In a message dated 6/15/00 11:24:36 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
lhaarsma@calvin.edu writes:
> 5) Whenever people believe a theological or spiritual premise (for
> example, the premise that "God created human beings"), they almost
> always attach some assumptions about mechanism (e.g. they have in mind
> some hypothesis about _how_ God created human beings). If and when the
> findings of science disagree with the _mechanism_ that they pictured,
> they interpret this as science attacking their _theological_ belief.
I found this one particularly perceptive.
I saw a great example of this a few months ago when John Wiester spoke at our
local ASA meeting. He made a big point of saying that the 3 major issues
with regard to "evolution" for Christians were (parodying the old real estate
line) "mechanism, mechanism, and mechanism." For Wiester, a mechanism that
referred only to natural processes without any gaps for God to act in was
unacceptable.
I seem to mention this often, but the root question here is whether natural
explanations automatically exclude God, or whether God can do his work via
his sovereignty over nature. Applying it to this issue, what does evolution
"mean"? Richard Dawkins gives us a metaphysics where a natural explanation
like evolution means God is absent and there is only room for God in the
unnatural. Wiester and Phil Johnson seem to have adopted Dawkins' basic
view; they just differ from him as to whether the number of unnatural
interventions in natural history is zero or not. As long as Christians are
accepting such unChristian ideas of what natural explanations "mean," we will
continue to have big problems in this area. So I'd submit that Wiester
should have said the 3 biggest issues for Christians with regard to evolution
were "meaning, meaning, and meaning."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Allan H. Harvey, Boulder, Colorado | SteamDoc@aol.com
"Any opinions expressed here are mine, and should not be
attributed to my employer, my wife, or my cats"
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