Excellent quotation. Your response is better than I could have asked for!
Canât we agree that scientists, in general today, make poor philosophers? In the past, scientists knew philosophy as well to a fair degree. Today they do not. That is the problem. The âepisodic deismâ noted in my post above and the mechanical image of God most likely dominates for those lacking any real knowledge of classical theism. I think this includes the skeptics that say âscientists wonât even consider guidance.â Their theology is just as poor.
And as for your comment on âpotential disconnect between elite scientists and the broader scientific communityâ I would say that I do not think the opinion of NAS scientists on the question of God, which is not a scientific question, carries any more weight than any other scientists.
Why ask scientists about Godâs existence unless you are fixated on a mechanistic image of God and finding gaps? If you have a more realistic theology you would know scientists are not the expert on this question. I donât go to the car mechanic for a second opinion on cancer treatment options. I wouldnât even go to the elite -one tenth of percent- NAM (national academy of Mechanics) for this opinion. If I wanted to ask the relevant experts if God existed, I would ask those who specialize in the subject. Namely, philosophers of religion. In this department, almost 3/4 people believe in God. You can disagree, but academic consensus, and not popular internet opinion, is a good place to start when evaluating a position.
Vinnie
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Naturally there will be those who oppose science because it is science, but that does not mean that all who oppose evolution are of that category, (and I get frustrated when I am accused of being one who opposes all science).
It is so easy to lump these altogether and claim there is no justification for it, be it biblical or otherwise.
It all boils down to the individual, and each of us process things slightly differently, but some are more different than others. The problem comes when we assert that our own process is the only true or accurate one.
I have been criticised for claiming that scientists can be blinkered or narrowminded, but it goes with the territory. It is not something that can easily be changed and, to a greater or lesser extent needs to be changed. That is, until or unless, people start claiming that everyone must see it in the same way. (their way).
It is all very well toc claim that an alternative view is due to ignorance but that assumes that people will always se it as you do, given all the information. It is perfectly possible for someone to understand exactly what you think and still disagree with you. So no matter how often you rephrase, or teach, it wonât change their minds. But, that must mean they have a valid reason (at least in their own mind) as t why they disagree. Unless you can identify that reason and answer it you are wasting your time repeating your assertions.
IOW it doesnât matter whether you fully understand evolution, if you do not fully understand the criticisms against it. E.g. because you think they are invalid and have automatically dismissed them, or claim them to be because of inaccurate or false thinking)
Richard
I remember this article now âŠ. from 2019. 6 years ago @LorenHaarsma included these words in her introduction:
âWhen I talk about evolutionary creation I am sometimes asked, âWhy not just say, âGod-guided evolutionâ?â I hesitate to use that phrase because I know, from experience, that if I did say âGod guides evolutionâ many in my audience would misunderstand me.â
It goes without saying that people have too much baggage about Theistic Evolutionary positions. And yet the phrase âGod Guided Evolutionâ endures. I think it endures for a simple reason:
The phrase has the LEAST baggage to unload while still addressing the prejudices of YECs,
The author never actually offers the readers an alternative. Maybe @Roy can suggest one?
POW! That says it better than the MANY things I have said!
Perhaps because there is not one that can be settled upon. It may not be satisfactory, but there you go.
Richard
Loren is a male. The name could throw me off as well..
These are just the difficulties of modern materialism and scientism which has pervaded public thought. Lots of people naturally think science and religion are at odds. Students are often surprised I believe in God as a science teacher if they bring the question up. I think the issue goes back to Newton at the least who thought God has to periodically intervene to micromanage orbits. Gaps are a real problem for Christians. We donât need gaps and should not be using them. The use them because they imagine the world is like a car and God is like a mechanic who only comes in to fix things. So the only way they can know if he fixed things is by finding some miraculous component of the . The car itselfâproperly understoodâis already the proof they seek. God is âdrivingâ the darn things at all times.
A proper understanding of philosophy and classical theism has disappeared for most leaving people ultimately lost without knowing it. We need to get people away from âepisodic deismâ. The very notion we need to come up with a special name for Christians who accept evolution" only adds fuel to the fire we are trying to put out in my mind. I prefer Thomist myself.
International Theological Commission (2004)
In freely willing to create and conserve the universe, God wills to activate and to sustain in act all those secondary causes whose activity contributes to the unfolding of the natural order which he intends to produce. Through the activity of natural causes, God causes to arise those conditions required for the emergence and support of living organisms, and, furthermore, for their reproduction and differentiation. Although there is scientific debate about the degree of purposiveness or designoperative and empirically observable in these developments, they have de facto favored the emergence and flourishing of life. Catholic theologians can see in such reasoning support for the affirmation entailed by faith in divine creation and divine providence. In the providential design of creation, the triune God intended not only to make a place for human beings in the universe but also, and ultimately, to make room for them in his own trinitarian life. Furthermore, operating as real, though secondary causes, human beings contribute to the reshaping and transformation of the universe. A growing body of scientific critics of neo-Darwinism point to evidence of design (e.g., biological structures that exhibit specified complexity) that, in their view, cannot be explained in terms of a purely contingent process and that neo-Darwinians have ignored or misinterpreted. The nub of this currently lively disagreement involves scientific observation and generalization concerning whether the available data support inferences of design or chance, and cannot be settled by theology. But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within Godâs providential plan for creation.[4]
Vinnie
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Sticking with the language from the opening post, there would need to be a statistically significant signal in order for science to see it. Science canât say that it isnât there, only that it isnât detectable by the methods of science.
The intent of ID/Creationism isnât to convince scientists of their claims, including Christian scientists. I think that much has been made clear.
For the lurkers . . .
In the opening post I wrote:
âScientists arenât rejecting guidance within the confines of science because guidance isnât allowed or is forbidden to even be considered. Rather, the evidence is indistinguishable from our statistical models of what no guidance would look like. Does that prevent a scientist from also believing that God is guiding evolution in a manner that we canât detect? Obviously not. BioLogos is full of people who both accept the scientific conclusion and believe God is guiding evolution.â
There is the scientific verdict and the religious verdict. While believers and non-believers can find agreement on the scientific verdict, they wonât agree on the religious verdict. The reason is the same for why non-believers donât believe in the first place. While some atheists may see science as disproving the existence of God, there are plenty who donât, including myself.
What do you think of this quote from Romanes?
Therefore throughout this essay I refer to design in the sense understood by the narrower forms of teleology, or as an immediate cause of the observed phenomena. Whether or not there is an ultimate cause of a psychical kind pervading all nature, a causa causarum which is the final raison dâĂȘtre of the cosmos, this is another question which, as I have said, I take to present no point of logical contact with Mr. Darwinâs theory, or, I may add, with any of the methods and results of natural science.
Romanes was shooting for a more general theistic position which may not be specific enough for Christian theology, but what do you think of the differentiation between immediate and ultimate causes? Does that mesh with what you are describing?
I fail to see why itâs a problem, unless scientists want to write books or papers on philosophy. The average car mechanic or taxi driver are probably bad philosophers. I would think your average scientists is as good a philosopher as your average person in the pew.
I completely agree. Being a scientist doesnât give your opinion on theology any more weight than other professions (except for those in the ministry) or your average person on the street. For example, I couldnât care less about Dawkinsâ opinions on religion.
Or any other person on the street, as stated above. We have complete agreement on this one.
Forgive me, but I had not heard of that one, perhaps not being Catholic. Having seen several definitions it would appear to be no more clear than Theistic Evolutionist and possibly less easy to identify.
Richard
@T_aquaticus Indeed!
And this brings us to the problem with âIntelligent Designâ - - a hypothesis
that mangles the very point being held by Evolutionary Theists:
ID proponents say God âmust intervene miraculouslyâ to create certain creatures or the anatomies that allow the creatures to succeed.
But Theists who hold to God-Guided-Evolution say if God intervenes in Evolution 100% of the time then ID is simultaneously ENDORSED-and-SET-ASIDE !!!
This removes the ONLY leg in IDâs one-legged stool - - Intelligence/Teleology is retained; Design is retained. What is removed is the primitive and bankrupt notion that God can only work through Miracul-ism, and rarely through Providentialism!
ID proponents actually say that some unidentified designer must intervene to create certain creatures or anatomies. They deliberately donât mention God, because their aim is to bypass restrictions on introducing religion into US schools.
ID isnât even a hypothesis in scientific terms because it isnât testable or falsifiable.
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Discussing these topics for, literally, years has allowed me to make the same observation.
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Ouch.
That observation shows a limited sample.
The only reason ID proponents do not mention God is in respect for those who do not believe in Him. In actuality, there is the only logical conclusion from ID, that the Intelligence is God. Who or what else could it be!
Furthermore, the existence of ID does not need to rely on miracles. The design can be made by funnelling, channeling or guiding natural processes without the need for ex-nilo or miracle. IOW it would still be indistinguishable from any other natural progression.
Any notion that doing so is somehow deceptive disregards the reasons why God does not make Himself obvious, We have covered that before and need not repeat it here.
Richard
That may be for some ID proponents, but ID does have a history. The founders of the ID movement ((e.g. Phillip Johnson) were responding to several court cases that ruled against overt creationism in public schools. ID was an attempt to make creationism look less like creationism so that it could pass muster in public schools. The earliest controversies concerning ID focused on attempts to get it taught in public schools. Thereâs also the infamous Wedge Document from the Discovery Institute, the largest ID foundation.
Discovery Instituteâs Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies. Bringing together leading scholars from the natural sciences and those from the humanities and social sciences, the Center explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature.
. . .
Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.