From: Josh Bembenek (jbembe@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Apr 12 2003 - 10:43:18 EDT
Howard: It is quite a different matter to ask how or why the universe has
that particular nature. Here it is very appropriate to posit that God
thoughtfully conceptualized the nature of the universe for the
accomplishment of God's purposes and then gave being to a universe having
that nature. But this involves no irruptive interventions into a stream of
creaturely events/processes already in place.
-The only disagreement I have with this statement is the last sentence where
I would say, unlike many who hold to this dogmatically on this listserve,
"But this DOES NOT NECESSARILY involve any type of irruptive interventions
into a stream of creaturely events/ processes already in place."
>
> > Does anyone know,
> > based upon fundamental laws alone, how likely galaxies, solar systems
>and
> > planets will be formed? How much form and direction God gave swirling
>gases
> > to form planets doesn't seem to be unequivocally answered: None. So,
>the
> > existence of the correct balance of ingredients does not logically
> > necessitate that they mixed themselves in either biology nor astronomy.
>I
> > would say that the fact that the earth has a proper balance to support
>life,
> > and that the universe as a whole has the proper balance to support life,
> > indicates that someone tinkered with the variables. That doesn't say in
> > either case how much tinkering was necessary to get the variables to
> > form-confer our current status in life and astronomy.
>
>I'm not sure what sort of "tinkering" you have in mind here. "Tinkering
>with
>the variables" sounds like "thoughtfully conceptualizing the nature of the
>universe -- selecting the values of all cosmic parameters -- for the
>accomplishment of God's purposes." I'm comfortable with that.
-Personally, regardless of the veracity of ID or RFEP or whatever else, I
have a difficult time trying to pinpoint exactly what God's actions are
during the creative process. Tinkering is a nebulous term for whatever God
did to bring about form to the universe. My point is simply that accepting
fine tuning and a correct balance of variables does not logically require
you to accept that all of these variables *Acting on their own creaturely
powers* produced the ultimate effect of the universe as we see it.
>
>But in the arena of biology the ID folk propose various sorts of "tinkering
>with structures" -- form-conferring actions by an unembodied Designer that
>rearrange atoms and molecules within a universe that already exists. That's
>the sort of supernatural intervention that the RFEP posits as unnecessary.
>
>ID proposes a mixed approach here. Tinkering (as an intervention) is
>evidently unnecessary for the formation of inanimate things like nucleons,
>nuclei, atoms, galaxies, stars, and planets, but is necessary for forming
>propulsion systems on the bacteria in my intestines. My entry into this
>thread was to point out that inconsistency.
-Wherein I tried to point out that accepting fine tuning arguments does not
logically require one to accept any RFEP whatsoever. Additionally, I said:
"ID may be credited not for supporting the "fine tuning" argument per se,
but for claiming that information is as fundemental to an understanding of
the origin of biology as gravity is for understanding the origin of planets.
Without God providing Gravity or Information we will have not Planets or
Biological Structures."
You can provide no explanation for the origin of gravitiy or strong nuclear
forces besides God's creative acts. ID simply adds information to the list
of requirements of basic fundamental characteristics of nature that are
necessarily provided by God. What exact actions were required on the part
of God to employ this information component of nature is another question
altogether. As "God is Hidden," it may very well be that he programmed the
required information in some completely unknown way into the Big Bang such
that RNA molecules would begin to self-replicate and subsequently lead to
the origin of biological complexity. Or, he may have been sitting on the
Earth's surface 4 billion years ago, cookbook in hand, mixing the right
molecules until out popped a cell. Either way, the information of life is
as fundemantal as gravity to the IDers, and thus even if we accept that
gravity formed planets (and thus some degree of RFEP) we have not derived
any FE for gravity, nor should we derive any FE for biological information
based upon their arguments (strong or weak as they are).
Josh
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