@Ashwin_s ( @pevaquark, @T.j_Runyon, @T_aquaticus, @Mervin_Bitikofer, @jpm ):
It seems that you are among the last to find out: there are Christians with a science vocation who
simultaneously:
- believe Evolution is teleological, but
- do not believe the teleological nature of Evolution can be proved, nor that it can even be detected, by scientific method.
How is this true?: there are many ways for God to have shaped life on Earth, and each one is virtually impossible to test - Let’s use the dino-killing asteroid as a natural event, believed to have been at the hand of God:
A) By arranging to wipe out the dinosaurs and their ilk, God made it possible for a broad range of large mammals to evolve from the very small mammals that had evaded extinction by being too small for dinosaurs to effectively hunt them into oblivion. But there are no tests for God’s intentions!
B) For many Christians, their religious premises tell them that the mere fact the asteroid hit the Earth is enough for them to know God planned for that. Christian Scientists affirm the intelligence of the events and the resulting effect by religious interpretation, not by scientific interpretation.
C) Scientists are not in a position where they can test:
i] whether the asteroid collision was something in arranged for by purely natural lawful means (the asteroid was created by the collision of other natural bodies somewhere beyond Earth’s orbit around the Sun);
ii] God “poofed” the asteroid into existence and aimed it at just the right trajectory to collide with Earth at exactly the desired angle.
Many Creationists are surprised to learn that what separate BioLogos from Creationist group is not the verdict on divine design, nor the verdict on teleology - - but the verdict on whether Science can find or detect the actions of God and/or whether it is beneficial, or too societally risky, to teach religious aspects of Creation in the public schools.
But here’s the most important thing:
You write: "I feel this is highly deceptive. There is a generally understood meaning of the term evolution.
Evolution is commonly understood as a non-teleological process."
This is the very thing BioLogos seeks to change – to show that Christians can embrace the scientific side of Evolution without it affecting their Christian faith, and also without affecting how the science of Evolution is conducted. What looks random to the human mind is, by our religious calculus, is not random to God.
As a fan of American pragmatism and American constitutionalism, I can imagine the first post-American Revolution politicians were criticized when they referred to America as a “democracy”! I can imagine some “old school” political essayist insisting that “democracy” has only meant “rule by the mob” and so their terminology is wrong.
But what the post-revolutionary politicians were doing was encouraging an additional meaning to the term “democracy” - - which captured the essence of the American political model:
- a system with no king or even a house of Lords (with land titles conferred by land ownership).
- a system where factions were able to freely compete for support from the electorate;
- a system where the above points were valid and true, despite slaves, women and most men with insufficient property to qualify for voting.
The politicians could have attempted to invent a completely different word - - but found it easier, and more compelling to the voters, to add to the dictionary meaning of Democracy, rather than to add to the confusion by inventing a brand new term.
The parallels to the use of Evolution are quite close:
the term Evolution, as used by its earliest promoters, required randomness and God’s lack of engagement with natural laws that control evolution and/or God’s existence not even acknowledged.
But as the evidence for “Common Descent with Modification” started to accumulate, and the use of the phrase “Survival of the Fittest” began to be replaced by “Natural Selection”, Christians who found the natural evidence more convincing than the denials by Creationists - - the need for a new [possible] understanding for Creation became increasingly evident. Thus, if Speciation could occur by God arranging for sufficient levels of mutation, which could lead eventually to changes in reproductive compatibility, the word Evolution was still applicable, since Creationists rejected the possibility for such things.
It was reasoned that -
Since God could use at various times both miracles (i.e., special creation) OR natural laws to make rain or to make a new species; and
Since God appears to have gone out of His way to leave evidence for “common descent” and “speciation” by natural processes; then:
a new category of Evolution must be defined where Evolution is in the hands of God, rather than in the hands of nobody.
@Ashwin_s, I hope this helps you understand the underpinnings for why there is a new (additional) definition for Evolution.
ADDENDUM - -
You wrote:
I think you attempting to define those who believe God employs naturally produced Speciation and Common Descent as Creationism is another kind of double-talk. If Special Creation is making Adam in a “poof” event . . . then clearly making a human over millions of years can’t be Creationism. The process is easy to define: it is evolution. The part that you call Teleological is not available to science for further analysis or even detection.
So . . . by all objective measures, Evolution is still Evolution.
