Shalini got me thinking on a point that keeps coming up when dealing with liberal, or at least, evolution-accepting Christians. And that is, how do they reconcile a “purposeless” and “heartless” process of evolution (Dr. Kenneth Miller’s words, quoted from Shalini’s article), with a teleological (or purposeful) universe?
Now they can go to the “God works in mysterious ways” argument, but that doesn’t really ever answer anything (how many people are atheists today because of that answer).
Or there’s “God can intervene (directly) in evolution”, but that violates the whole naturalistic basis of science. For this argument to be true, there would have to be evidence of some evolutionary change that couldn’t have come about naturally. Since that evidence doesn’t exist (although unlikely, it is a possibility), god likely hasn’t intervened (here absence of evidence is evidence for absence).
Another theistic view could be that “God intervenes in the universe, guiding natural events which lead to selection pressures which lead to us” sort of far-fetched view, but once again, there’s a lack of evidence of intervention (mind you we have less overall knowledge beyond our planet), and at most this could be characterized as a god-of-the-gaps argument.
Also, one could argue that “God set the universe in such a state that humans would evolve in their current state”. This is more of the enlightenment deistic god, and certainly not the Catholic God that Dr. Miller is praying to. Nevertheless, it’s still unlikely to physicists like Dr. Victor Stenger who argues that the universe was at maximum entropy at the Big Bang, and therefore could retain no information from before creation.
Perhaps God really just didn’t know what he was doing and just arbitrarily created a universe hoping something like us would show up, and he got lucky (this time). But if this is the case, why even make up a god?
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On the concept of no purpose…so what if there is no supernatural divine purpose. That leave it to the individual and the group to provide purpose of their lives. my purpose does not have to be yours, we each have our own path in life. Not because god ordained it, because reality is reality is reality. And no matter how long you stick your fingers in your ears and shout “la la la god works in mysterious ways” doesn’t make god appear nor give an external purpose to existence.
I agree completely, I was just trying to analyze some of the ways that theistic evolutionists seem to fit things together in their heads.