The fulcrum of the argument is to consider the universe primarily as an artistic or creative feat, rather than as a work of engineering.
Two additional notes:
1) It would be very helpful for many of the disputants on these threads to read another of the essays in the book, "Problem Picture". It is a very lucid exposition of the difficulties of presenting the scientific mindset to a non-scientific world.
PLOT SPOILER BELOW!!!
2) Dorothy Sayers is most famous as a novelist (Lord Peter Wimsey) after having attended Oxford. It speaks to her scientific literacy that she made the key to one of her mystery novels the presence of a racemic mixture of enantiomers of synthetic muscarine. In a novel written in 1930...
It is my opinion that the point raised by Prout is the most accurate metaphysical division between the creationists and scientists: If God did make the universe, why did he lie? The answer presented by Prout is that God didn't lie, he made a work of art. And the mistake, according to this alternative point of view, is to have taken the indications in the art seriously.
For the fundamentalist cre's on the thread, there might be some analogy applicable here to the scripture "he catches the wise in their craftines..." But I'm not sure if it is necessarily applicable, so don't flame with it.
Cheers!
yes, basically - though I'd go a little further and posit that the "indications" of the art must be taken seriously within the art by the inhabitants of the art.
Hi grey_whiskers! I happened upon this fascinating conversation you're having with KP and A-G. Hope you don't mind if I put my two-cents-worth in here.
What is this "primarily" thing in the above italics? It seems pretty obvious to me that the Universe is an unimaginably, astronomically spectacular instance of superb engineering, AND is also a sublimely beautiful creation, as in a work of art. Why do we have to accept an "either-or proposition" here, when the Universe is (apparently) both?
You wrote: "If God did make the universe, why did he lie?" I'm not sure I'm following this. Where did God ever lie to us? Because He didn't tell us absolutely everything about the manner and details of His creation in the Holy Scriptures? Well, AFAIC, that's for Him to know and us to find out. There's nothing in the Bible that says we shouldn't try. And increasingly I find modern, state-of-the-art science is perfectly consonant with the Holy Scriptures. In other words, science does not contradict the Holy Scriptures.
As for God "lying," Francis Schaeffer put it this way: in the Holy Scriptures, "God has told us truly, but not exhaustively." That rings true in my spirit. It is also an invitation to see God in His creation. For He reveals Himself there, too, as well in the Holy Scriptures.
Thank you so much for this thought-provoking sidebar, grey_whiskers, King Prout, and A-G!