Evolution: Is This Progress?

God of the Gaps? Good grief, no. I was merely pointing out that such concepts as "randomness" and "probability" are concepts that implicate events that are not causally determinate in any a priori sense. Sort of like friction in physics. Will heavier objects fall at the same rate as lighter ones? Yes, but only when certain ... um ... un-earthly conditions are present, such as a vacuum. Introduce pressurized air into the occasion, and lighter objects tend to fall slower than heavier objects. How much slower? Well, that in turn depends on many other factors, all of which need to be discovered through observation and measurement, and hopefully, can be reduced to some formula of predictability that, at base, is arbitrary, even if true. In reality, the mathematical precision of the laws of gravity gives way to the actual behavior of real objects in real life, and "friction" is a convenient scientific catch-all encompassing these all but infinite exceptions to the rule.

To put my original point another way, secular evolutionists appear to embrace non-causal or quasi-causal conceptions ("random" and "probability") they deem important, but will not admit other kinds of non-causal conceptions. And with rare exceptions, they do so without explaining why these other conceptions are refused a place at science's table. They simply declare, "Ad hominem." And when questioned further, they loudly reply, "Ad hominem!"

God is not in the gaps; oh no, not at all. The gaps are merely the limits of human understanding, and God is in the gaps, the non-gaps, and most importantly, in the humans who refuse to rest in ignorance and despair. At base, secular evolutionists seek comfort rather than truth, because if there is a God, then the world is most certainly a larger place than is contained within their philosophy. And in this, they are more like religious dogmatists than they are like free people created in the very image of God.

Posted by: Whitman via email.