Re: [asa] Designed Kangaroos? - Persons?

Since several of the persons who contribute to this list are on their way or soon to be heading to Scotland, I will keep this short.
   
  It is not only my hang-up about 'nature' but represents thought between natural science and social-humntarian thought. When it comes to interpreting the word 'nature,' neither George nor I hold the authoritative definition (there is no authoritative definition!). If there was an authoritative definition, geography would be easy to define as a natural science, instead of the branch called human geography being viewed as a human-social science. Likewise with anthropology and psychology, with aspects of those fields being entirely naturalistic (cf. methodological naturalism), while other aspects are more social than natural in orientation. Space needs to be made available here for dialogue and situational context for anthropic meanings rather than putting forth some singular natural science-centric defintion of science that does not do justice to human uniqueness.
   
  The academy is, after all, much more interdisciplinary than it was thirty years ago!! There is no need to think within C.P. Snow's 'two cultures' perspective that pits fields of knowledge against each other. I have been advocating freshness to George's status quo.
   
  The problem is that I refuse to be packaged into George's discipline-centric definition of 'nature' as if the combination of certain fields holds some pseudo-authoritative claim to 'what nature is' and 'what it isn't.' I have been reading much about social Darwinism recently and learning how influential Darwin's theory was in social-humanitarian thought, including the anti-dating of evolutionary theory to Darwin in social-humanitarian thought. Thus, it makes no sense to package off Darwinism as a purely natural scientific question, when the impact on human-social thought is immense.
   
  When I raise the question of 'human nature' it goes beyond (as well as around, under and through!) the category of 'nature' that George would be accustomed to by either his physics or theology backgrounds. This does not mean that physics and theology don't count - of course they have their unique contributions to holistic knowledge! But it means - and this seems to need highlighting - that neither of them (i.e. those disciplines) can presume to persuade people with claims to absolute knowledge given the diversity of academic fields in the academy. This is a basic post-modern recognition, nothing controversial about it in human-social thought! The old hierarchy of knowledge has crumbled. I simply feel like George is doing little to attempt to put himself in the shoes of a social-humanitarian thinker, i.e. to pay due respects to areas that have legitimate input on the question of whether or not "human nature itself is sinful and disobedient." It is incomplete not to involve
 anthopological views on this question!
   
  Instead, George wants to say 'design' is not a scientific concept and that evolution involves everything except for G-D! Neither of these positions (anti-ID and pro-TE) displays flexibility or a balanced approach to current disagreements in the arena of science and religion discoure. And neither does the extreme opposition to all concepts of design or all concepts of evolution propose a suitable middle ground to reach for.
   
  Instead, I have proposed opening up the discourse to include voices from anthropology (both linguistic and cultural, to go along with physical and archaeological) and psychology ('evolutionary' to go along with cognitive, developmental and social) rather than reverting to science and religion discourse that involves only natural scientists (namely, physics, the early lead paradigm, and biology, the current lead paradigm) and theologians without a reflexive, hermeneutical or self-subjective-contexual dimension.
   
  "My point here was that original sin cannot be understood to be something essential to what it means to be human. (Have I avoided the term 'nature' there? Not really - I've just repackaged it as 'essence.') If it were then God, as the creator of humanity, would be the creator of sin." - George
   
  Now the burden is simply shifted to "essence" from "nature," which doesn't get us anywhere but backwards looking. When we talk of 'three persons,' it should be noted that 'persons' usually have (a) 'personality' and 'character' - there is no need to talk exclusively about their 'nature' anymore. Is this so difficult to imagine? Science, rational knowledge, logical understanding and even human wisdom deserve to have more voices than reductionistic naturalism currently offers in its self-defined table of priority.
   
  If it is George's theological preference to make the Fall a figurative event, something that didn't involve flesh and blood persons, then it is up to him to explicate the philosophically sophisticated concept of 'essence' as something that excludes 'sin' during human origins. Otherwise, he should be welcome to give way to new views that acknowledge human-social thought and their impact on such questions as 'design,' 'evolution' and 'sin' than pretending that natural science and theology have together struck an ideal balance. Since I imagine he does not hold to the latter fantasy, it would be helpful at least to me if he could put into context the contribution of human-social thought to reflexive knowledge, going into more specific things than he has currently generalized.
   
  Persons don't choose to 'evolve' things - this negates the concept of biological evolution, which involves no purposive agents.
   
  Gregory A.
   
  

George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:
          Gregory -
   
  I understand - though I do not always agree with - concerns you have about the word "nature" is used in some contexts. In this case, however, you are clearly overreaching. When I said, "The question of an origin of sin in the first humans has to be dealt with - otherwise we're likely to be in the position of saying that human nature itself is "sinful and disobedient" and that therefore God is the creator of sin," I was using the word "nature" in a recognized philosophical & theological sense, as when we speak (following Chalcedon) of the "two natures" of Christ. Of course when I referred to "human nature" here I said nothing at all, & gave no excuse for anyone to imagine that I meant, that "human nature" could be understood exhaustively by what are commonly called "the natural sciences."
   
  My point here was that original sin cannot be understood to be something essential to what it means to be human. (Have I avoided the term "nature" there? Not really - I've just repackaged it as "essence.") If it were then God, as the creator of humanity, would be the creator of sin.
   
  Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
    ----- Original Message -----
  From: Gregory Arago
  To: David Opderbeck ; George Murphy
  Cc: Iain Strachan ; Michael Roberts ; Peter Loose ; asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2007 12:33 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] Designed Kangaroos? - Persons?
  .........................
   
  When George worries about whether 'human nature' itself is "sinful and disobedient," I can't help but cringe when 'nature' is used in this sense. If the word 'character' was substituted, nothing substantial would be lost, would it?
  .........................

       
 
              
---------------------------------
    
       
Yahoo! Canada Toolbar : Search from anywhere on the web and bookmark your favourite sites. Download it now!

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Mon Jul 30 23:30:48 2007