> It is *almost impossible* to get TE/ECs "to carefully explain what
> they TRULY believe" regarding TE/EC and how "what they believe
> differs from broad philosophical evolutionism.
Stephen might find it easier if he simply asked. Personally, I am always
glad to explain what I believe to anyone who requests it, but since my
beliefs are personal and I do not expect others to agree with them, I do not
explain them uninvited, as if I expected everyone to adopt them. In this one
situation, however, I will make an exception. I simply wish to make clear
that these are my personal beliefs, and I do not expect anyone else to either
accept them or even agree with them.
I also call upon others to take up Stephen's challenge and submit posts under
this subject heading that explain what each of you "'TRULY believe" regarding
TE/EC and how "what [each of you] believe differs from broad philosophical
evolutionism."
First and foremost I am a Christian; as such I believe that in the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth, by which I take to mean the natural
universe. I define "nature" as that aspect of the physical universe with
which we can conceivably interact. As such, I also believe that the natural
universe is simply a subset of the physical universe, which includes aspects
of which we cannot conceivably interact. I do not know how much of the
physical universe is taken up by the natural universe, nor do I know if God
created the physical universe or if it has co-existed with God eternally.
Nor do I know if God is transcendent beyond the physical universe or if it is
part of Him (though I suspect He is transcendent beyond it). I do, however,
believe that He is transcendent beyond the natural universe rather than a
part of it.
I am also a transcendentalist, in that I believe that there is a non-physical
universe beyond the physical universe. I believe that God "inhabits" this
non-physical universe (though in fact God may BE the non-physical universe).
I am also a supernaturalist, in that I believe there are forces that
originate and operate "beyond" the natural universe. I believe that God used
these supernatural forces to create the natural universe.
However, what I believe God created with these supernatural forces was
space-time and the physiochemical laws. I believe that God then infused
space-time with the physiochemical laws, triggered at least one Big Bang,
then sat back to interactively observe.
Let me use an analogy to try to explain what I mean by this. Imagine that
space-time is equivolent to computer hardware while the physiochemical laws
are equivolent to computer software. By programming the hardware with the
software, God was able to create a simulation program that could run itself
to some end point, or with which He could interact if He chose to do so, to
direct it towards some specific goal. (Remember, this is just an analogy; I
am not making any claim that nature is just a simulation or anything else
like that.) In other words, God could let the program run itself with no
interaction on His part whatsoever, or He could control it continuously, or
He could interact with it at key times to direct it while otherwise allowing
it to continue on its own. The point, however, is that since God would be
manipulating the program itself to interact with it, His interactions would
be virtually indistinguishable from the undirected deterministic actions of
the program itself. In other words, with very few exceptions, it would be
almost impossible for an entity living within the program to distinguish an
undirected event from a directed one. (This in turn explains how it is
possible to accept evolution as an undirected force while at the same time
allowing that it can be directed from outside, in ways that are not apparent.)
I cannot say to what extent God interacted with the natural universe before
the appearance of man, but I suspect that, beyond some possible fine-tuning
to insure the presence of both life and intelligence, He interacted very
seldomly, if at all. I do not believe that God was waiting for man
specifically; I believe that He would have been satisfied with any
intelligent organism, regardless of its physical form. What I do believe is
that God was waiting for any creature to become intelligent enough to begin
asking questions like, "Who are we?"; "Why do we exist?"; "Is there a purpose
to existence?"; "Is there anything beyond us?"; "Were we made or have we
existed forever?", and so on. It was at that point that God intended to step
in and give the third of the three great gifts He had to offer: the gift of
the soul (life was the first and least greatest, followed by intelliegence;
salvation, which would be the last and the most greatest of His gifts, was
not part of His original plan). With this it would be possible for the
organism to perceive and interact with God Himself. While this might not
seem like much, it should in fact be most disquieting. It would be as if we
could manipulate a few genes in an amoeba and suddenly we could converse with
it and understand its thoughts and feelings. Except that the difference
between man and God is not a matter of degree as it is between man and
amoeba, but a diiference of kind. I believe that this is what God meant when
He said, "Let us make man into our own image." I believe that God understood
that, unless He could make us like Him at least in part -- beings of spirit
as well as matter -- that it would be impossible for us to have any kind of
interactive relationship with Him. In many ways, I think the magnitude of
this event was put best by C. S. Lewis in the character of Screwtape, the
demonic narrator of the _The Screwtape Letters_. "The degredation of
it!--that this thing of earth and slime could stand upright and converse with
spirits before whom you [Wormwood, another demon], a spirit, could only
cower."
culminating in the most intense of all, His life and death as a human being.
After that His interactions became more subtle, in the form of the Holy
Spirit, but if anything they have increased all the more.
My beliefs differ from that of evolutionism in that, as a special case of
naturalism, evolutionism denies the existence of anything other than the
natural universe. As such, evolutionism also denies the possibility of
anything other than a purely materialistic origin for the natural universe.
Evolutionism also denies the possibility of any influence on the evolution of
the natural universe from outside the natural universe. In essense, the
difference between my beliefs and evolutionism is that I believe that the
Creator used evolution as a tool of creation, whereas evolutionism believes
that the tool itself, and only the tool itself, was the creator.
Kevin L. O'Brien