I finally had time to catch up on the detail of a long thread on Uncommon Descent in which theistic evolution and theistic evolutionists were vivisected at length. At over 180 posts the subject of the original article is probably irrelevant.
At one point a discussion about the prevalence of physicists over biologists in theistic evolutionary theory developed, and Ted Davis suggested the following reason as one possibility:
I had reason to dig around in some of the Patristic literature recently, and came across Irenaeus’ (late 2nd century) teaching on Adam and sin whilst looking for something else. It reminded me that I haven’t yet recorded in this blog what Irenaeus actually teaches, which is an oversight as many modern writers in the evolution/theology field, and outside it, question the traditional teaching on original sin, most often by attributing it to Augustine in the west. The Eastern Church, they say, never taught the idea of hereditary sin. Even John H Walton, much of whose excellent work I have been reading of late, mentions this as a plain fact in order to defend the concept that Adam need not be regarded as the physical ancestor of the entire human race.
I’ve just read a lecture by Steve Fuller, in which he mentioned that, at around the time of the Scopes trial, it was pretty well impossible to find a scientist working in a Christian institution (and I assume this largely means US denominational universities) who would accept the reality of either miracles or the physical resurrection of Christ. I would suggest it would have been almost equally hard to find a theologian in the same institutions who believed in them either, at that time. I’ve not checked any sources, but it makes sense – even when I was young there was a strong feeling that science and the supernatural were simply incompatible.
But things have changed.
One reason I have for being suspicious of current evolutionary theory is a generic one. The theory was conceived and pursued with materialist assumptions. If those assumptions are wrong, then it’s inconceivable that the details of the theory would remain unchanged. No outsider could say where such changes were needed – it’s a job for the specialists in each field. It’s like the conversion of an unbeliever to Christianity: the change is bound to affect beliefs and practices in relation to work, to relationships and to use of resources. If not, nothing really happened. Assumptions, in other words, always affect outcomes.
I thought I’d withdrawn from the BioLogos thread on Darrel Falk’s piece, but Ted Davis threw me a challenge in a response to a reply I made to penman on the Reformed view of creation. He picked up a reference to John Owen on this blog, and suggested his views on sovereignty and freedom were so particular that I’d be optimistic to find a TE website that endorsed them. I replied along the lines that Owen wasn’t the only name I cited, and that Reformed views on providence are hardly a forgotten footnote in Evangelicalism.
But as I wrote, I was musing on the fact that, given his circumstances, a 17th century Congregationalist probably, even in his large body of work, wrote little on the natural creation itself, apart from the complicating factors of free agents like men and angels and the question of sin.
I guess I need to summarise the discussion I’ve had over the last five days on the thread about Darrel Falk’s reply to William Dembski over on BioLogos. I may be a little clearer now about what he meant to say, but in truth I’m little closer to knowing, except by inference, what he actually believes. I’ve probably, regretfully, made an enemy in trying to find out.
Regular readers may know that I’ve been trying to clarify Darrel Falk’s post responding to William Dembski’s essay on BioLogos. The key issue is what BioLogos actually understands by God’s government, as opposed to his sustaining, of nature. Darrel’s initial essay restricts this to the role of a very deterministically framed natural law (with a let-out for “possible” supernatural intervention), though Ted Davis has tossed some discussion of the deep mysteries of randomness, and the profound debates in the academy about the extent of God’s direction of events.
Well here’s me, a retired quack, dialoguing with these heavyweights late into the evening, and I guess it produces a degree of stress. Anyway, last night I had this very strange dream.
If we’re really serious about teleology and a God of eternal purpose, then maybe we look at the laws of physics the wrong way round. I mused a little on the question of teleology here last year. It seemed to me that our natural methodology – and not only within scientific endeavour – is always to look at cause and effect. But if we believe in the God who starts with the purpose of uniting all things together in Christ, then we ought to be thinking instead of means and ends.
Now that Darrel Falk’s second post is up on BioLogos, I want to see what kind of discussion it generates. But one thought emerges to me immediately, and that is on the question of human exceptionalism. Dembski raised the issue of how a Darwinian evolutionary process could possibly give rise to mankind “in the image of God.” Darrel has rather pulled the rug out from under him by distancing himself, and Biologos as a whole, from “Darwinism”, obviously accepting, for the purposes of self-identification, that the metaphysical baggage that comes with the name is heavy enough to load down BioLogos‘ theological credentials. His actual reply to the point is interesting, though:
The first part of Darrel Falk’s reply to William Dembski on BioLogos actually does clarify (a little) the issue I’ve alluded to a lot on The Hump of the Camel, that is the idea of God’s having give creation “freedom”, especially in the realm of evolution. To remind you, Darrel’s last summary of this to me included the words:
Gods design, however, is intelligent and God, through that intelligence wills freedom for his creation, including the constrained freedom of allowing creation to make itself.
