God's use of natural laws & the Western scientific tradition

[Jonathan_Burke (Jon)]

@Eddie

Are you claiming to have read every single scientific article published on the wiring of the eye? If you have not, how can you possibly know what was said in the articles I am referring to? You’re offering pure conjecture as fact.

I’m operating on the basis of your established track record of reading X and saying it’s Y. I have read plenty of articles on the eye which explain how the organism has built in a work-around to take advantage of the flaw, which nevertheless does not change the fact that the flaw still exists, and so do the negative results. I have seen those same articles misrepresented by Christians claiming these articles say the eye is well wired after all.

@Eddie

I did not derive that conclusion from that verse. It’s derivable on general philosophical principles, and that’s where I got it from. I merely cited the Biblical verse – that God creates evil – to show that Biblical teaching was conformable to that conclusion.

Oh, so when you said it is actually “Biblical theology” and quoted a verse, what you really meant was “it’s derivable on general philosophical principles and Biblical teaching is conformable to it”.

@Eddie

Obviously a God who “creates evil” is responsible for the evil that he creates

But just as obviously, that doesn’t mean all evil is attributable to Him.

@Eddie

The Bible does not try to get God “off the hook” for natural evils. Only modern people (like Ayala and Miller), whose thoughts and theologies are shaped by Enlightenment rationalism rather than by the Bible, do that.

Sorry this just sounds like propaganda.

@Eddie

There are theologians I prefer to Calvin, but Calvin is on many issues closer to the heart of Biblical teaching than most modern Protestant theologians, pastors, and opinion leaders.

In contrast, I see Calvin as a tyrannical heretic with blood on his hands. When you have a religion named after you, it’s pretty certain you made it up.

@Eddie

But I was asking specifically about “Scripture” – the word you used.

You haven’t identified any deficiency in my treatment of Scripture in that article.

@Eddie

Your coverage of Scripture is scanty – a few verses,

Because that’s all I needed. This was not a journal submission, this was a series of notes on my Facebook page which I later pasted into one document and added an abstract.

@Eddie

You have established that there are references to recurring habits of nature in the Hebrew Bible.

No, I established more than that. The Bible uses the language of law to describe how God organized nature, words such as covenant and commandment. I also addressed the qualitative difference between the way the Bible describes the recurring cycles of nature, and the way they’re described by other ANE societies, such as Egypt and Babylonia.

@Eddie

Of course, you can argue that the idea of natural laws might be there…

Yes.

@Eddie

…but such passages as you give (from Ecclesiastes and Psalms and Jeremiah) to me indicate only the degree of stability we associate with habit, not the inflexible character of “natural laws.”

I’m sure that’s how they read to you. But that’s not how they read to the earliest expositors of Scripture, or to scholars in this area.

@Eddie

I don’t see any mention of such laws in Genesis.

I’m sure you don’t.

@Eddie

I also don’t find any clear notion that creation “functions autonomously, through a coordination of individual systems.” “Autonomously”? “Systems”? Those are Biblical notions? You seem to be reading a lot into the text.

No I’m not. As I explained, in other ANE literature the natural systems need to be actively maintained by actions from the gods or by actions from humans. In the Bible this never happens; God sets it all up, and it just works. The sun doesn’t need God to kickstart it again every morning, and the wind doesn’t need the angels to move it around every time it stops working.

@Eddie

But do any of those writers, in any passage that you cite, say that God worked exclusively through natural causes while creating the world?

Who cares? That’s not the point I was making.

@Eddie

Newton, Boyle and Kepler certainly did not think that God used only natural causes to create the solar system, etc.)…

And nor do I.

[Relates (Roger A. Sawtelle)]

@gbrooks9

Do not be overawed by math. Math is descriptive tool of what goes on, but math does tell you why something happens, which is much more important.

Mathematical models can describe traffic and other movements of animals and people. Mathematical models can describe weather, but does not tell you that hot air rises and cold air descends.

Lou, a person who once blogged on BioLogos, believed that Darwinian Natural Selection was true because of the mathematical models. However when I checked out one of the books that he recommended, which cost more than $100., the author himself in the preface said that this book did not explain how evolution worked, but only how to mathematically depict how it worked.

In other words if a allele is fit, it will increase at a certain rate, which is the same as saying fit alleles survive and thrive, while those who are not fit will not.

That is like saying that a good football team wins more games than it loses. An excellent team wins its conference title, and a possibly great team wins the Super Bowl more than once. These statements may be true in a sense, but really do not say what makes a great football team and have no scientific significance.

Statistics are fine, but by themselves are almost useless. Life and science is much more than statistics. Math itself is circular. 3 + 3 = 6. 6 - 3 = 3. A circular system, which is true, but limited in what it depicts.

Mathematical modeling lets us know that something is going on, but does not tell us how or why. The problem exists when science allows the models take the place of thinking and testing, because it thinks that it already knows how and why, or it does not really want to know how and why. Pride goes before the fall.

[Professormom]

To address the original topic (I apologize if this is redundant to something someone else has already said. I stopped reading the comments around #70 because they seemed to be taking a rabbit trail, and my thoughts are geared to the thread’s main subject), @Jonathan_Burke, your article was interesting.

Your summary’s timeline is a good reminder of how different the God of the Bible really was from the cultures that surrounded the Hebrews. By taking the volatile and churlish gods out of the nature equation, God revealed Himself a bit more. It also allowed people to step away from magic as an explanation for nature. Every time, humans learned to see the creation a bit more clearly.

It strikes me as layers being peeled back. And it reminds me of God’s wisdom and His patience with us. Thanks for sharing:-)

[Jonathan_Burke (Jon)]

@Professormom

Thanks, I’m really glad that was of interest.

[Jonathan_Burke (Jon)]

@Eddie

You are referring, I presume, to the burning of Servetus – who, I believe was the only person burned in Geneva, which was the only state where Calvin had political authority.

Yes. And it doesn’t matter how many other people were doing the same, it still makes Calvin a murderer. In terms of fairly basic Sunday School level Bible knowledge, “Don’t kill people” is approximately lesson 1. Maybe lesson 2 if you were sick your first day. It’s the sort of thing a high level theologian should be expected to know.

@Eddie

Calvin affirmed the Creeds and respected and studied the writings of all the Fathers.

Yeah, and there’s lots of dodgy stuff in those creeds, not to mention in the early fathers. Bit of a worry there. The Apostles’ Creed is good, the Didache is good, and it’s all downhill after that (no I am not arguing as a Catholic, I don’t affirm any creed after the Didache). It would have been better if Calvin had been more into his Bible and less into creeds. Maybe he wouldn’t have ended up a murderer. And let’s not forget the whole Calvinism thing which was named after his theological inventions. And let’s not forget his anti-Semitism; sure, you could argue he wasn’t as bad as Mad Martin, but he wasn’t that much better.

@Eddie

You article tries to show that the conception of “natural laws” as modern science understands it is found in the Bible. You have not shown that.

In your opinion. I note the complete lack of engagement with my article.

@Eddie

I am a scholar this area.

Great, I’d love to read your work. Please list your peer reviewed publications, especially in the historiography of the Western scientific continuum.

@Eddie

Certainly “autonomously” has a Deist feel to it, and the teaching of the Bible is not Deist.

Ah, so the basis of your objection is fear of Deism. Not a good basis for objection. Since when did “autonomously” have a Deist feel to it? Do you feel the same way about “automobile”?

@Eddie

You also have not dealt with the problem that the very concept of “nature” comes to us from the Greeks, not the Bible…

Yeah… no. One Western concept of nature comes to us from the Greeks.

@Eddie

…that the notion of “natural laws” or “laws of nature” indicates a degree of theoretical elaboration that we do not see in the Biblical texts.

An elaboration, no. The notion, yes. That’s where Second Temple Period exegetes found it; Sirach, Jubilees, Enoch, and others.

@Eddie

I don’t see any of these people – e.g., Jonas, Klein – cited in your article.

Vague handwaving while dropping names, typically indicates bluffing. If you think Hans Jonas is relevant, quote him directly. If you think Jacob Klien is relevant, quote him directly.

@Eddie

I also don’t see the classical studies of “the Biblical idea of nature” – such as those of Wheeler Robinson – acknowledged in your article.

For good reason. I don’t have a need for nineteenth century theologians when studying this field, except for historical value.

@Eddie

Who says that God does not work through natural causes to make it rain, etc.?

People who believe the universe is upheld and acts on a moment by moment basis because of God’s personal volition. People who believe it’s wrong to say that it rains because God set up an autonomous condensation/evaporation cycle.

@Eddie

Who says that electrical and magnetic phenomena involve direct intervention by God?

People who believe electricity is the Holy Spirit.

@Eddie

The only place where these people differ from mainstream science concerns origins.

Indeed. They’re happy for God to have arranged everything else so that it runs by itself, but they want to sequester this part of the universe away and say “No, this bit is special, He couldn’t have done that with this bit”.

@Eddie

Well, if you agree with that, then what precisely is your beef with other Christians who think the same thing?

I don’t have one. Behold! A better question is why all those Christians who are happy with the idea of God acting through nature everywhere else, suddenly run scared when the idea is proposed that He also did this in creation.

@Eddie

Where, in your view, were non-natural causes involved in the production of the solar system, of the earth, of the first life, and of the products of evolution, including man?

In the creation of the universe and its laws, and in the special creation of Adam and Eve.

Oh look, I just found this entire conversation is being held elsewhere. So I’ll leave you to that discussion. If you want to comment specifically on anything I wrote in my article, let me know.

[benkirk (Benjamin Kirk)]

@Eddie

But Michael Behe thinks there is actual evidence for design in living things…

Hello Eddie,

I’m sorry, but that makes no sense at all. If there’s actual evidence, present the evidence, particularly in conjunction with advancing an actual hypothesis that makes actual empirical predictions.

Keep in mind that Behe’s big “evidence” regarding malaria is derived from misinterpreting a few words from the secondary literature, not the evidence from the primary literature.

And his evidence for HIV was false, and he has yet to correct his book and deleted his Amazon blog in which he admitted that his claim was false.

[benkirk (Benjamin Kirk)]

@Jonathan_Burke

Vague handwaving while dropping names, typically indicates bluffing.

Exactly, even more so in science than in the humanities.

[Relates (Roger A. Sawtelle)]

@Jonathan_Burke

Fitness is not evaluated at the level of an individual organism. The article I showed you even told you this clearly; " It is not meaningful to refer to the fitness of a single individual". This demonstrates you don’t understand the topic. An organism can survive to the point of reproduction even if it isn’t “fit”, or it could die before reproduction even if it is “fit”. That’s why it is not meaningful to refer to the fitness of a single individual.

@Jonathan_Burke

That is not what we are talking about and the moths were the example used in your article.

To cut the discussion off on this point is a cop out. A miserable, pathetic ruse to avoid real discussion of the issues.

[Jonathan_Burke (Jon)]

@Eddie

You affirm the special creation of Adam and Eve. Why? Isn’t that just a failure of nerve, given your general willingness to see natural causes in creation as well as in the world today?

No. If I one day find evidence in Scripture which convinces me Adam and Eve weren’t specially created, I’ll follow that evidence. Bu I don’t see it.

@Eddie

You are aware, I trust, that BioLogos has (directly or indirectly) denied the special creation of Adam and Eve?

Yes I am very well aware of their position.

@Eddie

If you hold out against that science in order to hang on to a specially created first couple, you are guilty of the same thing you are charging the others with: “… they want to sequester this part of the universe away and say “No, this bit is special, He couldn’t have done that with this bit”.”

No I’m not. I’m fully prepared to accept that God could have created Adam and Eve via evolution, or could have selected them from an existing population. I just haven’t seen a convincing argument for this, and all the evidence I’ve seen points in a different direction.

@Eddie

I now know that the main lines of argument of Jon, myself, and others will not have any influence upon you.

Indeed.

@Eddie

I was pointing out that you were comparing Calvin’s Christianity to other forms of Christianity…

No, I was commenting directly and specifically on Calvin. I didn’t mention any other forms of Christianity. You did.

[quote=“Eddie, post:166, topic:4380”]
…but if one is going to choose one’s theologian on the basis of that theologian’s failings in practical life…[/quote]

I have no idea what “choose one’s theologian” is supposed to mean, or why anyone would do this. Nor is it relevant what anyone else was doing in Europe at the time. What’s relevant is that Calvin simply didn’t follow Christ, like plenty of other murderers in his era who were at the same time extremely religious. End of story. Telling me all about how much he read and studied the Bible (as if I didn’t know), doesn’t change that. It’s patently obvious that the spirit of Christ was not at the core of how he lived his life.

[quote=“Eddie, post:166, topic:4380”]
The fact that Calvin was anti-Semitic, even if verified, would have absolutely no relevance to ascertaining the correctness of his Biblical exegesis or systematic theology regarding issues such as omnipotence, predestination, creation, fall, redemption, the sacraments, etc. That argument is strictly ad hominem and doesn’t warrant a theological reply.[/quote]

Firstly I didn’t say it had any relevance to ascertaining the correctness of his Biblical exegesis, etc, etc, etc. Though when someone is as anti-Semitic as he was, it’s clear they’re doing something wrong. Secondly you don’t seem to understand what an ad hominem argument is. An ad hominem argument takes the form “Person A has moral failing B, so his argument C is false”. I didn’t do that.

@Eddie

The intertestamental works that you cite are influenced by Hellenistic conceptions and in some cases read the Hebrew Bible through Hellenistic glasses.

More handwaving. Yet again I see no specifics here.

@Eddie

nd his writings on Biblical notions of nature are still among the very best ever written.

In your opinion. I note once again the complete lack of quotations.

@Eddie

And if you think that works several decades old are automatically inferior to more recent works…

No. Wow, every single exchange with you involves dismissing a handful of subject changes, straw men, and distractions.

@Eddie

I indicated that the passages you used from the Hebrew books did not establish the claim you made about “natural laws,” and I said why.

And I responded to that, and you haven’t replied to my points.

@Eddie

You have not responded with a learned discussion of Hebrew terminology or with any systematic account of the Old Testament’s understanding of nature.

I don’t need to while you’re not even addressing my basic arguments.

@Eddie

I also indicated that you had not provided passage in this history of Christian thought where it was said that origins were to be preferentially explained by natural causes

I actually quoted a couple of examples of historical Christian thinkers saying that natural causes should be first sought for every phenomemon.

@Eddie

The conception of “nature” (physis) is Greek, not Hebraic. T

Maybe you mean “The Greeks had a different concept of nature to the Hebrews”.

@Eddie

You can’t have “natural laws” until you combine the notion of “nature” with the notion of "law,’ and for that you need both Greek and Hebrew components.

More unsubstantiated statements.

@Eddie

his has long been conceded by historians of ideas and historians of religion and historians of philosophy. You need to study the idea of physis more carefully. Klein’s essay, “The Nature of Nature” might help.

More handwaving, and name dropping. Just quote them, if you’ve read them.

@Eddie

You need to study the idea of physis more carefully.

Which idea of phusis? Plato’s? Aristotle’s? Archimedes’? The Epicurean concept of phusis? The Stoic concept of phusis? Do you know the difference?

@Eddie

And no, I am not suggesting that Klein would directly endorse any particular argument I am making here.

Don’t worry, this does not surprise me.

@Eddie

I also indicated that you omitted to mention Aquinas’s direct denial of natural-cause origin for man and the higher animals.

Because it isn’t relevant. Last time I looked, Aquinas wasn’t a Second Temple Period Jew. He was a medieval Catholic theologian attempting to marry Catholic theology with Aristotle. He was also a great big blunderer, and a very naughty man. Who cares what he thought about this?

@Relates

That is not what we are talking about and the moths were the example used in your article.

Of course it’s what you were talking about. You said specifically “Sounds like: If an organism survives and thrives, it is fit. If it doesn’t, it isn’t fit”.

@Relates

To cut the discussion off on this point is a cop out.

Oh I’m not cutting it off by any means. I’m simply telling you it’s not going to proceed until you understand the topic and you’ve read what you’re shown.

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@Relates

Mathematical modeling lets us know that something is going on, but does not tell us how or why. The problem exists when science allows the models take the place of thinking and testing, because it thinks that it already knows how and why, or it does not really want to know how and why. Pride goes before the fall.

That’s all well and good … but it sounds like you would complain to Isaac Newton that all his research on mass and gravity is “… just circular numbers” … “you say something is heavy, Isaac, but all you do is give me its weight in pounds and grams … around and around … but what IS IT REALLY?”

We quantity “fitness” by a quantitative analysis of survival, longevity and offspring.

THAT’s what FITNESS IS!

And these raw numbers gain their meaning by COMPARING how one sub-genotype of a gene pool compares to OTHER subtypes.

I think you have come to the end of your road, Roger.

[Jonathan_Burke (Jon)]

@Eddie

You are evading the biological issue about Adam and Eve. The columnists at BioLogos, some with Ph.D.s in biology (and you’ve admitted your’e not a biologist yourself), tell us that “the science is in” regarding Adam and Eve, i.e., it is no longer possible for a scientifically educated person to believe that there was a first human couple, specially created.

Um, no. They tell us it is no longer possible for a scientifically educated person to believe the first human couple was created only around six thousand years ago, or that the entire human species descended from a single human couple six thousand years ago, or that Adam and Eve (if they existed six thousand years ago as a special creation), were the first humans. And I agree with all that. I believe humans already existed at the time of Adam and Eve, and had existed for a long time. I do not believe all humans are descended directly from Adam and Eve.

@Eddie

Your remark about Aquinas and Second Temple Jews is a bogus defense. You know that your article went far beyond Second Temple Judaism.

It’s not a bogus defense. I showed that the view I was documenting had roots in Second Temple Period Judaism, and extended right through medieval Christianity to the modern era. So citing Aquinas is totally irrelevant. Quoting Aquinas doesn’t address the Second Temple Period evidence I presented, or the medieval evidence.

@Eddie

You cited many medieval Christian discussions. But in doing so, you left out Aquinas. This is interesting, as his view did not fit in with your own.

Of course. I was providing evidence for my argument. When providing evidence for an argument, you need to quote sources which support your argument. Your statement here doesn’t make any sense at all. I can’t quote Aquinas as evidence for my argument, because he isn’t evidence for my argument.

@Eddie

As for Aristotle, you cannot blame Aristotle for Aquinas’s defense of supernatural acts of God in creation!

And the straw men are still coming thick and fast. I didn’t blame Aristotle for Aquinas’s defense of supernatural acts of God in creation. I can see why people just don’t bother engaging with you anymore.

[quote=“Eddie, post:170, topic:4380”]
You did imply that an older theological work would likely be of less value…[/quote]

No, I said specifically that I didn’t need nineteenth century theologians. I did not say anything like “works several decades old are automatically inferior to more recent works”. Remember, that was your original statement.

@Eddie

But how do you know that the best work on a subject is not 70 or 80 or 100 years old?

Remember that university thing?

@Eddie

…yes, I do know the difference between different treatments of physis.

Great, then I’m sure you can answer my question. But wait, you didn’t. Oh well.

@Eddie

I mean that, strictly speaking, the Hebrew did not have the concept of “nature” at all. They of course had an idea of heaven and earth, and notions of animals and plants and stars. But they did not conceptualize any of that under a conception such as “nature,” which is actually philosophically quite a loaded word.

They didn’t conceptualize any of that under a conception of nature precisely as we think of it in Western modern categories. The word isn’t loaded unless you load it with exclusively Western categories, which is what you’re doing.

But they did have a concept of nature, and phusis. They differentiated between magical and non-magical, between divine and non-divine, between mortal and immortal, between eternal and non-eternal, between miraculous and non-miraculous. They had a concept of nature which is relevant to the article I wrote.

@Eddie

No, I am not going to feed you isolated quotations from authors…

I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to provide quotations from them in sufficient context to support what you’re saying. You know, like we learned at university.

[Sy_Garte]

[quote=“Jonathan_Burke, post:171, topic:4380”]
Um, no. They tell us it is no longer possible for a scientifically educated person to believe the first human couple was created only around six thousand years ago, or that the entire human species descended from a single human couple six thousand years ago, or that Adam and Eve (if they existed six thousand years ago as a special creation), were the first humans. And I agree with all that. I believe humans already existed at the time of Adam and Eve, and had existed for a long time. I do not believe all humans are descended directly from Adam and Eve.

I agree completely with your comment on Adam and Eve, and I am one of the biologists Eddie is talking about (I think). Special creation of Adam is not addressed by science, as is the case for the resurrection, the creation of the universe etc. The biology simply tells us (not inconsistently with Genesis by some interpretation) all things, you mention in the quote.

[Jonathan_Burke (Jon)]

@Eddie

But Dennis and others here (and in ASA venues, etc.) have said that there cannot have been original human couple at any time, not merely just 6,000 years ago. They have said that an original ancestral couple, if it existed, could not have existed as recently even as 150,000 years ago (the date sometimes given for anatomically modern humans). They have said that if there was an original couple ancestral to all human beings, that couple, based on population genetics calculations, would have to have lived something like 4 to 9 million years ago; and that means the couple would not have been human at all. So if there was an original “couple” ancestral to all humans, that couple could not have been Adam and Eve.

I have agreed with this.

@Eddie

onathan Burke is simply wrong to say that the BioLogos position is concerned only to reject the 6,000-year date.

I didn’t say that. I pointed out they are also concerned with the concept of universal ancestry from an original couple, which they rightly say is not possible.

@Eddie

The best that BioLogos can offer, regarding a fully human Adam and Eve, is the “adoption” idea, i.e., that there already existed a population of anatomically human hominids, and that Adam and Eve, one couple out of that population, were by some means brought into a special relationship with God. That couple had descendants, but there would have been other anatomically modern human beings living on the planet along with the descendants of Adam and Eve.

This is virtually identical to what I have said.

@Eddie

So what happened to those other physically human beings?

Perhaps this will help.

[Sy_Garte]

@Eddie

which goes beyond rejecting that timeframe to rejecting the idea of a first human couple, period. My statement of the BioLogos position was more accurate than your statement quoted just above, because I was much more explicit that BioLogos did not accept an original human couple, ancestral to all humans, at any date, no matter how long ago

Eddie

I disagree. You forgot to quote the last two sentences of Jon’s comment, namely

@Jonathan_Burke

I believe humans already existed at the time of Adam and Eve, and had existed for a long time. I do not believe all humans are descended directly from Adam and Eve.

So although he did mention 6000 years three times, its clear from the end that meant what I said he meant (and what he says he meant) namely the exact same position as Biologos, myself, Dick Fisher, and many others who have written on this issue.

What we need to do is disentangle the special creation of Adam and Eve from the wrong idea that they were the first Homo Sapiens on the planet and that all humans are biologically descended from one couple. That is simply impossible if molecular genetics is real. And it isnt necessary in order to believe that God either chose or even created two people with whom to have a relationship, and breathed souls into them.

How did this spread, you ask? Biologically and/or culturally, depending on one’s theological point of view. As to who bears the image of God, again that is for the theologians to answer, but they should not have a problem with the idea of Adam and Eve not being the first and only human couple.

[Jonathan_Burke (Jon)]

@Eddie

Note that all three of the possibilities you mentioned are tied to the 6,000-year timeframe. That is why I said you had misrepresented the BioLogos position, which goes beyond rejecting that timeframe to rejecting the idea of a first human couple, period.

Sy has helpfully answered this for me, even while I was writing the same thing.

@Eddie

I wrote of the BioLogos view: “it is no longer possible for a scientifically educated person to believe that there was a first human couple, specially created.” That is in fact the view put forward by all the biologically-trained columnists here who have written about Adam and Eve.

You need to explain why Sy has contradicted this.

@Sy_Garte

What we need to do is disentangle the special creation of Adam and Eve from the wrong idea that they were the first Homo Sapiens on the planet and that all humans are biologically descended from one couple. That is simply impossible if molecular genetics is real. And it isnt necessary to believe that God either chose or even created two people with whom to have a relationship, and breathed souls into them.

Yes.

@Sy_Garte

As to who bears the image of God, again that is for the theologians to answer, but they should not have a problem with the idea of Adam and Eve not being the first and only human couple.

There’s some very good evidence in the Bible itself that image-likeness is a matter of appointment, not simply shape (yes the words for “image” and “likeness” by themselves have a different sense, but together they form the image-likeness which is greater than the sum of its parts). Otherwise there would be no point in Seth being identified as in the image-likeness of Adam, if that’s just how everyone naturally turned out.