From: Alexanian, Moorad (alexanian@uncw.edu)
Date: Sat Apr 26 2003 - 13:31:45 EDT
The following my be of interest to this thread, which I posted in another list, and deals with Romans 1 and the "detection" of God or intelligence behind the creation.
"Humans can imagine existence outside of spacetime. Nevertheless, we are embedded in our spacetime and it is inconceivable to think of physically going out of our spacetime. However, one must distinguish between the physical aspect of humans and their nonphysical aspect----consciousness and rationality. Physical theories of nature, although derived with the aid of human consciousness and rationality, are devoid of them. Hence, it is impossible to infer from physical data the existence of anything outside our spacetime. Notice that even in physical theories that invoke multiple universes, the same would be true. It is human intelligence, the nonphysical, which actually allows us to conceive existence outside of our spacetime. Therefore, the detection of intelligence behind nature must come via the intelligence that we know that exists in humans. Therefore, when Paul infers from nature that there is an intelligence behind nature, it must be done via a human realizing that in s!
ome sense he/she is God-like, being created in the image of God."
Moorad
-----Original Message-----
From: George Murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
Sent: Sat 4/26/2003 1:01 PM
To: Iain Strachan
Cc: ASA; Dick Fischer
Subject: Re: "Design up to Scratch?" (The Wit and Wisdom of Michael Roberts)
Iain Strachan wrote:
>
> Dick Fisher wrote:
>
> http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1999/PSCF12-99Roberts.html
>
> I read this article, and came to the conclusion that the argument was
> specious & was about to write a post explaining why I thought so, but then
> followed up the link to the response by ASA fellow Gordon Mills at
>
> http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2001/PSCF3-01Mills.html#Behe%20and%20Intelligen
> t%20Design20Theory
>
> It seems Mills spotted the same obvious logical flaw in Roberts's argument
> that I did & put it much better than I can:
>
> ----------------
> Roberts (p. 248) quotes a statement in Behe's book as follows: "If a
> biological structure can be explained in terms of those natural laws then we
> cannot conclude that it was designed" (p. 203).
This statement is already questionable, even without carrying the argument
farther. It's true that we can't "conclude" that such a structure is designed in the
sense of logical implication - but then we can't "conclude" in that sense that a
structure is designed if it _can't_ be explained in terms of known natural laws. OTOH,
we can certainly say, from the standpont of faith (which is where we ought to begin
theological arguments, /fides quarens intellectum/) that some structures are designed
even if we have perfectly good explanations for them in terms of natural processes.
IDers have been reticent about answering the question "is the carbon-12 nucleus
intelligently designed"?" The reason is pretty clear: They don't want to say "No"
because that would suggest that the rather remarkable "coincidences" which make the
triple alpha process possible are indeed just coincidences which God wasn't especially
concerned to make happen. But if they say "Yes" then they have an example of an
intelligently designed structure which can be explained in terms of known physical laws
of nuclear & EM interactions. This then suggests that other such structures which seem
to be intelligently designed can be explained in terms of secondary causes without the
explicit invocation of a designer.
(Of course C-12 isn't a "biological structure" but it's an essential precursor
to such structures.)
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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