On Sat, 01 Jul 2000 22:01:37 -0500 "Bryan R. Cross" <crossbr@SLU.EDU>
writes:
> SteamDoc@aol.com wrote:
>
> That clearly isn't the charitable interpretation of Phil's
> statement.
>
>> much
> > like his writings on HIV and AIDS.
>
> Yes. Exactly. Johnson's arguments against macroevolution are not
> drawn from
> theology but from scientific evidence (whether he is right or
> wrong). The
> theological impact has to do with exposing methodological
> naturalism. (As a side
> note, for those who hold that it is a theologically-established
> truth that God
> directly acted upon nature after creation say, to create new life,
> scientific
> confirmation or refutation of that claim will obviously have a
> theological
> impact.)
>
> > Richard Dawkins thinks natural explanations like evolution
> > "mean" that God is not there. I disagree, based on what the Bible
> says about
> > God's sovereignty over nature. Phil Johnson *appears* to agree
> with Dawkins
> > on this fundamental view; at least he keeps dodging opportunities
> to disagree
> > with Dawkins' view of what evolution means. Once one agrees with
> Dawkins
> > there, one has sold out to semi-deism and must then argue against
> the science
> > as though the truth of the faith were at stake.
>
> Phil Johnson "appears" to agree with Dawkins only if one
> (mis)interprets his
> affirmation of providence as mere "lip service". Somehow, you
> interpret Johnson's
> view of the nature of providential action through natural causes as
> equivalent to
> Dawkins's "natural causes alone without any providence". But there
> is absolutely
> no justification for such an equivalence claim. Believing that there
> are limits
> to what can be done by means of providence does not entail or imply
> (in any way)
> a rejection or diminution of the doctrine of providence. Denying
> this begs the
> question.
>
> The so-called 'rhetoric' is not about the baneful effects of
> neo-Darwinism per
> se, but about the theological bias of the methodological naturalism
> that
> presently undergirds neo-Darwinism. That life and all its diversity
> originated
> via macroevolution by natural causes is very far from being
> established
> scientifically. The presumption, indeed the emphatic insistence,
> that it can all
> be explained via natural causes, before the evidence is there to
> support such a
> claim, is a symptom of a methodology that is intrinsically hostile
> to the
> possibility of God acting directly upon nature.
>
> Again, the uncharitable misconstrual.
>
> - Bryan
>
First, it is not uncharitable if it is accurate. PJ's reading of
biological science seems on a par with his reading of the alternative
medical material on AIDS.
Second, PJ's reading of nature is, in everything I have encountered,
deistic: matter does its own thing unless God miraculously intervenes.
His view exactly matches the Dawkins' view of matter doing its thing
until one gets to miracles. Dawkins denies the miraculous and PJ affirms
it.
Third, the only way that methodological naturalism is opposed to
traditional orthodox theism is if it is held to be identical with
metaphysical naturalism, which is essentially equivalent to scientism.
Since PJ, for all his vaunted legal parsing of fine points. cannot tell
the difference, he writes buncombe. And that is putting it charitably.
Dave
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