our limitation, not God’s. As such, we can imagine a poor process where God would tweak whatever He wants to change, “travel” all the way to the end of time to see how it ends and then iterate the process until He gets the final outcome that He wants. The result of this process is what we call “our reality”.
Of course, God can see all that was, is and will be without this silly need to “travel to the end of time” - this poor analogy is just an illustration to help us understand how that there is no incompatibility between randomness and God’s predetermination of events.
In fact, if we take human free will to represent some sort of “randomness” in that God would indeed allows to make decisions against His will, then Esther 4:13-14 is a nice example of what I described above (emphasis mine):
13 Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. 14 For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
In other words, we (or random processes) may “decide” in any way we “like” but God will always guarantee the final outcome according to His plan. Thus I see nothing unorthodox with modeling evolutionary processes using all sorts of randomness
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Yes, well said, thanks
The devil doesn’t exist either. 
I may be misreading your response but it seems to me that my main point might have been missed. I will gladly discuss the implications to evolutionary biology once we decide whether weagree on “randomness” but it will be premature to broaden the conversation before clarifying the basic implications of “randomness”.
In brief, my main point is this: even if “true randomness” exists, that is irrelevant with respect to God’s determination of all that ever was, is and will be because God is not bound by time as we
are.
I illustrated this concept with the simple example of a fair coin toss, which we can assume to be “truly random” for the sake of argument. While humans cannot determine the outcome of a coin toss ahead of time, it is trivial to “determine” the outcome of all past coin tosses. In other words, I know with probability 1.0 whether my last coin toss turned out heads or tails, even if the process was “truly random” (in any sense of term) in the moment when the coin was tossed.
So since God is not bound by time, my silly illustration was that He already knows the outcome of all coin tosses that ever were, are and will be - He would only need to “travel” to the end of time, at which point everything is already perfectly determined, then work His way back to where He would want to tweak something, change it and iterate the process. Of course, no such “back and forth” process is necessary since God is timeless and all-knowing. This is a just a silly anthropomorphic analogy to help understand how timelessness makes even “true randomness” perfectly predictable.
Now does this mean that humans should also try to model coin tosses as deterministic? Of course not. We are not God and we will never have His timelessness nor His knowledge of all the parameters necessary to know how everything will unfold. From our perspective, the best we can do is to model coin tosses as a stochastic process
since that is what they are to us in our limited understanding of reality.
It seems to me that @Nuno is right in that the conceptual model you have here is bound by a linear conception of time. Since science operates in time, we expect scientific descriptions to be linear, cause-effect descriptions, But since our theological wonderings aren’t confined by a linear conception of time, there is more space for the imagination. Because of this mismatch, I don’t think superimposing one’s theological conceptual models about creation and design onto one’s scientific conceptual models is really as straightforward as you seem to think it should be.
I think we are both saying something similar without seeing it. The Law is God’s will and it was articulated to Israel by Moses as part of the covenant - the power of the Law is death (Paul’s Epistles). Christ fulfilled the Law (and the prophets), so he was not subject to death - and yet he willingly took our place so that He was able to remove the power of the Law over us - this imo is standard Orthodoxy. At no point have I suggested or implied the Law was abolished - the Law is now given to us in complete form, in that it includes intent as well as obedience of the letter.
I think we may be disagreeing on terminology. I take random to mean totally unpredictable in outcome or in causality. This would mean that any event may or may not occur, and such a thing may change or not change without any knowledge of it, be it ‘going back’ in time, or any present, or any possible future. This is how I understand this term within ND, and this was made famous by Gould who stated if he were to rerun ND evolution, he would not repeat what has occurred, but a completely different sequence and ‘end results’ would be expected.
Thus I have tried to show a difference in the terms ‘stochastic’ which can deal with events (such as coin tossing) and a truly random system. As I have said, scientifically complex system may be described via statistics, and often scientists may interchange the terms as a matter of taste. Theologically, a truly random system cannot be subjected to anything, including God, so I side with Jon Garvey, in that theologically the entire ND paradigm amounts to an autonomy of nature, without any purpose, direction, nor predictability of any sort (accept what we may observe from time to time), and these without any cause that can be proven scientifically.
In terms of human acts and choices, I think I disagree with your notion of randomness - your example seems to me to revolve about the phrase “who knows?” We may not be able to predict various personal (and individual) outcomes when we are confronted with particular choices - this in no way should be taken to mean God may not know. In fact, the common phrase is often, “only God knows …” Since as humans we are faced with a finite number of choices, this can hardly be described as truly random, and certainly not so to God.
So I see you comment as using terms such as stochastic, complex, random, and probabilities, to mean the same or very similar things. I differentiate between these, as I have pointed out, to provide what I hope is a clear theological outlook.