Darwin and God: a response to Fabricius (4)

Remark on Thesis #9. A brilliant thesis. At the same time, scientists of various disciplines will nonetheless continue to offer pseudo-teleologies. How couldn’t they, since theology is no longer accepted as the queen of the sciences? A pseudo-theology will perforce be set up in its place. On the other hand, the facts of general revelation and special revelation and the relationship between the two stand, with unresolved tensions. The temptation to eliminate all claims of particular or general revelation from consideration is a deplorable and counter-productive shortcut.

Remark on Thesis #10. A fine concluding thesis. I would argue that Darwin was an unreconstructed theist on the fundamentals. To be sure, he failed to reconcile his theism with the realities of his day, the un-evangelical preaching to which he was subject, the pain and grief he endured. He found it both possible and impossible to believe in a Creator of an evolving biosphere. Should all or any of this be held against him? I am unwilling to prejudge the question. As for Dawkins, I can’t help but thinking: atheism has had far better defenders.

Darwin and God series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4

Comments

[Duane]

John,

Special relativity, while discovered first, is a first order subset of general relativity. Under general relativity, special relativity applies to local observers. All tensions between the two, if there were ever such tensions, have long been resoled. A marginally better example is the seeming tension between general relativity and some parts of quantum theory. These tensions have proven much harder to resolve.

In order to determine if anything is a pseudo-theology or if there is any theology that isn't a pseudo-theology we need to define quite clearly what it is that theologians study. I'm never clear on that.

[JohnFH]

Hi Duane,

What a pleasure to be misunderstood in the way that you have. General and special revelation are not quite the same thing as general and special relativity.

By pseudo-theology, I have in mind elaborate ethical and philosophical systems built on the sands on Hegel, Kant, and now Heidegger, perhaps, or Habermas. A number of very well-read people go for this stuff. It strikes me as pseudo-theology in the same sense that theology itself seems pseudo to you.

There is no basis for the subject matter, except in the world of ideal forms and Plato's cave.

Still, I don't see on what basis a non-theist makes even a aesthetic judgment, unless it be understood as a purely private judgment.

Not just Plato, but Aristotle, were theists of a sort. In this I think they were more consistent than modern atheists. If you can't follow this line of thought, just say so. I cover tons of ground in a few phrases.

[Duane]

Oops!

I still can figure out what theologians study. Ethics and aesthetic can be quite objective and not based on any theism. I guess I need to do another post on this, but not tonight.

[JohnFH]

I look forward to that.

[helen geltman]

Hi John FH,
May I ask who you are? I was looking for an explanation of pikuach nefesh for an atheist friend who said that lying to get funding in order to be able to attend grad school was just as acceptable as lying to save a life. I objected. The discussion on the table between us is whether a true atheist can arrive at a moral system, or be as moral a person, as someone who truly follows the moral laws posited by the scripures of the Jewish and Christian faith. I would be interested in your views, based on what little I have just read on this site. Helen

[JohnFH]

Hi Helen,

I would have objected, too. On the other hand, I don't know what common ground I share with atheism such that I might challenge your friend's conclusion.

Atheists are all over the map from an ethical point of view. Some veer toward an amoral worldview like that of Nietzsche (actually, it is wrong to think of N as amoral, but he did seek to free himself from the constraints of Jewish and Christian morality); some toward a form of utilitarianism; but others seem to follow a moral compass every bit as reliable as that of a mature believer.

I view that moral compass as a cultural artifact derived from a variety of sources (for example, Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian), all of which are religious at root. If there is a more convincing explanation, I haven't heard it yet.

[helen geltman]

Hi John,
Thank you for your response. I grew up in the home of a man I have come to refer to as an "evangelical atheist"-(my father and his friends founded Dissent magazine)-and became a disciple of Christ because the Testaments of the Jewish and Christian faiths offered the only explanation I could find for personal experience, from a young age, of the gift of prophecy. My atheist friend is a friend from childhood, who still embraces what my father and his friends espoused. Certainly I myself had, from early childhood, an innate sense of morality that was, even to me at age six, different than my parents' morality. As an adult, after study of scripture, I came to believe this was simply an example of what is promised in the Jewish testament: "In those days I will write my laws upon their hearts..." My atheist friend acknowledges that, having grown up in Judeo-Christian culture he could not help but be influenced by it, but still insists that his morality is not based on that, and that he would have been just as moral a person had he grown up without that influence. But how can one know what would have been?
I confess I cannot read Hebrew yet, but hope to correct that. Again, thank you for your time and thoughts. Helen

[JohnFH]

Thank you, Helen. Your witness is compelling.

[helen geltman]

Thank you. I am glad I found your website. I will come back to it often. And I will pursue my Hebrew studies. Blessings, Helen