Last week, Stephen Barr and I had a discussion about a column by Discovery Institute fellow John West on the “new theistic evolutionists.” (See: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)
Today, West added the last entry to his three post series responding to Barr: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
June 19th, 2009 | 4:26 pm
It appears that West has some evidence that Barr’s understanding of Collins’s position is lacking–indeed that Barr’s own position is more consistent with orthodox Christian teaching concerning God’s knowledge and providential guidance. Perhaps Collins should be reading Barr to see how to refine his own position!
That said, it does seem that West misses a significant point of Barr’s. West’s repeated suggestion that theistic evolutionists like Barr “believe that God created life through a guided process that was made to look like it was ‘random and undirected’” is a bit unhelpful.
I doubt Barr would suggest that God’s intention was focused on making his creative actions look random and undirected per se. Isn’t Barr’s suggestion plausible, that the appearance and language of randomness is a human artifact that is contingent upon human creaturely ignorance and certain “laws” with which God has endowed the created order?
In this sense, God’s point was not to deceive or mislead when he ordained that the outcome of dice being thrown correspond to a human concept of randomness. The appearance, which we call randomness, is simply an artifact of our humanity.
How else could one like West describe the outcomes of throwing dice? Would he deny that it is understood as “random” to orthodox Christians? Is this merely a quibble about what “random” means, i.e. whether “random” may contain within its meaning God’s sovereignty? Barr would likely maintain that for atheists, “random” means something slightly different than what it means for Christians, and that using the word “random” is an appropriate use of language. As far as this goes, I would agree with Barr.
So, what’s really at stake here? I happen to agree with West (I think West implies this) in that Collins and Barr do not present an adequate positive portrait of how they would use the word “design” with respect to God’s activity, which I agree with West is a major aspect of the doctrine of God’s providence. Perhaps Barr could clarify how he understands divine “design”?
June 19th, 2009 | 6:22 pm
Albert:
I agree with almost all of your post, and will try to address the “design” issue. I won’t try to speak for Mr. Barr, though I am a great admirer of his writing on the subject.
As I wrote in a comment in a previous post in this discussion:
I suppose it most accurate for me to describe my impression of God as a “hell of an engineer”. To illustrate what I mean, I propose a question: Which of the following is a more impressive figure?
A. an engineer who makes a structure
B. an engineer who designs elements that can assemble themselves into a structure, with him having to intervene occasionally or even somewhat regularly
C. an engineer who can design even simpler elements in such a way that they can assemble themselves into more complex elements (based on environment and need), which in turn can assemble themselves into more complex elements (based on environment and need), and so on and so on until you reach a diversity of advanced species resembling life on earth.
I would say ‘C’, and the farther back you trace the evidence of the universe and the forces that shape it, the more impressive this Engineer becomes. In this way, I think God had set creation into motion long before the first measureable entity came into being, by his design (and willing) of forces that we are just beginning to understand and many of which we may never understand. This ‘design’ was genius enough that the ‘nitty-gritty’ engine and elements of creation could pick up the ball and run with it from there.
This is not to take the Deist view that God merely set the whole thing in motion and walked away. No – as He is reality itself, He kept it in being, and furthermore was very active in the lives of each of His creatures – mainly, loving them, guiding them (in His infinitely subtle way), and sharing in their woes and joys. And whether or not He may have intervened in His creation along the way – in His unbelievably subtle or unsubtle (think ‘miracles’) manner – is not something science has the capacity to speculate about.
As far as God’s “designing” activity, I think of it in accord with his omnipotence in that he foresaw the outcomes of evolutionary events and said “OK. That’ll do.” If the outcome had been unacceptable to God, He would have “designed” the process and/or forces that drive it differently. As it is, the process He designed gave Him what He wanted: a diverse and fascinating array of creatures great and small, and a particularly advanced line of hominids, a pair of whom God chose to, as He had planned to all along, “breathe” living souls into. The robustness of this process allowed Him, instead of constantly having to interfere with it, to do what He loves most: loving and sheparding His creatures.
Therefore, life as it exists on earth in all its variety is the result of the design of God, as He a) designed the process of its creation, and b) foreseeing its evolutionary outcomes, gave it the “thumbs up”.
As I stated in my earlier comment, I do not pretend that those more theologically and/or scientifically advanced than I could not find weaknesses nor challenge parts (or all) of the above, it is by no means the end of my journey in understanding God and His creation.
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