(July 22, 2013 at 1:56 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:(July 21, 2013 at 8:36 am)whateverist Wrote: This is an example of mature Christian thought I'm always extolling but only rarely encountering anywhere. So Frodo, I think, is already on board. Chad I guess might be too.Sorry about being late to the party and skimming to the end of the thread...we're buying a new house and that's been the priority. Reality trumps philosophy in more ways than one.
Evolution itself presents little difficulty to me since my focus has always been on the allegorical and symbolic content of God's Word. Creation "science" is certainly not an essential teaching of the Christian faith. Nevertheless I believe Christian faith does entail at least two concepts :
1. God is the Creator. Whatever was created has come into existence through God's action regardless of the means by which He created.
2. The products of evolution come from Providence and not purely by chance, i.e. there must be teleological or final goals in evolution.
While the scientific method intentionally excludes teleology, that has no real bearing on whether final ends are actually present or not.
Belief in teleology is not entirely unjustified. Similar geographically isolated environmental niches have produced remarkably similar morphology in species of different ancestry. While chance could account for this result (1000 heads in a row is theoretically possible) it seems reasonable that final ends may be intrinsic to evolution. As I recall hard science fiction writer Greg Bear extrapolated his ideas for "Darwin's Radio" from research into that possibility.
Interesting. Teleology may just be the tipping point between coming down atheist or theist. There is probably no way to prove that change has been purposeful but likewise no way to rule it out. In actually doing science it would be necessary not to assume it, but that doesn't mean science would have you deny it. It would be a gross mistake to think science shows there is no teleology at work on a grand scale.
On the issue of teleology, I would have to say I'm on the balance point. Absolutely agnostic. I still wonder some time. But even when I wonder, I can't imagine any action I would take or should avoid on account of the possibility of the cosmos' intentions. What I never imagine is that galactic intentionality would look anything like ape intention. To me it is deeply mysterious and beyond my powers to speculate. This leads me to dismiss facile explanations such as religion provides as snake oil.
