>Steve Clark wrote:
>
>>At this juncture, it seems to me that the important issue has to do with the
>>way that we view naturalistic explanations vs supernaturalitic ones, or
>>miracles. For a Christian, it would seem to me that one is no less
>>wonderous than the other.
>
>I agree. But it's a poor excuse to de-miracleize the Bible.
Or to de-materialize the creation.
SC
>>can you think of other ways to synthesize
>>this apparent dichotomy between naturalism and supernaturalism that truly
>>eliminates the bias inherent in both positions?
JB
>I think Phil Johnson got it right. So did G. K. Chesterton as evidenced by
>his comments in "Orthodoxy";
>
>"For we must remember that the materialist philosophy (whether true or not)
>is certainly much more limiting than any religion... The Christian is quite
>free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and
>inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed
>to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or
>miracle... Spiritual doctrines do not actually limit the mind as do
>materialistic denials."
You can take the worst of materialism and compare it to the best of theism
and reach the above conclusion. But it ignores those places where the best
of materialism confronts the worst of theism.
>
>I'm still awaiting that list of miracles TEs believe are a part of origins.
>Maybe it already came, but I missed it because it's so short.
I posed a question earlier that you skipped. In the natural world, how do
we know when materialism will be insufficient to explain a phenomenon? Or
put differently, how do we distinguish miracles from natural events. Let's
take the parting of the Red Sea. Was this a miracle or an event explainable
by natural causes?
Shalom
Steve
____________________________________________________________________________
Steven S. Clark, Ph.D. Phone: (608) 263-9137
Associate Professor FAX: (608) 263-4226
Dept. of Human Oncology and email: ssclark@facstaff.wisc.edu
UW Comprehensive Cancer Ctr
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI 53792
"...a university is a collection of disparate academic entrepreneurs united
only by a common grievance over parking." Clark Kerr, former Chancellor
of the Univ. of California
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