guess he might have taken a bio break as not everyone goes here every day.
he fails by his assumption that:
"statement that a purely natural process can produce an intended result is a logical fallacy."
Is it possible that if in the sum of elements with purpose, e.g. the universe there could be elements without purpose?
What is “A purely natural process” to you @deliberateresult? Is replication itself a natural process? replication is a “natural process” Do you mean material and because material can’t think it cannot have intentions or do you mean natural being random, thus not goal oriented? Now if the process itself is random but the survivors would only be the ones that support creation, e.g that provide a benefit to the overall system the outcome of the apparent random process still fulfills it’s purpose to progress the system. In fact the randomness of mutation would be the only fair system to achieve such goal based on genetics and adaptation. If one however sees physical death as an unfair option one has a problem
guess he might have taken a bio break as not everyone goes here every day.
he fails by his assumption that:
"statement that a purely natural process can produce an intended result is a logical fallacy."
Is it possible that if in the sum of elements with purpose, e.g. the universe there could be elements without purpose?
What is “A purely natural process” to you @deliberateresult? Is replication itself a natural process? replication is a “natural process” Do you mean material and because material can’t think it cannot have intentions or do you mean natural being random, thus not goal oriented? Now if the process itself is random but the survivors would only be the ones that support creation, e.g that provide a benefit to the overall system the outcome of the apparent random process still fulfills it’s purpose to progress the system. In fact the randomness of mutation would be the only fair system to achieve such goal based on genetics and adaptation.
If you see the process of cellular replication, do you think the process is not intentional, e.g. that the replication of the cell is an accidental outcome of the chemistry involved?
Now we are getting somewhere! You and I have agreed that the process itself is devoid of purpose. But while you would say that this is a “narrow factoid,” I continue to hold that this is the entire point! Remember Mervin, I am not accusing you (or anyone here) of not believing in God. What I am saying is that people - in particular young people who are learning the TOE - see a purposeless process; one that in and of itself has no need of God. This does not square with the consistent Biblical notion that God directly and actively Created life.
Now in your analogy, you have pointed to a purpose and have noted the necessary role of intelligent agency in that purpose. Let us zoom out even farther: eventually we will see the physical result of your use of the screwdriver. Perhaps you were assembling a bicycle for your daughter, or a vanity for the master bathroom. This physical result will be distinguished from the physical results of natural processes that have not been harnessed for a purpose. It will be distinguished in that it will manifest clear design. It will be evident that this bicycle was an intended result.
On the other hand, if you had used your screwdriver for no particular purpose; if all you did was randomly shook up some dirt and called it a day, then the result would not evidence any design whatsoever.
Life is clearly distinguished from the inanimate world by qualitative differences. It is - or it should be - evident that life does indeed manifest design, and therefore a designer. The distinguishing manifestations of life constitute clear evidence of a designer. Just as natural processes alone could not possibly have produced that bicycle, it is equally clear that natural processes alone could not have produced even the simplest single cell organism. You did not break any physical laws in the assembly of the bicycle, but you clearly harnessed those laws to a purposeful end, and this is clear by the result produced.
As long as we affirm the notion that life only bears evidence of physical causation (without emphasizing the signature of intelligence), we are leaving the door wide open for believers to walk away. Just as there is no reason to think that your random perturbations of the dirt required intelligent agency, so it will remain an unavoidable conclusion that life did not require intelligent agency.
It seems to me that if one accepts the Anthropic Principle which is a scientific theory, then the fact that life has a purpose, that is, to create an observer, has been empirically established.
However Christy we are still talking about the God of the Gaps by saying that Nature cannot or did not create life. What is our response if it can be demonstrated that Nature did produce life?
My point is that Darwinian Evolution is flawed in that it does not demonstrate that a purposeless process shaped life on earth. Darwinian Natural Selection is a mythos, not a logos.
Is the Anthropic Principle really a scientific theory? I thought it was philosophy. You can’t falsify it.
I am not saying life could not come about via natural processes. I am saying God is the author/designer/sustainer of life. I did not arrive at that conclusion by way of logical deduction about what nature can and can’t do, but by way of special revelation.
The Anthropic Principle is a scientific theory and yes one can falsify it by finding evidence to the contrary. So far as I understand, the new evidence has been positive, just as the evidence for Einstein’s Theory has been positive.
I did not arrive at that conclusion by way of logical deduction about what nature can and can’t do, but by way of special revelation.
Is this special revelation one that says, “God created life separately and perhaps independently from the rest of Creation,” or a deduction from the revelation that “God created everything, which clearly includes life.”
You have never actually established this premise. The references to the image of God in Genesis were long before the doctrine of the Trinity was established, so that image=Trinity, was clearly not the meaning the original audience took away. “Image of God” in Genesis has a specific meaning. It is not an empty template which we can fill up with anachronistic philosophical ideas. The word is related to icon.
Jesus is the image of God (Colossians 1:15, 2 Corinthians 4:4). How does it make sense that the Incarnate member of the Trinity doubly triune? It makes much more sense that “image” means representative or ambassador or substitute.
I’ve read Hawking and Hugh Ross on the issue, and they both portray it is a philosophical consideration. As does Wikipedia:
The anthropic principle (from Greek anthropos, meaning “human”) is the philosophical consideration that observations of the Universe must be compatible with the conscious and sapient life that observes it. Some proponents of the anthropic principle reason that it explains why this universe has the age and the fundamental physical constants necessary to accommodate conscious life. As a result, they believe it is unremarkable that this universe has fundamental constants that happen to fall within the narrow range thought to be compatible with life. The strong anthropic principle (SAP) as explained by John D. Barrow and Frank Tipler states that this is all the case because the universe is in some sense compelled to eventually have conscious and sapient life emerge within it. Some critics of the SAP argue in favor of a weak anthropic principle (WAP) similar to the one defined by Brandon Carter, which states that the universe’s ostensible fine tuning is the result of selection bias: i.e., only in a universe capable of eventually supporting life will there be living beings capable of observing and reflecting upon fine tuning.
What kind of scientific evidence would prove or disprove the principle? If you showed that a fundamental constant emerges as the only solution to string theory math, that might reduce the impetus for the AP a little, but it wouldn’t refute it. The opposite might increase the impetus a little, but the possibility of a multiverse reality will always cast a shadow over the AP. So it boils down to philosophical considerations, ultimately.
How is this a flaw? It seems to me that the inability of any scientifically described process to demonstrate purpose is a feature, not a flaw.
The consideration that many of us have been raising is that what you say of TOE is also true of physics, and astronomy, and number theory, and chemistry, etc. Because the scientific method brackets theological questions to the side, any scientific theory can always be abused by some atheists to claim that God does not exist. (I’m not saying all philosophical claims by atheists are illegitimate; I restrict the scope of my comment to the claim that “science shows natural processes at work” must yield the conclusion that “God is absent” – or put another way, “the absence of evidence” of a particular type is the same thing as “evidence of absence.”)
I agree with you that we need to teach our sons and daughters that God is providentially involved with everything in the universe; no process lies beyond the reach of His providence. Surely we need to emphasize this especially with respect to the sciences of origins, because our kids are more likely to hear the illegitimate atheistic claims during a discussion of evolution than during a discussion of stoichiometry. (Tip of the hat to @GJDS for reminding us of this pragmatic concern.)
And again Chrisity, you have hit the heart of the problem squarely. If it is true that we cannot detect a necessary role for agency in the living world, we are also saying that there is no evidence for agency in the process.
Do you not see that saying such a thing opens the door wide for believers to become atheists when our God promises us that one of the ways that we can know He is who He says He is, is because He has Created us, and that He has done so for a purpose?
Perhaps evidence is not necessary for you, but it is for me and for many others who are wired like me. And frankly, God invites us to examine the evidence and reach a true conclusion based on it.
The TOE is presented as a purely natural process. It is taught that way. For example, the textbook “Biology,” which is co-authored by TE Kenneth Miller (I know he is not associated with BioLogos, but he is a Christian who also writes biology textbooks) says that evolution is a purely random process and that humans are an accidental outcome of that process. Other popular biology textbooks go even farther, claiming (or, as it is presented in the classroom, teaching) that the TOE eliminates the role of a Creator.
No I don’t. At least not in a unique way. I acknowledge that faith is a fragile thing and, in many ways, a gift of grace. It is not something we manufacture by our intellectual efforts. Any number of things threaten faith. Does it not “open up the door wide for believers to become atheists” when their child dies of cancer despite their fervent prayers for healing? Hasn’t God promised to care for us and heal our diseases?
The world is full of experiences and realizations that challenge our conceptions of God and our commitment to the truth he has revealed to us in his word. I don’t know why you have signaled out evolutionary theory as uniquely bad, other than for you, it was particularly challenging. Other people will have different challenges, and in the end, people who put their faith in something other than the person of Jesus (whether it is evidence, or a particular biblical interpretation or theological system, or an apologetics argument) often find that faith crashing down when something comes up that causes them to reframe their thinking. “Necessary role for agency in the living world” is not the basis of my faith.
You and Christy (and others) seem to believe that unless someone convinces us that the Bible and evolution are incompatible, the possibilitythat they are will never dawn on us. This is an erroneous assumption. To most of us who have any familiarity at all with Scriptures, it is immediately obvious.
One fundamental disagreement that exists between you and I here (I think) is my argument that purely natural processes, being wholly deterministic, are devoid of any choice contingency. Nature does not make active choices. Nature cannot steer events toward an intended outcome. Nature is wholly governed by inviolable laws. Without choice contingency, there can be no purpose. Therefore, I don’t see this as an issue that turns on the scientific method; it comes down to logical incoherence.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that what you (and possibly many others are saying) would go something like this: the purpose behind the evolution of life can be found in the establishment of the initial conditions that inevitably yielded all living things, to include mankind; in other words, the programming for the evolution of life was “front loaded” in the initial conditions of the universe. Would that be a fair thing for me to think?