I see no reason why our ignorance should indicate s science alone!
How does ignorance indicate anything whatsoever?
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I agree. However, the scientific method allows us to investigate things, and it has a pretty good track record. Supernatural explanations are really, really hard to investigate. If we had decided 200 years ago that everything we currently didnât know at that point was all due to the supernatural, how much knowledge would we have been missing out on?
Maybe Iâm missing your point, but are you really saying thereâs no ground to stand on? That neither divine purpose nor any intrinsic order, random or otherwise, actually underlies existence?
If so, then where can we plant our feet and not have the ground shift beneath us? Because if everything, including consciousness, existence, and process, is without foundation, then even our reasoning about it dissolves into the same uncertainty. Weâre trying to build meaning on quicksand.
Itâs one thing to question the nature of the foundation; itâs another to deny that there is one. The very act of asking why anything exists already assumes there is something solid enough to ask from.
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What I think many of us are saying is that you canât arrive at divine purpose through the methods of science.
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Fair point, but letâs take that scientific curiosity and aim it at something right in front of us: the miracle of the butterfly.
Explain to me, scientifically, how a caterpillar knows to surrender itself, to crawl into a tomb of silk, dissolve into molecular soup, and re-emerge as a completely different creature. Tell me what algorithm of instinct teaches it to trust that the death of what it was is the only way to become what it was meant to be. And keep in mind, itâs not like butterflies and caterpillars meet at some social club talking about transitions and resurrections, right?
You can map the genetics, describe the enzymes, measure the timing, but you canât explain the why. You canât explain the will embedded in that tiny being to obey a destiny it doesnât even understand.
Thatâs not superstition, thatâs intelligence woven into life itself. Thatâs order speaking through beauty, transformation, and trust.
If we call that âjust nature,â then weâre simply renaming the divine and pretending itâs our discovery.
What why are you looking for? From everything we see, the organism is a product of its genetics. Itâs the same process that allows you to start out as a single cell and end up as a human child. I havenât seen any evidence that points away from our general understanding of how genetics influences development, or even instinct.
I see nothing wrong with saying we have slowly discovered how nature works. Whatâs wrong with that? If you also believe the divine is a part of nature, thatâs fine. We still have the language and methods of science that can allow us to arrive at the same conclusions within the limits of science. We can both discover how antibiotics kills bacteria, as one example, even if you think God is involved in nature in some way.
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What kind of help are you asking for exactly? Are you sure it is help youâre asking for, as opposed to making demands?
Judging by how conversations here usually developâŚyes, I would advise you to start a separate thread if there is a specific problem with the Bible you want to elaborate on.
I might regret asking 
but what were the two questions? Mind, Iâm not promising whatsoever that Iâm going to answer them myself.
If you discount those who are Christians purely because of geography, you will find that those who have taken the time to really think things trough ended up choosing Christianity because they sincerely believe that its teachings and moral framework are more accurate, profound, or complete than those of other religions.
So are you actually saying that you do not believe the claims of Christian members of this forum when they say they accept Evolution? In fact itâs not just members, itâs the whole Biologos as organisation, itâs really the whole point of them. And you just called them âfundamentalist propagandaâ? If thatâs really what you believe, what are you even doing here? I wouldnât want to hang out on a website if I believed it was âfundamentalist propagandaâ. Besides by saying âpropaganda is everywhereâ youâre not addressing the question, youâre just dismissing it.
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Before asking âhowâ, you need to demonstrate âthatâ.
Do caterpillars actually know what you claim they do? Are they sufficiently aware of what they are doing that it can be described as âknowledgeâ? Do they actually have âtrustâ, or âwillâ, or intelligenceâ?
No-one needs to explain (scientifically or otherwise) what has yet to be established as reality.
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Nice cop out.
Richard
How uninspiring 
If possibility ends at the limits of science, then what a narrow cosmos weâve built for ourselves; one where wonder is reduced to process and purpose is written off as poetry.
You speak as if naming a mechanism exhausts the mystery. But discovery isnât ownership. Knowing how something happens doesnât explain why it exists, or why it carries meaning, or why we care that it does.
If all this life, consciousness, and transformation are merely chemical coincidences, then yes, letâs shut it all down. Letâs stop pretending beauty matters, stop marveling at music, stop seeking truth. Because in that world, even the joy of discovery is just neurons firing meaninglessly.
But I donât believe that, and neither, deep down, does anyone who has ever looked at a butterfly and felt something stir inside.
Science describes the dance; faith remembers the Dancer.
I never said possibility ends at the limits of science.
I fully agree that humans also experience life through a subjective and emotional lens, and that part of ourself is extremely important.
What I have been discussing with you is the idea that science alone can lead us to the conclusion of divine purpose. You seem to be basing this on the premise that if we currently donât understand something then it must be the product of the divine. That seems like a really poor apologetic, at least to me.
I am not saying that we should limit ourselves to what science can find. What I am saying is that we should be honest about the limits of what science can find. Those are two different things.
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Please explain how giraffes fly to the moon.
Any objection that it has not been established that giraffes fly to the moon will be rejected as a âcop-outâ.
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Insecct do metamorph. Giraffes do not fly.
You are avoiding philosophical arguments because you do not see then as valid or relevant.
That is your cop out, and you are entitled to it.
Richard
You mistake the starting point.
Apologetics doesnât begin with a gap in knowledge⌠it begins with awe!
I donât look at mystery and cry âGod!â because I ran out of explanations; I look at mystery and see meaning because I began with purpose. Thatâs the difference. You start from absence and try to climb toward significance. I start from significance and explore its depths.
If you only ever walk where science has already lit a lamp, youâll never know what light is. Youâll just analyze the glow and miss the sun.
I donât need the divine to fill in the blanks of what I donât know. I begin with the divine because thatâs where knowing itself begins; where curiosity was born, where order made discovery possible. Science doesnât threaten that; it confirms it, again and again, with every layer of complexity it unveils.
So yes, we both admit limits. The difference is, I donât build my house inside them.
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Thatâs a cop-out.
Please explain how giraffes fly to the moon.
I am not. I am pointing out that caterpillars do not necessarily have the mental capacity to know what they are doing when they spin a cocoon, or why they are doing it. Asking how they know what they are doing is jumping the gun - first it should be established that they know what they are doing.
This is not avoiding a philosophical argument, it is making a philosophical argument.
As for your claim that âinsecct do metamorphâ, youâve clearly missed the point. Iâm not disputing that insects metamorphose, Iâm disputing that insects are aware that they will metamorphose.
If you do not understand the difference - and your comments suggest that you do not - you have nothing useful to contribute.
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It is not making any argument, it is dismissing the subject.
The underlying question is to do with the intelligenc of metamorphing, How nature could possibly come u with such a ridiculous idea. ehter it is the intellect of the bug, or the intellect of the process, the question remains. Just to say it is a genetic process misses philosophy altogether.
Richard
To get from that to âeternal infinityâ is not a path of reason, itâs a sheer leap of faith â itâs metaphysics, not logic.
Youâre operating on a subjective, faith basis and energetically insisting to yourself that you arenât.
There are a couple but names escape me at the moment. Interestingly, the ones Iâve come across rely heavily on Lewis.
Not much. Christians who enjoy science do not think, âGod did it, go find something else to doâ, they think, âGod did it â letâs figure out how!â
Canât⌠or wonât?
Thereâs a difference between saying âscience canâtâ and admitting âweâve chosen not to let it.â The scientific method, by design, restricts itself to material causes, but that doesnât mean reality itself is restricted to them. It just means the method is.
And yet, history is filled with physicists, mathematicians, cosmologists, and neuroscientists who began as strict materialists and ended up convinced that the deeper they probed, the more the data pointed toward design, intention, and mind.
So the real question isnât whether science can reveal divine purpose, but whether youâre willing to let it if it does. Because if the structure of the universe, its fine-tuning, and the emergence of consciousness all whisper of intelligence, the only thing standing in the way is not evidence, but fear of what that evidence might mean for your worldview.