Not saying God didn’t do anything, only that as an additional ‘factor’, it does not appear to be necessary in order to explain the data. Basic reproduction and migration is sufficient. Invoking divine factors is like invoking ‘car key hiding gnomes’ to explain how my keys ended up under my sofa’s cushions. We don’t have experimental controls +/- their involvement in key loss, but gnomes aren’t necessary as an explanation. We don’t multiply causal factors more than necessary in science.
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In my view, such an answer greatly underestimates the complexity factor in introducing novelties in the genetic “code” which result in anything other than unbeneficial changes. GIGO.
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Because you didn’t highlight a word or sentence, I’m not sure to which post you are responding.
But since everyone here (with notable exceptions) - - who adheres to Evolutionary science - - also posits God’s involvement in genetics, what exactly is too complex or too novel for God to handle?
Thanks for asking; I’ll just leave it general, so folks can try it on for size. Your own view, in my understanding, allows for such active involvement by God while still flying under the rubric of evolution. I’m all good with that.
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This is a perfectly sound statement … when discussing scientific results.
But it is plain to me that Joshua’s work is not subject to these kinds of limitations. He concedes that Science will never be able to confirm or deny whether God did anything.
But clearly his work on this narrow spectrum of ideas is a theological assertion … and as long as he is clear with his assertion that science has no bearing on proving or advancing Theological positions, I think he is on safe ground to throw God in there whenever the Theological motive is required.
I believe it’s pretty sound all around. Occam’s Razor is a useful rule of thumb in general.
I understand where Joshua is coming from. It’s perfectly compatible with science.
It has come to my attention that I don’t know what you mean about “OEC predicting a sole male progenitor,” while Evolution would not predict a “bottleneck” of a single mated pair.
Firstly, is my paraphrasing of your words a correct rendering? When you say "Evolution would not “predict” … a Y-chromosomal Adam and a mtDNA-Eve - - did you intend the meaning I am assigning? That there is a bottleneck of a single mated pair?
Or do you mean something else?
If you did mean “a single mated pair”, I would have to agree with you. Since Evolution deals more with “populations” of individuals, rather than “ones or twos”, it would be more common for hundreds or dozens of hundreds to be the lower threshold of population size. Whereas, OEC, by its very definition, means we are starting with just 2 humans that God created.
If you intended a different meaning, could you give an example, so that I can see the principle you are highlighting in action.
And then my 2nd question concerns your comment that mtDNA studies point to smaller than anticipated populations:
Instead of me asking you to explain what you mean here, is there a published study that I could review, and wrap my head around the concepts involved?
Did you mean to write what you wrote? Did you just apply “Occam’s Razor” to the principle of whether it is worth mentioning God’s role in creation or not?
For the moment, I’m not going to even introduce the possibility that you misinterpreted @AJRoberts’ point. Let’s assume you got her point exactly. I don’t mean to pry, but are you a formal Atheist? I’ve never heard any Christian use “Occam’s Razor” to make God’s role not worth mentioning. Haven’t you ever been in a metaphysical discussion where the issue of God’s role (or God’s non-involvement) is at the core of what is being disputed?
YECs seem perfectly able to understand that God can make it rain via evaporation … or via supernatural execution. But as soon as it concerns Evolution… all of a sudden I would be afraid to hand an Occam’s Razor to some even to shave their face in their imaginations! The meanings implicit in such concepts as agency and cause all of a sudden become a real barrier to communication; this barrier is not lifted by simply saying, let’s use Occam’s Razor.
Just as a minor example of what I mean, what if one’s theology or metaphysics need to distinguish precisely what one meant by: "when you are in your car, and turn your car to the right, what precisely is meant by ‘what causes the car to turn?’
- is it the driver?
- or is it the steering wheel the driver has his hands on?
- or is it the outer layer of the tire rubber on the 2 front tires that actually engage the molecular surface of the road, and by means of friction, changes the direction of the vehicle?
I hope you don’t think I’m getting “fussy” about some minor detail. In theology, it is not customary to “take for granted” that God is involved unless you know for sure that the person you are discussing theology with is a known quantity.
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I meant what I wrote. And I certainly did not apply Occam’s Razor to “whether it is worth mentioning God’s role in creation or not”. That’s completely separate. I reference the Razor in regard to Joshua’s comment when I suggested that no calls for divine intervention was necessary:
Sorry, but much of the basis for ID and OEC research efforts is premised on the ability to discern a difference. I responded to that from AJ’s post. It’s based on a particular mode of divine involvement. The reason why the RTB position on Y-chromosome Adam fails is because there the data is in keeping with law-like, “natural” mechanisms and thus there is no need to invoke RTB-style, special intervention as a cause. In principle, it’s possible to discern certain modes of divine interaction, but in this particular case, we don’t see that. Occam’s Razor would thus lead us to dispense with those particular modes as likely explanations. It still leaves open the possibility of the divine operating in a law-like, “natural” mode. This is the “sustainer of creation’s underpinnings” concept.
I’m aware there are many other nuances and deep theological concepts regarding God’s role in the universe, gbrooks. For your reference, I don’t really participate here to discuss Christian theology. I’ve got no skin in that game though it is an area were I’ve done reading and study in the past. “Science” is not my religion, it’s my hobby/profession. I am not here to argue against Christianity nor do I have a beef with the religion. I don’t think religious belief is irrational. I’m a guest who is trying to be polite and respectful about the religious beliefs of others. What I prefer to discuss is science and areas where certain theological propositions make strong claims about the physical world accessible via scientific inquiry.
The fact that you have more readers than the RTB audience requires you too specify this in such discussions.
Even Dr. Collins is an offender of unconscious linguistic biases. I actually read a sentence of his where he said (I must paraphrase here, because I do not have time to find the exact quote):
“God’s miracle intervenes in a universe of natural law.” < Again, this is a paraphrasing!
As you can see, the subconscious mental habits of the English speaking world can wreak all sorts of havoc when discussing God or the metaphysics of various forms of Christianity.
Some people agree that God runs “natural law”.
Others will fall on their sword that this is a terrible way of describing the nature of the Cosmos.
Some people agree that it is an “intervention”.
Others, like me, very much dislike the use of the term “intervention”, and think words like Engagement create fewer misunderstandings.
I would re-write the above paraphrase like so:
“God engages reality in 2 simple ways: by engaging and sustaining the natural laws of the Universe, and by engaging in the miraculous suspension of one or more natural laws.”
I pretty much challenge anyone to devise a 3rd way for God to engage.
I would like to think, @Argon, that you find my re-write of the sentence as tolerably acceptable, even if
you would have chosen slightly different words.
Sorry, I had intended to rely on the linear nature of discussion threads to provide the context for me.
“God engages reality in 2 simple ways: by engaging and sustaining the natural laws of the Universe, and by engaging in the miraculous suspension of one or more natural laws.”
I pretty much challenge anyone to devise a 3rd way for God to engage.
Careful. You’ve set it up as a purely binary proposition: “God either operates in a ‘natural law’ mode or not”.
Take for instance, this statement: There are two types of people in the world; Those that think there are two types of people and those that don’t. It’s true but doesn’t really say anything informative (You can say something funny with binary statements, however…)
Some propose that God engages in only one way: As God does. A continuum: It’s all one. For us, it’s like blind men trying to figure out the nature of an elephant. Some notice the trunk, others the toenails. We could even exist in pure simulation. It’s the nature of our particular backgrounds (culturally Western? Modern? Inherent brain structure?) that we prefer to pigeon-hole and categorize things discretely. For a lot of science this works really, really well. It works well in other areas too. But it fails in some cases and I’m not about to try figuring out how it works with God, the ultimate ‘edge case’.
This has hijacked the thread long enough. Better to split off to a different thread to maintain clarity on the original topic.
Is this your proposal for a third way of describing God’s involvement in the Cosmos?
Ironically, you invoked Occam’s Razor on a clarifying statement touching on this very idea.
Hod did you put it? Something like “this is obvious, so there’s no need to mention it”.
So, one might conclude that your “As God Does” is obvious. Now what? How does this clarify the next level of examination?
But I’m delighted with your “Recursion” Meme. I laughed fully!
I don’t know. Perhaps it’s turtles all the way down? Perhaps it’s a warning about trying to ‘un-eff’ the ineffable?
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Just for the fun of it, what do you think of a rephrase of your rewrite of the original paraphrase:
God engages reality in just one way but to us humans who have limited understanding of God’s ways, it appears that he sometimes does so by engaging and sustaining the natural laws of the Universe, and sometimes by engaging in the miraculous suspension of one or more natural laws. However, if we had the full knowledge of God’s ways and the complete knowledge of his natural laws of the universe, we would recognize that the “two” are actually one and the same.
In other words, perhaps what we consider “the miraculous suspension of natural laws” simply involves “laws” which we don’t yet understand. Indeed, we live in a world where so many mysteries that we didn’t understand in years past (e.g., how bacteria, not the witches who live next door and who dislike us, cause diseases; how static electricity, not Zeus’ thunderbolts, cause the lightning which destroyed our barn) are now well understood. What was formerly considered “supernatural” is now considered “natural”. What if the assumed dichotomy was not a dichotomy at all but only looked that way because of our lack of knowledge?
Postscript: Consider how chemists used to impose a similar kind of dichotomy to organic and inorganic chemistry. Organic chemistry was once the domain of God alone, creating living things which have a special chemistry of their own which man will never duplicate. Inorganic chemistry was considered everything else in chemistry, the chemical reactions which weren’t unique to living things. This dichotomy was destroyed when H. Wohler [I think? I won’t bother with a suspected umlaut.] synthesized urea in his laboratory. He had duplicated the “supernatural”/non-natural chemistry of God! Today, it is all just chemistry. Admittedly, the term “organic chemistry” persists as “carbon chemistry” but it is now considered nothing but “natural law”—even though it was once considered “supernatural” because all biological was considered a kind of special-phenomenon from God.
[I wouldn’t be completely surprised if someday in my lifetime some scientists report that they have synthesized a unicellular, self-replicating, artificial organism using. We Christians have a poor track record in pronouncements of “Only God can do X.” That tendency forgets that we are made in the Image of God and we like to investigate God’s creations in order to build our own mimicry inventions. For example, studying birds led to gliders and then airplanes.]
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I’m actually a big fan of that approach. But what I like and what other people are willing to consider are very often very different.
So, while I acknowledge this as an “option” to the core elements of the Peaceful Science scenarios, I am more interested in its sibling “option”: God usually makes rain using the laws of evaporation, but every once in a while he makes it rain by miraculous engagement.
The BioLogos mission statement provides for miracles in the midst of natural causation. I think it makes the most sense in an organizational sense.
Unlike some, I do not think BioLogos is supposed to embrace every unpopular cause recognized by humanity.
I think the one it has is sufficiently martyrdom-inducing, without any extra effort.
But I’m glad you brought up the idea of a “unity” that human perception has a problem seeing. Maybe this is actually what @Argon was getting at… but if so, Occam’s Razor seems to have caught his tongue before he could articulate the idea.
And to enlarge on my previous explanation, what about “God usually makes rain using the laws of evaporation, but every once in a while he makes it rain by some other means that we do not yet understand.”?
Whenever I hear physicists talking about many dimensions beyond the most familiar three dimensions, I wonder if the miracles described in the Bible were brought about by not yet discovered natural laws operating in those other dimensions.
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Funny you should mention that. I already rely on that arc of thought regarding Free Will. In conventional Space-Time, we have cause and we have the possibility of “no cause” (because we just don’t know yet).
So unless each human is a divinity of one kind or another, I don’t see any hope for Free Will in the rules for Space-Time. If we only follow natural rules, then we are a machine. If we don’t follow natural rules, then such a man is completely irrational and chaotic. Where is the “freedom” in any of that?
But …in Quantum Physics, entanglement seems to be a pretty clear use of alternative spatial dimensions.
A particle is entangled with another particle, in my view, when it is actually a Single Particle in a “higher” spatial plane, that sticks its nose out into two different places of ordinary Space-Time.
Some scientists have suggested that a wormhole is really a “worm-window” no special cinematic drama of traveling through a tunnel. Or, instead of imagining a “hole in the ground” or a “hole in a mountain”… it’s a “hole” in a sheet of paper. A point of connection, so that one thing can be in two places at once in ordinary space-time.
For me, then, human consciousness (it’s soul if you can stand the flight of imagination) could be operating in a very different plane of existence, and channeling here by means of the human brain. There is at least one case where a man had lost most of his brain due to “water on the brain” … but had an IQ in the 90s, and functioned like a normal adult man. This also dovetails nicely with the strange Human fixation on being able to survive the death of his body. And there’s lots of anecdotes on that idea.
In any case, I’m not trying to convince you of my views… but marveling at the interesting proximity your ideas and my ideas have!
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I think along similar lines. That goes back to the “blind men investigating an elephant” thing. My personal (crazy) thought on the matter is that we really don’t understand causality. Just like we need ‘regularities’ to progress in science we also need causality as an axiom to construct logical models of the world. But I’m not sure how things work when you get to the ‘edges’. Is causality fundamental or an epiphenomenon?
There are many more questions than there is marijuana to help answer.
“To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.” - Oscar Wilde
If you are a devoted Christian, I’m not sure any of that really matters. God, being outside of time, plausibly creates, runs, and ends all of time in a single moment. There is no “cause” except as how God makes it a cause.
I myself am a Unitarian Universalist … and so for me, the thought that “if there is no God, then all human consciousness is an epiphenomenon” suits me to a “T”.
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