Comments on: Random Designer VI – Take 2

By: TLTB

TLTB — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 14:38:01 +0000

No, i don’t think it is enough. We could image many other ways God might have created the universe that would have also been intelligible. For instance, he could have done it in six days ten thousand years ago. If he had, we certainly would be able to show it with clear evidence.

Aesthetically, this answer also strikes me as a bit anthropocentric. I do not think God created the cosmos the way he did just so we would be able to comprehend how he’d done it.

By: Larry B

Larry B — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 13:41:33 +0000

Thanks for the second look here Henry. In the few readings I have made where evolution and theology are discussed together, there is the same “somehow” question left hanging.

It is my recollection from my limited philosophy classes in college that we are just a relatively short time into what most people have called “post modern” discourse. I thought it used to be a given that most philosophical arguments centered around discerning the underlying ordered rules of our existence using reason and logic as the main tools for arguing one’s point. The problem I seem to see here is that using reason and logic, one can easily prove that evolution and genesis are completely incompatible or one can prove that they are compatible. Our old tools don’t work in this case, and we need some of the new methods of discourse to shed some light on these issues. I thought maybe this book might shed some light on that area, but it sounds like it doesn’t quite go there.

I look forward to any other recommendations you might have.

By: Mark Olson

Mark Olson — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:27:58 +0000

TLTB,
My answer to your question of why evolution might have occurred (by intent) via natural processes is implicit in one reading of Genesis 1 (which I borrow somewhat from Kass Beginning of Wisdom).

Genesis 1, among other things, teaches us that the visible universe is intelligible. Evolution as is being uncovered is also intelligible. Is that not enough?

By: JuliaL

JuliaL — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 03:07:21 +0000

I think at least a few of the theological problems we think we see exist only if we assume that evolution is nothing more than a method of getting to the modern world and ourselves. If we assume instead that God has valued/intended/communed with all the stages of his creation, then evolution doesn’t seem anymore like a wasteful, imprecise process.

Surely every evolutionary stage of every plant/creature brings something valuable into existence. So the world that God created is far richer even than the world as it exists today. God’s world includes every minute of the billions of years involved and every event and object in every stage in every one of those minutes.

From my perspective, God has been and is in contact with every element of his creation at all times. At some point in our evolution, humans took on the image of God as we gained the ability to recognize the existence of good and evil and, like all children do, to imitate our father; that is, to choose communion, to reach out toward connection and wholeness.

I’m very much enjoying your comments on Colling and look forward to reading his book.

By: TLTB

TLTB — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 23:12:41 +0000

From your discussion, it seems that, like Miller and Collins and even Falk, Colling is chiefly in the separationist camp – he has the right idea that science and religion can co-exist, but isn’t willing (or as you suggest, simply isn’t qualified) to take the next necessary step ask the important theological question of ‘why.’ Why would God create the world using evolution – a wasteful, imprecise process – when he could just create it all in six days with his words? Why does God prefer random contingency to intimate control? The answers to these questions are much tougher since they require us not only to accept evolution, but also to change some of our fundamental ideas about who God is and what he is doing.

I second your recommendation of Haught’s work. To my mind, he is the best modern interpreter of the theological implications of an ancient, evolving creation.