Anyway....
You asked:
Do you agree that there is a schism emerging in North American
evangelicalism/fundamentalism between YEC and PC? If so, why? Maybe
Hawking's influence?
I'm not sure exactly how to take the 'emerging'. (Bill Hamilton already
commented on one aspect of that.) I haven't gone back and looked
systematically, but e.g. Henry Morris was writing against PC at least in
1963. Just exactly how to construe some of the history is a bit tricky,
though. Morris in 1963 (in _The Twilight of Evolution_) classified PC
simply as one of a number of views that "in effect are merely variations
of theistic evolution" (p22). I think that at that point Morris's
primary dividing line was between old earth and young earth theories.
That was why a bit later (1974, _Scientific Creationism_ , among other
places) he would claim that the geological age idea and evolution were
in effect synonymous.
In any case, some creationists may not have clearly distinguished PC
from TE (e.g., in terms of intervention/non-intervention) until more
recently, when they began criticizing it not only for its old earth
component and various perceived Scriptural and theological difficulties,
but also for giving us a picture of God as 'having to tinker with the
creation to make it work' - a view which some creationists take to be in
some ways worse than theistic evolution which - with its
non-intertvention - at least claims that God did not have to keep
getting involved to keep things on track. But in any case, critical
notice of it was taken already several decades ago.
You then ask:
So are you suggesting that all the PCs went underground at the turn of
the century? Or how about, there just weren't many PCs in academic
circles?
Some may have gone underground. That certainly happened in philosophy,
where virtually no one dared admit to being a believer until sometime in
the early 70s or so. For others, the issue may simply not have arisen
in their professional publications.
But I'm a little reluctant to say too much about that stretch of
history, because - and this is fairly speculative - I think that there
has been (and it may still be ongoing) some terminological changes which
would necessitate some fairly careful reading of materials from those
decades. I tend to distinguish TE from PC along
intervention/non-intervention lines. I think that in the past, the
PC/TE distinction was more often taken to be one of
continuity/discontinuity. The view that some taxonomic category of
creatures sprang into existence with no direct links to some ancestral
creatures was taken as defining PC, whereas any claim of continuity -
even if the relevant transitions were 'guided' by divine intervention -
was taken to be TE. Since the intervention/non-intervention and the
continuity/discontinuity distinctions do not cut at the same place, if
that change has or is occuring, then exactly who was criticizing what
when can't be read just off the face of the literature. And I haven't
gone through the literature with an eye to that specific question.
You say later:
Del, in principle I very much agree. You are right, but you're talking
like a philosopher
So it has come to that, has it? Well ... I'll admit that that is
certainly worth keeping in mind. But in this area, issues often don't
fit completely within a single discipline, and disciplines are not
always cleanly separable at relevant points, so one has to deal with
things that one knows less about than is ideal. The risk, of course, is
that of having those who _do_ know what they're talking about on the
other side of the boundaries you are trespassing clobber you. But
that, it seems to me, is all to the good. That's why, it seems to me,
in the long run communities get farther than individuals. (But there
are, of course, committees ...) - we have specialists who can help
adjust our headgear when what our legitimate work seems to point to in
areas beyond our expertise starts to involve talking through said
headgear. So I don't apologize for talking like a philosopher - and I
won't apologize for accusing others of _not_ talking competent
philosophy when their views have tendrils that cross into my backyard.
That I take to be part of my job within this community.
You then referred to:
the philosphical suicide of methodological naturalism,
I'm not convinced that it _is_ philosophical suicide. But it does carry
a risk - a big one - and that risk needs to be kept firmly in mind.
Forward:
The problem with PC is that it sets us up for a
God-of-the-gaps embarrassment--the gaps get closed/narrowed with
advancing
scientific research.
God-of-the-gaps, huh? Ha! You can't scare me. Methodological
naturalism (and naturalism) are, in essence, policies of assuming
machines-of-the-gaps, and the fact that gaps remain stubbornly open,
sometimes re-open, and sometimes widen is the flip side of the claimed
God-of-the-gaps problem. And I don't see why the one set of risks and
problems are supposed to be so obviously preferable to the competing set
of risks and problems. And incidently, some of the claims of gap
closure are a bit odd. For instance, every day, millions of car
windshields are splattered with spray from millions of truck tires - yet
not a single one of those instances, nor even any instances _like_ them
has ever been fully described, much less confirmed in absoslute detail
as a positive instance of any scientific theory. Yet we all (me too)
accept that as a paradigm case of a closed gap. Odd.
I said:
> Both would have mistaken hermeneutics, but
> given that either there are or there are not interventions, at least
one
> side would be right concerning the facts of the matter concerning
> intgervention or non-intervention. So again, I don't see why having a
> mistaken hermeneutic and basing a scientific theory on Scripture as
read
> according to that hermeneutic would make it certain that the resultant
> theory was mistaken.
To which you replied:
I'm confused here . . . especially your last sentence.
Here's what I meant. Either intervention views are correct or they are
not. There are those who base intervention views on a particular
reading of Scripture, and those who base a non-interevention view on
some other particular reading of Scripture. The theory of one or the
other of those two groups concerning whether or not there in fact is
intervention is correct - since either there are or are not, one says
there are, one says there are not. But IF Scripture does not intend to
address that issue, the theories of both those groups will be based on
defective hermeneutics, yet the theory of one or the other will be right
(with respect to intervention or its absence).
You then ask:
Ah! I think I've got it. Are you saying that if we start from a
defective hermeneutic it is better to start there than not start at
all?
That wasn't really what I intended - only that a scientific theory's
being based on a defective hermeneutic does not _in itself_ establish
the mistakenness of the theory.
Finally, you ask:
PS Quick questions:
(1) Are you a PC or an EC?
(2) What is the genre of Gen 1, and does it contain some
"VCR" historical statements of the origin of the
universe?
I more or less classify myself as a PC, but of a sort which does _not_
rule out continuity, common ancestry, etc. I _suspect_ (along with
traditional PC, YEC, etc.) that it is unlikely that we'd have gotten
'here' from 'there' (e.g., early earth conditions) by wholly natural
means.
I don't have a completely fixed view of Genesis - except that it's true
- but I'm not convinced that even taken literally it is as contrary to
evolution of some sort as is usually claimed.
Del