The Language of God by Francis Collins …. Cont.
Dr. Collins believes absolutely that the evidence for evolution is compelling. He also believes that science doesn’t provide adequate answers to some critical questions relating to what he perceives as universal belief in a moral law and a universal search for God. Starting from this foundation he has come to believe in a God who started the evolutionary chain of events and who intervenes at crucial times. This makes him a Theistic Evolutionist; as opposed to a Deist who would believe that God possibly started the ball rolling then lost interest or at least went somewhere and does not interfere in the affairs of his creation.
Collins believes that Scientific Creationism and Intelligent Design (ID) positions are harmful to Christianity and are in somewhat the same position as the church was when it opposed the views of Copernicus and Galileo; views which were ultimately proved correct and from which the church ultimately had to back down. This type of position makes Christians look stupid and so should be avoided.
Scientific Creationism: Collins accuses various people of creating ‘straw man’ arguments and is quite willing to point them out. This doesn’t stop him from doing the same thing. He dismisses Scientific Creationism as an ignorant position of those who feel that evolution is threatening to God. As evidence he describes the ‘apparent age’ argument which makes which he says makes God the “Great Deceiver”. Because we can see stars which are so far away that even with light from those stars traveling at the speed of light, we couldn’t see them unless the universe were billions of years old or if God ‘deceived’ us by creating them a few years ago and making it’s light appear immediately to us.
It is difficult for me to understand how such an intelligent man as Collins could make such a dumb statement. Miracles such as the jars of oil and flour from which the poor woman in Sidon fed him and which did not run dry would have to be summarily dismissed using the same argument. God did not supply olives to press or the DNA of the olives; he gave ‘apparently aged’ oil. Not DNA or wheat seed or even wheat but ‘apparently aged’ flour. What about Adam? Was he created as a baby? Zygote? DNA strng? Not!
Collins is puzzled by the persistence of the belief in a literal creation in view of the overwhelming (his opinion) evidence for evolution. He finds this mystifying at best and dangerous at worst.
To be continued (again)
Collins believes that Scientific Creationism and Intelligent Design (ID) positions are harmful to Christianity and are in somewhat the same position as the church was when it opposed the views of Copernicus and Galileo; views which were ultimately proved correct and from which the church ultimately had to back down. This type of position makes Christians look stupid and so should be avoided.
Scientific Creationism: Collins accuses various people of creating ‘straw man’ arguments and is quite willing to point them out. This doesn’t stop him from doing the same thing. He dismisses Scientific Creationism as an ignorant position of those who feel that evolution is threatening to God. As evidence he describes the ‘apparent age’ argument which makes which he says makes God the “Great Deceiver”. Because we can see stars which are so far away that even with light from those stars traveling at the speed of light, we couldn’t see them unless the universe were billions of years old or if God ‘deceived’ us by creating them a few years ago and making it’s light appear immediately to us.
It is difficult for me to understand how such an intelligent man as Collins could make such a dumb statement. Miracles such as the jars of oil and flour from which the poor woman in Sidon fed him and which did not run dry would have to be summarily dismissed using the same argument. God did not supply olives to press or the DNA of the olives; he gave ‘apparently aged’ oil. Not DNA or wheat seed or even wheat but ‘apparently aged’ flour. What about Adam? Was he created as a baby? Zygote? DNA strng? Not!
Collins is puzzled by the persistence of the belief in a literal creation in view of the overwhelming (his opinion) evidence for evolution. He finds this mystifying at best and dangerous at worst.
To be continued (again)
posted by complexspecificity | 7:45 AM
2 Comments:
I'm reminded of two things, both from a class on evolution at ASU:
One of the professors said he found it conceivable that God is powerful enough to have created everything just as it is. He went further by saying that God could have created it 5 minutes ago. We were created with our memories, cars were created five minutes ago...you get the picture. This is what Collins calls the great deception? I remember someone saying that God is not the author of confusion and so could not have created things in media res as described above. I like thinking about it though.
The other comment I think of often was from a different prof in the same class. She said, offhandedly, in some context or other: "...so that makes 40 million years of evolution unaccounted for, and that's scary..." I wasn't sure I heard her say "that's scary..." so I let it go without question. But I would have loved to hear why that was scary to her...I guess because the consequences of her theory being incorrect were just too great to contemplate--she may have to change her life!
Bottom line for me, though: None of this is provable, either from an evolution standpoint, or a Creationist standpoint, or any other theory you could imagine. That makes it just a fun intellectual exercise. It doesn't have much to do with how I treat my neighbor.
It is interesting. I really cannot understand someone who believes there is a God who exists outside of space and time and does not expect miracles. It shouldn’t be possible to know such a person exists without a miracle occurring to let you in on the (until then) secret.
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