@gbrooks9
Hi George, I guess that you have to look at it from a different angle. The elephants and giraffes lived many millions years after the dinosaurs were killed and eventually covered with mud, lava, debris or whatever. Of course they are found in layers above dinosaurs.
I don’t think anyone or any animal is able to tread water during a Flood. Look on Youtube at the recordings of the tsunami that hit South East Asia. Look how everything and everybody was just thrown over and disappeared under water. That tsunami was only a few meters high and had a low speed. The Floods are at least fifty times faster and more than hundred times higher. If you are hit, then you are dead before you can feel that you are hit.
Also there is a difference of opinion. There are sincere Christians, who believe that dinosaurs lived only a few millennia ago. And there are equally sincere Christians who are convinced that they are many ten thousand times longer extinct. Make your choice. I am part of the last group.
Thank you for your comments, Jan.
I would maintain that looking at these facts from some angles just doesn’t make any sense at all. Because Elephants cannot tread water as well as marine dinosaurs, we are left with the conclusion that Elephant bones and fossils are NEVER found in dinosaur bone layers (whether marine or terrestrial) for a very simple reason: they didn’t exist until dinosaurs were long gone.
Based on your final sentence, it would seem you and I are in perfect agreement.
George
It is useful to note that the Bible speak of God’s creative power, which not only surpasses anything we may comprehend, but in the final analysis is the ultimate power. The distinction is important, as this would cover both the metaphor as discussed, and also our notion (or limited scientific understanding) that we summarise as laws of science.
This view is hardly obligatory for Evolutionists who believe God guides evolution.
Neo-Darwinism is a term or viewpoint that nestles more comfortably in the mind of Atheists.
Someone who believes God guides evolution simply has to conclude that what may always look random from a human viewpoint is not random at all from God’s viewpoint.
George
Al,
You got to question a story where the fruit of knowledge is forbidden.
Some interesting discussions that address pre-Darwinian periods, and the notion of an arrow of complexity, are found in A. Barberousse et al. (eds.), Mapping the Future of Biology, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 266, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9636-5 8,
The discussions in this book, and particularly chapters 8 and 9, are very complicated, but one may glean some insights that could be relevant to discussions on this site, especially notions of chance and intent/purpose in Nature. A couple of quotes may illustrate some points relevant to the current discussion:
“I argue for the particular appropriateness of revisiting Simon’s arguments about composition and hierarchy for thinking about the emergence of living entities. These arguments seem to me especially relevant for thinking about pre-Darwinian evolution, for they provide us with a way of understanding the operation of a cumulative evolutionary process prior to the advent of Natural Selection. Not survival of the fittest, but survival of the most stable. Or, as I would prefer to call it, survival of the most robust.”
I wonder why a distinction such as ‘survival of the most robust” is needed – it smacks to me of stating the obvious but making it sound scientific. The reliance on ‘fortuitous’ is again stated:
“Given the emergence of simple devices, arising out of the fortuitous combination of already existing molecular complexes, it is not hard to imagine their subsequent refinement, elaboration, and integration into every more complex structures, all by virtue of the enhanced stability they would provide. But a major role for fortuitous combination would work strongly against a continuous increase of either complexity or robustness and would argue instead for the existence of major discontinuities.”
And finally, “Mark Bedau starts from the observation that the evolution of the biosphere exhibits a trend of increasing maximal organism adaptive complexity. He then insists that the “arrow of complexity hypothesis”, namely the hypothesis that this dynamical emergent process is a generic property of some class of evolving systems, rather than just an accident, has to be recognized as a genuine empirical hypothesis, open to creative investigations.”
This book presents leading edge thinking from prominent biologists – my impression from reading this is of a great deal of debate and different outlooks that, overall, revolves about chance, fortuitous, as opposed to “and arrow”, direction and perhaps an underlying purpose. Eco-feedback loops have been discussed, plasticity on phenotype, and if I understand this correctly (?) perhaps an absence of a straightforward link between genotype and phenotype.
Thus it is difficult for me to accept that evolutionary biologists would accept the normal understanding of stochastic when discussing these complex systems. I have picked these quotes as examples that deal with a more speculative area (pre-ND), but I sense a similar feeling on post-ND discussions.
I see where you’re coming from Eddie - the analogy begins to squeak when extended from Merv’s original picture of God playing his own-built violin.
Clearly I wasn’t suggesting God as a Deistic Bach deterministically having a set score played out.
I quite like your reference to baroque “unwritten assumptions” about those playing their scores, and one might well use it as an analogy for the free actions of people, as it’s a bit less “autonomouys” than the picture of the jazzbo improvising away so that the original work is barely recognisable.
But that, too, is in danger of creating space for more argument in Merv’s pretty clear and simple picture, which I feel is an excellent disarmer of the common idea of the universe as some sort of independent entity lovingly made by God to do its own thing, where the Bible’s picture is very much more that of a lovingly crafted instrument for his purposes.
Intriguing…
Whatever the nuances, Merv’s, yours and my metaphors refer to a God who is a performer, not a spectator. And that, of course, is the biblical picture.
Leibniz’s famous words to Newton : “Sir Isaac Newton and his followers have also a very odd opinion concerning the work of God. According to their doctrine, God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion,” are shown up as false as soon as one realises that truth.
Leibniz inherited the idea of inert matter set in motion by God - the player piano which is deficient if it runs down and needs to be wound up.
But if, instead, the world is a piano played by the master-musician, which is what classical theology has said all along, the whole mechanistic scheme begins to look arid and sterile. Sadly there are still many people who, for whatever reason, actually like Leibniz’s universe - only paradoxically they fill it not with watches but with free-form jazz players! But God is still, effectively, just the audience.
There is no “clockmaker analogy” if God speaks to his flock in real time - - as the Universe runs. It’s all God.
George
Communications in real time. From God lips to man’s mind directly with zero time lapse. And to everybody. You would think that with this perfect communications channel to everyone that everyone would be getting the same message from God. But it doesn’t seem like that as some are getting the message to kill and some are getting the message to love one another.
I do think the musician metaphor does retain most of its power in its simplicity, with my particular interpretation of it (whether rightly or wrongly) being limited to seeing us (humans) strictly as instruments lovingly handcrafted, and played by God. Our lives, along with the rocks, trees, and hills all … are the music that is for God’s glory. I agree with you @Jon_Garvey, and @Eddie, that there is no deism anywhere in view here.
But I still am vague on God’s many roles, and it seems to me that the discussed metaphor leaves the bigger variety of options on God’s side. For example, while I really like the example of various music styles which allow for improvisational creativity of the moment, but still within the design parameters of the instruments involved; I think it important to remember that God isn’t just a performer who is unwittingly limited by imposed rules (as I’m sure you all agree.) But God is rather (and here the metaphor becomes much less human), the composer of the piece and the maker of the violin, and the inventor of the violin, and the inventor of all the various musical styles --and indeed music itself. So if God generally respects certain limits, as He apparently does, he is only doing it as a faithful expression to his own design parameters in the first place. We may think of these faithful expressions as “rules” or “scientific laws” which empirical materialists want to insist are unbreakable; but I would suggest could be better seen in the same way that a transportation engineer (or civil engineer) would view a speed limit on a road. These engineers make use of the terrain and put in appropriate banks on the curves, make sure that visual distances are appropriate and then set a recommended speed limit. It isn’t that they (the engineers) can’t (or don’t ever) break that speed limit --they just know that the road is optimized for a certain speed and they choose to respect it because, after all --they designed the road for that range of speed. That might be how God relates to the things we call “laws”. The difference being (unlike speed limits) we can’t just choose to break them when we wish --they really are imposed on us, and so are much more than just a suggestion under penalty like human laws are obliged to be. But I’m aiming here at what all such “laws” might be from God’s perspective and thinking that even the seemingly stronger “scientific laws” might begin to look more like “suggested speed limit” laws from God’s perspective. He knows how he designed the violin and he freely chooses to play it according to his own design parameters for it, causing it to emit the most beautiful possible melodies.
Merv
Moving off-metaphor (perhaps not before time!) it’s interesting how your idea changes if we think in terms more of created natures of things (in the tradition of Aristotle) rather than “physical laws” imposed upon things (in the tradition of Newton).
So from our point of view, we’d not be so much “bound to obey what’s imposed on us” as “free to be (only) what we are”. “We” in this case including everything in the material world. Like your speed limits, properties of forms are still based on God’s wisdom - what’s good for an aardvark might not be so good for a chamelion, and what’s the best way for a neutron won’t do for a neutron.
God would still be as free to alter or bypass the properties inherent in things (or of course, simply to use them in unaccustomed ways). But according to nature or not, melody and harmony are the aim.
Because my original thread with this graph (below) was closed a few days ago, I wanted to start a new one… But the system wouldn’t let me do that either. So this seems like the best place to kick off this kind of discussion - - on the nature of God’s interventions!
There is a potentially interesting question raised by @Patrick !
If you look at this graph [below] … you will see that survey results say that 82% of Scientists think Evolution occurred through “natural processes”.
Just a while ago, offline, Patrick has asked me questions implying how do I know that Scientists aren’t actually supportive of the idea that God ALSO uses natural processes in Evolution - - rather than miracles?
In the case of this survey, I would hope that if a Scientist sees 2 related choices:
"God guides evolution" vs.
"Evolution is by natural processes"
that the typical Scientist knows that a third choice was not just accidentally missing - - something like “God Guides Evolution with Natural Processes INSTEAD OF MIRACLES”.
But we’ve all seen how survey results can be influenced by subtle changes in wording. I don’t think this issue is THAT subtle… but I do think Patrick raises a point good enough to have a thread about it.
Here in BioLogos, I think most supporters believe God works with BOTH (Miracles and Natural Processes); I know Collins specifically includes both. But on the topic of Evolution, there does seem to be those who insist that God is only using natural processes in Evolution (while reserving the right to have Jesus walk on water by any other means if required).
Has anyone seen survey results comparing Scientists views of “God works ONLY through Natural Processes” compared to additional more miraculous means?
Thanks @Patrick, for the inspiration …
George
George - I agree that how you ask the question will definitely condition how people respond. However, if you want to ask scientists about evolution and God then the first thing the question should do it to clarify that it is not a professional question by starting with something like “In your personal opinion, …”. Otherwise scientists will take it as a professional question and since we all agree that science cannot make pronouncements on God then most will likely pick the answer that most resembles “only natural processes can be scientifically shown to determine evolution”.
What!!!??? Hearken back to Aristotle!? I just had a vision of a horrified materialist all decked out in modernist enlightenment garb, holding out a copy of Newton’s Principia to ward off the Aristotlean demons.
But horrified modernist aside, the “natures of things” does seem to have always had its place within theist perspectives. I think the notion of us “being free to be what we are” is a very sound one. Thanks for that.