A Fine Tuned Universe? 2 (RJS)

-How does a Christian faith, a Christian view of the world, inform our understanding of nature?

It should make us see the earth and the cosmos as God's, reflecting his glory and creative imagination. Consequently, seeking to understand it is a good and worthwhile activity. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; it is the honor of kings to seek it out (Proverbs 25:2).

-How does our increasing knowledge of nature inform our understanding of the nature of God and his creation?

Awe is an appropriate response to the awesome. That may be what nature mainly teaches us about God. I don't think it particularly teaches us about God's love or character, just his God-ness, if that makes any sense. Hence the deist God is an almost Cthulhu-like mystery being who would be mainly feared if he weren't totally irrelevant.

-How do these features of Christian doctrine, particularly the concepts of imago dei and the economy of salvation, change the way we view nature and interpret our observations?

The imago dei and dominion/stewardship of earth are important. The idea that, when we are finally true human beings, we will not be in any sense competing with nature any longer, but instead almost parenting it, is very powerful and, I think, unique to the Judeo-Christian story. Thus our observation of nature, in terms of practical application, should lead us to find out how we can live in cooperation with the natural world in a sustainable way, neither using the world as merely a bunch of resources to be exploited, nor rejecting our role as gardeners and thinking any human involvement with nature is necessarily evil (i.e., the recent glut of "life after humans" eco-pocalypse porn).

It looks like a Pentel RSVP, and he seems to be about ready for a new one.

peelingdragonskin.wordpress.com

RJS-

I see that there is no flood of comments. I raised the following question in the other thread, and I don't think it ever got answered. In case you or anyone is interested . . .

>>>RJS, thanks. I have been curious to learn more about McGrath's approach.

Is he saying that we have no common ground with nonbelievers and skeptics to discuss the evidence of design in nature until they accept "the fundamental beliefs of the Christian tradition"? In Romans 1 Paul speaks of evidence of God in nature so that everyone is without excuse.

pds,

I don't think that McGrath would say that there is no common ground to discuss the evidence of design in nature.

But I do think that he is right - evidence of design or purpose in nature cannot, on its own, lead to an orthodox Christian theology. At best it leads to some form of deism or paganism. This is Tim Keller's position as well from what I've read and heard - "natural theology" can lead one away from secular materialism, but that is about as far as it goes. Of course, in our society where secular materialism is a powerful force such a natural theology can provide a good starting point.

pds,

I don't actually think that Willard is claiming that the natural world alone gets us to theism. His first and second steps don't get him to theism although evidence from the natural world certainly contributes. It is his third step that gets him to theism -

In this third stage we look at the course of human events—historical, social and individual—within the context of a demonstrated extra-naturalism (stage one) and of a quite plausible cosmic intellectualism (stage two).

Believe it or not - while I disagree with some pieces of his argument - I agree with this general development. His stage one is what I've been saying - we can get beyond secular materialism. His stage two I have some quibbles with - but they are not overwhelming. His stage three is God's self-revelation and interaction with humans. And then - as Christians we can return to an understanding of nature within the construct of our theology. It is an iterative process.

craig v,

A quote I cut from the post - (because my too long post was even longer before I edited) may shed some light here. With respect to Paley and his vision of a designer McGrath says:

How could one speak of observing "design" in nature? One observes nature, but one infers design in nature. Design is not an empirical datum, but reflects the interpretation of what is observed. This point was perhaps made most forcibly, and certainly most perceptively, by John Henry Newman, who commented: "I believe in design because I believe in God; not in God because I see design." Newman rightly saw that the idea of design was not a "given" within the realm of nature, but was acquired by observing and interpreting nature through the inhabitation of the Christian vision of reality. (p. 30)

Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolution doesn't make sense, it suffers from the fallacies and miscues of 18th and 19th century natural theology.

RJS (#9)-

You made me read it more closely. To clarify further, stage two gets you to "minimal theism" or the "god of the philosophers." Stage three gets you to "God in the full theistic sense."

>>>>>So what do we have at the second stage of theistic evidence? We have established that not all order is evolved and that relative to our data there is a probability of zero that order should emerge from chaos or from nothing into the physical world. In addition, we have experience of order emerging from minds (our minds) into the physical world. Under the limited conditions of human existence, we know what this is like and that it does happen. Now what is the effect of all of this? Certainly no demonstration of God in the full theistic sense. But, similarly as with stage one, the possibility of there being such a God has become significantly more substantial. The existence of something significantly like him has been given some plausibility, and the theist may now invite the atheist to show why the self-existent, mind-like entity of minimal theism—the god of the philosophers, shall we call him—could not in reality be the same as the subject of praise and prayer and devotion in religion—the "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." There is now a somewhat broader ontological "space" for the God of religion which would not be there in a universe without "design.">>>>

I think this is important, because stage two design arguments lend plausibility to all the historical evidences for the God revealed through Jesus and the prophets.

pds-

The problem for ID is that its biggest proponents, the Discovery Institute, have been playing games with the idea of intelligent design. They at once, giving nods to creationists, imply that intelligent design is nothing more than a secular explanation for creationism while trying to imply to scientists that there is strong scientific evidence to support the idea that there is a designer, but don't ask us to actually engage in any science to test this proposition.

"The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process."

Theories are comprehensive models that take into account the evidence gathered to date and make predictions about future discoveries and, effectively, show us how we should test them. What test is available to evaluate whether the 'theory' of intelligent design is a valid scientific theory? What test has the DI proposed that will support ID or show that it is wrong? None?

PDS

I didn't bring up intelligent design in order to attack or defend it, but rather to clarify the distinction between it and McGrath's view. At first it may seem odd to us that a natural theology would deny evidence for (or deny that we can see) design. By contrasting McGrath with intelligent design, I was hoping to clarify what might seem odd.

craig v.

There was a Friday post by Logan Gage at the beginning of the month (you can find it here) where he defined ID saying All ID requires is that intelligent design was involved and that the effects of this design are empirically discernable.

I think that McGrath would object to the phrase "empirically discernable" and I know that this is the phrase I disagree with. Certainly I think that God designed the world and that he did (does) so intelligently. But I don't think that we can look at nature and design empirical tests for this design. I do think that we can infer the design when we look at creation through the eyes of faith (it is a self-consistent position).

freelunch,

I don't think that ID stand the test as a scientific claim. It is ultimately a faith claim. However design is also not disproven by the scientific data.

I also don't think that the statement that the evolution is the result of blind cosmic chance - a purely random process is a scientific statement - it is a faith claim, although it also is not disproven by the scientific data.

I don't think that science can prove or disprove the existence of God.

I do think that there are ways of knowing things that are not "scientific" in the way this term is generally used.

pds,

Yes, the answer is that the Discovery Institute will not do any science.

They need to stop complaining that they are not being taken seriously when they do things that show that they should not be taken seriously.

Really? Behe and Gonzalez (for ex.) are not doing science? Do tell.

Well, they do not publish in peer reviewed journals. They do not define their concepts in a way that can be scientifically verified by peers. Behe, for example, can't provide a definition of "irreducible complexity" since 1996 (Darwin's Black Box).

So, in that sense, no, they do not do science that supports intellgient design.

Both, of course have advanced scientific degrees and are therefore capable of doing "real" science but neither does "intelligent design" science. The Discovery Institute itself does no scientific reaserch and has just about given up the pretense that it does.