I would suggest you read Chapter 1 from which the quote is taken. He is talking about thinking and the mind and how that relates to believing in miracles. Nothing to do with evolution.
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Be nice now, please. The quote I am referring to here is not the one that I put the word “evolutionists” in. It is “In order to think we must claim for our own reasoning a validity which is not credible if our own thought is merely a function of our brains, and our brains a by-product of irrational physical processes.”
I have already said this. Did you read it? Did all of you read it? Then why to you respond as if you had not?
Let me ask a very direct question once again.
What other irrational physical processes (other than evolution) could someone think Lewis could be referring to which some believe would produce our brains as a by-product?
This is very simple. Please do not respond without answering this question.
@pevaquark Your argument that Darwin let the evolution cat out of the bag applies just as well to Lewis’s argument here. Lewis let the reason cat out of the bag. Even if he disavowed it or changed his mind, it is an idea that has been given exposure. The only way it can die is if it is forgotten.
You can argue that natural processes are not rational or irrational, but the second you apply the term random you immediately apply immutable irrationality. If a step in a rational process is rendered irrational, the result is likewise irrational. If the brain is developed by any random steps…~They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based.~
Dude @Bill_II I read the whole book. I have read the following by C.S. Lewis: God in the Dock, The Weight of Glory (and other sermons book), Miracles, Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, and The Abolition of Man.
Sorry to be jumping in the middle of this and not having followed the entire thread. I saw the mention of random and thought it curious that randomness may well only be possible by way of mindful intentionality.
Like when you decide to randomly choose a series of numbers or snap your fingers in an unexpected sequence.
Coming from an OEC background, I didn’t have a problem harmonizing evolution and the creation account in Genesis. Part of it was due to my understanding of God’s providence and Romans 8:28.
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Ah yes I see that now, I apologize. The second Lewis quote you put the word in, the first one it looks like you infer that he is referring to the theory of evolution.
I think it’s ridiculous to call the mechanisms behind evolution irrational. So I would also not read that into the quote, but I suppose I thank you for not editing it directly into the first quote.
That’s not what I said. My point is that I don’t care what C.S. Lewis was referring to by “irrational physical processes” because the theory of evolution isn’t judged by what one theologian had to say in one quote one time. If C.S. Lewis thinks that evolution is an irrational physical process, then he was wrong. But given his acceptance of theistic evolution, that’s probably not what he was referring to. It also wouldn’t have mattered if Charles Darwin rejected his own theory (which never happened mind you), because scientific theories aren’t decided upon by the thoughts or quotes of a single individual. They are decided by evidence.
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Exactly. When my car is running there are processes occurring that are inanimate and neither rational nor irrational. A rational mind can understand them, but the processes themselves obviously are neither cogent nor self-aware.
So it really is a nonsense question and I don’t know if you understand what you are asking or if you are just using the language incorrectly.
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I suppose if you are arguing that evolutionary processes are not irrational, you may have a point. I was saying that if genetic mutation is random it is irrational, ergo if it produces an adaptation that is confirmed by natural selection it codifies an irrational step. I do see however that if we use a debate as an analogy and arguments are chosen at random such that substantiating arguments are kept and erroneous arguments are discarded, a rational case could eventually be made by an algorithm similar to evolution. I know it doesn’t really work as a good analogy but it is sufficient to communicate the concept.
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By that argument, if where raindrops land is random they are irrational, but if they perform a function (like filling my rain guage) they are rational? Do you see why folks are having difficulty with what you are saying?
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Is quantum indeterminacy irrational? What about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?
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Lewis thought that, in Alfred North Whitehead’s words, scientists who were “animated by the purpose of proving that they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study.” He satirically depicted such scientists in That Hideous Strength , especially in the figure of Frost. Of all radical empiricists, from La Mettrie and Hume to A. J. Ayer, who would undermine the authority of reason and its procedures, Lewis tirelessly pointed out this contradiction. He believed in the old adage that “the only way to avoid metaphysics is to say nothing,” because in some important sense language and thought themselves are non-natural, supernatural, transcendent, and metaphysical. “In order to think,” he wrote in 1942, “we must claim for our reasoning a validity which is not credible if our own thought is merely a function of our brain, and our brains a by- product of irrational physical processes.” from here
La Mettrie, Hume and A. J. Ayer were not scientists but philosophers. What C.S. Lewis is speaking against is the philosophy of logical positivism. It is true that some scientists at the time were advocating this but in doing so they were doing philosophy not science. Some scientists like Dawkins write on topics other than science, like philosophy and religion. And since this is not their expertise the quality of their work drops dramatically. In any case, logical positivism has fallen into disfavor in both philosophy and among scientists.
In any case, Lewis is not speaking against evolution but against the trend in philosophy arguing that there is no purpose, meaning, or reality (metaphysics). None of this is inherent in evolution and is obviously not the case in theistic evolution.
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Thanks for the brain exercise, @Derik_Yeager . Nice to meet you. Can you tell us anything about yourself? I’m a “missionary kid” (now in my early 50s), who was born in Nigeria and grew up in West Africa. I very much enjoyed my time there, but also love working as a family doc in West Michigan, USA, and attend a Baptist church. I enjoy this forum as a way to talk about science with freedom, both with other Christians and people of varying backgrounds–including yourself.
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Not all will claim it’s God’s sovereignty to that degree (I don’t know why not), but this one sure will. @Derik_Yeager didn’t get around to reading about my nephrectomy apparently, or couldn’t endorse it, but we can also believe in God’s providence without it overriding anyone’s free will.
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I grew up where I now live (in Columbia Missouri) and have been a Christian since the most nascent comprehension of Christ. I love profundity and apologetics, having discovered many things about spiritual realities that, I would think, make me seem smarter than I really am, e.g., Integrity is the only true self-respect, To love is to identify with God, and The need to love is as great as the need to be loved. In my eminent humility I called my wife and I “the adventures of Wildfire and the Incontrovertible Man,” though in this conversation I feel I may have lost my title. If I preface it with “ostensibly” I suppose I can pick up where I left off. At least I can still prove the validity of my faith and the existence of God. I ascribe to a variant of Molinism as opposed to Calvinism or Arminianism, and it seems to me that the entire human condition exists in such a manner as revolves around the profundity of the conscious free will to love as made possible by Christ.
- In order to love there must be free will because love is freely chosen.
- In order for there to be free will in a multitude of instances, bad choices will be made.
- Bad choices cause suffering, and the suffering observed in the world in many cases seems extreme and unjust. Therefore, in the interests of perfect justice God took that suffering back upon himself to offer the gift of salvation for free to all who would believe.
- As such, if you accept the gift of salvation “these light and momentary struggles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” 2Cor 4:17 Accepting the gift defines the life of one who does as the love of God, and its reward compensates for anything one could possibly endure in this life.
- To reject the gift of salvation defines the life of one who does so as contempt for the entire context that makes love and free will possible, as well as God and love itself. It is not difficult to see how an entity that is defined as the contempt of love would deserve abject punishment.
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Great to meet you! It’s also wonderful to remember that God is to us as a father to his children (Psalm 103), knowing how we are made. He is delighted when we ask questions, I am convinced. Thank you.
My take on things starts the same but then diverges from yours.
1. In order to love there must be free will because love is freely chosen.
2. In order for there to be free will in a multitude of instances, bad choices will be made.
3. Bad choices cause suffering, and the suffering observed in the world in many cases seems extreme and unjust. But mistakes are an important part of how we learn, so there is a need to distinguish between the mistakes we learn from and those which become habitual and self-destructive. Not learning or even refusing to learn from our mistakes is one of the most important examples of the self-destructive habits we call sin. Jesus constant refrain is “your sins are forgiven so go and sin no more.” Thus He makes it clear that what is important is not what have done but where you choose to go.
4. Thus God requires no magic spell, ritual, or sacrifice in order to forgive. It is we who need/demand such things – refusing to try changing until our bad habits cause the death of an innocent, not seeing the error of our ways until a judge demands we pay some debt of punishment (or even just a love one requiring us to attend AA meetings), Jesus showed us that God is willing to pay any price, but it was the crowd of people who screamed “crucify Him” to Pontius Pilate.
5. The point is not to imagine you have some sort of entitlement due to following some set of steps in an evangelical pamphlet. When a man demands such of Jesus in Matthew 19, Jesus gives him no such thing, saying “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” This is the gospel of salvation by the grace of God. It is not the Gnostic gospel of salvation by a special knowledge of dogma or the recitation of approved beliefs.
6. As for the logical natural consequences of our actions, I don’t believe there is any escape. There is only a choice of how you deal with them – surgery or disease. You can die to these self destructive habits by putting yourself in the hands of a surgeon, or you let these habits devour you from within. The latter is the wide well traveled road because it is easier, more comfortable, and more like our heart’s desire. Better to follow God’s desire for us no matter how painful, difficult, and uncomfortable.
Christians accept evolution because they believe in God. not because they believe in science or nature. God is a God of order and the order that God used to create life forms is evolution.
Now if you think God used a different kind of order and you can read the Mind of God to share it with us, fine! Please go right ahead.
The theory of evolutio9n as we know it is not complete. I see the better role for BioLogos is to help science to complete iit rather than defend it.
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Another illustration of the problem of labeling something irrational is found in the popular assertion that “you are made either by an intelligent creator or mindless molecular processes.” In the process of making you, from a fertilized egg to now, there have been countless molecular processes, and none of the molecules have minds. But that does not mean that an intelligent creator might not be involved. The statement is a false dichotomy - mindless molecular processes do not rule out a role for an intelligent creator, if the creator is intelligent enough to make use of molecular processes.
Likewise, the idea of the impossibility of evolving sexual reproduction from asexual reproduction is something of a false dichotomy, for it imagines a jump between asexual reproduction through fission to something like typical terrestrial animal sexual reproduction, ignoring both the fact that many organisms are capable of both sexual and asexual reproduction and that there are many patterns for both.
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How? How does, how can, and why would, the intelligent enough creator make use of molecular processes, apart from indirectly by instantiating and sustaining nature?
No Lewis is saying that humans must be ‘more’ than evolution can produce by itself. That there is something beyond Nature. I think most theist evolutionists would agree, to some extent at least. But he’s specifically talking about the mind and consciousness, which quite frankly noone understands. Is the structure of the brain sufficient to produce the mind? Lewis thinks not, though Im not so sure. God may very well have purposed evolutionary processes to produce such a thinking being.
Lewis is not rejecting evolution at all, but simply saying human beings specifically are more than a biological organism. I would agree.
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Is anything truely random to God?
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