On Wed, 05 Jul 1995 10:01:24 -0500 (EST) you wrote:
LH>ABSTRACT: 1. The claim that "Progressive Creation fits the
>(scientific and theological) data better than Theistic Evolution" is
>true simply because P.C. contains an "extra degree of freedom" --
>God's miraculous activity as well as his ordinary activity in
>governing nature. But an "extra degree of freedom" in the theory is
>not always warranted, even when it fits the data better. Is it
>warranted in the developmental history of plants and animals? SJ> 2.
It is not necesarily claimed that PC fits the scientific data better
than TE, however it is claimed it fits the Biblical data better. The
"degree of freedom" argument is not part of PC's apologetic. It is
morever denied that any naturalistic description of history (even if
it could be devised) will be full or true (eg. Israel and the Exodus,
Jesus, etc).
LH>Both "Progressive Creation" and "Theistic Evolution" agree that
>most of the developmental history of plants and animals was governed
>by the ordinary processes of natural law, and that "Anyone who is a
>fully biblical theist must consider ordinary processes controlled by
>natural law to be as completely and deliberately the wonderful acts
>of God as any miracle, equally contingent upon his free and
>unhindered will." D. Wilcox, as quoted in R.T. Wright in
>_Biology_Through_the_ > _Eyes_of_Faith_...p. 110.
I agree that so-called natural laws are really man's description of
God's regularity of acting in and through nature.
LH>The difference, as I understand it, is this: Theistic Evolution
>hypothesizes that these God-ordained, "ordinary" natural laws can
>(and eventually will) provide an adequate account of the
>developmental history of plants and animals, whereas Progressive
>Creation asserts that an adequate account must ALSO include God's
>supernatural activity at various times and places in history (to
>introduce new lifeforms and/or new biological features and/or new
>genetic information).
Yes. The analogy is ordinary history. It would no doubt be possible
to write a history of Israel that interprets the Exodus completely
naturalistically and shows that Jesus was merely a religio-political
leader. Can a Christian believe this is true?
LH>Critics of Theistic Evolution argue that Progressive Creation "fits
>the data better," and that -- unless and until biologists can prove
>that there are specific natural mechanisms to account for various
>biological developments (e.g. the origins of life, the Pre-Cambrian
>explosion, the development of wings and eyes and ears, the
>reptile-to-bird transition, etc.) -- Progressive Creation should be
>the "theory of choice" for Christians (and perhaps for non-Christians
>as well).
Yes. My main point is that PC fits the *Biblical* data better. I am
not yet sure enough about the scientific data to claim that PC fits
the scientific data better. It would only be necessary for PC to fit
it
at least as well, and fit the Biblical data better, for PC to be the
preferred Christian model.
LH>I wish to critique the claim that "Progressive Creation fits the
>(scientific and theological) data better than Theistic Evolution."
LH>Imagine a straight-line-plus-scatter data set -- for example, an
>experimental measurement of velocity vs. time for a falling object. A
>quadratic equation fits the data better than a linear equation, and a
>cubic fits better than a quadratic. The "extra degree of freedom" always
>produces a better fit to the data.
[...]
LH>Progressive Creation can be thought of as Theistic Evolution with
>an "extra degree of freedom," namely, God's supernatural activity at
>various points in the developmental history of plants and animals.
>Is there a compelling theological reason to expect this?
I don't necessarily claim this idea of an "extra degree of freedom".
I am not familiar with the term. I just claim that PC is a better
model Biblically and it may prove to be a better (or at least equal)
model scientifically as well.
LH>It is sometimes argued that the creation account in Genesis 1
>provides support for the hypothesis that God performed specific,
>miraculously creative acts at several times during the developmental
>history of plants and animals. But if this so, the same reasoning
>should apply to the developmental history of the sun, moon, stars,
>and earth. However, their formation can be adequately described,
>scientifically, through the operation of natural laws over several
>billion years.
I don't believe this is proved that the development of the universe
can be adequately described scientifically. What about the Big Bang
itself? What about the first microseconds of the Big Bang? What
about the faster than light inflationary period immediately after the
Big Bang? Just because you can describe something with a naturalistic
theory, does not mean it really happened that way. Doesn't God warn
us of assuming we can know what really happened during creation
events: Job 38:4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me, if you understand."?
Again I refer to a fully naturalistic history of Israel. Does that
mean as soon as naturalism can account for the Exodus purely
naturalistically, we just give up on our supernaturalistic
understanding of it, as revealed in Scripture?
Besides, natural laws do not explain particular events. If God
specially prepared the earth and moon, by direct intervention (without
ruling out much natural process), how would that conflict with any
natural law?
LH>If "Theistic Evolution" is a theologically acceptable
>interpretation of the creation of the physical structures of the
>universe, then it should also be theologically acceptable for the
>developmental history of plants and animals.
The Bible says very little about the "universe". Verse 2 of Genesis 1
begins "Now the earth...". The rest of Genesis 1 is about the *earth*
primarily.
Genesis 1 reveals the pattern of God creating the earth as: 1.
primary creating (Heb. bara': Gn 1:1,21,27), and 2. secondary making
from pre-existing material (Heb. 'asah: Gn 1:7,11,12,16,25,26,31;
2:2,3,4). The "mechanism" was by by: 1. deliberate planning "Let...
(Gn 1:3,6,9,11,14,15,20,22,24; esp. 1:26); 2. at His word of command
"God said..." (Gn 1:3,6,9,11,14,20,24,26,28,29); 3. by His Spirit (Gn
1:2); and 4. through much natural process (Gn 1:11-12; 20-21,24).
Genesis 1 clearly means to distinguish God's work in creation from His
ongoing work of providence. It depicts God work of creation as
completed by the sixth day: 1. on the sixth day God saw "every thing
that he had made" (Gn 1:31); 2. the heavens and the earth were said to
be "finished" (Gn 2:1); 3. On the seventh day God "ended his work
which he had made" and he "rested..from all his work which he had
made.". (Gn 2:2-3).
If TE fails to make this fundamental distinction between what Erickson
calls "God's Originating Work: Creation" and "God's Continuing Work:
Providence (Erickson M.J., "Christian Theology", 1985, Baker, Grand
Rapids, MI), then it must be judged to be not fully Biblical.
LH>The natural mechanisms which God has created, and by which he
>ordinarily governs the biological world, are extremely complex and
>wondrous. Despite our lack of detailed scientific understanding of
>processes such as zygotic development and microevolution, we believe
>that these "natural mechanisms" are the means by which God brings new
>individuals into the world, and the means by which existing species
>can adapt to changes in their environment.
If "new" is meant in the weaker sense as in "new" as in a new
variation on an existing theme, then OK. But if "new" is meant in the
stronger sense of new original appearance of the theme itself, then I
don't believe that it has been shown that purely "natural" mechanism
(ie. without special divine intervention), have been the sole means.
PC would have no problem with horizontal variation between "species",
ie. micro-evolution, occurring by purely "natural" processes, that
are the result of God's immanent working in and through His creation.
What PC does dispute is that major vertical changes, ie.
macro-evolution, can occur without God's transcendental intervention:
"In progressive creationism there may be much horizontal radiation.
The amount is to be determined by the geological record and biological
experimentation. But there is no vertical radiation. Vertical
radiation is only by fiat creation. A root-species may give rise to
several species by horizontal radiation, through the process of the
unraveling of gene potentialities or recombination. Horizontal
radiation could account for much which now passes as evidence for the
theory of evolution. The gaps in the geological record are gaps
because vertical progress takes place only by creation." (Ramm B.
"The Christian View of Science and Scripture", 1955, Paternoster,
London, p191).
LH>Therefore, I conclude that Progressive Creation does not
significantly "fit the theological data" better than Theistic
Evolution.
Disagree. IMHO TE is reductionist to the Biblical data, crunching
creation up and subsuming it under providence. The reason appears to
be a philosophical desire for continuity, which has its origin in
pagan Greek thought, not Hebrew Biblical theism.
LH>Perhaps the greatest source of debate in this discussion group is
>the _scientific_ data. The classical "Gradualist" model of evolution
>postulates that every mutation in the genome causes, at most, a small
>change in the organism's morphology. Those mutations which are
>beneficial (i.e. increase the organism's reproductive abilities) are
>slowly distributed throughout the population, and in this way --
>gradually through thousands of intermediate morphological steps -- a
>new species evolves. The scientific data, specifically the fossil
>record, seems to disagree fairly emphatically with the simple
>Gradualist model. I would say that Progressive Creation fits the
>data decisively better than the Gradualist model.
Agreed. On the gradualist (and PE) model diversity should precede
disparity. However, the reverse occurs. Disparity actually
precedes diversity. The higher orders actually appear first:
"The fossil record suggests that the major pulse of diversification of
phyla occurs before that of orders, and orders before families. This
is not to say that each higher taxon originated before species (each
phylum, class or order contained at least one species, genus, family,
etc. upon appearance), but the higher taxa do not seem to have
diverged through an accumulation of lower taxa" (Erwin D., Valentine
J., and Sepkosi J., "A Comparative Study of Diversification Events,",
Evolution, vol. 41, p.1183).
LH>However, simple Gradualism does not really represent what we know
>-- and what we know that we DON'T know -- about evolution. We know
>that a single mutation in a gene which controls the developmental
>program of an organism can cause a major morphological change.
>Processes such as gene duplication and gene transfer can also
>increase the speed of evolutionary changes. We know of several
>modern examples of new species evolving in a few thousand years in
>small, geographically isolated populations. But perhaps most
>importantly, we are painfully aware that we still know very little
>about how an organism's genomic information maps into the morphology
>or "fitness" of adult organisms. Except for a few special cases, we
>do not yet have the ability to predict how specific mutations affect
>the body structure or reproductive success of an individual. We
>simply don't know the extent to which purely "natural mechanisms" can
>cause evolutionary changes over a few million years. The "error
>bars," if you will, are still too large. Given our current level of
>scientific understanding, the "error bars" on the natural mechanisms
>are, I believe, large enough to cover the fossil record data.
I disagree. I believe it will never be possible to construct a fully
satisfactory naturalistic account of the origin and development of
life. Naturalism is inherently flawed by limiting itself to the
material and natural and ignoring the evidence for extra-natural
causes. Just as natural science will never fully and truly understand
the history of Israel (for example), so it will never fully and truly
understand biological history. Intelligent design and implemention
will need to be incorporated as crucial and strategic features of a
full and true biological history.
LH>That is why I conclude that Progressive Creation does not
>significantly "fit the scientific data" better than Theistic
>Evolution.
As I have said, I am not yet in a position to definitely claim that PC
fits the scientific data better. From what I have seen it does.
However, my main claim is that PC fits the Biblical data better than
TE.
LH>If Progressive Creation fits the data at least as well as Theistic
>Evolution, why not embrace it and advocate it as the "antidote" to
>Naturalistic Evolution? Progressive Creation, when carefully formulated,
>is not equivalent to "God-of-the-Gaps." But there is a significant danger
>that, if biological evolutionary theory ultimately achieves a firm
>empirical grounding (as stellar evolutionary theory has done), Progressive
>Creation could fall into the same apologetic demise as God-of-the-Gaps.
>That is why I advocate Theistic Evolution as the antidote to Naturalistic
>Evolution.
First, I do not believe that stellar development is necessarily
"evolutionary", at least in the same sense as Darwinian biological
evolutionary theory. Indeed Darwinists themselves make this claim.
Besides, the word "evolution" is a misnomer from a theistic point of
view because it basically means an "unrolling" of something from
within itself. The theistic view is that God does the unrolling,
either directly or indirectly. Nothing just unrolls itself, according
to Biblical theism. We may as a useful, practical shorthand refer to
mechanistic, naturalistic theories of development, without reference
to God, but it is false to make a metaphysical assumption that God is
not behind them and unnecessary to a full explanation of their
existence and development.
Secondly, the Bible says very little about the stars. From Gn 1:2 the
focus shifts to the earth and stays there. What is said about the
stars (Gn 1:14-18) is only by way reference to their effect on earth.
There is therefore no necessary conflict between PC and TE regarding
the rest of the universe.
Thirdly, I do not believe the gaps will be closed and I am prepared to
make the risky, falsifiable prediction that the "gapless economy" of
TE has not and will not materialise:
"...even if the gaps in naturalistic scientific explanations are
getting smaller, this does not prove that there are no gaps at all.
It begs the question to argue that just because most alleged gaps turn
out to be explainable in naturalistic terms without gaps at that level
of explanation, all alleged gaps will turn out this way. After all,
it is to be expected that gaps will be few. Gaps due to primary
divine agency are miracles, and they are in the minority for two
reasons: (1) God's usual way of operating (though I acknowledge the
need for further clarity regarding this notion) is through secondary
causes. Primary causal gaps are God's extraordinary, unusual way of
operating; by definition, these will be few and far between. (2) The
evidential or sign value of a miraculous gap arises most naturally
against a backdrop where the gaps are rare, unexpected and have a
religious context (there are positive theological reasons to expect
their presence). (Moreland J.P., "Theistic Science & Methodological
Naturalism", in Moreland J.P. ed., "The Creation Hypothesis", 1994,
Inter Varsity Press, Illinois, pp59-60).
Thanks for this discussion.
Stephen