From: Steve Petermann (steve@spetermann.org)
Date: Wed Sep 03 2003 - 12:27:23 EDT
Hi Josh,
The "gaps" arguments are based, I believe, on a presumption of
intrinsicality. That is that there are properties/laws/forces that are
intrinsic to the cosmos and the entities in it. But can this presumption be
logically supported? To illustrate, imagine a juggler who paints herself
blue and stands in front of a blue screen for a TV performance. To the
viewing audience the juggler is invisible and the balls seem to act on their
own. Now a scientist in the audience might take some measurements, create a
theory that seems to accurately describe the movement of the balls.
Naturally the scientist will think the balls have intrinsic causal
properties. But in this case it is a false presumption. In fact the
juggler, if she wanted to, could even vary her throws a little from time to
time and the scientist would just view them as anomalies where, in fact,
over a long period of time the actual pattern could have changed
significantly. The gaps arguments suggest that God is a spectator who jumps
into the fray from time to time. Elements in Christianity, process
theology, and other religions offer a different view that God is a blue
screen juggler constantly creating and evolving meaning and purpose in the
cosmos.
Best Regards,
Steve Petermann
----- Original Message -----
From: "Josh Bembenek" <jbembe@hotmail.com>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 12:42 AM
Subject: Van Till's Ultimate Gap
> Just a quick thought that I'd like some feedback on. Many on this list
have
> expressed dismay over IDers usage of God's "hand-like" action as a magic
> wand to use whenever scientists don't understand a particular phenomena.
I
> agree that it is fruitful to point out that God never ceases to act in
> sustaining Creation and that such rhetorical strategy implies
unintelligent
> creation when natural mechanisms are found to account for such phenomena.
> However, I wonder if this same problem exists for the fully-gifted
creation
> viewpoint? What makes us think that the origin of space time and the
> derivation of matter, energy and all of the universe is simply a gap in
our
> understanding that some future naturalistic discovery won't elegantly
> explain, again making the "God Hypothesis" obsolete? Perhaps I should
> remember some discussion of this in some article, but its not coming to
me.
> I don't care to defend my idea by trying to give any explanation for a
> naturalistic origin of space-time. Besides for those here, isn't it
> sufficient enough to hypothesize that a naturalistic explanation is out
> there awaiting our discovery instead of "jumping the gun" and prematurely
> attributing creation to the act of God before all explanations are fully
> explored? The Big Bang Hypothesis is younger than evolution isn't it?
I'm
> not looking for a drawn out debate, just some thoughtful considerations.
>
> Josh
>
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