Creationism and life in general

[Al_Moritz]

And should an academic be known to harbor views favorable to Intelligent Design in a University, even if he does not teach them to others, he is ferreted out, press releases are issued and in some cases, he is officially disavowed or reassigned.

I do not fault portions of the public but I do fault some scientists for actions like this.

Peace,
Ed

I have no sympathies myself with the views of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement and its claims of “irreducible complexity”. I don’t think I would go so far as to disavow somebody for holding such views, as long as s/he holds them as philosophy. However, when somebody claims that ID is actually science, it becomes problematic. This is indeed against the spirit of science, which by definition looks for natural causes for effects in nature. That is what every real scientist, including me, does.

 

[razredge]

I have no sympathies myself with the views of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement and its claims of “irreducible complexity”. I don’t think I would go so far as to disavow somebody for holding such views, as long as s/he holds them as philosophy. However, when somebody claims that ID is actually science, it becomes problematic. This is indeed against the spirit of science, which by definition looks for natural causes for effects in nature. That is what every real scientist, including me, does.

Agree - Intelligent Design is dangerous rubbish masquerading as a competing scientific theory. Really I have no idea why any rational believer would want to cling so tightly onto it - it simply belittles God into an explanation for whatever we find hard to explain about the world.

It’s basically the modern equivalent to how the ancient pagans used to attribute the rising of the sun and the weather to God.

 

[tonyrey]

Agree - Intelligent Design is dangerous rubbish masquerading as a competing scientific theory. Really I have no idea why any rational believer would want to cling so tightly onto it - it simply belittles God into an explanation for whatever we find hard to explain about the world.

It’s basically the modern equivalent to how the ancient pagans used to attribute the rising of the sun and the weather to God.

So you believe the universe is purposeless and gives no indication whatsoever of its divine origin? What makes you believe there is a God if science can in principle explain everything?

 

[tonyrey]

I have no sympathies myself with the views of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement and its claims of “irreducible complexity”. I don’t think I would go so far as to disavow somebody for holding such views, as long as s/he holds them as philosophy. However, when somebody claims that ID is actually science, it becomes problematic. This is indeed against the spirit of science, which by definition looks for natural causes for effects in nature. That is what every real scientist, including me, does.

So you believe life originated and developed** solely **as the result of natural causes? Doesn’t that make God somewhat redundant?

 

[razredge]

So you believe the universe is purposeless and gives no indication whatsoever of its divine origin? What makes you believe there is a God if science can in principle explain everything?

Ah, well I wouldn’t say I believe in God because He can explain things science can’t explain - the problem with that is that we have no certainty of knowing whether what is currently unexplainable by science will not be explained by future developments.

I believe in God because life, the universe and existence makes no sense without him. Things like beauty, love, meaning simply do not exist without God.

It really does require either a leap of faith or a gift of faith to believe in God.

And strange as it may sound, the scientific non-necessity of God has actually increased my faith in Him. God altogether becomes a far grander idea.

 

[Al_Moritz]

So you believe life originated and developed** solely **as the result of natural causes? Doesn’t that make God somewhat redundant?

Tonyrey,

you really must not have listened at all during our previous discussions, which is disappointing.

I will (patiently) repeat:

1. God is necessary as the sustainer of the created world. Study classical metaphysics (Aquinas) and you will see why that is so. It is also a ‘de fide’ (‘has to be believed’) article of the Catholic Church.
2. God designed the laws of nature, thus He designed all the processes of evolution: physical evolution of the universe, chemical evolution leading to the origin of life, biological evolution leading to development of life and to higher species. Without that design, evolution would not exist.
3. The laws of nature determine the working of the natural causes that science studies, which are the secondary causes through which God chooses to operate and have the universe work reliably (if there were no reliability, you would never step into an airplane!). The natural causes are just that, causes in God’s created nature by which nature works. Because God created them in the first place, natural causes are not “godless causes” and they do not stand in competition with God.

You and others seem to think, because something is explained by natural causes it makes God redundant. This is not so, because of points 1, 2 and 3 that I just explained.

1. Human rationality stands outside evolution, because it can only function with a component (a '‘rational soul’) that is non-deterministic, that can make genuinely free choices, which is impossible if the mind were purely physical. We both agree on that.

 

[razredge]

Tonyrey,

you really must not have listened at all during our previous discussions, which is disappointing.

I will (patiently) repeat:

1. God is necessary as the sustainer of the created world. Study classical metaphysics (Aquinas) and you will see why that is so. It is also a ‘de fide’ (‘has to be believed’) article of the Catholic Church.
2. God designed the laws of nature, thus He designed all the processes of evolution: physical evolution of the universe, chemical evolution leading to the origin of life, biological evolution leading to development of life and to higher species. Without that design, evolution would not exist.
3. The laws of nature determine the working of the natural causes that science studies, which are the secondary causes through which God chooses to operate and have the universe work reliably (if there were no reliability, you would never step into an airplane!). The natural causes are just that, causes in God’s created nature by which nature works. Because God created them in the first place, natural causes are not “godless causes” and they do not stand in competition with God.

You and others seem to think, because something is explained by natural causes it makes God redundant. This is not so, because of points 1, 2 and 3 that I just explained.

1. Human rationality stands outside evolution, because it can only function with a component (a '‘rational soul’) that is non-deterministic, that can make genuinely free choices, which is impossible if the mind were purely physical. We both agree on that.

Well put - lots of people here seem to have a problem with this ‘deist’ worldview, but it really does make a lot of sense, gets around a lot of issues (like the problem of evil) and IMO is a far grander conception of God than some old man who goes around pointing his finger to make things appear.

Point 4. is my primary reason for believing in God. This is a problem that atheism I don’t think will be able to surmount.

Sartre’s ‘condemned to be free’/‘existence precedes essence’ philosophy where the meaning of our existence is dependent solely for the individual to define is otherwise a brilliant atheist precept - except that it presupposes the existence of free will which is impossible if only the physical world exists.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Well put - lots of people here seem to have a problem with this ‘deist’ worldview,

Thank you. As I pointed out in another discussion, it is actually ID people who appear to have a deistic view of God – they disregard the view of classical theology of God as the sustainer of everything and instead believe that God only “acts” when He demonstrably “intervenes”. Therefore, to escape the putative consequences of their false theology, they need to show for themselves that God “intervenes as much as possible”.

but it really does make a lot of sense, gets around a lot of issues (like the problem of evil) and IMO is a far grander conception of God than some old man who goes around pointing his finger to make things appear.

I agree about the much grander conception of God. Here is what I wrote in chapter 7 of my article on the origin of life, published on the evolution website Talkorigins.org:

talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.html

*The issue of chirality, among others, has been touted by creationists as a “huge problem” for the concept of an origin of life by natural causes. Allegedly, only a miraculous intervention by God could have solved the problem. Yet the above findings are a typical example for why the ‘God-of-the-gaps’ concept does not work: science rapidly closes the gaps that previously might have been thought to be reserved for miraculous intervention.

This is exactly what should be expected if either the material world is all there is, or if the world was created by a God who, as primary cause, chose to create through secondary causes – precisely those natural causes that science studies. In fact, creationists should seriously ask themselves if their concept of God is not a belittling one: the Intelligent Designer as “tinkerer” who is forced to break his own created laws of nature once in a while because they are insufficient to achieve certain stages in the development of the material world. From a theistic philosophical perspective, the actual findings of science suggest a much grander idea of God: the Designer who laid out an elegant and self-sufficient set of laws of nature that accomplish the unfolding of his creation by inducing self-organization of the material world. This idea is easily compatible with the concept of God of many mainstream religions, including most Christian ones.*

Point 4. is my primary reason for believing in God. This is a problem that atheism I don’t think will be able to surmount.

Sartre’s ‘condemned to be free’/‘existence precedes essence’ philosophy where the meaning of our existence is dependent solely for the individual to define is otherwise a brilliant atheist precept - except that it presupposes the existence of free will which is impossible if only the physical world exists.

It is one of my main reasons too. You might enjoy my article:

home.earthlink.net/~almoritz/naturalism_is_true.htm

The link at the bottom leads to another major reason why I believe in God, apart from the evidence for divine revelation.

Al

 

[razredge]

Thank you. As I pointed out in another discussion, it is actually ID people who appear to have a deistic view of God – they disregard the view of classical theology of God as the sustainer of everything and instead believe that God only “acts” when He demonstrably “intervenes”. Therefore, to escape the putative consequences of their false theology, they need to show for themselves that God “intervenes as much as possible”.

I agree about the much grander conception of God. Here is what I wrote in chapter 7 of my article on the origin of life, published on the evolution website Talkorigins.org:

talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.html

*The issue of chirality, among others, has been touted by creationists as a “huge problem” for the concept of an origin of life by natural causes. Allegedly, only a miraculous intervention by God could have solved the problem. Yet the above findings are a typical example for why the ‘God-of-the-gaps’ concept does not work: science rapidly closes the gaps that previously might have been thought to be reserved for miraculous intervention.

This is exactly what should be expected if either the material world is all there is, or if the world was created by a God who, as primary cause, chose to create through secondary causes – precisely those natural causes that science studies. In fact, creationists should seriously ask themselves if their concept of God is not a belittling one: the Intelligent Designer as “tinkerer” who is forced to break his own created laws of nature once in a while because they are insufficient to achieve certain stages in the development of the material world. From a theistic philosophical perspective, the actual findings of science suggest a much grander idea of God: the Designer who laid out an elegant and self-sufficient set of laws of nature that accomplish the unfolding of his creation by inducing self-organization of the material world. This idea is easily compatible with the concept of God of many mainstream religions, including most Christian ones.*

It is one of my main reasons too. You might enjoy my article:

home.earthlink.net/~almoritz/naturalism_is_true.htm

The link at the bottom leads to another major reason why I believe in God, apart from the evidence for divine revelation.

Al

Oh wow, I didn’t realise you wrote the overview of ‘The Origin of Life’ on the Talk Origins website - fantastic site, I’ve read a few of the FAQs and ‘The Introduction to Evolutionary Biology’ and have ‘The Origin of Life’ on my to do list.

That’s a great article of the problem of naturalism - the lack of free will really does lead to an impossibilty of proving any statement is true or not. I will be sure to read the other articles on your site when I have time.

One issue I have with the new atheists is that they really seem to completely ignore or are unaware of the free will problem and make it seem that you can live a normal life while rejecting the idea of God and accepting a purely materialistic worldview - which is simply a grand delusion, equivalent to their ‘God delusion’,

Unfortunately, it seems that most religious people are not exactly intellectually honest either - i’m sure you’ve seen there threads on here militantly defending creationism, monogenism and even geocentrism!

Thankfully they do seem to be like minded people in the Church itself, have you heard of Fr George Coyne? He’s an astrophysicist and former director of the Vatican Observatory.
I was watching this interview between him and Richard Dawkins (it’s about a hour long) and found myself agreeing with most of his beliefs.
youtube.com/watch?v=po0ZMfkSNxc

 

[edwest2]

"Cardinal Schoenborn states in his book Chance or Purpose - page 169

“When an astronomer, who is also a priest and theologian, even has the presumption to say that God himself could not know for certain that man would be the product of evolution, then nonsense has taken over completely.” The footnote associated with this paragraph reads “For example, Fr. George V. Coyne, S.J. in Der Spiegel no. 52, December 22, 2000”

Peace,
Ed

 

[razredge]

\

“When an astronomer, who is also a priest and theologian, even has the presumption to say that God himself could not know for certain that man would be the product of evolution, then nonsense has taken over completely.”

Ah, and is Cardinal Schonborn a scientist?

Catholic physicist Stephen Barr addresses Schonborn’s objection to the ‘randomness’ of the evolutionary origins of man.
firstthings.com/article/2007/01/the-design-of-evolution-22

In his article, Schönborn cites the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “We believe that God created the world according to His wisdom. It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance.” And yet, it is one thing to say that the whole world is a product of chance and the existence of the universe a fluke, and quite another to say that within the universe there is statistical randomness.
…

We cannot settle the issue of the role of “chance” in evolution theologically, because God is omnipotent and can therefore produce effects in different ways. Suppose a man wants to see a particular poker hand dealt. If he deals from a single shuffled deck, his chance of seeing a royal straight flush is 1 in 649,740. So he might decide to stack the deck, introducing the right correlations into the deck before dealing. Alternatively, he might decide to deal a hand from each of a billion shuffled decks. In that case the desired hand will turn up almost infallibly. (The chances it will not are infinitesimal: 10 to the -669 power.) In which way did God make life? Was the molecular deck “stacked” or “shuffled”?

This poker analogy is weak, of course. We don’t know the order of a shuffled deck—that’s one reason we shuffle it. But God knows all the details of the universe from all eternity. He knows what’s in the cards. The scientist and the poker player do not look at things from God’s point of view, however, and so they talk about “probabilities.”

Furthermore he quotes from a 2004 document ‘Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God’ by the International Theological Commission (headed by Cardinal Ratzinger):

Communion and Stewardship settles this point. “Many neo-Darwinian scientists, as well as some of their critics, have concluded that if evolution is a radically contingent materialistic process driven by natural selection and random genetic variation, then there can be no place in it for divine providential causality,” the document observes. “But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a purely contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: ‘The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity, happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency.’

So really I don’t see a problem with what Fr Coyne has said - if God is outside of time it’s possible he did not know for certain (he would definitely know the probabilities) what kind of rational creatures he would create until he caused the Big Bang and the progression of time revealed this to him.

There are things even God cannot know - for example can he know the contents of a book if the author of that book had never been born to write it?

You should also read this piece by Coyne criticizing Schonburn for attempting to take the Church backwards:
catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=18503

“It is unfortunate that, especially here in America, creationism has come to mean some fundamentalistic, literal, scientific interpretation of Genesis,” he stresses. “It is rooted in a belief that everything depends upon God, or better, all is a gift from God. The universe is not God and it cannot exist independently of God. Neither pantheism nor naturalism is true.”

“To need God would be a very denial of God. God is not a response to a need,” the Jesuit says, adding that **some religious believers act as if they “fondly hope for the durability of certain gaps in our scientific knowledge of evolution, so that they can fill them with God
**
“God who made a universe that has within it a certain dynamism and thus participates in the very creativity of God,” Father Coyne says, adding that this view of creation is not new but can be found in early Christian writings, including from those of St. Augustine.

“Religious believers must move away from the notion of a dictator God, a Newtonian God who made the universe as a watch that ticks along regularly.”

He proposes to describe God’s relationship with the universe as that of a parent with a child, with God nurturing, preserving and enriching its individual character. “God should be seen more as a parent or as one who speaks encouraging and sustaining words.”

He stresses that the theory of Intelligent Design diminishes God into “an engineer who designs systems rather than a lover.”

“God in his infinite freedom continuously creates a world which reflects that freedom at all levels of the evolutionary process to greater and greater complexity,” he said. “God lets the world be what it will be in its continuous evolution. He does not intervene, but rather allows, participates, loves.”
.”

I really don’t know why people have such trouble seeing that a Creationist God is lesser concept than a God of Evolution.

 

[StrawberryJam]

I was told this topic was only to be discussed in the Back Fence. Have there been some changes to the ban?

 

[razredge]

I was told this topic was only to be discussed in the Back Fence. Have there been some changes to the ban?

The topic is not just another creationism/ID vs evolution thread rather the discussion seems to be on the consequences and necessary conclusions of holding to either point of view and how that affects a Catholic worldview.

 

[tonyrey]

Tonyrey,

you really must not have listened at all during our previous discussions, which is disappointing.

I will (patiently) repeat:

1. God is necessary as the sustainer of the created world. Study classical metaphysics (Aquinas) and you will see why that is so. It is also a ‘de fide’ (‘has to be believed’) article of the Catholic Church.
2. God designed the laws of nature, thus He designed all the processes of evolution: physical evolution of the universe, chemical evolution leading to the origin of life, biological evolution leading to development of life and to higher species. Without that design, evolution would not exist.
3. The laws of nature determine the working of the natural causes that science studies, which are the secondary causes through which God chooses to operate and have the universe work reliably (if there were no reliability, you would never step into an airplane!). The natural causes are just that, causes in God’s created nature by which nature works. Because God created them in the first place, natural causes are not “godless causes” and they do not stand in competition with God.

You and others seem to think, because something is explained by natural causes it makes God redundant. This is not so, because of points 1, 2 and 3 that I just explained.

1. Human rationality stands outside evolution, because it can only function with a component (a '‘rational soul’) that is non-deterministic, that can make genuinely free choices, which is impossible if the mind were purely physical. We both agree on that.

NeoDarwinism holds that life originated due to a** fortuitous** combination of molecules and the development of life occurred due to random mutations of genes. The alternative is that God controls and guides events but divine intervention is not included in your explanation. You think natural causes are sufficient and therefore God does become redundant …

 

[rossum]

NeoDarwinism holds that life originated due to a** fortuitous** combination of molecules and the development of life occurred due to random mutations of genes. The alternative is that God controls and guides events but divine intervention is not included in your explanation. You think natural causes are sufficient and therefore God does become redundant …

Your first error is to say “NeoDarwinism holds that life originated due to”. Please look at the title of Darwin’s book: “On the Origin of Species”. Darwinism, in whatever version, deals with speciation and related matters. The origin of life is a separate study, called abiogenesis. Just as chemistry studies the chemical elements without explaining their origin in the physics of stars, so Darwinism studies evolution without explaining the origin of life in abiogenesis.

Your second error is to set up a false dichotomy between God and natural causes. Al can explain that error to you better than I can.

rossum

 

[Al_Moritz]

NeoDarwinism holds that life originated due to a** fortuitous** combination of molecules

1. As Rossum said, NeoDarwinism is not a theory about the origin of life.
2. The term “fortuitous” is not a scientific term. If a scientist uses it to describe processes, he does not use scientific language.

and the development of life occurred due to random mutations of genes.

For the difference between “random” and “unguided”, see Stephen Barr’s excellent article that Razredge linked to in his first post on this page of the thread. I have also extensively discussed this in previous debates, but apparently you have not paid attention.

The alternative is that God controls and guides events but divine intervention is not included in your explanation.

You still don’t understand points 1, 2 and 3 from the post of mine you responded to.

You think natural causes are sufficient and therefore God does become redundant …

You still don’t understand points 1, 2 and 3 from the post of mine you responded to.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Your second error is to set up a false dichotomy between God and natural causes.

Precisely. I don’t see what should be so hard to understand about it.

Al can explain that error to you better than I can.

rossum

Thank you. As you see, I have tried, but there are some people who just don’t even make the effort to understand.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Furthermore he quotes from a 2004 document ‘Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God’ by the International Theological Commission (headed by Cardinal Ratzinger):

“Many neo-Darwinian scientists, as well as some of their critics, have concluded that if evolution is a radically contingent materialistic process driven by natural selection and random genetic variation, then there can be no place in it for divine providential causality,” the document observes. “But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a purely contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: ‘The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity, happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency.’ "

Precisely. The sophisticated thinking in this document should be clear for those who pay attention to what is actually said here. In order to make it easier for anybody who is truly interested in the message of this paragraph (and at least Catholics should be, it is a Church document after all !!!), I will emphasize the key phrases and sentences that need to be understood as providing a unified context:

“Many neo-Darwinian scientists, as well as some of their critics, have concluded that if evolution is a radically contingent materialistic process driven by natural selection and random genetic variation, then there can be no place in it for divine providential causality,” the document observes. “BUT it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a purely contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: ‘The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity, happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency.’ "

---

This paragraph should amply address Tonyrey’s complaints – if he chooses to pay attention to what it says, that is.

 

[Al_Moritz]

(and at least Catholics should be, it is a Church document after all !!!)

But I have noted here how selective Catholics are when it comes to choosing the Church documents that appear to support their prejudicial thinking and how easily they neglect those that do not. It is rather exasperating, I must say.

 

[grannymh]

Al Moritz;7836737.:

As the Catholic Church teaches, there cannot be a true conflict between faith and science, betwen religious truth and scientific truth.

May I respectfully add the necessary conditions for this to be true.

… there cannot be a true conflict between faith and science, between religious truth and scientific truth PROVIDED that Catholic dogma is understood correctly and science is pursued correctly.