tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post1088055033849883363..comments2024-03-28T03:20:15.940-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: Is God’s existence a “hypothesis”?Edward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger106125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-48962165750831689602023-03-11T12:34:36.709-08:002023-03-11T12:34:36.709-08:00I scrolled, from the beginning of this post, up to...I scrolled, from the beginning of this post, up to and including a comment from Chris,shared with me today.<br />That comment referred to abductive(?), deductive and inductive reasoning. I thought the first form in the triad was adductive, as in, to adduce something. In my opinion, matters of belief, and/or faith are not subject to any of those forms. Which is why I mostly abstain from these 'philosophical' digressions on belief (religion), and faith (devout and fervent affirmation), concerning a supreme being/creator of any, every, and all things, including its' self. Best wishes and good luck to all. Any other questions are unanswerable by me. Love you folks. Kirk out.Paul D. Van Pelthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13508874039164282696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-56613887402571191872023-03-11T10:26:45.395-08:002023-03-11T10:26:45.395-08:00I don't think he's arguing that an abducti...I don't think he's arguing that an abductive or inductive argument/explanation means that the being in question is contingent. <br /><br />But, yes, he is arguing that an abductive argument doesn't conclusively demonstrate God, which we all grant. So, I don't think Feser would deny that abductive arguments have a place. <br /><br />Afterall, one could first think that the Necessary being that explains the existence of contingent things is best explained as God. Then, one could become convinced that such a conclusion is demonstrable. Chrisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-77593681441908505942023-01-15T02:21:14.496-08:002023-01-15T02:21:14.496-08:00Thinkers like William Lane Craig do provide argume...Thinkers like William Lane Craig do provide arguments against a multiverse being the best explanation. Besides him there are other thinkers today using the fine-tunning argument.<br /><br />But seeing how Ed did say that design arguments cant take us to the God of Classical Theism them he is probably not your guy for this question.Talmidnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-74996675846934981472023-01-13T20:55:27.492-08:002023-01-13T20:55:27.492-08:00The "fine-tuning" of the universe, the f...The "fine-tuning" of the universe, the finding that many cosmological constants appear to be tuned to incredibly tight tolerances for the Big Bang to have occurred without the universe collapsing on itself or expanding too quickly for stars or matter to have formed, is one interesting empirical finding that suggests a Designer responsible for the universe. Theoretical physicists have posited the Multiverse as an alternative explanation for this finding. Why can't the Multiverse be accepted as an alternative first cause? Why is it necessary for the Necessary Being to have a will? Or to be non-contingent? Whatever properties ascribed to God that provide Him His causal primacy could be ascribed to a Multiverse. If we're willing to posit a Being Who is uncreated and exists before all time, I don't see why it's a logical challenge to ascribe those properties to an impersonal structure like the Multiverse.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-19031588644108500542023-01-02T11:30:24.876-08:002023-01-02T11:30:24.876-08:00"How certain are you of that? If you are to a..."How certain are you of that? If you are to any degree less than certain of that claim, then the door is open for as much religious certainty as a claimant says. If not, then I think you bear the burden to explain." <br /><br />Irreflectively, I think I am not 100% certain about that. But if I reflect enough on the matter, I think I might be able to reach 100% certainty - in that case, what could you respond?<br /><br />Nevertheless, as of now, I admit that I am not 100% certain of it. So what? Although Cartesian doubt is possible for me on that point, it still strikes me as obvious that no one can have absolute certainty of their own religious tradition. It is crazy to think one can be as sure of "Catholicism is true" as one can be of "2 + 2 = 4". My lack of certainty about that is not a "gotcha". There is nothing inconsistent with holding (without absolute certainty) that there can be no absolute certainty about the truth of an entire religion.<br /><br />(Notice, also, that I am not claiming there can be no absolute certainty of anything. As a matter of fact I am an infallibilist and I think we can know some things with perfect Cartesian certainty, and infallibly so. But the amount of things we can be truly certain of is very small. The first principles for example, like Non-Contradiction.)<br /><br />So, so what if I am not absolutely certain? I still think it's crazy to suggest you can be absolutely certain that the Catholic Church is the one true church founded by Christ (who by the way was really raised from the dead, and by God, not by any other occurrence or being) etc. You are not certain of that. You might be VERY confident about it, for whatever reason, but you're not certain of it. And if you say you are, then I think you are confused.<br /><br />"A personal revelation is just that—personal. One would not expect others to have the same insight without a similar revelation. The fact that my certainty cannot convince you doesn’t mean that I am any less certain."<br /><br />Sure. I just think you are entirely confused - much like an atheist who says he is certain that the Christian God doesn't exist - and won't buy it. It's absurd to suggest a contingent fact (such as the truth of Catholicism, if it is true) dependent on so many other historically contingent facts, etc., could be the kind of thing a human being could be certain of. And if I had a "personal revelation" about it, I could still question whether I was hallucinating, jumping to conclusions, or whatever - even if I am nevertheless convinced of the revelation! - because it still wouldn't be anything like knowing that contradictions are impossible, that A = A or whatever. <br /><br />It also doesn't reflect the reality of religious belief in life. Ordinary believers are not certain of what they believe - except if they say so in a vulgar and irreflective manner. They can be very strongly convinced and pious. But they also struggle with doubts from time to time, and are capable of wondering whether it really is true (even if they believe), and so on.<br />RunDechttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01087138435392371312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-80770117744449271302022-12-28T21:49:53.316-08:002022-12-28T21:49:53.316-08:00"Suppose, for example, that someone said that..."Suppose, for example, that someone said that he was contemplating Aquinas’s First Way or... I personally think both those arguments happen to be successful demonstrations of God’s existence."<br /><br />The First Way attempts to use scientifically testable observations as a basis for logical arguments for the existence of god.<br /><br />The First Way is an argument from motion, which is offered in the general sense of change of heat in the example of heat-fire-wood. Motion is also used in its more common literal sense, as positional translation through space, in the example of hand-staff.<br /><br />Thus, if one is using the First Way as an argument for the existence of god then the assertion of the existence of god is indeed a scientific hypothesis in that the examples of the First Way are scientifically falsifiable.<br /><br />Science has already falsified the argument from motion, therefor the god hypothesis has been scientifically falsified, to the extent it depends upon the First Way, which has already been falsified.<br /><br />The statement "the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand" is clearly false, as the staff will move ad infinitum (as Aristotle posited for motion in the void) absent an impeding medium. The fundamental error of Aristotle, Aquinas, Feser, and the majority of posters here is in failing to realize that space, for motion, is the functional equivalent of the void, and everything is in space, including the hand and the staff.<br /><br />The false statement by Aquinas that "the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand" is based on the false notion that absent a continuous mover the staff will slow, and stop, and its motion will be lost, therefore, it was incorrectly thought, a mover is required to keep it moving.<br /><br />In truth, all objects in the universe are part of a system of perpetual motion such that motion is never lost, only transferred and mutually perpetuated in some form.<br /><br />"arguing that nothing that is like that could exist even for an instant without a sustaining cause"<br />Feser has this back to front in a very strange inversion of logic.<br /><br />If material exists at time1 and continues to exist at time2 that is no change in the existence of that material, therefore no changer is called for to account for no change.<br /><br />If material exists at time1 and ceases to exist at time2 that is a change in the existence of that material, therefore a changer is called for to account for the change in the existence of that material.<br /><br />Sustained existence = no change, therefore, no changer.<br />Unsustained existence = change, therefore, a changer.<br /><br />Pretty simple. How Feser and all the good posters here can be confused on such an obvious point is a puzzlement indeed.StardustyPsychenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-70977650931749320352022-12-26T19:34:26.134-08:002022-12-26T19:34:26.134-08:00@JoeD
If that's so, then a formal distinction...@JoeD<br /><br />If that's so, then a formal distinction basically collapses to a real distinction without separability. I'm okay with that, but it would simply be another kind of real distinction, one which thomists would accept anyway (at least some cases of real distinction entail separability; others do not, according to thomists - and I agree).<br /><br />I don't see how that gets out of Aquinas's arguments though. You basically asserted that God wouldn't depend on his attributes coming together to form a whole. That's an assertion. The problem is that if the attributes are in fact distinct from God, then they are not God - they are not the divine essence. But then where do these distinct attributes come from? Since they are distinct from the divine essence, they cannot exist a se (otherwise they would be another instance of necessary existence/pure esse which is what the Divine Essence is). But then they will be caused by God (which would be impossible and/or superfluous, because it would be a case of a cause actualizing itself), and would in some manner actualize God (which would be impossible, etc). It's the same reason why God cannot have accidents. It doesn't matter whether the attributes are separable or not.RunDechttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01087138435392371312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-7580431880973831332022-12-26T10:05:54.555-08:002022-12-26T10:05:54.555-08:00Wow. That is quite a slew of posts on this topic. ...Wow. That is quite a slew of posts on this topic. I wasn't following the blog at that time so thank you Talmid locating this and posting it.Michael Copashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09861476745241388399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-60314259804628811612022-12-25T10:42:32.572-08:002022-12-25T10:42:32.572-08:00@RunDec Yeah, Scotists reject the distinction bet...@RunDec Yeah, Scotists reject the distinction between essence and existence as being akin to form and matter, and also reject the specific Thomistic ontology this entails.<br /><br />They view the distinction between essence and existence as a formal distinction because it lacks separability. And that's where the meaningfulness of the formal distinction comes in - it's a real distinction in reality but not such that the things in question have "their own being" which would entail separability.<br /><br />Even if one doesn't think formal distinctions apply to God, they are a real concept. <br /><br />Scotists could answer Aquinas's argument in a few ways - I don't really remember them off hand, but one thing that comes to mind (likely not an actual argument used) is that God doesn't depend on his attributes coming together to form the whole that is Himself. The attributes aren't like that.<br /><br />Though that's just my stab in the dark.JoeDnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-21114260313206976622022-12-24T21:24:27.827-08:002022-12-24T21:24:27.827-08:00"one example sometimes given to explain a for..."one example sometimes given to explain a formal distinction is like the angles and sides of a triangle; it's logically impossible for any of them to exist separately from the other, so they're part of one being, but they're not the exact same thing either."<br /><br />So? A real distinction doesn't imply separability. Thomists are very insistent upon this point - for example, with the essence and existence distinction. They are really distinct, but not separable. <br /><br />If the angles and sides of a triangle are truly distinct, then they are really distinct. Even if one is always necessarily co-instantiated with the other. I still see no merit in formal distinctions: it still strikes me as a completely confused notion. Either a distinction is real or purely logical in some way. <br /><br />"The attributes can neither exist independently of God, nor can God be without them as if the accidents could be removed and just cease to exist upon removal" <br /><br />Fine, but if the distinction between attributes is a real one it will still fall prey to Aquinas's arguments. If the distinction is not real, but only logical, then we still have the traditional thomistic divine simplicity. "Formal distinction" still seems absurd to me.<br />RunDechttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01087138435392371312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-16724469403675141692022-12-24T19:34:35.481-08:002022-12-24T19:34:35.481-08:00Hey Michael, i'am sorry for taking this long f...Hey Michael, i'am sorry for taking this long for responding, but there you go:<br />http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/05/id-versus-t-roundup.html?m=1<br /><br />As i don't really have interest on ID, i admit that i never followed the discussion, but it seems that Ed did discuss this a lot. <br />Talmidnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-9309438142104940222022-12-23T11:03:39.540-08:002022-12-23T11:03:39.540-08:00@RunDec Also, Scotists deny not only that God'...@RunDec Also, Scotists deny not only that God's attributes could exist separately from God, but they also deny that God could exist without the attributes as well. The attributes can neither exist independently of God, nor can God be without them as if the accidents could be removed and just cease to exist upon removal.JoeDnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-63464343081510402042022-12-23T10:59:57.350-08:002022-12-23T10:59:57.350-08:00@RunDec
Not necessarily - one example sometimes g...@RunDec<br /><br />Not necessarily - one example sometimes given to explain a formal distinction is like the angles and sides of a triangle; it's logically impossible for any of them to exist separately from the other, so they're part of one being, but they're not the exact same thing either.JoeDnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-64155141376286103952022-12-22T10:11:09.791-08:002022-12-22T10:11:09.791-08:00Nollaig Chridheil! WCB.Nollaig Chridheil! WCB.Son of Ya'Kovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-75202155106459760762022-12-21T13:16:19.435-08:002022-12-21T13:16:19.435-08:00Talmid,
I am not aware of any ID theorist who exp...Talmid,<br /><br />I am not aware of any ID theorist who explicitly or implicitly denies the real extra mental existence of universal formal causes or affirms that only individuals exist. In other words, I know of none who deny realism and affirm nominalism either implicitly or explicitly. So that is not in any way a part of their program. If Dr. Feser has spelled out somewhere that they do so implicitly, I would be very interested to read this and to see the case for it. I am not aware that he has made this argument, but again would be interested to see it if he had done so.<br /><br />I would also be interested in knowing where he makes the case that they argue for a demiurge and that this creates confusion. That seems to me much more plausible, but I would still like to see the case for that spelled out if you could provide the link to the blog post or direct me to a publication where this was argued.Michael Copashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09861476745241388399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-64216742802679982392022-12-20T15:54:01.237-08:002022-12-20T15:54:01.237-08:00@RunDec, you write:
And I do think a lot of talk...@RunDec, you write:<br /><br /><i> And I do think a lot of talk about faith is confused. The only definition that seems to make more sense to me is something like "trust in what one cannot see" or more broadly trust in what one doesn't know by himself…</i><br /><br />More traditionally, faith is simply a trust based on evidence. It is never a grope or a blind hope. You also write:<br /><br /><i>There is no such "certainty" certainty though, because epistemically the belief in a religious doctrine will always be less than certain.</i><br /><br />How <b>certain</b> are you of that? If you are to any degree less than certain of that claim, then the door is open for as much religious certainty as a claimant says. If not, then I think you bear the burden to explain.<br /><br /><i>No one can know that e.g. "Catholicism is true" with the same certainty that they know "2 + 2 = 4" or the principle of non-contradiction.</i><br /><br />And you know this how? The fact that a claimant may not be able to demonstrate to others the validity of a claim in the same manner as one can demonstrate a mathematical formula does not invalidate the claim. A personal revelation is just that—personal. One would not expect others to have the same insight without a similar revelation. The fact that my certainty cannot convince you doesn’t mean that I am any less certain.Billhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08001130202947985336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-2898047026484586342022-12-20T13:41:49.011-08:002022-12-20T13:41:49.011-08:00I remember to have read a similar line of argument...I remember to have read a similar line of argument in a book by David Bentley Hart. For what is worth I agree with both of you and I am happy to know that both of you agree on this very important point at least.Thanks you prof. Feser for your posts and your books that have provided me with nourishment fir my mind and spirit. A reader from ItalyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-41414905847952113272022-12-19T19:06:39.140-08:002022-12-19T19:06:39.140-08:00@Michael
It seems to me that Ed criticism of ID s...@Michael<br /><br />It seems to me that Ed criticism of ID seems that it tends to aproach things with exactly the wrong nominalist metaphysics of the materialists* and so fails to let the atheist see that his world view is absurd in every way, not only on its lack of a God. He also said before that the view failure to give us more that a demiurge tends to promote a wrong conception of God that the atheists do find reasonable problems with, not the real One. <br /><br />Now, are these dificulties enough to dismiss the whole thing? Perhaps or perhaps not, i admit that i dont know ID. But it does seems to be a block against getting people to think in ur-platonists ways, and that is bad.<br /><br />*can it do diferently? I dont know.Talmidnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-37608035598669976792022-12-19T10:09:21.927-08:002022-12-19T10:09:21.927-08:00Not really because Calvin's views are in no wa...Not really because Calvin's views are in no way identical with the doctrine of Premotion which Calvin knows nothing about or discusses. There are similarities but they are not the same.<br />For example efficacious grace is in a sense irresistible in that it always infallibly secures the co-operation of the will to conversion. With Calvin irresistible grace is just divine brute force overriding the will.<br /><br />Thomist believe Grace which is merely sufficient is resistible. <br /><br />We have radically different views on the divine mechanism that move things in the world.Son of Ya'Kovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-46955223232376960992022-12-19T10:02:33.870-08:002022-12-19T10:02:33.870-08:00That last one was me? I thought I was signed in o...That last one was me? I thought I was signed in on that Computer?Son of Ya'Kovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-5157692529256530662022-12-19T07:48:36.528-08:002022-12-19T07:48:36.528-08:00"That is by no means to deny that such argume..."That is by no means to deny that such arguments might pose serious challenges to certain purported materialist or naturalistic explanations of this or that phenomenon. But to undermine some particular naturalistic explanation, however important, is not the same thing as establishing theism. "<br /><br />If they show that theism accounts well for the data and does so more consistently than atheistic materialism, then it has shown, in its own way, that atheistic materialism is not the only rational approach to scientific data. Now this opening to theism is not the same thing as a conclusive demonstration that atheism is absurd and that theism is necessarily true, but to show that theism accounts for the scientific data (e.g. that the world is intelligible, ordered according to number, etc.) is not to accomplish nothing.Michael Copashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09861476745241388399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-26923960716607788302022-12-19T07:39:01.975-08:002022-12-19T07:39:01.975-08:00"Could it be said, then, that even if arguing..."Could it be said, then, that even if arguing via empirical hypothesis formation and testing does not get us all the way to God, it can still be useful in getting us part of the way? Well, to be fair, I’d be happy to consider a specific purported example to see exactly what such an objector has in mind."<br /><br />What about an abductive argument that suggests that the cause of the universe appears to be intelligent? The argument purports to do nothing more than suggest that this would "account for the data" but does not claim to have accomplished a scientific demonstration.Michael Copashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09861476745241388399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-77361470117142669682022-12-19T07:34:18.664-08:002022-12-19T07:34:18.664-08:00In contrast to this, the realist account see an in...In contrast to this, the realist account see an inextricable link between the formal cause of a thing (which is the species) and the final cause (the pursuit of life via certain acts). In the scholastic dictum agere sequitur esse (to do follows upon to be). So we look at what a thing does and this points back toward what it is (its form). All animals pursue the end of life, but they do so in distinct ways and it is those distinct ways that naturally distinguish the species not some percentage of genetic difference randomly selected by some guy in a lab for no principled reason. After all, people were able to dinstinguish species before the work of Mendel. This does not make the work of Mendel unimportant but it does mean that we need a non nominalistic account of species that is not based on some random overlap of genetic code, but is instead based in principles observable in nature outside the lab. After all, I don't need a geneticist to tell me what a dog is and that it is distinct from a cat. The fact that the classification of species is now the exclusive privelege of geneticists is not an inevitable outworking of some scientific theorem. Instead it results from the imposition of nominalist metaphysics and its account of species onto the whole program. <br /><br />For those who strictly follow the river forest principle that metaphysics must always follows physics and that the modern sciences are a subset physics (natural philosophy), I would suggest that they pass along this memo to folks like Darwin because he clearly did not receive it. For those in doubt about this, read the work of AC Crombie who was a part of the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences and wrote and magisterial (pardon the irony) three volume work on the modern history of the sciences following his two volume account of the classical and medieval backdrop. In an article summarizing his three volume work, he identifies what he calls various "styles" of European scientific thought that are variously influenced by either nominalism or realism. <br /><br />So, like it or not, metaphysics has influenced the way that the modern sciences have developed and we cannot take on the modern sciences as a metaphysically neutral part of our natural philosophy without it having a potentially negative effect on our metaphysics. Again, those who think that we can are, on this point, naive.<br /><br />So, a realist metaphysics coupled with scientific facts could approach the origin of the various kinds in order to suggest the relationship between God and the “kinds” or “species” or “forms” of things. This would fit well with the kinds or forms or species as existing in the mind of God as exemplar causes. This entails arguments not just for the existence of the universe in a broad sense, but rather of God as the cause of the kinds or species of things. It seems to me that there is important exploration that is wide open on this point and would, again, involve a partnership between a Thomist and a scientifically informed ID theorist.Michael Copashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09861476745241388399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-26980534354254499412022-12-19T07:29:09.271-08:002022-12-19T07:29:09.271-08:00"Rather, creation is a matter of making it th..."Rather, creation is a matter of making it the case that there is any world at all."<br /><br />Beyond the focus of Thomistic proofs on God as the cause of the existence of the world, it seems to me that even more can be done with proofs that were not thought possible at the time of Aristotle or St. Thomas. This would require somewhat of a partnership between Thomism and the work of scientists of an ID bent. <br /><br />Aristotle thought that there was no possible philosophical demonstration that the world was created in time and not eternal. St. Thomas agreed. This pertains to species or kinds in that they imagined the philosophical possibility that the forms of various animal kinds have been generating offspring eternally. Inferences from the fossil record however show that this is not the case. So we have to account for the origins of these various kinds or species.<br /><br />Now the suggestion that such a question has always been approached in a metaphysically neutral way is naive. We have to have some idea of what a species is before we even approach this question. On this point, the classical and medieval realist account of a species is radically different from the Darwinian account which was influenced by a nominalist metaphysics. The darwinian account looks for minute differences to distinginguish species and so you have various small mouth bass "species" in such a view based on some amount of (now) genetic variation. The problem with this approach is that the amount of genetic variation to determine a distinct species is completely ad hoc and the nominalist idea that things are ultimately radically particular actually eliminates species all together.<br /><br />Michael Copashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09861476745241388399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-30652592795942313442022-12-19T06:46:12.638-08:002022-12-19T06:46:12.638-08:00On a relevant but distinct sidenote, I have notice...On a relevant but distinct sidenote, I have noticed that Thomists occasionally treat ID as a whipping boy without understanding it. I don't think that this has occurred here, but I have seen Thomists who act as though the the ID movement is a Protestant thing because it somehow involves the denial of secondary causality. If this were true, it is hard to explain why important Catholic philosophers like Ben Wiker or Catholic thinkers from CUA like Jay Richards would be involved with it. In fact, I know that this is not true because one of the very reasons that I converted from Protestantism to Catholicism in the wake of my graduate study at Wheaton was because I recognized the truth and profundity of secondary causality and how this accounted for the Catholic account of cooperation with grace. I seen nothing within ID that necessarily excludes this sort of causality even if it does not explicitly appeal to it. I have also seen a professed Thomist dialogue with Dr. Behe (a fellow Catholic and a biologist who wrote Darwin's Black Box) and even written about his work and it is obvious from the exchange that this person did not take the time to understand what Behe was saying.<br /><br />This brings me back to my point above. I don't think it is fruitful to discourage the good that is done by ID (or is the suggestion that *no good* is done?) by criticizing it for not getting us all the way to Classical Theism or a link way the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What it does do for many is get them away from a thorough going secular, materialist worldview. Dr. Behe has had many folks tell him that his work saved their faith in God. Now if scholastic demonstrations get them further, that need not cause us to criticize ID for also moving them away from materialism and atheism and toward theism. Although the critique in the post above is a critique of Meyer's work (or the suggestion made by the title of his work), I think the same principle is applicable.Michael Copashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09861476745241388399noreply@blogger.com