Different in degree or kind: more Denton: (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, February 20, 2016, 13:34 (2990 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Once more, evolutionary theory and teleological theism are not incompatible if God invented the mechanism that runs evolution - but they may of course be incompatible if individual humans insist that God's purpose corresponds to their own personal religious or anthropocentric readings of his mind.-DAVID: If God is inventing and/or running the process, he must have purposes in mind. Why not look at end products to interpret the purpose?-The discussion was not about purpose as such but about the ID author's insistence that Darwinism and teleological theism were incompatible. I have gone to great lengths to explain why this argument is based on a false premise, because Darwinism allows for God creating the mechanism for evolution. I will assume you now accept that your author got it wrong.
 
In response to your comment above, firstly, we don't know what the “end product” will be, unless you think Earth and evolution are about to disappear. But if you mean the products that exist now, we have a remarkable variety of them, including bacteria, ants, humans, elephants, mosquitoes, dogs....I needn't go on. If I believed in God, I would assume that this variety is what he wanted when he invented the process. Part of the fun may have been watching evolution come up with the unexpected (who wants to watch a show in which every development is known beforehand?). The more higgledy-piggledy, the more entertaining. Even if you think humans are special (and of course I can see why you do), I can imagine him saying: “Oh, look what my random mutations / my inventive mechanisms have come up with now!” Or he may have wanted humans and not known how to make them, so he occasionally intervened in the evolutionary process (“Let's get rid of those damned dinosaurs for a start.”) Or he may suddenly have had a wonderful idea a few million years ago and thought: “I know, let's make humans” and fiddled around with the mechanisms inside a group of apes (we can't tell if the IM did it, random mutations did it, or God fiddled - it's still common descent)....Unlike you, I do not claim to be able to read God's mind, but when I look at the products that exist now, and at the higgledy-piggledy history of life on Earth, any one of the above explanations seems to me to fit in perfectly with both teleological theism and evolutionary theory. But they may not fit in with your own personal reading of your God's mind, purpose and character.