Science and pantheism

From the last linked article this much seems dead wrong about what evolution is or anticipates.

The full scope of evolution posits that there is a state of perfection that can be achieved, a telos (goal, purpose) of creation that will ultimately culminate in created matter being reabsorbed back into the ‘divine whole’, with man becoming a ‘god’ and attaining a higher plane of consciousness.

The essential idea of evolution is that life as a system self regulates and compensates so that life itself in whatever form can find a way, come what may. There is no telos or ‘perfect’ end state toward which it is progressing, or if there is, nothing in evolution supports it.

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If I read you right, then what seems to be implied is that the phenomenon of ‘evolution’ (if there is such a phenomenon) carries within itself some inherent creative power of ‘self regulation’ Almost as if this phenomenon is ‘mindful’. Here some notion of a ‘telos’ cannot be escaped. Even if this ‘telos’ i.e. end goal is only the preservation of life. The problem I would see, is that a process of a purely materialistic ‘natural selection’ as proposed by atheistic naturalists cannot possibly provide this. Thus we can make a distinction between the New Age view of evolution and a purely materialistic evolution.

However, If we are to take your view that ‘life as a system self regulates and compensates so that life itself in whatever form can find a way’. We are inevitably attributing a purpose. If a purpose then a telos inevitably follows. Your particular ‘telos’ may not be equivalent to that of New Age evolutionists but even so such a telos carries with it religious implications of a non-materialist kind.

This is inevitably a faith position.

I think you might be anthropomorphising the self regulation of life through evolution. Most of the self regulation even of what goes on in our human organism requires no mindfulness at all. Digestion, blood pressure, breathing, balance when walking and heart rate go on without our deliberate governance. I think (but am no expert) that evolution is like this.

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I certainly l have faith positions some involving what I hold as sacred. But none involve a being apart from everything else whose intentions direct and make make everything possible.

I think you might be anthropomorphising the self regulation of life through evolution. Most of the self regulation even of what goes on in our human organism requires no mindfulness at all. Digestion, blood pressure, breathing, balance when walking and heart rate go on without our deliberate governance. I think (but am no expert) that evolution is like this.

I think you may be reading me wrongly. My position would be that materialistic natural selection alone cannot account for any form of ‘self regulation’ in order for evolution to ‘find a way’, in the way you have previously described. Natural selection according to materialistic assumptions is not only blind, it is also deaf dumb and mindless, and therefore cannot ‘self regulate’ in order to find a way. We are speaking here of a philosophical, ontological impossibility.

The things pertaining to human biology you have listed do require an immense amount of regulating and fine tuning. However, they also often require ‘minds’ embodied in doctors and surgeons to put things right when these physiological attributes stop working as they should.

If I may say so, it is your good self who has introduced the notion of anthropomorphism by the use of the word the the word ‘self’ in suggesting that evolution provides a system which is ‘self regulating’.

The New Age i.e. pantheistic evolutionist has the philosophy of universal consciousness (i.e. the universe its-‘self’ is conscious) he builds this into his whole worldview of evolution, which he believes could account for a form of universal ‘self regulation’. (Not my view).

However, the atheistic materialist doesn’t have anything comparable he can provide as a philosophical basis behind the evolutionary processes he believes in. Natural selection does not posses any creative power to arrive at complex and highly regulated life forms. Moreover there has been no scientific discovery of any kind pertaining to a natural engine which could possibly drive and account for naturalistic evolution.

‘I certainly l have faith positions some involving what I hold as sacred. But none involve a being apart from everything else whose intentions direct and make make everything possible.’

Why would your faith position then rule this out?

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We have objective evidence of God’s guiding events through his providential interventions into his children’s lives, connecting the dots. We also know he is sovereign over mutations in DNA in their timing and placing, kidney DNA in particular. So his guidance of evolution undetectable to science is hardly a stretch.

No, there is no scientifically detectable telos, but we have truth revealed in the Bible about God’s sovereignty and intentions and why Jesus endured the cross for us, if you belong to him. It’s about a loving family and a Father’s renown.

Regarding ‘Sovereign interventions’:

If we are to believe in God’s sovereignty on any level, then His sovereignty cannot be divorced from His eternal being (i.e. that He is in Himself ontologically and eternally outside of creational temporality). Also to believe that His eternal decree, concerning temporal creation, is also determinitive of all things which come to pass.

What may seem to be sovereign ‘intervention’ to us is merely the outworking of this self same decree (in time) and therefore should not be understood solely as ‘intervention’ (on the purely horizontal plane) as we might humanly perceive it to be.

The question remains as to whether He has decreed to bring His own ‘telos’ to fruition via the processes of ‘horizontal’ i.e. a causal and effectual evolutionary processes. The traditional materialistic understanding of evolution rules out vertical causation on purely philosophical and materialistic grounds. Which raises questions concerning ‘Theistic evolution’ (which depends upon philosophical naturalism to some degree) as to how God could possibly direct an undirected process.

If we are to take the Bible at face value, then the ‘doctrine’ of evolution (yes- let us call it a doctrine) can only ever be (on historical Christian grounds) a ‘bastard’ doctrine which has been imported from faith systems external to Christianity itself, with their own inherent dangerous propositions. We must surely be agreed that scripture no where teaches evolution. We are also under no obligation to accept such a ‘bastard’ doctrine.

Authentic historic Christianity has never depended upon evolutionary explanations. If we are to accept the sovereign and ‘Supernatural’ almighty creator that the Bible teaches, then we should never need to.

The objection to this, and ever will be, is- ‘but that’s not scientific!’

However, if we are to accept that the modus operandi of ‘science’, per se, as ‘that only which can be measured’, then theory of evolution itself is not scientific.

That seems self-contradictory, understanding your “the purely horizontal plane” to mean the purely physical or earthbound. Of course God’s interventional M.O. includes the “vertical” but physically undetectable causality. Jesus calming the storm on Galilee is an example – were any natural laws broken? But the timing and placing of the events were, shall we say, notable? God’s providential M.O. at work.

Well I don’t think science is atheistic, religious or agnostic. It’s like asking is a cooking class those things and it’s just irrelevant.

The scientific method does a fantastic job at vetting things out and correcting it overtime. But you can be any of those things and accept science. Hence this group of mostly Christians who accept the scientific consensus

But there are a lot of people that though not dumb, don’t understand the basics of science and so they create these false paranoid ideas.

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Please explain the apparent self contradiction a little further.

In what sense can the the calming of the storm be viewed as ‘undetectable’ causality?

Words were spoken- the environment responded.

‘Well I don’t think science is atheistic, religious or agnostic. It’s like asking is a cooking class those things and it’s just irrelevant’.

As you say, ‘science’ itself as ‘science’ i.e. ‘that which can be objectively measured’ is not of necessity athiestic, religious or agnostic. I don’t believe anyone here has made the proposition that it is. However, each individual scientist, according to his own persuasion, will proceed to interpret his or her experimental findings according to his his or her a priori philosophical or religious assumptions. The assumptions come first the actual ‘science’ follows after.

I was responding to the very first sentence of the very first post.

You said that providential interventions should not be understood “solely as intervention on the purely horizontal plane”. How can anything be understood as an intervention ‘from above’ on a ‘purely horizontal plane’ in the first place? Providential intervention denotes not merely horizontal, materialistic causality, hence the contradiction, unless you mean something different by “horizontal plane” than I am inferring you to mean.
 

A man in a boat said something during a storm. The storm stopped. There is a materialistic causality between words spoken and the weather? What natural laws were broken? None, but it was providential timing and placing to the extreme, the same M.O. as other cases noted in ‘objective evidence’ linked above, the same sovereign God not “divorced from His eternal being” and while fulfilling his eternal decree.

I was at a lake once when the wind was kicking up the waves, bending the trees along the shoreline, and sending debris all over. All of a sudden, it just stopped. Like a switch was thrown, literally in seconds, all becalmed. No taper off. No little gusts. Just stillness. At the time, I literally thought of the disciples in the boat.

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So there can be no measures of evolution. What level have you studied biology?

So there can be no measures of evolution. What level have you studied biology?

Why limit evolution only to biology? Evolutionary theory is embraced across a whole range of disciplines such as cosmology, geology, paleontology, anthropology, zoology, psychology, the arts and humanities, including politics, ethics and across the whole range of social and behavioural sciences etc. No one is an expert in all of them as far as I am aware and in many cases ‘evolution’ is assumed on the basis of institutional consensus and accepted rather like the man in the street does. I studied Geology up to degree entry level but didn’t go that way.

I was taught evolution at A’level as though I should accept it on no other basis than ‘this is what the text books say’ and ‘they are written by the experts’. I passed my exams by learning the stuff by rote and regurgitating ‘parrot fashion’ without hardly understanding a thing about how it was all meant to work. It’s easy to pass exams this way. All you need is a reasonably good memory. So ‘levels’ don’t necessarily mean a whole lot when it comes to the truth of the matter.

Even so, I have read and studied the works of professional biologists who question evolution and remain far from convinced. I see Neo-Darwinist evolution as an extrapolated ideological belief system rather than objective science. A kind of religion of certainty.

However, if you are a biologist and want to convince me of why I should accept evolution and provide me with some scientific measurements then by all means give it your best shot, Klax me ol’ mucker. Give me your silver bullet. :sunglasses:

So you know nothing of evolutionary biology from disinterested biologists beyond 6th form. Nothing of measured rates of evolution from the fossil record to molecular biology. And yes I have put my honours degree in biological sciences, obtained from a proper university despite my then being a creationist, to professional use.

OK- Carry on. I’m listening.

To what? Read Dawkins. And Nick Lane.

I have have done, and also listened to his lectures.