You know I am fairly critical of Phil's approach. But what you say does not
jive with what Phil has written.
At 01:00 PM 2/25/97 -0500, John W. Burgeson wrote:
>A: My take on this -- and I cannot speak for Phil -- is that I think he
>speaks against evolution with the Darwinist definition -- we are here by
>accident -- and not against evolution otherwise.
>
>He does not "believe" in evolution; that seems a fair judgement, but I
>think I've heard him say -- and I know I heard Al Plantigna say (just last
>Thursday night) that evolution-as-a-mechanism to explain a major part --
>even all -- of the record was a possibility. Plantigna speaks against, for
>instance, the COMBINATION of naturalism and evolution, neither one nor the
>other alone, "naturalism" being defined metaphysically as "no God." I think
>Johnson is in substantial agreement with Al on this.
of theistic evolutionists
"The specific answers they derive may or may not be reconcilable
with theism, but the manner of thinking is profoundly atheisitic.
To accept the answers as indubitably true is inevitably to accept
the thinking that generated those answers. That is why I think the
appropriate term for the accomodationist position is not 'theistic
evolution,' but rather theistic naturalism. Under either name, it
is a disastrous error."~Phillip E. Johnson, "Shouting 'Heresy' in
the Temple of Darwin,"Christianity Today Oct. 24, 1994, p. 26
I don't think Johnson would agree that evolution is a possibility. In a
section of his 2nd edition, he talks about theistic evolutionists. He says.
"I think that most theistic evolutionists accept as scientific the claim
that natural selection perfomred the creating, but would like to reject the
acompanying metaphysical doctrine that the scientific understanding of
evolution excludes design and purpose. The problem with this way of
dividing things is that the metaphysical statement is no mere embellishment
but the essential foundation for the scientific claim." ~Phillip E. Johnson,
Darwin on Trial, (Downer's Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1993), p. 168
I interpret this to mean that theistic evolutionists are implicitly
accepting the metaphysical doctrines of atheists.
He finishes that section by saying,
"Of course, I do not agree with that strategy. I do not think that the mind
can serve two masters, and I am confident that whenever the attempt is made,
naturalism in the end will be the true master and theism will have to abide
by its dictates."~Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial, (Downer's Grove:
Intervarsity Press, 1993), p. 169
In another place he writes:
"Naturalism rules the secular academic world absolutely, which
is bad enough. what is far worse is that it rules much of the
Christian world as well. As Stephen Meyer's essay in this volume
points out, it is common for philosophers even at conservative
Christian institutions to accept the rules of scientific
naturalism, and to accept them for no better reason than that the
secular world wills it to be so. It is no wonder that the best
students from these institutions so often emerge with a
naturalistic outlook; that is how they have been taught to
think."~Phillip E. Johnson, "Foreword," in J. P. Moreland, editor,
The Creation Hypothesis, (Downer's Grove: Intervarsity Press,
1994), p. 7.
Which is in basic agreement with this:
"Evolution is naturalism, limited to mechanistic processes
in its operation. This necessarily means endless ages of random
changes which, in the process, leave untold waste and pain and
death in their wake. Theistic evolution is a contradiction in
terms. "~Henry M.Morris, A History of Modern Creationism, (San Diego: Master
Book Publishers, 1984), p. 328
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm