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Daniel:

You make some good points.

Regarding your physics examples, I think we have to bear in mind context.

I don’t think the “yet” in your physics examples, given the context in which such things are usually said (especially the second one), has any obvious bearing on the MN/PN distinction regarding origins. In the second example, which clearly has nothing to do with origins, the “yet” may merely indicate a hopefulness about technical progress, rather than rigid prediction. I grant that “yet” can be used in that looser way.

But when we are talking about origins, there is powerful social context (Scopes trial, Hume on miracles, Huxley vs. Wilberforce, fundamentalism, YEC, etc.); most people who participate in American origins debates think and speak from within that context, and have it in mind when they make claims.

So if someone says, “Science has not yet established how life began”, given the context (that a large number of Americans do not believe that a scientific answer to the origin of life will be or can be found, and that scientifically educated people in America often think of themselves as above the religious nonsense of the rabble), there is a good chance that the speaker is tacitly rejecting the possibility that the first life could have been created miraculously; there is a very good chance that the speaker is endorsing not just methodological but philosophical naturalism.

If the speaker wanted to guard against this inference, he could have left out the “yet”, or said, “We (not “science”) do not know whether life began miraculously or through natural causes, and if the latter, what were the natural causes.”

In short, my argument about the use of “yet” is not entirely based on a strict construal of the word by itself, but is connected with context, with knowledge of alternatives regarding origins that are likely in the minds of speakers and hearers.

But setting aside this point, let’s look at your point about the Gospel stories. Yes, they treat the events as miraculous, as signs of Jesus’s power and mission, etc. Yet if we want to be precise, the Gospels don’t use Greek words for “nature” or “natural order”, and while the events are certainly portrayed as marvelous, they aren’t explicitly said to be violations of any rigid causal nexus (as opposed to being just darned unusual). That sort of Humean language (miracles are things that break natural laws) comes much later.

And if we put ourselves back into the Biblical frame of mind, and abandon our instinctive urge to try to make Genesis not conflict with modern science, it appears to me very likely that the Jews of Jesus’ day would have regarded God’s actions in the Genesis creation story as special deeds of extraordinary power, much like the deeds done by Jesus. It’s true that Genesis does not explicitly say that God’s actions violate any natural laws; but then, neither do the Gospels say that Jesus’s actions violate any natural laws. In both cases you have mighty deeds of God which show God’s mastery over his creation.

I think the typical Jew of Jesus’s day would be very surprised by an exegesis of Genesis which said, “God didn’t really do any of those things in the creation story directly; rather, he equipped nature with the natural powers to evolve stars, planets, life, and man by itself, with him remaining in the background “sustaining” all that natural activity, but not intervening or breaking any of the laws he created.” I think most of them would have trouble even understanding the language of such a claim. I think their “explanation” of what Jesus did in Galilee, and what God did in creation, would be much the same, and whether terms like “miracle” or “natural laws” are used in either case is beside the point.

Regarding your other points, yes, I grant that some miracles might be miracles of timing that don’t break any natural laws, but I think there are too many cases in the Biblical stories where there is clearly more than fortunate timing involved for that to be very useful as a general explanation. And yes, if we use a non-Humean, Biblical meaning of miracle as “wondrous event” or the like, it is not necessary to insist that miracles can have no scientific explanation, but again, I think that over-eagerness to find scientific explanations for Biblical miracles is suspect, because it springs from modern sensibilities which the Biblical writers and their audience didn’t share.

I’ve seen some of the extremely complex and rather forced attempts to explain the Red Sea episode solely in terms of geological and meteorological phenomena, and they don’t ring true, when all the details of the Biblical story are taken into account. Yes, God uses a wind, but no merely natural wind could account for all the details of what happened to the waters in the story. And given that this episode follows just after the Ten Plagues, to be consistent one would try to find purely natural causes for all ten of the plagues, and while some of them might be explicable in natural terms, it seems unlikely that all of them can be. Or the rods turning to snakes.

Similarly, I’ve seen it claimed that Jesus could walk on the sea because of a very rare weather condition which can create a thin sheet of invisible ice on a lake, but that seems a desperate attempt to avoid concluding that Jesus violated what we now call natural laws, and I don’t find such inventions, no matter how ingenious, to be convincing or in the spirit of the text.

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I don’t read that the same way as you do.

I read the “yet” as leaving open the possibility of future discoveries. I don’t see it as predicting the certainty of future discoveries.

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Only many miracles, certainly not all.

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13 posts were split to a new topic: Are most scientists philosophical naturalists?

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I am being misread if it is coming across that I endorse that kind of solely naturalistic explanation for all miracles. The ‘hyper-’ in hypernatural refers not only to timing and God’s sovereignty over it, but also to his sovereignty over the degree, extent and duration of physical events.

And then there are the indeed supernatural miracles where God overides and interupts natural laws.

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I agree that context does change connotations and implications, but it does not shed light on why we think the progress towards the answer to the OOL question will be any different than towards high-temperature superconductors. The rationality of expressing optimism in science doesn’t depend on social context, except if you think social context fully determines rationality. Instead, I believe that there are rational reasons for expecting future progress in science on some questions. Do you have any such reasons (for not expecting future progress on the OOL question) besides context? Why is it wrong to believe that God could have miraculously created the balance of matter and antimatter in the universe?

This is a good and valid observation.

Yes, I would agree with you. But as you said, ancient Jews didn’t have a (modern) concept of natural law at all, so they wouldn’t naturally side with any of the modern categories of YEC vs. OEC vs. EC debate. It is a debate that only makes sense within modern categories. Secondly, there is nothing that prevents modern people to think of God’s work through natural laws to be equally mighty deeds of God which show His mastery over creation. Thus, it is plausible to me that even certain modern ECs could affirm certain “ancient” exegeses of Genesis.

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I grant that it could be read in that way. I do think, however, that in context, quite often such statements imply something more forceful. But since we are dealing only with hypothetical examples, I will drop this for now; if I come across some actual examples that shed more light on the subject, I will bring them up later.

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I understand, Dale. I was not thinking of your own remarks here when I made my comments. I was merely recalling some other things I had read that Daniel’s comments brought to mind.

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I have no expectations one way or the other. I neither say that the OOL quest will necessarily fail, nor that it will inevitably provide the explanation for the origin of life.

He may have, or there may be some natural explanation. It is not obvious that faith has a stake in the matter one way or the other, since anti-matter isn’t even discussed in the Bible. But the Bible does say that God created living things where before there were none, so it is a concern of faith when some scientists appear to be saying that life didn’t need to be created (as the term created has been traditionally understood), but could have appeared by accident, not only requiring no miracles, but not even requiring any design or intentionality. And of course, Christians are less likely to be worried when it is someone like Dawkins or Coyne who suggests such an idea, than they are when evangelical scientists suggest it. They realize that an atheist has no option but to look for an origin of life which involved neither miracles nor design, but are puzzled when evangelical scientists seem to support such an account as not only merely possible, but even as required by their duty to “science.”

I pretty much agree with this. I have no problem with saying that God’s working through laws can also be a form of mastery over the created world. I don’t think that modern cosmological theory, e.g., of the formation of stars and galaxies, is automatically opposed to Christian doctrine. For me the difficulty arises when there is a slide from “natural causes” to “no design was necessary.” Believing in natural causes, within a larger framework of design, does not make one a philosophical naturalist; otherwise, Aquinas would be a philosophical naturalist. But if one believes that there is never any need to invoke design to explain anything about the universe, then one is perilously close to adopting philosophical naturalism. I would be content if origin-of-life researchers would occasionally say (they don’t have to say it in every article they produce, still less on every page of their work!) that it might be the case that the origin of life required design, i.e., advance planning by a mind, and that the “spirit of science” does not require banning this possibility.

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Picking up on Josh @swamidass’ remark elswhere,

and this one earlier, above,

I find some contradiction inherent between those two. Not arguing from the ID theorists’ camp that design should be able detected scientifically (not that I wouldn’t be glad if it could be :slightly_smiling_face:), but using the loving father’s gift to a child analogy from earlier (Welcome to Terrell Clemmons: Questions on Methodological Naturalism - #390 by DaleCutler), and the legitimate – and I maintain, objective – inferences that can be drawn from that, design can and should be inferred in God’s providential sovereignty over his creation.

That would include the cosmos and all the miriad factors that make the earth unique and habitable for advanced civilization and its technologies (including its designed moon :slightly_smiling_face:), but in the biological realm as well. The secularist says “Evolution would not happen the same way twice.” Why cannot the Christian say “Evolution happened precisely under the jurisdiction of God’s providence.” The details of God’s providence cannot be predicted, but his M.O. can be, and it can certainly be recognized in retrospect.

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So you’re basically saying that because a certain interpretation of Scripture demands that God’s creation of living things occurred through a “direct”, near-instantaneous, miraculous act outside of the natural order, Christian scientists have a duty to avoid expressing optimism about OOL research. Am I understanding you correctly?

But what if certain Christian scientists don’t believe in that interpretation? Do they have a duty to defer to every single possible interpretation of Scripture that exists? For example, does a scientist have to express skepticism about the age of the universe just because some earnest YEC Christians exist?

As I have stressed several times, what baffles me is why this idea of design has to be applied specifically to OOL and/or mechanisms of evolution, but matter/antimatter asymmetry is considered a purely scientific matter with no theological implications. I think most Christian scientists (even ECs) believe in divine design, the question is how it fits with science and what are the proper terms to express this belief. For me, divine design occurs at all levels of science; it is an integral part of the metaphysical structure that makes natural laws possible at all. There is no reason to single out OOL in particular.

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This is the key part here. Even if we want to argue that the habitable state of the Earth is part of God’s providence (and I certainly agree that it is), it is a retroactive theological inference. If this inference were really scientific, then we would be able to

  1. Model God’s providence as a set of unambiguous, verifiable quantitative laws, allowing us to make substantive, verifiable predictions on how that providence will occur in nature, and
  2. Discover that these predictions turn out to be true.

The reality is that we can’t model God’s providence with any degree of rigor required for a scientific theory. (Similar to how no theologian can guarantee that if you follow Jesus, God will make your life materially successful and comfortable.) If we want to say that the Earth is uniquely habitable, then how do we explain, for example, the myriad number of natural disasters (not to mention inhospitable climates in many parts of the world) that claim the lives of many?

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Actually, Hugh Ross does a decent job of that, explaining how plate tectonics is required for the planet’s habitability, etc. I would commend his book, Improbable Planet. He also points out that what claims the lives of many in earthquakes, for instance, is human graft with respect to building code enforcement, and with repect to other natural disasters, where people choose to live, and so on.

Certainly no one is saying that life on the earth is without risk and an idyllic paradise for all. It is still uniquely habitable.

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I agree with this, and in fact it is the view argued for by Michael Denton in Nature’s Destiny. I would have said “at all levels of nature” rather than “at all levels of science”, but I don’t think we mean anything different.

I did not express myself well enough. Even as I was writing the quoted paragraph, I felt that I was not saying exactly what I wanted to say. So I understand your confusion.

I’ll come to your point about the interpretation of Scripture later, but for now, let me try to get my overall view of the situation on the table.

Will you grant that there is a conceptual difference between holding that the origin of life was a cosmic freak, a set of lucky bounces that could just as easily have led nowhere, and holding that the origin of life took place because the components of life were carefully calibrated by an overall design, to make them specially suited to fall into certain patterns?

Now, as far as I can tell from what I have heard them saying, most of the people involved in origin of life research (and I admit outright that I am relying on impressions, and haven’t interviewed hundreds of them and questioned them in a precise social-scientific sort of survey) have in mind something like the first scenario, not the second.

Understand that I am not talking about “Christian scientists” here. I am talking about the group of scientists whose main research is in the origin of life area. My impression is that most such scientists have a worldly, secular outlook, not a Christian one, and that very few of those involved in full-time origin of life research would describe themselves as Christian or even as theist. I am willing to be proved wrong on this, but that is my impression, and that lies in the background of my remarks.

If I am right about the general religious orientation of the majority of origin of life researchers, then it makes sense that they would see the origin of life in terms of the first scenario rather than the second. And that, I believe, is how they do see it, and hence their proposals are all cast within that framework.

Again, the field I am referring to is not the field of “Christian scientists” or even “Christian biologists”; it is the field of full-time professionals in origin of life research.

Let me know if you find this a plausible description of the state of things in the field. If you do, we can try to develop things further together. If you don’t , I need to know why.

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I have no argument there! His providence we can expect to see, in general, though, to one degree or another, and I have been lucky, in the strict theological sense of the word :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:, to see it often. As Christians trusting our Father, we can say with absolute assurance that what he does is good, good for us and good for his honor, regardless.

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Yes, I agree that there is a conceptual difference. However, I do not see how a scientist has the tools to distinguish between the two scenarios. As we have covered several times in this forum (e.g. Would God's Guidance Be DNA-Detectable?), science cannot distinguish between “ontological” and apparent randomness. As @jongarvey helpfully observed (How should we define the supernatural? - #197 by jongarvey),

Thus, while the two scenarios are different, they are not decidable by science. Now, I grant that in terms of rhetoric, in the public sphere, many secular-oriented biologists (perhaps even some Christian ones) have used misleading language of some phenomena (including OOL) being “unguided” or “mindless” or “blind” or “truly random”, but none of these terms are strictly defined scientifically.

I would say that even some secular physicists might argue along the following reductionist lines: nothing in biology is truly actually random; it is all explainable by chemistry which is in turn explainable by physics; the universe is macroscopically (i.e. above the quantum level) deterministic and everything that happened was inevitable based on the initial conditions of the Big Bang. Thus even the origin of life was technically baked into the initial conditions of the universe.

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And, “You have to believe in free will, you have no choice.” I.B. Singer :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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There may, or may not, be ways of distinguishing the two scenarios scientifically. I would prefer to reserve that for a separate discussion a step or two later in our conversation. But for now, we can agree that the two scenarios are significantly different in what they assert about reality.

Your point about the secular physicists is a good one. Note that while the earlier folks I talked about seemed gung-ho on showing that the origin of life came about by “chance,” it is conceivable that an atheist or materialist would argue that it came about not by chance but by “necessity” – by a deterministic chain of events.

We can take this distinction between chance and necessity further. The “determinist” approach is compatible with atheism/materialism, but it is also compatible with a designed universe; the universe could have been set up to produce a deterministic cascade of events leading to life. Thus, determinism at the level of nature is compatible with either the existence or non-existence of an intelligent designer, depending on one’s temperament (i.e., depending on how willing one is to accept that the universe just happened to have the initial configuration and properties to compel the appearance of intelligent life). It’s a little harder, however, to see how the “chance” understanding is compatible with the activity of an intelligent designer.

That may all be a digression, but I thought your point was interesting, so I responded to it.

OK, now back to more background on where I’m coming from:

For T. aquaticus I laid out three scenarios for the origin of life:

1–God designed it, then created it supernaturally.

2–God designed it, but its implementation was carried out wholly naturally, i.e., by some sort of front-loaded teleology built into matter from the beginning.

3–No one designed it, but lucky bounces of matter produced it.

There may be more possibilities, but these seem to be the three that, with variations, come up most often in theology/science debates. If you want to add a fourth or fifth, please do, but until then, I will work from these.

Now, I find the third scenario implausible, but either of the other scenarios seem to me to be plausible. From a religious or theological point of view, I do not insist on #1 as opposed to #2. However, it is worth noting that #1 was the preferred option of the vast majority of Christians, learned and unlearned, until very recent times, and that #3 was execrated by Christians as “Epicureanism” and atheism.

If I perceived that the majority of TE leaders clearly endorsed or strongly leaned to #1 or #2, we probably would not be having this discussion now. I probably never would have been seen or heard from on any of these origins discussion sites.

(And remember that I am not talking about what the TE leaders think can be established by the methods of science, but only about what they personally believe was the case.)

But after studying the TE leaders explicit statements for 10 years now, in their books, articles, blog site conversations, mailing list conversations, etc., I find a majority (outside of Francis Collins) who either express doubt or are lukewarm regarding #1, and I don’t find many who clearly go for or even lean to #2.

My list of TE leaders regarding #2 breaks down like this:

a-Endorse #2 – Denis Lamoureux

b-Make noncommittal rumblings akin to #2 – Deb Haarsma

c-Maybe privately endorse #2, but sound vague

Darrel Falk, Kathryn Applegate, Karl Giberson

d-Maybe privately endorse #2, but at times show a whiff of #3 (only chance needed as far as physical causality goes, but God is somehow involved because faith tells us so):

Darrel Falk, Dennis Venema, Kathryn Applegate, Ard Louis

In short, of the two origin of life positions I find most plausible both in terms of causality and in terms of theological orthodoxy, most of the TE leaders are very lukewarm about, if they embrace either one at all.

Mutatis mutandis (as the economists say), a parallel discussion could be drawn up regarding evolution after the origin of life:

A–Evolution was guided all along by subtle divine influence, or at least, divine intervention infused new information at several key points

B–Evolution proceeded entirely naturally, but God set it up so that it would eventually produce intelligent beings in his image;

C–Evolution proceeded entirely naturally, but there was no determining initial setup for the outcomes; it was as Gould describes it, such that the slightest chance event could have massively altered outcomes; the process is non-teleological.

Here I find that things become even starker when I line up TE leaders under the categories.

Under A – I find only Ted Davis and Robert Russell as unambiguous supporters

Under B – I find only Denis Lamoureux, and formerly Howard Van Till, till he dumped Christianity

Under C – I find just about all the others, except that the C position is usually qualified by “Though I believe he neither intervened nor predetermined outcomes by physical front-loading, I believe that God was providentially in there, somewhere, somehow.”

Again, if I thought that most TE leaders endorsed or at least expressed a marked leaning toward either A or B, you would never have heard of me, because I wouldn’t be in these debates. I’d call myself a TE (EC), in fact.

Does this help make my general orientation to these questions clearer?

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Thanks, Eddie. I better understand where you are coming from. Let’s focus on OOL instead of evolution for now. I confess that I have not read much recent TE writings. My suspicion is that many Christian scientists are just using words like “chance” in an imprecise way like some secular scientists do in public discourse. But I could be wrong. Can you give me an example of a TE/EC article endorsing a position close to #3?

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The answer to this is simple @dga471 : See Genesis chapter 3 and Romans 8:20.

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