I’m not going to get into a long discussion, because I don’t know enough about this topic. But it strikes me that the adjective “Wesleyan” does not just apply exclusively to “the thoughts of John Wesley” but applies to the Christian tradition he founded. If you ask what the Lutheran or the Wesleyan position is on the ordination of women, you aren’t asking what Wesley and Luther said about it, you’re asking what the current leaders/theologians within the tradition say about it. Just because Wesley thought something does not mean it is therefore binding for his theological descendants for all time or that his thought is necessarily representative of “Wesleyan” thought today. That seems obvious to me.
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Brilliant answer.
George
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You have made lots of assertions about what I say and called many of them false claims about ID. Most were not, but you don’t listen. Enough said.
I went back and read the full article. Nothing new except the question of why he had to restate everything three times with more bold text.
I come away with the same opinion from my earlier post. Wesley would have more tolerance for an atheist then an ID promoter that would not claim outright that the designer was God or his organization was Christian based.
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The whole concept of “pretending not to claim” the God of Abraham is the Designer is rather fabulous and dishonest, all at the same time!
George
Again … in the spoiler mode, @Eddie?
You are comparing Wesley’s virtually pre-scientific concepts of physics and biology to a theological construct like “justification by faith alone” ?
Shall we compare the Victorian Zeal of Christian Flat-Earthers of the 1800’s to “by faith” as well?
Not sure what you are trying to prove in this thread…
George
Jo,
If you are right and it is obvious to the people running UD that you are right, they will ban you.
It appears to me you asked for an example of an ID proponents that didn’t believe the design in nature came from the God of Abraham. You were given one, and you promptly ignored it.
Is it simply not possible for you to make the distinction between design detection as a scientific enterprise, and theology?
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He John Wesley does NOT favor Bio-logos{God directed evolution}“whatever that is or may mean” he favors instant spoken creation as spoken by God as I do! Not slow evolution over time!
Biosemiosis,
I haven’t ignored it … I didn’t SEE the example.
Which post has the example? Did I skim over it? Who is the example of an ID proponent that doesn’t believe the God of Abraham is the designer?
George
Missed it? You replied directly to it upthread.
It was directly adjacent to the words “It’s irrelevant”, which you obviously did not miss, since you copied and pasted them in your reply.
This of course misses the larger issue: Are you able to make the distinction between design detection as a scientific enterprise, and theology?
Well, thank you for drawing my attention to that!
“Michael Denton”.
When you put a name at the beginning of a post … what is the mental response to interpreting the name?
Let me check out this Denton fellow…
I can understand your missing it. But I fear you may once again be missing the larger point mentioned in both of my two prior posts. Are you unable to make the distinction between design detection as a scientific enterprise, and theology?
Bio,
I have had quite a bit to do today … so I have not yet done some of my background research … as to your question:
It is my opinion that ANY effort to claim a DESIGNER (whether by scientific means or otherwise) is an intrinsically religious endeavor. This should not be hard to understand.
Now, as for Denton, I think you and @Eddie are perpetuating an error!
Compare these two statements about Denton:
“Denton still accepts design and embraces a non-Darwinian evolutionary theory. He denies that randomness accounts for the biology of organisms; he has proposed an evolutionary theory which is a “directed evolution” in his book Nature’s Destiny (1998).”
In his “. . . second book Nature’s Destiny (1998)[11] is his biological contribution to the anthropic principle debate, dominated by physicists. He argues for a law-like evolutionary unfolding of life.”
Denton, who apparently describes himself as an agnostic, stirs the pot by using the phrase “directed evolution” . . . but if evolution is a “law-like unfolding” of nature, it is not being DIRECTED by any conscious thing.
If there is no conscious divine principle… there is no REAL direction. Come on guys, quit trying to kid a kidder.
George
I’m sorry George, but referencing Denton is irrelevant to the question I asked. Theology is not part of design detection in biological objects. And any individual’s position, including Denton’s, would not make it so.
Your claim rests on the notion that all forms of biological design detection must inherently assume or include a Divine creation. That is just not so.
So Michael Denton is an ID proponent that doesn’t believe the design in nature came from the God of Abraham. What does that have to do with the fact that ID proposes and advocates that an intelligence (an intelligent being — thus, Intelligent Design) created the design?
If philosophy and mainstream science were to adopt the terms design and designing energy the phenomenon would be explained as such—the design and the designing energy from whence the universe came into being are coextensive [extending over the same space or time; corresponding exactly in extent] and intelligent life came into being only in the later stages of the process of cosmic evolution.
Simply because it is invoking an intelligent being as the designer (whether the being is the God of Abraham or some other intelligent being that Michael Denton proposes) ID, as a pseudoscience, embraces theology. Therefore, although there is a distinction between design detection as a scientific enterprise, and theology, ID encapsulates both as part of its pseudoscience.
Then why does ID, as a movement, refer to itself by the name Intelligent Design, and why does it propose and advocate an Intelligent Designer? Are ID and natural theology in cahoots then?