Tag Archives: Francis Collins

Videos

Seven videos from the Biola University conference on God and evolution

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I have been weaseling out of my apologetics posting this week, and this is my last chance to get something good up so I can make it onto Brian Auten’s weekly apologetics bonus links at Apologetics 315, the best Christian apologetics site ever.

So I am posting SEVEN video clips from a recent Biola University conference on theistic evolution. (H/T Mysterious Jonathan)

Conference details:

Can you believe in God and Darwinian evolution at the same time? Scientists and scholars have an answer that may surprise the audience as they explore this and related questions at the God & Evolution conference on Saturday, October 16, 2010 at Biola University in La Mirada, California.

The conference will focus on the conflict between neo-Darwinism and traditional theological views of Protestants, Catholics and Jews.

What is “theistic” evolution, and how consistent is it with traditional theism?

What challenges does Darwin’s theory pose for Protestants, Catholics, and Jews?

Is it “anti-science” to question Darwinian Theory?

These questions and more will be addressed at the one-day conference by Marvin Olasky, editor of World magazine, biologist Jonathan Wells, political scientist John West, philosopher Jay Richards, attorney and science writer Casey Luskin and authors David Klinghoffer and Denyse O’Leary.

In the century and a half since Charles Darwin first proposed his theory of evolution, Christians, Jews, and other religious believers have grappled with how to make sense of it. Most have understood that Darwin’s theory has profound theological implications, but responses have varied dramatically.

Some believers have rejected it outright; others, including “theistic evolutionists” such as Francis Collins and Karl Giberson, have sought to reconcile Darwin’s theory with their religious beliefs, often at the cost of clarity, orthodoxy, or both. As a result, the whole subject of God and evolution is a source of confusion for many believers.

Join us for this one-day seminar, featuring contributors to the new book, God and Evolution, exploring these issues and offering a wide-ranging critique of those who seek to reconcile materialistic theories such as Darwinism with belief in God.

Here is the playlist for all SEVEN video clips.

Clip 1 of 7: Jay W. Richards: The Central Issues (34 minutes)

Clip 2 of 7: John G. West: Three Big Questions (22 minutes)

Clip 3 of 7: Casey Luskin: Why the New Atheists Won’t Be Appeased (21 minutes)

Clip 4 of 7: Denyse O’Leary: Catholics & Evolution (29 minutes)

Clip 5 of 7: David Klinghoffer: Judaism & Evolution (17 minutes)

Clip 6 of 7: Jonathan Wells: Science and Theistic Evolution (26 minutes)

Clip 7 of 7: Panel Discussion with Marvin Olasky (99 minutes)

So it looks like there are 2 Catholics (Richards, O’Leary), 2 Jews (Luskin, Klinghoffer), 2 Protestants (West, Olasky) and 1 “Other” (Wells) in that list. It’s a diverse group.

Commentary

Do leading evolutionists think that evolution is compatible with God?

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Here is a post from Jerry Coyne’s blog: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/07/17/selective-creationists/. (H/T Retha from Christian Rethinker)

Coyne is a radical atheist and evolutionist. And he is also a very prominent biologist.

He writes:

Only a tad more than one in four teachers really accepts evolution as scientists conceive of it: a naturalistic process undirected by divine beings.  Nearly one in two teachers thinks that humans evolved but that God guided the process.

Can we count those 48% of “guided-by-Godders” 0n our side?  I agree with P. Z.: the answer is NO.  Yes, they do accept that our species changed genetically over time, but they see God as having pulled the strings.  That’s not the way evolution works.   The graph labels these 48% as believers in intelligent design, and that’s exactly what they are, for they see God as nudging human evolution toward some preconceived goal.  We’re designed.  These people are creationists: selective creationists.

To count them as allies means we make company with those who accept evolution in a superficial sense but reject it in the deepest sense.  After all, the big revolution in thought wrought by Darwin was the recognition that the appearance of design—thought for centuries to be proof of God—could stem from purely natural processes.   When we cede human evolution to God, then, we abandon that revolution.  That’s why I see selective creationists like Kenneth Miller, Karl Giberson and Francis Collins as parting company with modern biological thought.

Just to let you know, Ken Miller and Francis Collins do not think that science can perform experiments and detect that an intelligent cause is the best explanation for some effect in nature. They are committed to explaining every effect in nature as the result of natural processes, before they ever sit down in front of a microscope to look and see. That is their faith commitment – naturalism. I.e. – God didn’t do anything in nature that we can know about using objective measuring.

Theistic evolution versus atheism

Who was the foremost evangelical proponent of theistic evolution? Well, one of them was Howard Van Till of Calvin College. Why do I say “was”? Take a look at this event he did for a FREETHOUGHT group a while back.

Excerpt:

FROM CALVINISM TO FREETHOUGHT: The Road Less Traveled
by Howard J. Van Till

Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Emeritus
Calvin College
Presented 5/24/2006 for the Freethought Association of West Michigan
Lightly edited 5/26/2006

Precis: Born into a Calvinist family, shaped by a Calvinist catechism training, educated in the Calvinist private school system, and nurtured by a community that prized its Calvinist systematic theology, I was a Calvinist through and through. For 31 years my
teaching career was deeply rooted in the Calvinism I had inherited from my community.

During most of that time it was a fruitful and satisfying experience. Nonetheless, stimulated in part by the manner in which some members of that community responded to my efforts to practice what I had learned from my best teachers, I eventually felt the need to extend my intellectual exploration into philosophical territories far outside the one provided by Calvinism. Did I complete the lengthy journey from Calvinism to Freethought? The listener will be the judge.

Freethought is atheism, by the way.

I think that either God can interfere or he can’t. Theistic evolutionists and atheists think that he can’t intervene – at least not in a way that is independent of “faith” – by which they mean blind belief ungrounded by evidence. What theistic evolutionists are really saying is that God interferes where we can’t test in a lab (the resurrection), and he doesn’t interfere in the area that they can test in a lab (science). This allows them to appease their wives and churches with pronunciations of orthodox beliefs (of course I believe in miracles, honey), and also to appease their scientific colleagues (God didn’t do anything that we can know objectively). Well. Isn’t that convenient for them AND THEIR CAREERS as scientists?

Commentary

A simple reponse to theistic evolutionists, by Andrew

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This is an e-mail I received from a reader.

I was having dinner the other day with Greg Koukl and friends, when the topic of THEISTIC EVOLUTION came up. Greg Koukl shared the following insight on this view in his usual clear-thinking manner…

Many people like to invoke theistic evolution as an explanation of the origin of life. Theistic evolution refers to the belief that God used evolution as a method of creation; God created life and then stood back and left things to run on their own though the laws of nature. If God intervened at all, it was only when absolutely necessary. While this explanation sounds really nice on the surface, the devil is in the details.

Simply put, theistic evolution is a self-refuting idea. An idea that commits suicide, so to speak. The ‘evolution’ part of theistic evolution is by definition a process that is blind, undirected and left to chance (natural selection). The ‘theistic’ part of theistic evolution, on the other hand, is by definition directed and personal (design). How do you reconcile these two opposing ideas? Clearly you can’t, since they are mutually exclusive. You simply cannot have something that is both undirected and directed.

It’s like asking the question: “How do you boil water?”. Someone could give the response: “Well, you take a pot, fill it with water, put the lid on, put the pot on the stove, turn on the stove, and add a leprechaun”. The question could then be asked: “What happens if I don’t add the leprechaun?”, to which the response would be “well…the water still boils”. The objective can be achieved without adding the leprechaun, which is therefore unnecessary. In the same way, both components of theistic evolution can, in theory at least, provide for the origin of life. In my opinion theistic evolution is a view held by those who have bought into Darwinism but don’t want to let go of God. Therefore, they proclaim both to be true. Unfortunately for them, the manner in which these two processes work (undirected versus directed) are contradictory and cannot both be true. The resulting mixture, theistic evolution, is not even an option, and proponents of this view should be called on this flaw in their thinking.

Below I’ll give my thoughts on theistic evolution.

My thoughts

Theistic evolution is basically atheistic evolution, with an unnecessary fairy tale riding on top. It’s like Santa Claus and Christmas. A child’s parents put the presents under the tree. If you film the tree, you see parents putting presents under the tree – that’s what actually happens, and who actually does the work. Santa Claus is a myth that makes children feel good – the concept of Santa Claus does no work putting presents under the tree in reality. And that’s the same role God plays in theistic evolution – he does no work in reality.

The dividing line between theists and atheists is whether the natural world shows any OBJECTIVE evidence of an intelligent agent at work. If a person claims to be theistic, but states that there is no OBJECTIVE evidence of intelligent causes acting in nature, then that person is actually an atheist. Theism is either real or it is nothing. I am not interested in personal preferences and personal delusions – I only care what is scientifically demonstrable.

The scientific evidence for intelligent design (fine-tuning, origin of DNA, Cambrian explosion, habitability, irreducible complexity, molecular machines, etc.) shows evidence of an intelligent agent causing effects in nature. It’s not up to our opinions to decide if an intelligent agent has acted  – it’s the way the world is, regardless of what we want – or need – to believe.