On Tue, 9 Apr 1996 07:55:30 -0500 you wrote:
BH>Loren quoted Steve Jones:
SJ>Well, I am not "open to a non-interventionist account" for the
>origin of life. If scientists prove that life can originate
>spontaneously, without even human intervention, from non-living
>chemicals, then I think I would give up Christianity and probably
>theism (although I might become a pantheist). And I think that there
>would be hundreds of millions of Christians who would agree with me.
>The effect would be *devastating* and would far surpass anything
>Copernicus or Darwin did. It would be the crowning achievement of
>materialistic- naturalism. You wouldn't have a job Terry, because
>there would be no Calvin College.
BH>[I've snipped Loren's response, which I pretty much agree with]
>
>You say the above after having said earlier
SJ>How can naturalistic science ever know about the actual "origin" of
>anything in the distant past? If God created progressively by
>supernaturally "genetically engineering" Hox genes, how would
>naturalistic science ever know that? Even if it happened *today* in a
>scientists laboratory, science would not know *how* it happened - it
>would know only that it happened. How much less can science know about
>unique events that ocurred hundreds and even thousands of millions of
>years ago? All naturalistic science can do is come up with the least
>implausible *naturalistic* explanation of how it *might* have
>happened.
BH>In view of this, which I agree with
That makes two of you. My cup runneth over! :-)
BH>why do you even hypothesize
>what you would do "If scientists prove that life can originate
>spontaneously, without even human intervention, from non-living
>chemicals"? Let's lay the human intervention part aside.
No. That is the *essential* part of my argument. I would have no
problem if science using pre-existing human intelligent design,
synthesised a self-replicating molecule from non-living chemicals.
That would be evidence for creation by intelligent design, not
naturalistic evolution:
"But supposing that life could originate in the laboratory already
hinted in the Miller-Urey experiment? What should our judgment if
some day a scientist actually makes a living cell or something akin to
an amoeba?...If man can think God's thoughts after Him, why is it
incredible that man can do some of God's works after Him? Further,
because man with a vast chemical equipment and an equally vast body of
chemical data at his disposal can synthesize complex chemicals, it
does not mean that Nature with only chance as its guide and creator
can make life and foster it into complex creatures over the millions
of years." (Ramm B. "The Christian View of Science and Scripture",
Paternoster: London, 1955, p183)
BH>To prove that life can originate spontaneously without creative
>acts of God, and can survive without His oversight, would require the
>identification and elimination of every means God could possibly use
>to create and oversee. That is not within the scope of science.
The point is that if life turns out to be a spontaneously arising
property of matter, it will support *materialism* rather than theism.
My point was that it will be hailed as the final clinching proof that
God is not necessary. While Christian intellectuals might be able to
rationalise it as the means God used, *in the real world* the average
Christian would probably give the game away.
BH>Loren of course hit the nail on the head with
LH>So I do not understand the hermeneutical or theological logic of
>placing "the formation of self-replicating biochemical entities" in
>the SAME category as revelation, the incarnation, the resurrection,
>and the Holy Spirit INSTEAD of placing it in the same category as
>"the formation of the solar system."
See my reply to Loren.
BH>The fundamental difference between scientific descriptions and
>revelation is that revelation comes from a Person who cares. He
>cared enough to send us Jesus Christ and then He cared enough to send
>the Holy Spirit, without Whom we would not be able to understand His
>revelation in Scripture. Science is subject to human frailties. But
>our fellowship with God and our salvation are built on a more solid
>foundation -- and praise Him for that.
This assumes the two spheres of "scientific descriptions" and
"revelation" are totally separate. The fact is that Christianity is
rooted in the real world. Paul says: "...if Christ has not been
raised, your faith is futile..." (1Cor 15:17). If naturalism can
progressively remove God from what the real world, then they will
have made Him unnecessary in the mind of the man in the street, and
achieved one of their main objectives, as Johnson points out:
"That removing God from the history of the cosmos is the central point
of A Brief History of Time is pointed out to readers by the astronomer
Carl Sagan, in the closing lines of his Introduction the book,
although Sagan presents the conclusion as if it were unanticipated
experimental result rather than the conscious purpose of the author:
`The word God fills these pages. Hawking embarks on a quest to answer
Einstein's famous question about whether God had any choice in
creating the universe. Hawking is attempting, as he explicitly
states, to understand the mind of God. And this makes all the more
unexpected the conclusion of the effort, at least so far: a universe
with no edge in time, no beginning or end in time, and nothing for a
Creator to do.' (Sagan C., "Introduction", Hawking S., "A Brief
History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes", Bantam, 1988,
p.x).
(Johnson P.E., "Reason in the Balance", InterVarsity Press: Downers
Grove Ill., 1995, p59)
God bless.
Steve
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