The ID Report
Post details: Part One: Theological naturalism: Why we owe it to God to believe in Darwin
09/28/07
Part One: Theological naturalism: Why we owe it to God to believe in Darwin
by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent
As noted in the Introduction, Hunter argues that the preference for naturalism is both theologically motivated and theologically justified. Ken Miller, Francisco Ayala, Howard Van Till, Ian Barbour, and Keith Thomson all use essentially theological arguments, as Hunter notes, along the lines of "God wouldn't ..."
Recognizing the pattern he identifies solved one big mystery for me. It explains why the Darwinist argues in good faith that bad design means no design. Now that point is so obviously not true in general (think Edsel) that some thought process that requires unpacking must underlie it. And here is that thought process: The universe is imperfect. God would have created a perfect universe. God's honour is at stake. God must therefore be protected from being seen as the author of the universe in any hands-on way.
Therefore, it follows, we must believe in Darwin. When we confront evidence from nature that doesn't support the idea that natural selection or some similar process acted on random mutation to produce every aspect of life, we must strive to overcome our temptation to doubt. It is best, of course, to rid ourselves of any tendency to even see such evidence.
I suppose I have never been religious enough to see nature the way Francis Collins and Francisco Ayala do. I have always been able to live with the idea that God might not do things the way we expect. But, according to Hunter, that is probably because I am an empiricist, not a rationalist.
Next: Part Two: Rationalism vs. empiricism: What must be true vs. what the evidence shows
Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).
Pingbacks:
No Pingbacks for this post yet...
The ID Report
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| << < | > >> | |||||
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | ||||||
Search
Categories
Archives
- November 2009 (1)
- October 2009 (11)
- September 2009 (11)
- August 2009 (12)
- July 2009 (20)
- June 2009 (23)
- May 2009 (26)
- April 2009 (12)
- March 2009 (16)
- February 2009 (23)
- January 2009 (11)
- December 2008 (16)
- more...
Linkblog
Links - Groups and Organizations
- Access Research Network
- Discovery Institute
- Evolution News Blog
Evolution has become a favorite topic of the news media recently, but for some reason, they never seem to get the story straight. The staff at Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture started this Blog to set the record straight and make sure you knew "the rest of the story".
- Intelligent Design Network (IDNet)
- Intelligent Design Undergraduate Research Center
- Intelligent Reasoning
A blogger from New England offers his intelligent reasoning.
- International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID)
- Telic Thoughts
We are a group of individuals, coming from diverse backgrounds and not speaking for any organization, who have found common ground around teleological concepts, including intelligent design. We think these concepts have real potential to generate insights about our reality that are being drowned out by political advocacy from both sides. We hope this blog will provide a small voice that helps rectify this situation.
- The Design Inference - The Writings of William A. Dembski
- The Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center (IDEA)
- www.themonkeytrial.com
Website dedicated to comparing scenes from the "Inherit the Wind" movie with factual information from actual Scopes Trial. View 37 clips from the movie and decide for yourself if this movie is more fact or fiction.
Links - Of General Interest
- A Brief View of Time and Those That Live There
Don Cicchetti blogs on: Culture, Music, Faith, Intelligent Design, Guitar, Audio
- A Quick Guide to Sequenced Genomes
- ARN Related Web Links
- Creation/Evolution Quotes
Australian biologist Stephen E. Jones maintains one of the best origins "quote" databases around. He is meticulous about accuracy and working from original sources.
- CreationEvolutionDesign
Most guys going through midlife crisis buy a convertible. Austrialian Stephen E. Jones went back to college to get a biology degree and is now a proponent of ID and common ancestry.
- Darwinian Fairytales by David Stove
Complete zipped downloadable pdf copy of David Stove's devastating, and yet hard-to-find, critique of neo-Darwinism entitled "Darwinian Fairytales"
- ID The Future
Intelligent Design The Future is a multiple contributor weblog whose participants include the nation's leading design scientists and theorists: biochemist Michael Behe, mathematician William Dembski, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, philosophers of science Stephen Meyer, and Jay Richards, philosopher of biology Paul Nelson, molecular biologist Jonathan Wells, and science writer Jonathan Witt. Posts will focus primarily on the intellectual issues at stake in the debate over intelligent design, rather than its implications for education or public policy.
- John Mark Reynolds Blog
A Philosopher's Journey: Political and cultural reflections of John Mark N. Reynolds. Dr. Reynolds is Director of the Torrey Honors Institute at
Biola University.
- NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
Misc
Syndicate this blog 
What is RSS?
powered by
Original template design by François PLANQUE.
