Albatrossity2
Posts: 2780
Joined: Mar. 2007
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| Quote (Kristine @ April 11 2007,10:22) | Not according to this paper that I read by Dembski.
I think I’m the only one here who read this and I found it (among other things) really instructive in terms of the aims of someone like Dembski, aside from the short-term goals indicated by the nefarious Wedge. |
Crikey, Kristine! That paper you linked to was an incredibly compelling reminder about why I gave up reading theology years ago. Only a few pages in, we find this incomprehensible paragraph, focusing on things (e.g. angels, the Fall) which can never be proven to exist. Why would anyone waste time on "thinking" about stuff like this?
| Quote | | Mainstream Christian theology used to explain the origin of evil as follows: Evil is the result of a will that has turned against God. Just why a will should turn against God, however, is a profound mystery (2 Thessalonians 2:7 refers to “the mystery of iniquity”). Since everything is created by God, a will that turns against God is also created by God. But a good God presumably created a good will. How, then, could a good will turn against God? I’m not sure that any final answer can be given to this question. Invoking freedom of the will is little help here. To be sure, freedom of the will contains within it the logical possibility of a will turning against God. But why should a good will created by a good God exercise its freedom in that way (for instance, Christian theology teaches that there are good angels whose wills never turned against God)? |
Got that? There will be a quiz tomorrow.
One of our local Baptist ministers has a website where he posts his turgid musings on similar topics. Since I got into a letters-to-the-editor exchange with him a while back on the topic of science and evolution, I peek at his ponderings every so often (I think I am probably the only person ever to visit this site). Here is one of today's musings, evaluting the "reasoning" for the doctrine that God is immutable.
| Quote | | Let us think of the doctrine of creation in light of immutability. In one sense God has already created and so that could never change in terms of fact. But if God changed, would the laws of “nature” be changed as well? Would God change His mind about gravity? What if He decided to move the sun closer or farther away from the earth? What if He decided that He liked a faster rotation of the earth? We also know that God upholds the world by the word of His power. What would happen if He decided not to do that? When we look at the teachings of Scripture regarding the Trinity and of creation, both depend on the attribute of immutability. Every day when we get up, we depend on God’s immutability whether we recognize that or not. When we walk outside and the sun is shining, we can only walk and the sun can only shine because God has not changed. |
Like Dembski, he can just crank this stuff out endlessly. I wouldn't recommend a visit to his site unless you have a serious problem with insomnia.
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Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind
Has been obligated from the beginning
To create an ordered universe
As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.
- Pattiann Rogers
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