Re: Evolutionary mechanism GOOD??
David Campbell (bivalve@mailserv0.isis.unc.edu)
Tue, 5 Jan 1999 11:24:50 -0400
>At 10:47 AM 1/5/99 -0400, David wrote:
>>Although getting eaten by a predator is surely not a pleasant experience
>>for a deer, neither is starvation or disease.
>>
>>The current system does work well if the most important goal is having a
>>diversity of living organisms surviving a variety of environmental factors.
>
>You have implied that the present fallen system should serve as a model for
>the unfallen one that you and I have no sensible model for. Our own
>ignorance should never be the basis for so profound a philosophical
>position. It makes no sense whatsoever to model an unfallen system we have
>never experienced after one that we have experienced that certainly can
>bear little resemblance to the original, just because we cannot imagine how
>it could have been. The logical fallacy of so doing should be obvious.
>Art
Actually, we do not even know enough to know whether the current system
resembles the original. It is possible that, given the constraints God has
imposed on nature, that there might not be better alternatives (apart from
the direct consequences of the fall), but I doubt we will ever discover
enough information to have any ability to assess that idea. As the Duchess
said to Alice, "you don't know much, and that's a fact." However, what
little we know is all we have to build on, and we ought to use what we
have.
One additional possibility is that the effects of our fall may have been
retroactive. The Old Testament believers were saved by faith in Christ
before His incarnation; perhaps the animals of prehistory were doomed by
Adam's sin before his creation.
David C.