Though I appreciate the spirit of your post, Keith, it is the letter of it that I must respectfully disagree with in parts. What is disagreeable is, of course, not the theological doctrine that our bodies were created by G-D. What is disagreeable are the roles attributed to the various branches of knowledge and that you seem to prioritize and organize differently than I do. I am not saying that you are wrong and that I am right, but rather that your prioritization and order don’t fit with my interpretation of the same reality.
For example, I don’t think that creation is ONLY a theological doctrine, though it is certainly a theological doctrine too. This is why, if anyone out there has caught it, I have been speaking about ‘creativity’ and ‘creativeness,’ in the recent months. This approach I believe takes the sting out of the label ‘creationism’ because it acknowledges that even anti-creationists believe in ‘creation’ in the sense of ‘creativity’ and ‘creativeness.’ However, I can do this rather easily and without argument in my areas of study and research because I am a social-humanitarian thinker and not a natural-scientist, who, whenever he or she hears ‘creation’ seemingly automatically reverts to consider the extreme position of ideological creationism. I hope you can appreciate the burden a social-humanitarian thinker can relieve from natural scientists who wish to believe in ‘creation,’ in both theological and humanitarian senses of the word, and yet who carefully distance themselves
from creationism or ‘creation science,’ e.g. YEC views.
In reference to G-D’s activity taking place through natural processes, let me affirm this, but also add once again the ‘sovereign realms of knowledge’ argument that I have been repeating here for several months. G-D’s activity also takes place through social and cultural processes, not simply natural ones. If it is your philosophical position that ‘natural’ is a grand meta-concept that engulfs the ‘social’ and ‘cultural’ realms, then it is certainly your prerogative and right to hold such a position. I happen to think such a position is myopic and harmfully reductionistic, but that does not seem to persuade some people from still holding to it. ‘It’s a free country’ is what a Russian Professor of Sociology constantly repeats at the St. Petersburg State University, so I guess the saying holds that philosophical naturalists can believe what they want and neither you nor I are able to stop them. (But please don’t get all Cold War style thinking on me now – this is the new
Russia!)
Keith wrote: “…the origin of new species is a biological process…God is actively involved the continual process of life and death in the natural world (Psalm 104:27-30).”
First, I don’t think the passage from Psalm 104 you cite should be subjected to process philosophy. Yes, ‘active involvement’; no, let’s not uncritically subject theology to process-oriented thinking whenever we read ‘active voice’ in a text! Active voice (e.g. 'You give') does not justify or warrant process philosophy. There is much more to this point than it may appear.
A process cannot begin without an origin. Can this be accepted? Can you imagine it: “In the beginning was a process…”?! In such a case, your statement that ‘the origin of new species IS a biological process’ is rather ambiguous, actually relying on the word ‘new’ for its meaning. Darwin’s OoS was more accurately, from my non-biological impression, about processes of speciation than about origins of species, and he fully realized that he could not explain things (agnostic) when it came to origins of life itself. The origination of biological (inorganic à organic) forms themselves requires a meta-biological presupposition. Biology itself could not have come to exist (i.e. origins) through a biological process; that would be nonsensical.
Thus, the phrase “natural selection explains the survival, but not the arrival of the fittest” is entirely appropriate.
Keith’s above paragraph snipped: “…as the origin of life itself was likely through chemical evolutionary processes. Yet those processes are undergirded and sustained by God's active creative power.”
Please excuse that I see the second sentence only as an unnecessary tack-on to the first. I agree with it as far as I accept process theology as a basis for discussing divine action. But as far as I don’t privilege ‘chemical evolutionary processes’ in the so-called hierarchy of knowledge, I don’t give them much credit. Do you really want to credit chemicals for ‘origins of life’? I’d rather credit a constructive, creative, innovative, inventive, guided, loving, purposeful, meta-chemical source/force/energy for ‘origins of life’ which you proceed to do, however, through the unfortunate lens of process-oriented thought. Thus, my point is that by focussing on processes you lose out on original thought, i.e. thought about 'origins' in an pure, sovereign sense of the word.
“Evolution is a process whereby new biological species and new biological innovation are brought into existence by God. Given this theological perspective, I am not sure that there is a dichotomy between "origin" and "process,' unless you simply mean the origin of all physical reality (ie, why there is something rather than nothing).” – Keith
This paragraph supports my view that ‘evolution is a process.’ My belief of course is likewise that ‘evolution is not an origin’ (likewise it is not a 'creation'!). I don’t think you have shown that there is no dichotomy between ‘origins’ and ‘processes,’ but I acknowledge that the question you raise – ‘why there is something rather than nothing’ – is one that ‘science’ is not designed/destined to answer.
Gregory
Keith Miller <kbmill@ksu.edu> wrote: Gregory Arago wrote:
If there are any such persons, I’d be glad to hear about them. And if not, then I wonder where peoples’ priorities lie. ‘Process’ positions (including philosophy and theology) surely need to be addressed at ASA – this would help to clarify the ‘origins’ vs. ‘processes’ issue that I raised with which David C. cautiously agreed. Evolution IS predominantly about ‘processes,’ while ‘creation’ IS about ‘origins’ and ‘originality.’ What happens with TE views, and perhaps even to a further extent with EC’s also, is a conflation of these two very different (though in some ways complementary) concepts/percepts. I have tried to show that this conflation is faulty, whereas George Murphy has remained silent on the topic.
Creation is a theological doctrine and thus encompasses all of God's activity to bringing into existence and sustaining all of physical reality. God's creative activity is expresses in and through natural processes. My physical body was created by God, yet my conception and development was a biological processes. Similarly, the origin of new species is a biological process, as the origin of life itself was likely through chemical evolutionary processes. Yet those processes are undergirded and sustained by God's active creative power. God is actively involved the continual process of life and death in the natural world (Psalm 104:27-30).
Evolution is a process whereby new biological species and new biological innovation are brought into existence by God. Given this theological perspective, I am not sure that there is a dichotomy between "origin" and "process,' unless you simply mean the origin of all physical reality (ie, why there is something rather than nothing).
Keith
---------------------------------
Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sun Sep 9 15:46:22 2007
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Sun Sep 09 2007 - 15:46:22 EDT