On Sun, 9 Aug 1998 21:42:11 -0500, John E. Rylander wrote:
[...]
JR>And let's not forget here that Stephen's persistently made claim is false,
>and has been refuted and then simply repeated many times over the months.
The "claim" presumably refers to my statement (at the foot of your message)
that:
SJ>The key words are "indubitably true". Johnson (and I for that matter)
>believe that God COULD have worked "through a natural evolutionary
>process" but he (and I) do not believe that He MUST have.
and
SJ>That is the main difference between Johnson's (and my) Theistic Realist
>position and Glenn's Theistic Naturalist position."
Exactly *how* has it been "refuted" and *who* was it that "refuted" it? Just
your asserting it does not make it so!
JR>For those not oblivious to finer points: no Christian in the discussion, so
>far as I know anyway, believes that God -had- to use evolution.
On the contrary, *the whole thrust* of Glenn's posts is that "God -had- to
use evolution". He *automatically* assumes evolution and *never* even
seriously considers supernatural creation as an option. What's more, Glenn
attacks relentlessly and destructively any Christian apologist like Johnson
or Ross who proposes *any* form of supernatural creation.
A good example is the following:
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On Wed, 05 Mar 1997 21:40:25 -0600, Glenn Morton wrote:
[...]
GM>One of the criticisms creationists make about the inorganic origin of life
^^^^^^^^^^^^
>scenarios is that when amino acids are made in the laboratory they are 50%
>left handed and 50% right handed( a 50-50 ratio is called racemic). Since a
>mixture of left and right handed amino acids make useless proteins and
>living forms only have left handed proteins, the problem has been claimed to
>be fatal tothe origin of life scenario. It has been known for a while that
>non-racemic amino acids existed in the Murchison meteorite.
>
>I had posted this somewhere several months ago.
>
>***
>Unless you are willing to believe in life in outer space, there is a mechanism
>(unknown to us at this moment) which is quite capable of producing non-racemic
>amino acids. Here is data from the Murchison meteorite in which non-racemic
>amino acids were extracted.
>
>amino acid d/l ratio in Murchison meteorite
> GLU ASP PRO LEU ALA
>H2O .322 .202 .342 .166 .682
>H2O .30 .30 .30 nd .60
>HCl .176 .126 .105 .029 .307
>
>~Michael H. Engel and Bartholomew Nagy, "Distribution and
>Enantiomeric Composition of Amino Acids in the Murchison
>Meteorite", Nature , 296, April 29, 1982, p. 838.
>
>Some of these results show that something in space was able to produce 70-90%
>L amino acids. This concept that Christians propagate that nature can't
>produce anything but racemic forms is flawed. I don't know the mechanism but
>there is one. (See also Engel, Macko and Silfer, "Carbon Isotope Composition
>of Individual amino acids in the Murchison Meteorite," Nature 348, Nov. 1.
>1990, pp 47-48)
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Note the *automatic* assumption above of fully naturalistic causes "there is a
mechanism (unknown to us at this moment" and "I don't know the mechanism but
there is one".
Moreover note above that Glenn *criticises* "creationists" and "Christians" who
believe that "nature can't produce anything but racemic forms". Indeed Glenn
declares that concept "flawed" apriori, despite the fact that there is still no
hard evidence that unaided nature can produce 100% pure L-amino acids which is
what life requires.
But in this Glenn is not alone. It is exactly the Theistic Evolution position
and has been defended by TEs like Diogenes Allen and Howard Van Til, as
Ray Bohlin points out:
"In a modern formulation, some theistic evolutionists are declaring that not
only could God use evolution, but He must use some form of evolution to
create. These individuals indicate that there is a "functional integrity" to the
universe that God created initially and for God to intervene in any way, is to
admit that He made a mistake earlier. And of course, God does not make
mistakes. Physics professor Howard van Till from Calvin College describes:
`...a created world that has no functional deficiencies, no gaps in its economy
of the sort that would require God to act immediately, temporarily assuming
the role of creature to perform functions within the economy of the creation
that other creatures have not been equipped to perform." [Christian Scholars
Review, vol. XXI:I (September 1991), p. 38].'
Diogenes Allen from Princeton Theological Seminary put it this way:
`According to a Christian conception of God as creator of a universe that is
rational through and through, there are no missing relations between the
members of nature. If, in our study of nature, we run into what seems to be
an instance of a connection missing between members of nature, the Christian
doctrine of creation implies that we should keep looking for one' [Christian
Belief in a Postmodern World (Louisville: Westminster /John Knox Press,
1989), p. 53].
A loose paraphrase might be, `If you find evidence of a miracle, you need to
keep looking for a naturalistic explanation.'"
(Bohlin R., "Why We Believe in Creation," Probe Ministries: Richardson TX.
http://www.gocin.com/probe/whybel.htm).
JR>That is (obviously) -not- an issue, let alone the main issue. This is a very
>basic point.
Disagree, it *is* "the main issue". If TEs did not: 1) automatically assume a
naturalistic evolutionary explanation, and 2) criticise those who don't; then
there would be far less friction between TEs and TRs.
JR>(Deists, on the other hand, -may- well think that God had no choice,
>or no choice once the universe was created.)
I do not claim that TEs are "Deists" because they believe in Special
Revelation and God's supernatural intervention in salvation-history
But as Ray Bohlin continues, some TEs come "awfully close to deism or
semi-deism":
"This view of creation seems awfully close to deism or semi-deism. Theistic
evolutionists deny this, of course, by reminding us that, unlike deism, they
firmly believe that God continuously upholds the universe. If He were to
completely withdraw as deism holds, the universe would come apart."
(Bohlin R., "Why We Believe in Creation," Probe Ministries: Richardson TX.
http://www.gocin.com/probe/whybel.htm).
Glenn in particular *does* come close to "deism or semi-deism". In a
revealing post several years ago he likened God to someone who sets a
machine going and then withdrew:
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On Tue 20 Jun 1995 11:55 CT, Glenn.Morton@ORYX.COM wrote:
GM>Why must God be limited to creating each species rather than creating a
>system which can in turn produce the varieties? I love those wave tanks you
>can buy in which blue water lies under clear mineral oil. The motor causes
>the tank to tip back and forth producing waves. The creator of this
>time-waster could have come to my office and created each individual wave form
>me if he wanted to, but other customers would want him to do the same for
>them. He solved his difficulty by attaching a motor which would produce each
>different wave. In a very real sense, he is the creator of each wave even
>though he is nowhere in sight. Why must we limit God to ?
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This is the classical deistic picture of God as the clock-maker who winds up a
clock at the beginning and then withdraws from any further involvement.
What is even more revealing is Glenn's assumption that somehow "we limit
God" if He is "standing in the office."
JR>The issues are whether or not he -did- use evolution
No. If we are talking about "He" (ie. God) then t's "whether or not he -did-
use" *natural processes". Your assumption that it natural processes are
automatically "evolution" just begs the question and proves my point.
JR>and if so to what extent; and whether or not aspects of new suggested
>investigatory paradigms
>(e.g., YEC, or less radically, ID) that involve the causal intervention of
>God/extraterrestrial intelligence are (1) true, and (2) scientific rather
>than theological or philosophical.
These labels obsure rather than claify. The real question is, assuming there is
a God, in creating and developing the major features of the living world, did
He:
(1) work totally supernaturally?
(2) work totally through natural processses? or
(3) work *both* supernaturally and through natural processses?
Now we can assign labels. YECs/PCs tend to say (1); TEs tend to say (2)
and MCs says (3). These position are muddied by the origin of man issue.
Even Glenn claims that man was created supernaturally.
JR>I wonder: will it sink in this time? :^<
I wonder the same thing!
JR>Also note that "Theistic Realism" and "Theistic Naturalism" are polemical
>terms, useless and incoherent, respectively, philosophically. The proper
>philosophical terms are "theism" and "deism", respectively, when they are
>distinguished. (Often "theism" is used as a broader term, incorporating
>both "deism" and "theism-as-opposed-to-deism", i.e., covering any belief in
>God.)
Disagree. We are talking of positions *within* Christian "theism". True
"deism" is incompatible with Christianity becuase it denies supernatural
Revelation and salvation miracles:
"Calvinists and Arminians might denounce one another as erring
brethren; Protestants and Catholics might call one another
children of Anti-Christ. But there was in these denunciations a
sense that all alike were struggling for the same symbols; all alike,
after all, were claiming the exclusive right to speak for the same
faith. These mutual hatreds, though often deep and usually
vicious, were the hatreds of true competitors playing the same
game. The deists, on the other hand, were outside this game; they
had no place in the consensus of Christian conflict. "The Deists,"
Jonathan Edwards wrote, "wholly cast off the Christian religion,
and are professed infidels. They are not like the Heretics, Arians,
Socinians, and others, who own the Scriptures to be the word of
God, and hold the Christian religion to be the true religion, but
only deny these and these fundamental doctrines of the Christian
religion: they deny the whole Christian religion." True, "they own
the being of God; but deny that Christ was the son of God, and
say he was a mere cheat; and so they say all the prophets and
apostles were: and they deny the whole Scripture. They deny that
any of it is the word of God They deny any revealed religion, or
any word of God at all; and say that God has given mankind no
other light to walk by but their own reason." (Gay P., "Deism: An
Anthology," D. Van Nostrand Co: Princeton NJ, 1968, p11)
Therefore, I do not claim that TEs are deists, just that they come close
to it. I will continue to use the accurate term "Theistic
Naturalism" for those TEs who apriori assume that God must have only used
natural processes (ie. he did not supernaturally intervene) in creating and
developing the living world:
"A person who assumes a priori that such creation events must have
scientifically ascertainable material causes is a metaphysical naturalist. If he
believes in God he is a theistic naturalist, who limits God's freedom by the
dictates of naturalistic philosophy." (Johnson P.E., "God and Evolution: An
Exchange: Howard J. Van Till - Phillip E. Johnson", First Things, June
1993. http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9306/johnson.html)
JR>Johnson (and occasionally his defenders) sometimes makes good points.
>But it's very unfortunate when they are expressed by him or others with
>lawyerly rhetoric, sloppily and polemically. This retards the discussion.
What "discussion" were you having *before* "Johnson" came on the scene?
And it certainly "retards the discussion" by Theistic Naturalists just ignoring
the *content* of the arguments of "Johnson (and...his defenders)", and
focusing on their *form* claiming it is just "lawyerly rhetoric" and done
"sloppily and polemically" at that. If anyone is using "rhetoric...polemically"
it is Theistic Naturalists like yourself!
[...]
Steve
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Stephen E (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ sejones@ibm.net
3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ senojes@hotmail.com
Warwick 6024 ->*_,--\_/ Phone +61 8 9448 7439
Perth, West Australia v "Test everything." (1Thess 5:21)
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