Hello David,
“we can expect things to generally work by "natural" causes, while recognizing both that God is at work in and behind natural causes and that He occasionally works without them. _Only_ natural causes is, as Ecclesiastes (especially 3:19ff) points out, the assumption and conclusion of an atheistic or purely material study.” – David C.
Let us start from the assumption that ‘the universe’ also includes human persons, who are more than ‘just’ natural beings. If this is recognized, then ‘things’ do not “generally work by ‘natural’ causes,” when those ‘things’ we are talking about are human. I agree with your rejection of _only_ natural causes, David, yet at the same time see no diversity of thought in your approach that would allow a non-natural category to enter the dialogue other than ‘super-natural.’ I make no objection to your (and many other people at ASA’s) suggestion that “that God is at work in and behind natural causes.” The problem is that you seem to deny/object to my categories, as a person who is trained to observe things that are ‘more-than-natural’ in the case of human actions. As a consequence, I must persist that there is an unfair privileging of certain ‘sciences’ above or ahead of others in your overall view of knowledge.
“a widespread misperception that a miraculous explanation is more desirable.” – David C.
If there is a widespread misperception about a miraculous (shall we read: supernatural?) explanation being more desirable, then this charge does not often apply in human-social sciences. However, that said, human-social sciences do not deny the possibility of miracles. So many people in the world believe in them, thus they are (or may be) part of the ‘universe’ of observation that human-social scientists consider.
“ID and YEC tend to buy into modernism by claiming that scientific evidence is better than other evidence. …trying to ignore science that contradicts them … they have fallen under scientism's influence.” - David C.
Though I agree with the spirit of this message, when we look at the letters we find an issue more complex than it at first appears. In doing so, we find that it applies equally as criticism of ASA-TEs/ECs. TEs/ECs have bought into modernism too!! Though they may say with their lips that “scientific evidence is NOT necessarily better than other evidence,” in their hearts such a view is, I imagine, not held very deeply, if at all. One reason for this, I suspect, is because they hold a ‘hard-soft’ or ‘real-less-real’ distinction (see A. Moorad’s philosophy of ‘science’), or otherwise to a hierarchy of knowledge that disallows a ‘science of human beings’ to be as legitimate or effective as ‘modern natural science’ or ‘the science of natural things.’ I have been recently reading an insightful Christian philosopher whose criticism of modernism is quite impressive; he would equally attack TEs/ECs for their scientism (e.g. super-cali-universalistic evolutionism!) as he would ID
and YEC views which, yes, do admittedly sometimes, imo, “fall under scientism’s influence.” Let it be noted, additionally, that most of the IDers and YECers that I have witnessed in dialogue openly exclaim their desire not to be scientistic, which of course makes the charge that they are ‘under the influence of scientism’ even more ironic!
To discuss ‘scientism’ even-handedly, after all, one has to step outside of the ‘natural sciences’ themselves and put on their philosopher-hat or their theologian-hat or their humanitarian-hat simply in order to participate. Likewise is the case, David, I would argue with ‘naturalism.’ That is why ‘natural scientists’ are notoriously difficult and wriggly to discuss ‘naturalism’ with; they oftentimes refuse to get outside of their limited fields of specialized study in order to consider the broader context of charges against naturalism, for example, the reductionism of naturalistic-evolutionary thought. The MN-PN red herring, when presumed by natural scientists as an authentic ‘philosophy of science’ is actually quite a weak case that can easily be shown for its lack of relevance. The ‘naturalism’ category is simply being split up into sub-categories that allow a ‘big tent’ to exist underneath them, including persons that ultimately disagree about larger issues, for
example, the creation of the universe. This doesn’t escape that all ‘naturalisms’ are still naturalistic; just as likewise that all ‘designs’ are _______ !
“Obnoxious atheism seems more inclined at the moment to misrepresent religious extremism as normal than to attack a TE-type position. YEC and ID do a lot of attacking of TE, which is likely to provoke a response.” - David C.
The last two sentences above provide a reason why ‘obnoxious atheism’ sees no reason to ‘attack a TE-type position,’ which I prefer to call an EC position, after our discussion this month on the ASA-list – ‘obnoxious atheists’ are under the same ‘big tent’ with TEs/ECs when it comes to the acceptance of ‘evolutionary science’ and even sometimes ‘evolutionism.’ Why ‘attack’ someone who shares a common ‘enemy’ with you? As neither a TE/EC nor an ID or YEC, I must say that I find both people arguing a lot with each other. Before, when I used to frequent ID-based discussion boards and lists, people would ‘attack’ TE/EC quite openly, while their atheistic opponents would defend the views of TE/EC as generally ‘more open to the scientific evidence for evolutionary theory.’
When I started visiting ASA, I found something quite different; TE/ECs would ‘attack’ ID and YEC quite regularly. This however, David is right, would only provoke a response from those who beg to argue otherwise. If there are few IDers or YECers at ASA, then few responses to attacks on ID and YEC exist. Imo, this is unfortunate, because it denies the apparent representation of the ASA membership, which does consist of YECs and IDers. Secondly, I have found that TE/EC reasoning actually indirectly supports the evolutionism of their ‘obnoxious atheist’ big-tent comrades; that is, by uplifting the ‘science’ of evolution, sometimes beyond its effective limits. That is, nobody at ASA speaks out in support of R. Dawkins’ science because they reject his philosophy of science, his humanitarian views and his atheism, NOT because they reject his science or his views of evolution as a legitimate scientific research programme. I find this just as frustrating (i.e. the convenient
silence) as I do the fact that YEC views are seemingly legitimated by OEC’s and CC’s who accept the ‘logic of i+d’ because YECs have taken refuge underneath the same ‘big tent.’
“Dawkins et al. are just as much part of the problem as the bad theology and bad science of antievolutionism. The two camps largely agree on the bad theology and argue about the science.” – David C.
I must take exception with the linking of ‘bad theology and bad science’ with ‘anti-evolutionism.’ Surely you do not so easily link ‘good theology and good science’ with ‘evolutionism?’
It would be much clearer if you could please separate out the ideology from the science and from the religion/theology. Then you too would openly acknowledge that ‘evolutionism,’ that is, the ideology of using evolutionary theory as an explanation or description for more than it is meant to explain or describe, is, really, a problem. Linking evolutionism, as an ideology, to ‘good theology’ is really thus also a problem (due respect to Teilhard and Doby aside). I get the feeling that many people on this list are willing to agree with that observation while at the same time they are especially careful to defend the legitimate ‘science of evolution,’ which is NOT the same as ‘evolutionism.’
Alternatively, David, perhaps what you need to see is a type of ‘anti-evolutionism’ that does not foist either ‘bad theology or bad science’ on people who read it and perceive it in order to convince you, though it will be admittedly very, very difficult to do so, especially in your American context, that being ‘anti-evolutionism-as-an-ideology’ is actually quite a responsible position to hold. Of course, I don’t expect you to believe me that this is true, but rather just to acknowledge it as a possibility. That way our dialogue would remain open instead of being closed with the supposed view that responsible anti-evolutionism is impossible.
Warm regards,
Gregory
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Received on Tue Sep 25 14:52:43 2007
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