Bill Powers 2008-06-14
From Summa Bergania
Date: Sat Jun 14, 2008 12:03 am
From: Bill Powers
To: David Bergan
Subject: Re: My take on evolution
David:
OK. Let's see if I can be specific, rather than strictly emotional.
With regard to so-called Big Bang, science abhors singularities. Typically these are regarded as "unphysical" and a consequence of the mathematics and not possible. As a consequence, no scientist, unless he has an axe to grind or a previous metaphysical committment, believes the big bang is a singularity. It would violate the methodological rules of science. A more complete theory will therefore be developed that is consistent with all of physics, perhaps a quantum cosmology, even if untestable.
"For as much as science tries to avoid the miraculous, isn't it interesting that it seems to have confirmed the biggest miraculous event possible? What else is the big bang but the realization that at one point there was nothing but empty, dark, vacuum-space... and then a second later there was enough matter for 80 billion galaxies filled with 3 x 10^22 stars. It went from absolute emptiness to having enough energy for 10^80 atoms in one Planck time. How is that not a miracle? And if you swallow that camel, why strain out gnats like the crossing of the Red Sea? Anyone who can create 10^80 atoms in a fraction of a picosecond, can move a few gallons of water."
What it appears you are trying to do below is to categorize God's visible acts. Those, as you say, like a Six Day Creation, describe a process which science believes it has evidence to contradict. Others, like the crossing of the Red Sea, cannot possibly have any direct evidence against it. I did not speak of the immaculate conception because that is not the miracle we believe in, instead it is the incarnation of God. An immaculate conception, even without sperm, may well be possible according to modern biology.
I'm not certain this is the distinction you are trying to draw, but let's presume it is. The idea, then, would be to suspend judgment or belief in those miracles that might possibly have evidence marshalled against them, but believe those (or be free to believe those) that cannot be directly challenged by science, evidence, argument, or whatever. These latter miracles are insulated from challenge.
What kind of challenge do we have in mind? It is not that modern science does not have evidence against all miracles. It does. It's argument might be construed as essentially Humean: our experience with the world and its possibilities speaks volumes against water parting, axes floating in a river, leprosy being healed with river water, water being changed to wine, dead people returning to life again, etc. It is by just such arguments that age of the universe is assessed, the dating of fossils and rocks, and the Big Bang discovered.
What we may mean, however, is that no evidence can be marshalled against these particular miracles. They are miracles that leave no record, save perhaps the testimony of men, which, of itself, leaves a mark on history (witness the enduring Jewish practice of the Passover). But they leave, we say, no physical evidence. Whereas, a Six Day Creation, Adam and Eve, or a global flood leave, we think, enduring physical evidence.
Is this the idea, or something like it?
While such a view may insulate Scripture from science, it does not address the principal problem: whether Scripture is reliable or not, whether the Scripture contains one drop of God's Word. If where science or human endeavor can find evidence for or against what Scripture says, it finds it to be in error, the reliability of Scripture is thrown into doubt. (We know that this is not always the case, e.g., certain historical accounts have been supported by archealogical findings. Still we can imagine, even here, to be drawn to such a principle of denial.)
What does it look like if everywhere Scripture can be verified, we disclaim it? Can we, then, truly believe Scripture is God's Word? We must surely be drawn to a different view of Scripture than traditionally held. How do we truly know where the truth begins and the doubtful accounts begin? Why bar science's and reason's inroad to only that which they can provide direct opposing evidence?
My only purpose here is not (yet) to argue that evolution is false or doubtful. Rather it is to motivate the instability of the conflict between man's ways and God's, between the derivatives of human reason and revelation. After all, even if Jesus did raise from the dead, it is only by revelation that we know it was a payment for our sins.
Evolution may be true. The cosmological evolution of the universe, stars and planets may be true. I see no reason, if they are true, why Scripture could not have reflected these truths. I have serious doubts about accomodationist theories for why it doesn't. If the Israelites can believe that God can speak to Moses in a bush, and turn the Nile to blood, why not believe a cosmological story that is at variance with the surrounding culture? There seems to me then to be only two possibilities. Either the Scriptural accounts are true and we are wrong, or the Bible is not God's revelation, but man's imaginings of God. Both of these could possibly be true at different places in Scripture. But, again, I have no clear way of knowing when one begins and the other leaves off.
Well, I'm probably rambling again. The hour is late and I must climb down my rabbit hole.
Thanks for the opportunity to work at formulating and trying my ideas. I have so very few opportunities to speak to anyone about such things. Most people, as you well know, don't care to risk discussion.
bill
