My ID Challenge

Faith & Science Conversation
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Because evolution says that life happened in a way that is completely contradictory to the way the Bible says it happened.

No, evolution does not tell us how life began… Evolution simply provides a biological mechanism for how organisms change their phenotype. Evolution says nothing, zero, zip, nada about the origin of life.

evolution says that the unfolding of life was a completely natural process. If purely natural processes are capable of bringing forth all life, then God is obviously not in the process at all.

First of all, science can point to no ‘natural process’ by which life can be brought forth. Second, you seem to be claiming that the existence of natural processes is antithetical to the existence of God? If so, explain?

So, what does the author of the first creation story say about life and natural processes? Quite a bit, actually. Let me point you to a much overlooked couple of verses in Genesis 1, verses 11 and 12. English translations tend to gloss over what is obvious in the Hebrew of these verses. Here’s the RSV’s translation (abbreviated):

(11) And God said, “Let the earth put forth … fruit trees bearing fruit …” And it was so.
(12) And the earth brought forth … trees bearing fruit… And God saw that it was good.

The RSV gets it almost right. Except the word ‘bearing’ as in “being present” or “being carried” is misleading. The verb the RSV translates as ‘bearing’ is oseh which in this form is better translated as ‘creating’, ‘making’ or ‘forming’. Let’s substitute ‘making’ for ‘bearing’ and see what we get.

In verse 11, God instructs the earth (nature) to produce “trees of fruit making fruit”. In verse 12 we read that the earth failed to do so. Rather, it brought forth “trees making fruit”. See the difference? God asked for trees that would, in effect, make fruit continously. The earth could not comply and produced trees that only produced fruit periodically (vis, in season). After Rashi (and others) noted this discrepancy in the 14th century, scholars have been spilling oceans of ink trying to explain it.

What’s important here is that the Genesis author was, as is so often the case in these two creation stories, advancing the radical idea that nature is inert. Nature has no will. It is limited by the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology - principles created by God and instantiated at the moment of creation.

One final note: it may well be that the scientific principles that constrained the earth was, in fact, the operation of evolution. But, that’s not what the purpose of the narrative is. If I were a concordist I think I could make a case for evolution from these two verses AND the observation that God feels it necessary to judge each creation day as if its outcome was not certain.

But, I’m not a concordist. Instead, we readers are to learn and accept that nature does not have a will. It can only do what the laws of nature, created and given by God, dictate. By contrast, we are willful (as we learn in the second creation story) and can choose paths that are counter to the ones nature (or God) would have us walk.

Blessings,

Michael
P.S. A more extensive commentary can be read here.

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Hi Joe,

Hope all is going well with you and yours. Sorry I couldn’t respond any earlier; it has been a busy week. I do appreciate your “thinking out loud” and your desire to clarify agreement and disagreement as much as possible.

I don’t think we disagree on whether purpose is inherent to physical processes. Purpose arises from outside natural systems–from the will of their Creator who providentially sustains them. In light of quantum physics, I’m not sure I agree with your take on 100% determinism, but that is a topic that we should probably leave to another day and another thread.

I share Eddie’s perspective on the relationship of purpose and evolution:

I mostly agree with what you stated here, Joe:

I would frame the point somewhat differently. My foundation is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Because He has captured my imagination, I then see His design everywhere else–in the stars, in human history, in the nature of living organisms.

Where we differ, I suspect, is in your view that the necessity of intelligent agency is a property of biological life that can be observed unequivocally by a religiously neutral observer. You seem to regard this point as a bulwark against the claims of atheists like Dawkins, Provine, and Dennett. I respectfully disagree. My view is that our bulwark is God’s dealing with us and our forebears throughout history, in both ancient times and modern, and most especially in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. If we instead rely on scientific observation to provide the foundation for our faith, we run the risk that the supposedly strong fortress of “irreducible complexity” will get blown up by observations of the emergence of nylonase from a frameshift mutation, or the emergence of citrate metabolism in a Michigan State lab, or the like. Scientists are very curious and resourceful folk; tell them that something like the emergence of a flagellum is impossible by a genetic/biological process, and they will work long and hard to show you are wrong.

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184

@deliberateresult

Chris gives a great response above … and to go along with that, read 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 which I believe shows the spirit of these thoughts:

And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, 4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. [NASB]

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185

You raise several issues at once here, Nick. So I have a few questions for you and a few points of clarification:
Questions:

  1. Do you believe that God Created Adam as the first man and Eve as the first woman?
  2. Do you see evidence of God in the night sky?
  3. If you do see evidence of God in the night sky, do you also see evidence of God in the information and the technology of life? If so, why, and if not, why not?

Clarifications:

  1. You have no disagreement from me that the Bible does not contradict active guidance. Indeed, the Bible makes it very plain and very clear that God has, in fact, actively intervened in His Creation to make man in His image. That’s kind of a big point I am making, Nick!
  2. I find it hilarious that you accuse me of making a straw man argument and just a few short sentences later, you characterize my position in the following manner:

" ID is not a magic formula for the conversion of the unwilling. If someone refuses to see the evidence of God in the night sky, then they will refuse to see the evidence for God in your arguments for frontloaded genetic thingamabobs," and:

“You have not addressed how you are contradicting God’s plan by trying to create an irrefutable argument for the existence of God.”

for now I will merely point out that I have never laid claim to “an irrefutable argument for the existence of God.” Nonetheless, two things remain true here: the information and technology of life are indeed powerful evidence for the necessity of a Creator of life. Once that much is established, we can follow a logical path to a reasonable conclusion concerning the identity of that Creator. Second, a naturalistic narrative concerning the origin and evolution of life being a necessary cornerstone for the atheist worldview, does, inevitably turn believers into atheists, especially inasmuch as such a narrative stands in stark contrast to the claims of the Bible. Meanwhile, ID - without having to lay claim to any sort of “magic formula” does indeed bring unbelievers face to face with the reality that they have been Created.

Front loaded genetic thingamabobs? Really? Good job, Nick!

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I’d like to raise just one. Any thoughts on rain? Do you not see how identifying rain as a natural process pens the door wide for believers to become atheists? Isn’t “Intelligent Precipitation” superior to the idea that rain just somehow forms by itself in the air and falls to the ground in a completely unintelligent way?

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No, I do not.

Yep.

Yep. But I’m not going to be perturbed if atheistic evolutionists wake up tomorrow and come up with a plausible explanation for the cambrian explosion, or if they come up with a reasonable theory for the evolution of irreducibly complex watchumaycallem’s. This is because I am able to take on faith the fact that God directed evolution to conform to his plan. Will some other people look at the facts and refuse to take on faith that God directed evolution? Sure, but guess what? That too is part of God’s plan, because part of God’s plan is for us to have free will.

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Hi Casper. Thanks for the quiz! And true to my nature, I see these questions as much larger than simple yes/no questions. I will treat them accordingly and do my best to satisfy:

A. Here’s what I will say: embryonic development is an amazing example of precise programming in four dimensions. Therefore, what I am certain of is that embryonic development manifests clear evidence of an intelligent agent behind the process. So this much I do know: purely natural processes, in and of themselves, are not capable of creating such programming. Programming of this incredible level, sophistication, and precision can only be the product of intelligent agency.

Looks like my answer then is NO. Therefore, on to questions D and E

D. Unlike purely natural processes, embryonic development follows a clear logic gate sequence where wise choices must be made at a myriad of decision nodes in order to arrive at a targeted result. Such a process is purposeful, intentional, planned. Such a process manifests clear choice contingency. It is clearly the process of a Creator.

E. I don’t know. I lay no claim of knowledge concerning exactly how He Creates. I only claim that the evidence for a Creator is crystal clear.

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Not really. I do not believe that (a) is a valid theory. I don’t even think its scientific, quite frankly. What I do believe is that when we teach that life is the result of purely natural processes; when we affirm the notion that evidence for a Creator cannot be found in living organisms, then we logically open the door for believers to become unbelievers.

Thanks for asking!

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Well, and that’s the presumption that is not implicit in a purely scientific evolutionary theory. Again, the claim is metaphysical.

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It helps me understand where you are coming from a little better. Permit me to suggest that the conclusion that life has evolved based on probabilistic modeling and statistical analysis goes farther than the data. I am glad that you are willing to incorporate probability into an understanding of the unfolding of life. Such rigorous mathematics has long been resisted in the discipline of biology and I think that if you would take a broad view of all that probability can contribute, you will recognize that when it comes to the origin of life, a naturalistic narrative is essentially impossible.

Meanwhile, a theory that claims all living organisms have descended from one or a few common anscestors must produce an empirical, quantifiable, functional adaptive continuum for every single novel genetic feature (for example, wings) from an ancestor which ultimately did not possess such a feature.

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Yes, Jonathan. Now, can you see that if we are willing to claim that the phenomenon of life can be wholly explained by the exact same processes that produce rain, you are making my point for me?

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Not quite. The debate is - or certainly should be - does life manifest evidence of design? It looks like you agree with me that life is clearly distinguished from the inanimate world by qualitative differences. That’s terrific! Now let’s you and I take the next logical step together as children in Christ. Let’s proclaim and celebrate the evidence from life for our Creator!

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Sorry, are you actually saying that if can be demonstrated that rain is the product of a natural process then that would prove God doesn’t exist?

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@deliberateresult

Thanks for the succinct answer - I think most of the arguments around neo-Darwinian theory(s) have their origins in obscure claims and speculation that cannot be supported by sound scientific work, and this is particularly so when we discuss how life originated. My view is that much of this pseudo-science is driven by atheists and anti-theists, to provide a basis for materialistic beliefs and outlooks.

It is tragic that believers fail to appreciate these matters and instead are drawn into the rhetoric of materialists - I also think it is sad to see so much angst between believers who go to great lengths to defend ND against those who do not accept it in the form presented by atheists and anti-theists.

Thus, it is not so much that a door is opened for believers to become unbelievers, but instead endless arguments and obscure presentations of ND within a theological framework, either frustrates some who cannot follow the reasoning, and/or so much emphasis is placed on “understanding God’s creation within an evolutionary framework”, that some people end up seeing it as evolution = new theology that brackets God into a humanly defined role.

In any event, thank you for questioning and probing the arguments in ths area.

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I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make here, Joe. Maybe you should elucidate a bit more.

I’d love to hear your boldness with scientists from branches other than biology, Joe. It might go something like this:

“If you physicists can’t reconcile quantum mechanics and gravity, then we must reject both quantum mechanics and relativity.”

Or:

“If you astronomers can’t explain dark matter and dark energy, then we must reject the Big Bang.”

But just because scientists can’t explain everything doesn’t mean they can’t explain anything. And in the field of biology, scientists have strongly refuted most of the ID examples of design inferences. The emergence of blood clotting, chloroquine resistance in malaria, flagella, new protein folds (contra Axe), etc., have all been explained in detail.

What did you think of the articles I linked to, Joe? They’re an important basis for my thesis in this thread, so I’d love to hear your opinion on them.

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@Deliberateresult,

People who believe God was the ultimate guide of evolution (by making key genetic mutations and/or changes in ecology) have no problem visualizing how birds evolved or whales.

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Hi Chris…

Even though I am pretty sure I know what you are getting at here, I am going to ask you to flesh this out a bit before I indulge my urge to respond right away. So when you say, “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,” what is it specifically that I am saying about the TOE that also applies to these disciplines?

Thanks

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it comes down to this, Christy: The Bible - the living Word of God - tells us plainly in many ways from Genesis to Revelation that God has Created us. The Bible tells us one thing, and the TOE tells us a different thing. The two cannot be reconciled; their claims are mutually exclusive of one another. If one is true, the other is false. This is a truth that is evident to many, if not most. This is why the TOE has a unique way of destroying faith. As Daniel Dennett has pointed out, evolution is a universal acid that eats through our most cherished beliefs, to include belief in God. Indeed, Biologos’ own Karl Gibberson borrows Dennett’s metaphor directly in his book, “How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution,” when he says:

“Acid is an appropriate metaphor for the erosion of my fundamentalism, as I slowly lost my confidence in the Genesis story of Creation and the scientific creationism that placed this ancient story within the framework of modern science. Dennett’s universal acid dissolved Adam and Eve; it ate through the garden of Eden, it destroyed the historicity of the events of Creation week. It etched holes in those parts of Christianity connected to those stories - the fall, ‘Christ as second Adam,’ the origins of sin, and nearly everything else that I had counted sacred”

That’s quite a mouthful, and once Christianity is denuded of the above doctrines, we are clearly left with that which Paul sternly warns against in Galatians; we are preaching a different Gospel.

Thus, the TOE, as many of us can recognize, is a singular and unique destroyer of faith.

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Bill: it is clearly evident to many, if not most, that the two make mutually exclusive truth claims. Therefore I am curious: can you lay out a specific case for your position?

Thanks