Evolution and Original Sin

[ricmat]

But this point does apply to the ID movement and various TE movements as well.

For example, if someone from the ID team insists that God had to interfere with His creation to make it work, I would disagree strongly. I think God is competent enough to create something that will not immediately break down to the level that some ID proponents have suggested. It’s true that without God nothing would exist. But it’s not necessarily true that God must constantly tweak His creation to fix it.

Well, I obviously don’t know all the IDers in the world. I’ve not heard anyone say that God HAD to interfere with his creation to make it work. “Design” refers more to the end product than the process that got us there.

Also, what does “constantly tweak” mean really? At one level, isn’t that exactly what traditional evolution is? Build a bunch of prototypes, throw away most of them, keep the one that works best and then start improving on that one, repeat, repeat, repeat. And eventually you’ll get…man.

If one insists that God do things in the most powerful way imaginable, then I’d have to say that the YECers have it right and the rest of us are wrong. Certainly “poof, there it is” is much more powerful, efficient, elegant, etc. for all-powerful God than something as crude as “wind it up and let it go” evolution, or evolution in which God personally intervenes.

For example, I would suggest that Spring was Christologically pointing toward the Resurrection of Christ since the first Spring season on Earth began millions of years ago. The purpose of creation, I believe, is oriented toward (and finds its fulfillment in) the Coming of Christ. It is in this way that I think God’s creation reveals sublime nuances that can only be perceived through clear reason and sound faith.

Can I prove this using science?

No. But I believe this to be true.

You’ve gone into philosophy way over my head here. But I think I agree with you I did read somewhere though that creation started to “unravel” with original sin, and the coming of Christ started to wind it back up, a process which we all should be participating in. Ooohhhh…I feel a headache coming on.

 

[Pondero]

If you read the lengthy Church document titled “Human Persons Created in the Image of God,” there are several key points. While Pope John Paul II did say that evolution was more than a hypothesis, it was made clear that there are theories of evolution, but even neo-Darwinian evolution that denies to God a truly causal role in the creation of life in the universe is not acceptable to the Church.

The same document tells Catholics that without divine providence to guide it, nothing like evolution could have occurred. This is where people like Dawkins attribute life to chance and necessity, an idea Pope John Paul II rejected because it does not ground the dignity of man. The dignity given to him by God who made him.

Death, including physical death, entered the world after our first parents sinned. Those who look at Genesis and interpret it as if God was not actually there, are missing out on the fact that God, as God, can do as He will. "And the morning and the evening was the second (third, fourth, etc.) day. They don’t give to God the ability to step outside of the “natural” and perform miracles such as the miracles Jesus, as God, performed.

God bless,
Ed

Dawkins does not attribute life to chance , but to the ‘selfish gene’ . My own view is that God started the universe in motion and takes a back seat so to speak, but upholding in hand all human life which he could withdraw at any time, but won’t. God allows natural processes to develop according to his divine plan for mankind. God intervenes only sporadically through miracles (Lourdes) etc.

 

[buffalo]

Dawkins does not attribute life to chance , but to the ‘selfish gene’ . My own view is that God started the universe in motion and takes a back seat so to speak, but upholding in hand all human life which he could withdraw at any time, but won’t. God allows natural processes to develop according to his divine plan for mankind. God intervenes only sporadically through miracles (Lourdes) etc.

God created man in His image and likeness. So God had a vision of what His creation would look like. So did He just wait until random mutations turned up man? Or is design part of the His plan?

 

[Camron]

Well, I obviously don’t know all the IDers in the world. I’ve not heard anyone say that God HAD to interfere with his creation to make it work. “Design” refers more to the end product than the process that got us there.

I had some arguments put forth for irreducible complexity in mind when I typed that. And while not all IDers say God HAD to interfere with his creation to make it work, they do seem to insist that the biological evidence available indicates that God HAD to step in to make it work. I don’t think it’s wrong to say that God must sustain His creation, because I do believe this. But I do think it’s a potentially dangerous theological argument to insist that our lack of knowledge concerning how something actually happens necessarily means that God must be stepping in at those particular points to make it work.

I’m not saying that God never did this, because He obviously has stepped in and “created” at various points in the universe’s history, most especially lately with our being a part of the New Creation found in Christ. But I think more caution should be used to distinguish between a) what is a personal opinion regarding what science supposedly proves concerning what God apparently did, and b) what God has truly revealed concerning what God Himself actually did.

Also, what does “constantly tweak” mean really? At one level, isn’t that exactly what traditional evolution is? Build a bunch of prototypes, throw away most of them, keep the one that works best and then start improving on that one, repeat, repeat, repeat. And eventually you’ll get…man.

I honestly don’t see evolution as tweaking in order for the human race to be created. I see evolution as God’s creation being allowed the freedom to move according to God’s will. In other words, I think that if nature is indeed reflecting the glory of God and praising her Creator, then nature would most likely necessarily be orientated toward the Coming of Christ via a latent image of Jesus waiting in potential for the time when all things worked together to the glory of God. In short, nature would, by default, raise humanity up to the heavens as an offering for God Himself to come and tangibly dwell among His creation.

If indeed the heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the work of His hands, then should we not also bear witness to God’s creation also being pregnant with the potential for Christ and working in harmony with God’s will so that nature herself eventually brings to term the human race which has been lying dormant in God’s creation all along?

Indeed, all of creation groans in labor pains for the Sons of God to be revealed.

For example, take a look at how extensive this list is…

Praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD from the heavens; praise him in the heights above.
Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars.
Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies.
Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he commanded and they were created.
He set them in place for ever and ever; he gave a decree that will never pass away.

Praise the LORD from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding, you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds, kings of the earth and all nations, you princes and all rulers on earth, young men and maidens, old men and children.
Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted; his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.
He has raised up for his people a horn, the praise of all his saints, of Israel, the people close to his heart.

Praise the LORD.

It seems to me that all of nature would work toward this end even though nature itself lacks the consciousness necessary to understand how it is actually working. Nature reflects God’s Glory but nature doesn’t reflect on its own existence, as in a kind of self-reflexivity. Only God the Angels and Humanity do that.

 

[ricmat]

I had some arguments put forth for irreducible complexity in mind when I typed that. And while not all IDers say God HAD to interfere with his creation to make it work, they do seem to insist that the biological evidence available indicates that God HAD to step in to make it work. I don’t think it’s wrong to say that God must sustain His creation, because I do believe this. But I do think it’s a potentially dangerous theological argument to insist that our lack of knowledge concerning how something actually happens necessarily means that God must be stepping in at those particular points to make it work.

I’m not saying that God never did this, because He obviously has stepped in and “created” at various points in the universe’s history, most especially lately with our being a part of the New Creation found in Christ. But I think more caution should be used to distinguish between a) what is a personal opinion regarding what science supposedly proves concerning what God apparently did, and b) what God has truly revealed concerning what God Himself actually did.

The “lack of knowledge” = “God did it, end of story” idea is a red herring so far as ID goes.

Let’s back up a minute and look at this from a different perspective. It seems that your perspective (or at least the perspective of some others here) is that evolution is the only way, the perfect way, the most elegant way, the holy way, the most Godlike way for God to have created man - therefore, that’s how he did it. Stepping in at the last minute somehow implies something less Godlike, and in your words, it implies that God HAD to step in to fix something that wasn’t right, so that it would work. And looking for evidence that he stepped in is some sort of heresy.

Actually, I think it is safe to say that (for the Christians here at least) for creationists, IDers, or evolutionists - we all believe that God did not HAVE to create man in any particular way. Creationists look to scripture for “how” it was done. Evolutionists look to science to see how it was done. And IDers also look to science for how it was done, except that they consider that God might have actually left evidence that it was part of a cohesive plan/design.

If we look at the evidence and (in the end) it indicates that the creation of man’s body all happened randomly (or alternatively, strictly due to the deterministic laws of nature which were created at the beginning), with no other interference, I can accept that. For that matter, if the evidence shows it, I can accept that God said “poof” and everything came to be just as we see it. But that seems unlikely to me.

I can also accept that God decided to step in, and in a non-random way, speed things up. For example, is selective breeding somehow violating the laws of nature? In my mind, it’s not, its just increasing the probability of a natural event from “random” to “certain”. Does the evidence show this? Maybe, maybe not, maybe not yet, maybe never.

When talking to YECers, it is reasonable to ask “Why would God deceive us and make the universe look much older than it really is?” I could also ask a similar question from the ID perspective, "Why would God hide the fact that his creation is part of a planned (designed) project? An “intelligent project” as Cardinal Schoenborn terms it. Perhaps irreducible complexity is the wrong place to look for this, but I see nothing wrong, or theologically dangerous in investigating it.

I honestly don’t see evolution as tweaking in order for the human race to be created. I see evolution as God’s creation being allowed the freedom to move according to God’s will.

But moving according to God’s will (except for humans and angels) is not freedom. Evolution moving according to God’s will (to me) implies that God was actually involved (with his will) at every single step. It seems that the idea of God got things started (as in the laws of nature), and then “backed out” is very appealing to some evolutionists. I’m puzzled why they are offended that God might have been actively involved in his creation, and wish to denigrate those who investigate it.

Is a music composer who is conducting an orchestra which is playing his music “interfering” in his creation because he has to, or out of love for his creation? [financial issues aside ].

 

[edwest2]

Why was Jesus Christ born? Why did he die? For the non-scientifically provable, mythical error of a pair of a group of randomly mutated and naturally selected hominids-that-just-turned-into-modern-humans? No.

It’s interesting that those who post here with the utmost confidence in the ‘fact’ of evolution feel the need to play Bible scholar as well. Why? What does the Bible have to do with science? Non-believers will tell you, absolutely nothing.

However, for some strange, unknown reason, non-believers come here in an attempt, a long-term project, to convince believers that evolution is a ‘fact.’ Why should they care what Catholics think about this subject? Why do they quote Pope John Paull II and Pope Benedict about this subject? It’s not in their job description. Catholics are told again and again that the Church can only talk about faith and morals, not science.

So, my fellow Catholics, ask yourself: If someone has the “facts” then why bother other people? Just go on with your lives and leave those who don’t accept them alone.

Peace,
Ed

 

[The_Barbarian]

God created man in His image and likeness. So God had a vision of what His creation would look like. So did He just wait until random mutations turned up man? Or is design part of the His plan?

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 truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. 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” (Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1).
Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, the Report of the International Theological Commission
bringyou.to/apologetics/p80.htm

 

[The_Barbarian]

Let’s back up a minute and look at this from a different perspective. It seems that your perspective (or at least the perspective of some others here) is that evolution is the only way, the perfect way, the most elegant way, the holy way, the most Godlike way for God to have created man

Perhaps that’s why He did it that way. But we have some evidence that He knew what He was doing. It turns out that engineers have discovered that evolution works better than design for complex problems. And they’ve started to do it His way for many things that resist design. They are called “genetic algorithms.”

therefore, that’s how he did it. Stepping in at the last minute somehow implies something less Godlike, and in your words, it implies that God HAD to step in to fix something that wasn’t right, so that it would work. And looking for evidence that he stepped in is some sort of heresy.

Remember, God is already intimately involved with every bit of creation; He is what makes it work. Without Him, nature does not exist. So it is disrespectful to say that He didn’t get it right, and has to tinker, yes.

Evolutionists look to science to see how it was done. And IDers also look to science for how it was done,

Except in the parts where they copy from science, where do they do this?

I could also ask a similar question from the ID perspective, "Why would God hide the fact that his creation is part of a planned (designed) project?

Maybe He didn’t. Maybe he did it entirely the way the evidence indicates.

 

[ricmat]

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 truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. 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” (Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1).
Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, the Report of the International Theological Commission
bringyou.to/apologetics/p80.htm

From M-W.com, definitions of contingent:

1**:** likely but not certain to happen : possible
2**:** not logically necessary; especially : empirical
3 a**:** happening by chance or unforeseen causes b**:** subject to chance or unseen effects : unpredictable c**:** intended for use in circumstances not completely foreseen
4**:** dependent on or conditioned by something else <payment is contingent on fulfillment of certain conditions>
5**:** not necessitated : determined by free choice

I wonder which definition the Cardinal was using.

 

[Camron]

The “lack of knowledge” = “God did it, end of story” idea is a red herring so far as ID goes.

But I’m not saying that’s the end of the story.

I think that when crime scene detectives use forensics to determine the intent and motivation from the tools and weapons employed by criminals this is a perfectly valid use of science to detect a conscious mind behind the evidence. So I’m not saying it’s impossible. I’m only noting that more often than not the science behind ID is used to say that something else, such as evolution, is more of less impossible without some divine consciousness interacting with it.

If ghosts were real, it would be like crime scene detectives using forensics to detect the presence of ghost causing a murder for example.

How does one actually use science to detect something that does not exist in a purely physical sense?

How does one use science to detect a spiritual force that cannot be directly measured with material tools and measurements?

As you have said, all of us agree that it’s impossible without God. The only thing in dispute is how closely God really did interact with His Creation when He actually created.

When someone says that the text of Genesis must be interpreted in such a way that it can only mean that God literally created with His hands, it needs to be noted that children in the womb are also described as being created by God’s hand—and yet we know that God, at least on a physical level, does not literally appear and fashion children in the womb.

I know that you don’t believe that God literally fashions children in the womb by His own hands in a physical sense. I know I don’t. Actually, none of us here do. Even the most literal YEC does not believe this. And I find this puzzling that the text of Genesis must be interpreted in such a strict and literal sense when it really does fit into the same kind of divinely uttered poetic statements that are seen all too many times elsewhere in the Bible.

 

[Camron]

Let’s back up a minute and look at this from a different perspective. It seems that your perspective (or at least the perspective of some others here) is that evolution is the only way, the perfect way, the most elegant way, the holy way, the most Godlike way for God to have created man - therefore, that’s how he did it. Stepping in at the last minute somehow implies something less Godlike, and in your words, it implies that God HAD to step in to fix something that wasn’t right, so that it would work. And looking for evidence that he stepped in is some sort of heresy.

I’m not saying it’s a heresy. I’m only noting that God, whom I’m sure is fully aware of every particle and virtual particle has ever existed, exists, or will ever exist, does indeed have the foresight to know what will actually happen in advance.

Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” Therefore, on the eternal and spiritual level, He already has known in advance how all things will work to accomplish His will.

Indeed, if the heavens in the heights above, and all His angels and all His heavenly hosts, and the sun and the moon all the shining stars, and the highest heavens and the waters above the skies all praise God as He commanded and created them to do, then couldn’t God also work through all these things that have been called according to His purpose and indeed give praise to Him?

Again, if the earth, the great sea creatures and all ocean depths, the lightning and the hail, the snow and the clouds, the stormy winds (that do his bidding), the mountains and all the hills, the fruit trees and all the cedars, the wild animals and all the cattle, the small creatures and the flying birds all praise God as He commanded and created them to do, then couldn’t God also work through all these things too, things that have likewise been called according to His purpose and indeed give praise to Him?

I will note once again, all of creation in groaning in labor pains for the Sons of God to be revealed.

Bearing Biblical passages like these in mind, it seems very evident to me that God can most certainly use nature (which He created) to contingently accomplish His will, even forming humanity according to His purpose via nature shaping us for Him as He has commanded it to do from the beginning.

Matthew 6:8, Matthew 6:32, and Luke 12:30 all stress that God already knows what we will need before we even pray to Him. I think evolution is probably much the same in that God already knew what will be needed for life to evolve well before Adam and Eve even appeared on Earth. He would already know the trajectory of the evolutionary paths that led to humanity’s emergence on Earth.

He would also know in advance when He actually does step in to assist when someone asks for His help too. Even their prayers to Him He would already know in advance. I’ve read somewhere before that prayer doesn’t change God’s mind—prayer changes our minds and brings us closer to God’s will. I think this is true and I agree with it. And I think that TE model more closely matches this Biblical concept found all throughout the Bible more so that the ID model does.

 

[The_Barbarian]

From M-W.com, definitions of contingent:

1: likely but not certain to happen : possible
2: not logically necessary; especially : empirical
3 a: happening by chance or unforeseen causes b: subject to chance or unseen effects : unpredictable c: intended for use in circumstances not completely foreseen
4: dependent on or conditioned by something else
5: not necessitated : determined by free choice

I wonder which definition the Cardinal was using.

He presents it as the opposite of necessity. In that case…

**A statement is necessarily true (or again necessary simpliciter) if it is true in every possible world. How much help is to be found in this definition is moot. It does show the relationship between necessity and possibility tacity invoked in the previous paragraph, viz that these concepts are inter-definable.

A statement is necessarily false (or self contradictory) if it is false in every possible world.

If a statement is true in some, but false in other possible worlds then it is contingent. It is intended that all statements of a certain class are either necessary or contingent. **
rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/logic/006.htm

That being the case, we can roughly consider it to mean what people say by “probability.”

 

[ricmat]

But I’m not saying that’s the end of the story.

OK - but many critics of ID incorrectly say that “This is what ID says.”

I think that when crime scene detectives use forensics to determine the intent and motivation from the tools and weapons employed by criminals this is a perfectly valid use of science to detect a conscious mind behind the evidence. So I’m not saying it’s impossible. I’m only noting that more often than not the science behind ID is used to say that something else, such as evolution, is more of less impossible without some divine consciousness interacting with it.

If ghosts were real, it would be like crime scene detectives using forensics to detect the presence of ghost causing a murder for example.

How does one actually use science to detect something that does not exist in a purely physical sense?

Well, math for one thing (which is obviously part of science). Numbers are not physical things. They are abstractions. But they are used to predict other abstractions, and even create “laws” of these abstractions.

How does one use science to detect a spiritual force that cannot be directly measured with material tools and measurements?

That’s not what ID is all about.

ID isn’t out to detect God directly, by touching and feeling and saying “I found God”. It’s about looking for evidence of design in nature.

As you have said, all of us agree that it’s impossible without God. The only thing in dispute is how closely God really did interact with His Creation when He actually created.

When someone says that the text of Genesis must be interpreted in such a way that it can only mean that God literally created with His hands, it needs to be noted that children in the womb are also described as being created by God’s hand—and yet we know that God, at least on a physical level, does not literally appear and fashion children in the womb.

I don’t believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis. You’re thinking of creationism here, not ID.

 

[SedesDomi]

Dawkins says that evolution produced God.

Theistic evolutionists say that God produced evolution.

The truth is vastly different.

 

[ricmat]

I’m not saying it’s a heresy. I’m only noting that God, whom I’m sure is fully aware of every particle and virtual particle has ever existed, exists, or will ever exist, does indeed have the foresight to know what will actually happen in advance.

OK - I agree with this as well.

Bearing Biblical passages like these in mind, it seems very evident to me that God can most certainly use nature (which He created) to contingently accomplish His will, even forming humanity according to His purpose via nature shaping us for Him as He has commanded it to do from the beginning.

I agree that God can use nature (on “auto pilot” so to speak) to create humanity, and did over much of history. And I think that God, being omnipotent, could have done the whole thing with nature on auto-pilot. But I also believe that he chose to step in and speed things up…as I’ve mentioned before.

Matthew 6:8, Matthew 6:32, and Luke 12:30 all stress that God already knows what we will need before we even pray to Him. I think evolution is probably much the same in that God already knew what will be needed for life to evolve well before Adam and Eve even appeared on Earth. He would already know the trajectory of the evolutionary paths that led to humanity’s emergence on Earth.

Agreed. But this doesn’t mean that He didn’t step in to conduct his orchestra of nature as an act of love, or just because He wanted to.

He would also know in advance when He actually does step in to assist when someone asks for His help too. Even their prayers to Him He would already know in advance. I’ve read somewhere before that prayer doesn’t change God’s mind—prayer changes our minds and brings us closer to God’s will. I think this is true and I agree with it. And I think that TE model more closely matches this Biblical concept found all throughout the Bible more so that the ID model does.

OK - we can agree to disagree here. I’m not adamantly against TE. I accept that it might be true. And that YEC might actually be true. But I lean towards ID - which I’ll define here as “God uses nature on auto-pilot most of the time, but occasionally steps in for whatever reason.”

 

[ricmat]

Buffalo originally said:

God created man in His image and likeness. So God had a vision of what His creation would look like. So did He just wait until random mutations turned up man?** Or is design part of the His plan?**

And Barbarian responded:

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 truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. 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” (Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1).
Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, the Report of the International Theological Commission
bringyou.to/apologetics/p80.htm

It is interesting that the quote you selected above by Cardinal Ratzinger comes from St. Thomas’ Aquinas’ 3rd proof for the existence of God, the argument from “necessity or contingency.”

However, as a proof that ID is incorrect (that design is NOT part of God’s plan), it is definitely the wrong quote to use. As I’m sure you know, Aquinas’ 5th proof for the existence of God is the “Argument from Design” part of which I quote below from “50 Questions on the Natural Law” by C. Rice.

Aquinas says, speaking of natural bodies “Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence.”

 

[The_Barbarian]

Yeah, I know, the old bait-and-switch. “Oh, we see “design” in nature.” Then when it’s pointed out that there is no design to be found, it’s “well, we just mean that God intended things to work out as they did.”

Which is perfectly consistent with contingency and evolution, as the Pope says.

When even probabilistic processes can be labeled “design”, what can’t be labeled design, if God it the creator? And it it merely means “intent”, what then do we make of the discovery by engineers, that evolution works better than design for complex processes?

 

[The_Barbarian]

How does one use science to detect a spiritual force that cannot be directly measured with material tools and measurements?

That’s not what ID is all about.

Well, let’s take a look…

From the guys who invented ID…(Discovery Institute)

**Discovery Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies. Bringing together leading scholars from the natural sciences and those from the humanities and social sciences, the Center explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature…Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions. **
antievolution.org/features/wedge.html

Imagine that.

 

[Camron]

OK - but many critics of ID incorrectly say that “This is what ID says.”

I’m quite sure that there are misunderstandings on both sides of the debate. I know there are things that I don’t understand completely.

Well, math for one thing (which is obviously part of science). Numbers are not physical things. They are abstractions. But they are used to predict other abstractions, and even create “laws” of these abstractions.

That may be true. But numbers do not have a real existence of their own that I am aware of. They really are mental constructs, as far as I can tell, which numerically map the known extent of God’s creation. God, on the other hand, really exists even though we can’t directly touch Him, except through our Lord and the Eucharist.

That’s not what ID is all about.

I know that’s not what ID is all about. But it does seem to be a significant portion of it. Plus, there is indeed a significant portion of ID advanced specifically to refute evolutionary claims.

ID isn’t out to detect God directly, by touching and feeling and saying “I found God”. It’s about looking for evidence of design in nature.

I admire that. But how does one actually do that using science?

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that science can’t lead people closer to God. A Biblical quote from Colossians says something like whatever we do work at it with all our hearts, as working for the Lord, not for men, since we know that we will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.

So whether we do art, math, linguistics – whatever it is that we do so long as God approves of it – it can be used by God Himself to bring us closer to Him. I’m sure this includes all aspects of scientific inquiry too. But I don’t think there’s any hard and fast scientific formula for doing this, which is what the ID movement seems to be suggesting.

I don’t believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis. You’re thinking of creationism here, not ID.

I didn’t say you did. But I am suggesting that some of the errors of the more literalist interpretations of the Bible can and do spill over into the ID movement.

 

[Camron]

OK - I agree with this as well.

I agree that God can use nature (on “auto pilot” so to speak) to create humanity, and did over much of history. And I think that God, being omnipotent, could have done the whole thing with nature on auto-pilot. But I also believe that he chose to step in and speed things up…as I’ve mentioned before.

Agreed. But this doesn’t mean that He didn’t step in to conduct his orchestra of nature as an act of love, or just because He wanted to.

OK - we can agree to disagree here. I’m not adamantly against TE. I accept that it might be true. And that YEC might actually be true. But I lean towards ID - which I’ll define here as “God uses nature on auto-pilot most of the time, but occasionally steps in for whatever reason.”

It seems that we mostly have agreement here. I too agree that God could have stepped in as well.

My only caution against the ID movement is that many seem to be claiming that they have scientific proof that God stepped in at certain points in history to change things. One can call it fixing things or one can call it beautifying things, the second option of which I am personally sympathetic too.

But if someone claims that they have scientific proof that God did something, and this turns out to be false, then people’s faiths can be damaged. I personally think that not that many outside these forums actually think very deeply about this matter. Whether God created by a form of special creation or purely evolutionary creation really matters very little to them, just so long as they attribute this action to God’s divine providence. And, for the record, since they are open to both, their faith is not shaken if they find out that God did it one way of another. But to those whose faith is indeed dependent on God “acting a certain way”, their faith in God can be deeply damaged, sometimes beyond repair.

Evolution, on the other hand, doesn’t actually claim that God did it. People who believe that God used evolution to do it (like me) are the ones who are claiming that God did it. The ToE simply attempts to measure what happened. And to the extent that more evidence is found in favor of evolution, this doesn’t necessarily change our view of God’s actions. It only opens our minds more deeply the complexity in which God worked as He brought forth life on Earth.

Do you see the difference?

ID makes specific claims about how God (or some intelligence) acted in order to offer it as a proof for God’s existence. But, if the proof is later found to be incorrect, then the proof then becomes invalid.

TE, on the other hand, takes the opposite approach. It doesn’t necessarily claim that God specifically did something (for the most part anyway). It only measures what can be scientifically verified and then attributes this to God. Since it doesn’t necessarily make specific claims about God, a lot of room is left open to how things happened.

In the case of ID, if the evidence is invalided, so is the supposed proof for God’s existence. I am not joking when I honestly say the argument goes no further than this

In the case of TE, if the evidence is invalided, the proof for God is not invalidated. In this sense, the evidence for evolution can be increased and modified and expanded as more evidence becomes available (just as science is supposed to work). And this only adds to the majesty of God’s providence as we learn more and more about how complex God’s actions are without actually nullifying a proof for God’s existence in the process.