December 17:
1. Nothing New Under the Sun by John G. West
2. Having a Real Debate by John G. West
“How could God ‘direct’ an ‘undirected’ process?” p. 40. The answer is a combination of how he performs miracles within the ordinary (miracle) and is sovereign over our free choices. He occasionally directly interacts with that which he always sustains in existence/operation, all without ever violating free will or natural law.
Is “free will” an example of God delegating the task (of creation) to an undirected third party? If no, why is theistic evolution such an example? If yes, how does such delegation defy His sovereignty?
Interesting that Collins (Christian) thinks things appear “random and undirected” while Dawkins (atheist) thinks things appear “designed for a purpose”.
Regarding the fall and whether we started out good…instincts are neither good nor bad and of course there was a first sin…for mankind in general, and for individuals. And every sin poisons the well as much as the first and we all need redemption.
Before the first sin we are without imperfection and therefore good. Even with all of our instincts. However we are not the sort of willful good that God is, which is more than just being “without imperfection”.
I am flabbergasted that rather than present theistic evolution in its strongest form and addressing it, West spins a version and poisons the well of discourse by equating it to Gnosticism. Is this desperate attempt repeated by very many? I certainly hope not.
Regarding my 3rd reply: I will have to review Collins’ comments bcuz I know he sees design in the universe’s beginning and fine-tuning.
Ug. On the moral sense… Just bcuz we evolve a sense doesn’t imply “that which is sensed” evolves.
Done w West’s contrib. lots of fallacious propaganda. 3 references to science upon which to follow up. Douglas Axe, Ralph Seelke, Stephen Meyer.
3. Smelling Blood in the Water by Casey Luskin
Although Luskin has not repeated the charge of Gnosticism, he is using the same arguments and sources as West. Genetic fallacies and straw men abound.
Yes there are no NOMA and I think Collins would agree. I think this may be the second time he was misrepresented. P.86
Done w Luskin’s contrib…zero science upon which to follow up.
4. Death and the Fall by William A. Dembski
Well…Dembski gives a good counter-argument to blaming genetic defects (etc.) on evolution–God is still sovereign. Still, the actual solution to the problem of evil/suffering works fine and does not refute evolution. P.98
He gives no solution to the problem. Done with Dembski’s contrib.
Oh yeah, and no science.
5. Random Acts of Design by Jonathan Witt
Finally a contribution charitable to Collins and discussing the science! Ty Witt.
Hm. I wonder what Collins would say about his design arguments defying methodological naturalism? P112.
Good point countering Collins’ “clumsy God” objection to ID p.114.
To add to my first reply–free will, though not random, is still free–this is comparable to Darwinian randomness. God sustains random outcomes like he sustains our free choices.
Five chapters down. Time for a break.
6. Darwin of the Gaps by Jonathan Wells
Back at it. Strong intro for Wells but no cosmologist who believes in the cyclical model thinks there is no first cycle. There is also published work showing any model requires a beginning.
Need to double check if Collins ignored naturalistic theories of morality.
Plenty of science to follow up on.
Ironically, junk dna and silent mutations are conclusions of arguments from ignorance (gaps in knowledge). Done with Wells, on to Richards :)
December 28:
7. Making a Virtue of Necessity by Jay W. Richards
Richards is critiquing Van Till’s “Robust Formational Economy Principle”. It makes sense to me that in order to say one has discovered the RFE, it cannot simply be assumed, it’s alternative must be granted as at least possible, and it would not rule out the possibility of the alternative’s intervention. I am curious about the arguments which suggest an RFE is impossible. I also find VanTill’s “divine propriety” unconvincing.
At present my position is that an RFE is possible and does not require, but does not rule out, divine intervention. As concerns divine propriety, God is both immanent and transcendent–interacting but not locked in. His creation was eternally complete from beginning to end, including our free contributions to it and the results of ‘chance’.
8. The Difference it Doesn’t Make by Stephen C. Meyer
I agree with Meyer that it doesn’t make sense to write off I.D. Theory as a “God of the gaps” theory while ascribing design to fine-tuning, etc.
Apparently there are those who think certain physical or chemical laws make life inevitable–both supernaturalists and naturalists. Meyer shows how it is only possible for a law to transmit–not generate–information. Information requires wiggle room to come into being. And “there are no self-organizing forces of attraction that can account for the sequence of specificity of DNA and RNA bases” (160). Will have to explore that.
9. Can a Thomist Be a Darwinist? by Logan Paul Gage
Skipping Catholic chapter. Skimming Thomist chapter (already caught the essence implication years ago).
Hm. Gage thinks Darwinism rules out essence. However, being made in God’s essence is not a physical thing, for God is spirit. Any being that, when matured enough, understands and can follow the Golden Rule is in God’s essence. Something said about Alasdair MacIntyre’s “After Virtue” regarding oughts coming from ises…seems to defy the fallacy. But it is because the fallacy ‘is’ a fallacy that the final cause cannot be rooted to the formal cause. “A thing’s virtue is its final cause in Aristotle’s theory of the four causes. A material cause is what a thing is made of. An efficient cause is the creative force acting upon the material. A formal cause (remnant of Plato’s theory of forms) is the shape or idea of the affected material. A final cause is the purpose of the affected material. In the theory of evolution, which Aristotle did not anticipate, the first material cause would have been the singularity, and it is hard to say what would have been its efficient, formal, and final cause, from Aristotle’s perspective. Starting from now, the human body and all its systems is the material cause. The efficient cause is the environment which shapes (like sandpaper to wood) the body and what it is used for. The formal cause is what the body is shaped into; how it changes to better suit its environment. The final cause is how the newly shaped body is actually used in its environment; the reason it was shaped. So the formal cause becomes the material cause, and the final cause becomes part of the efficient cause. As the universe was complete before it started, the final cause is Golden Rule love. However, there is a problem with rooting the final cause to the formal cause—the is-ought fallacy” (SSP).
I guess Behe is one of those who thinks God could have stacked the deck. Whereas Meyer showed this is impossible, Gage accepts it as a possible concession to non-interventionist Thomists.
11. Straining Gnats, Swallowing Camels by Jay W. Richards
12. Separating the Chaff from the Wheat by Jay W. Richards
I guess Richards is saying Meyer represents specified complexity and Behe irreducible.
The section in chapter twelve, Richards’ “Nature and Art: Thomas or Aristotle” is good.
December 31:
13. Understanding Intelligent Design by Jay W. Richards
“Evolutionary theory is largely historical and abductive, and most contemporary design arguments focus likewise on the historical sciences in cosmology, origin of life research, and biological evolution.” Jay Richards, “God and Evolution” p. 268. If ID is philosophy, so is Darwinism. If Darwinism is science, so is ID.Skipping the part written for Jews and considering this book “read”. Looking forward to Groothuis’ chapter on it. Next I would read Meyer’s “Signature in the Cell”. Summer perhaps.
After action review:
A couple final questions: Richards says on page 256 (same page where he mentions my 58th birthday, haha…that date, anyway):
“Of course, while Darwin proposed variation and natural selection as a ‘mindless’ substitute for design, it doesn’t follow that these processes could not be features of the world God has created. To some degree, they obviously are. We have several good though modest examples of natural selection preserving survival-enhancing variations.”
And the thoughts on BioLogos.com on what this would imply about being made in the image of God were never properly addressed (I did skim the final chapter enough to see too much emphasis was placed on physical appearance, whereas God is spirit). In sum, being made in the image of God means being made capable of Golden Rule love. If other beings evolve (or otherwise gain) the capability, they will be made in the image of God as well–even if they are artificial intelligence.
I do however look forward to further exploring the science behind I.D. theory.
Thankyou, Wintery, for sending me the book. :)
Ichthus77 
Hi Maryann, Just ran across your blog and writings. It's nice to discover the BIOLOGOS point of view starting to radiate throughout the world of Christian apologetics. I wrote this on I.D.:
INTELLIGENT DESIGNER OR TINKERER? THE EVIDENCE FAVORS THE LATTER
The evidence for evolution raises concerns concerning the validity of “intelligent design” arguments and leads one to conclude that at most one is dealing with a tinkerer, not a designer. Why so much death over so much time in order for living things to fill the earth? Why so many extinction events including mass extinction events, even before modern humans arrive on the scene? There's also evidence of whole genome duplication (WGD) and less extensive forms of gene duplication and mutation over time (leaving behind plenty of pseudogenes). Not to mention that there's as much if not more retroviral genes in our genome (inserted into the genomes of our ancestors by viruses, hence “retroviral DNA”) than known functional genes. No designer appears to have been keeping a direct eye on the process, not based on what we presently know. And the genomes and physiology of species appear jury-rigged in many ways, i.e., making due with whatever genes or features previously evolved, using what's at hand, in a trial and error fashion.
Just knowing about the five mass extinction events in the past in which the Tinkerer (I hesitate to use the word Designer) wiped out a countless number of species in a relatively short length of time, makes one also wonder whether more than one cosmos might also have preceded the creation of our own, a mass extinction of an entire cosmos so to speak, or several mass extinctions of cosmoses before the Tinkerer arrived at this one.
Lastly, Intelligent Design involves more than just adding a gene now and then. It means preserving the gene(s) that was added. Such a Designer would have to keep any stray cosmic rays or stray mutagenic chemicals in each cell away from whatever new mutation the Designer had just added. And the Designer also would have to make sure that the particular organism with the miraculously implanted gene passed it along to the next generation, so this Designer has to keep “shooing away” mutagens in the cell, and cosmic rays if they were on the verge of contacting his newly mutated gene, and also has to shoo away any predators or diseases or accidents that might befall the organism as a whole until it was able to reproduce and pass along its new gene.
In other words such a Designer must be very busy if I.D. is true. And I ask you is such a busy Designer that great of a Designer in the first place? If a person designed a clock but had to keep reentering the room to reset the clock's hands every minute, how great a designer of clocks would we consider him to be? If he also had to watch after a hundred things in order to make sure the clock continued to run at all and also keep the right time, then how wonderful a Designer would you consider that clock maker to be? And if it took him millions of years of point mutations and extinction events to arrive at the kind of clock(s) he really wanted, what kind of designer of clocks would you consider him to be? That is what I.D. amounts to.
So I'd say the evidence favors a Tinkerer rather than an omniscient Designer. And that leaves open the further question of how different is it to posit a divine Tinkerer rather than a non-divine tinkerer (nature, natural selection)?
FOR INFO ON WHOLE GENOME DUPLICATIONS IN THE VERTEBRATE LINE see http://www.uta.edu/biology/chippindale/classnotes/5311_3339/Presentations/shivram.pdf http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0030314 http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0030314