Science is a quest for the truth, based on testable evidence.
If the truth is that God did it, then science will come to that conclusion.
If the truth is that God did it, then science will come to that conclusion.
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How does one become a Theistic Evolutionist?
- Thread starter PT Calvinist
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Not quite. For God did it whether or not science finds a natural explanation. Nature is not an alternative to God and a natural explanation is not evidence that God did not do it.
Scientists may conclude in a certain situation that they are unable to find a natural explanation given our current understanding of nature.
But any further conclusion, such as that a miracle has taken place, is an additional conclusion made by others, not by scientists.
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Willtor
Not just any Willtor... The Mighty Willtor
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As Gluadys says -- suppose tomorrow some crazy evidence "x" arose that made science propose an order of events that was identical to those in the modern YEC interpretation of Genesis. No doubt, many people would say, "ah, it was God." But I don't think there would be any publishable articles saying that it was God. Granted, there would be a lot of weird stuff that requires exploration... and science textbooks would all have to be rewritten from the ground up, but no reputable journal could publish a paper that said that the set of events had occurred according to God's command -- just as they do not say so, now, even though there are many of us who think that things did. Ultimately, even in a YEC scenario, God is untestable by scientific means.
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L
LightSeaker
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If the evidence was there, yes, science can accept a God did it. But what science looks at is "how" things evolved, not who done it.
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lawtonfogle
My solace my terror, my terror my solace.
No it is not. It works from the stance of empirical test. As long as God remains supernatural, then science is atheist. If God ever became natural, empirically testable, then science will be able to deal with God.
Science does not outright reject God, it outright rejects the supernatural. It just happens God is considered supernatural.
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lawtonfogle
My solace my terror, my terror my solace.
Which is exactly what I mean by working from the perspective of 'God did not do it', because God's interaction is not natural, it is supernatural.
You are defending my side of the argument. This is what I am saying, science does not accept miracles, supernatural events, and as such, does not accept 'God did it' as an answer.
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lawtonfogle
My solace my terror, my terror my solace.
If God became testable, then yes. If God is not testable, then no.
And remember, science does not give absolute truths, it gives empirical truths.
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lawtonfogle
My solace my terror, my terror my solace.
But God is supernatural. He is by definition not empirically testable, and thus science, by definition, cannot say 'God did it'. If God ever became empirically testable, then science can include Him. Till then, it cannot.
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Actually, science does not reject the supernatural either. As far as science is concerned the supernatural may or may not exist.
But because the supernatural is not empirically testable, it is excluded from scientific consideration.
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If that were true as to the evolutionary paradigm. Then they would test it to failure.
They only want to test for correlations. Never for failures. Something which is always done in good science.
Cept for this one issue. Hmmmmmm
EDIT: The entire TOE is built around correlations.
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Breckmin
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But a natural explanation is no legitimate explanation at all unless you
can differentiate between the natural and the supernatural.
Circular reasoning, btw. How do you know that the so called *natural*
even exists? apart from the supernatural? Let's start with a basic
understanding of natural ORDER and where does it originate?
How do you know that what you consider to just be *natural* is not
actually the result of the so called *supernatural?* How do you know
that when you are "testing something" - that you are not testing and
order that is sustained supernaturally? By what right do you limit the
creation to being merely *natural* and eliminate God's supernatural
sustaining power?
What about scientists who do NOT take a circular approach to *natural?*
What about scientists who claim that scientific observation CAN INDEED
lead to theistic implication because you do not need to employ circular
reasoning and LIMIT science to the study of what is claimed to be
natural...you don't need to limit yourself to materialistic and naturalistic
explanations (which may not exist) because this is circular reasoning -
natural assumptions = natural conclusions with no justification for
natural itself.
What about scientists who take a more logical viewpoint and say that
if the evidence via deduction leads to theistic implication, then theistic
conclusion is actually more scientific than limiting your view of science?
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I wouldn't quarrel with that. However the point is that differentiating between natural and supernatural phenomena is not differentiating between what God does and does not do. God is the ultimate author of both natural and supernatural phenomena.
Actually, we don't know that the "so called *natural*" exists. Perhaps we are no more than brains in a vat dreaming up the so called natural world and all our experiences of walking, eating, smelling, touching, talking, etc. are illusions generated by a holographic program fed to us by alien extra-terrestrials.
However, it is an axiom of science that there really is a physical world outside of our minds and that what we perceive is really a response to something that is there to be perceived. IOW scientists take it as a given (though unprovable) that the natural world exists.
Similarly, in Christian theology, it is taken as a given (though unprovable) that when God created the natural world he did in fact create a real, tangible, smellable, audible, visible, tastable world--not an illusion of one.
An instance of where Christian and scientific faith are in accord.
God created it, of course. See above.
Are you using "supernatural" as a synonym for God? In that case, since God is the creator it follows that the natural world is God's creation, as already stated.
If you are trying to make a different point, please explain it in more detail.
AFAIK there is no way of determining that. As Metherion pointed out earlier, since God is everywhere and everywhere sustains his creation, we cannot test anything at all in a way that would differentiate x + God from x - God. There is no x - God to test.
I didn't say anything about limiting the creation or eliminating God's sustaining power. I take both as givens. It is science that limits itself to validation through empirical testing of its hypotheses. The limitation of science is not a limitation of creation or its Creator.
When they come up with a way to test x - God in an empirically observable way, we can give this some consideration.
Meanwhile think about the role of falsification in science. If it is possible for scientific deduction to imply theism, those deductions must be tested against empirical observations which can falsify them. IOW your quest to have a scientific foundation for theism depends on a created order in which it is possible to falsify theism. And that seems to be an inherent self-contradiction.
God can only be brought into science if it is also possible for science to exclude God. But there is no way for science to disprove the supernatural.
How can one prove x - God when God is always present and always sustaining the natural order? Doesn't ALL evidence lead to theistic implications? Why limit yourself to just some? After all, God made and sustains all of creation, not just some of it.
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I believe the scientific laws God put in place when He created the heavens, the earth and all inanimate matter in the earth are quite different than animate matter which required God's creating power to transform inanimate matter into unique "after their own kind" fully formed animate matter able to reproduce, whether it be plant, animal or human beings. The uniqueness of rotating planet earth revolving around a perfectly sized sun at the perfect distance, with a perfectly sized moon providing tides, cannot be nievely overlooked.
Those who believe all inanimate and animate matter evolved thru an evolutionary process basically do not believe God intervened as the universe and living plant and animal matter on earth somehow evolved. Whether we realize it or not, God "upholds all things by the word of His power" (Heb 1:3), even the binding energy power of every single atom.
Again I ask, how is the Godless ToE any different than theistic evolution?
Once God finished His work of creating unique plants and creatures over time, God continues working within His created creatures via miracles, especially the miracle of the new birth for those created in God's image.
Blessings
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The 'Godless ToE' is a scientific theory (no more godless than gravity, cell theory, general relativity) that describes common ancestry and divergence of species, etc. Theistic evolution is a worldview that incorporates God and (in our case) the rest of Christian theology, beliefs, etc along with the natural world as described by the ToE.
Metherion
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No. One is a scientific theory that covers NOTHING ELSE OUTSIDE SAID THEORY. Not abiogenesis, not big bang, not solar system scale physics, JUST THAT BIT.
The other is a religious worldview that yes, includes Goddidit, and really only exists as a specifically labeled worldview because of the misinformation spread by anti-evolutionists who made 'evolutionism' out to be a worldview when it isn't.
Metherion
The other is a religious worldview that yes, includes Goddidit, and really only exists as a specifically labeled worldview because of the misinformation spread by anti-evolutionists who made 'evolutionism' out to be a worldview when it isn't.
Metherion
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If there's one thing that science is NOT, it is jumping to cinclusions without evidence to support them. Trying to fit the evidence into the result you have already decided is never going to be science.
I remember there was at least one instance of God being tested in the Bible, in order to show that this other bunch of people were worshipping the wrong God. Once the test for the other people's God had failed and the test for the Biblical god had succeeded, the ible God guys killed the "false god" people. I'm afraid I can't remember the exact verse.
Something that would show that evolution is wrong?
Like fossil bunnies in the precambrian?
There are quite a few things that would show that evolution is wrong, because evolution makes very specific predictions about what we will find. For example, fossils of T. rex will only be found in rocks that are around 65 million years old. They'll never be found significantly before that time, and they'll never be found above the K-T boundary (the layer of rock that indicates the end of the cretaceous period). This sort of prediction has never been shown wrong. What we find is exactly what the predictions made based on evolution suggest. If evolution was wrong, how could it provide such accurate predictions?
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The same way godless mechanical engineering differs from theistic mechanical engineering.
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If you think I'm intimating that the TOE is false. You would be wrong.
The reason I pointed it out is because facts be facts. And, in fact, the TOE has never been tested to failure. And I'm not aware of a study where it was even attempted.
Why chase away those big grant dollars, huh?
Correlation is not causation. Put the fire to it. It'll stand up. It should anyway.
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Perhaps I don't understand your terms. By tested to failure, do you mean put thru a test it failed, or never been put thru a test that would specifically fail it?
Metherion
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