This phrase appeared in another thread within the last few days.
It well illustrates one of YECism's major problems: confusion of levels or category errors, both terms describe the same thing.
When my kids were young they memorized a children's catechism, one of the questions about God being spirit was answered with "we can't see God with these eyes". One of my daughters asked where are those eyes which can see God if these eyes in my head can not.
The word "theistic" in the compound "TE" is on a different level from the word "evolution", just like my daughter's physical eyes are on a different level then her spiritual eyes. The Bible says that God causes the lightening and the thunder, that He causes the rain to fall on the unjust as well as the just. I know enough about the physics of lightening and thunder and the hydrologic cycle to know that you can explain them to physical eyes without reference to God. Does that mean that the claims of the Bible that God controls these things are empty boasting for another pre-scientific age?
Likewise, being the reformed Christian that i am, i am a hard determinist. I believe that God drew my wife and i together and knit our kids in her womb. Yet i know enough developmental biology that i can explain much of this process without reference to God. Yet i would agree that all matings, that all genetics are under God's control. This is the theistic in TE, God directs all life, just as He brought my wife and i together to create children, He governs the direction of evolution.
But this claim is metaphysical, not scientific. I perceive it with spiritual eyes that i can not fully explain to someone else. Unlike that lower level of science which only deals with the natural world with natural eyes, the spiritual is discerned with spiritual eyes. The problem with YECism is to confuse what goes into which set of eyes. The confusion of levels, a category error of confusing spiritual things with worldly.
God has apparently "withdrew" Himself, or created the universe with great autonomy, so that explanations on the scientific plane/level appear complete enough to physically-minded men that they are satisfied without "God did it" explanatory levels on top of their science. But this is a claim of sufficiency or completeness, a metaphysical claim, at a different level then their science. For like YECists atheistic scientism makes a category error, this time confusing their philosophic claim of sufficiency WITHOUT Gods for the scientific realm's utter provisionalness and tentetiveness.
So "Theistic evolution is a nonsensical phrase" is true only when you see theistic and evolution on the same level, when you conflate those spiritual and physical eyes, when you consistently make this serious category error. Otherwise you realize that theistic sits on top of evolution, like metaphysics sits on top of physics, and like a puppeteer manipulates the level of the play in front of him, God manipulates our world. Now can i prove this scientifically? no, and that is why God had to reveal Himself in Scripture, because the physical world is not sufficient explanation concerning Him.
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It well illustrates one of YECism's major problems: confusion of levels or category errors, both terms describe the same thing.
When my kids were young they memorized a children's catechism, one of the questions about God being spirit was answered with "we can't see God with these eyes". One of my daughters asked where are those eyes which can see God if these eyes in my head can not.
The word "theistic" in the compound "TE" is on a different level from the word "evolution", just like my daughter's physical eyes are on a different level then her spiritual eyes. The Bible says that God causes the lightening and the thunder, that He causes the rain to fall on the unjust as well as the just. I know enough about the physics of lightening and thunder and the hydrologic cycle to know that you can explain them to physical eyes without reference to God. Does that mean that the claims of the Bible that God controls these things are empty boasting for another pre-scientific age?
Likewise, being the reformed Christian that i am, i am a hard determinist. I believe that God drew my wife and i together and knit our kids in her womb. Yet i know enough developmental biology that i can explain much of this process without reference to God. Yet i would agree that all matings, that all genetics are under God's control. This is the theistic in TE, God directs all life, just as He brought my wife and i together to create children, He governs the direction of evolution.
But this claim is metaphysical, not scientific. I perceive it with spiritual eyes that i can not fully explain to someone else. Unlike that lower level of science which only deals with the natural world with natural eyes, the spiritual is discerned with spiritual eyes. The problem with YECism is to confuse what goes into which set of eyes. The confusion of levels, a category error of confusing spiritual things with worldly.
God has apparently "withdrew" Himself, or created the universe with great autonomy, so that explanations on the scientific plane/level appear complete enough to physically-minded men that they are satisfied without "God did it" explanatory levels on top of their science. But this is a claim of sufficiency or completeness, a metaphysical claim, at a different level then their science. For like YECists atheistic scientism makes a category error, this time confusing their philosophic claim of sufficiency WITHOUT Gods for the scientific realm's utter provisionalness and tentetiveness.
So "Theistic evolution is a nonsensical phrase" is true only when you see theistic and evolution on the same level, when you conflate those spiritual and physical eyes, when you consistently make this serious category error. Otherwise you realize that theistic sits on top of evolution, like metaphysics sits on top of physics, and like a puppeteer manipulates the level of the play in front of him, God manipulates our world. Now can i prove this scientifically? no, and that is why God had to reveal Himself in Scripture, because the physical world is not sufficient explanation concerning Him.
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