Certainly Linda Kimball does not deny the Creator!!! And I do not believe I heard her condemn scientific study.
What I do think I heard was penetrating criticism of Darwinist theory from the psychological/cultural side, not the scientific side. I believe her recognition of Darwinism as "in the type" of the ancient "mindset" of gnosticism, and that gnostic thinking more generally is the source of a great many modern problems, is entirely spot-on. She aptly cites my deeply esteemed "greatest philosopher of the Twentieth Century" [IMHO] Eric Voegelin on points of order. I enjoyed the development of her thesis very much and very much applaud it!
At the same time, it seems to me the "cultural attack" may not be the most effective one. As it turns out, Darwinist theory has been criticized with increasing effectiveness from within the scientific community in recent times. Word needs to get out on this.
Although evidently Nobel Laureate biologist Jacques Monod continues to uphold the Darwinist doctrine in all its metaphysical purity. We'll get back to him in a bit; but first we have to define the problem.
Personally, I have absolutely no objection to the idea of "evolution." It seems to me the Creation, the natural world, is a system that progressively "unfolds" in Time. And so it changes, yet evidently along a path of development. This path, to me, is "evolution." And it implies a Final Cause. [More in a minute.]
Darwin had a different idea of what "evolution" is. He was definitely committed to the Newtonian view of science, which tends to reduce the natural world to its material/mechanistic properties.
A couple of things need to be said here. In the first place, the Newtonian "particle" is a total abstraction, although its properties are well specified. But those properties are wholly abstract, too, being needful derivations from the abstraction of the Newtonian particle in the first place.
In Newtonian mechanics, causation, "entailment," occurs only from past to present. I daresay this is the cardinal rule of Jacques Monod's faith. :^)
To put it another way, on the Newtonian view, the present state of any given system can only be causally accounted for by reference to the immediately preceding temporal/spatial state. There can be no "pull from the future" in any way, shape, or form. This is the cardinal rule which may not be violated by persons who account themselves scientists.
And yet on this view, it is absolutely impossible to account for biological function! That is because "function" implies a goal to be realized by nature in the future — a final cause.
Darwinists have absolutely no use for final causes. Indeed, Darwin's evolution theory seems moved entirely by the desire to eradicate final causes from human consideration. Darwinists accord such a status akin to ghosts and goblins....
And yet this Darwinist stricture calling for the eradication of final cause in principle flies in the face of what human beings can observe about the natural world, with their own eyes on a daily basis if they have a mind to.
Two things about Nature that I find totally profound and totally amazing: (1) Observable Nature regularly displays order; (2) that order is conducive to a final cause — or purpose, goal, end [teleology invoked here]....
Darwin's theory has no way to reach to such considerations. And so evidently the strategy is to make final cause illegitimate in principle.
Well they can try to make this, their "vision" true, all day long every day, or nights included if they're desperate. But try as they might, they would be utterly wrong if the universe is, in fact, an ordered system. Which I fully expect it is.
There is nothing in Darwin's theory that can explain the evident "order" of the system. Newton was no help to him in this regard.
But back to Jacques Monod. I'll let the great mathematician Robert Rosen set up the problem for us by simply quoting Monod directly, in his marvelous book, Life Itself:
The strange properties (of organisms) are doubtless not at odds with physics; but the physical forces and chemical interactions brought to light by the study of nonliving systems do not fully account for them. Hence it must be realized that over and above physical principles and adding themselves thereto, others are operative in living matter, but not in non-living systems where, consequently, these electively vital principles could not be discovered. It is these principles — or, to borrow from Elsasser's terminology, these "biotonic laws" — that must be elucidated.... The least one can say is that the arguments of these physicists is oddly lacking in strictness and solidity. [Chance and Necessity, pp. 27–28]To which statement, Rosen adds the following insight:
With this language, then, Monod consigned [Walter] Elsasser to the category of "scientific Vitalism," one of the lower rungs in his scientific Hell. And yet, all Elsasser did to deserve this was to draw an inconvenient conclusion from Monod's own assertion, embodied in the first few sentences of the preface to Chance and Necessity, that "Biology ... (is) marginal because — the living world constitutes but a tiny and very 'special' part of the universe — it does not seem likely that the study of living beings will ever uncover general laws applicable outside the biosphere."THAT is an assertion, plain and simple. And yet Robert Rosen counters this assertion, saying that what counts in science is ultimately the "largest system" model. Rosen imagines that this "largest system model" is the yet-to-be-discovered laws of biology itself; and that all inorganic, nonliving systems [as primarily accounted for by physics] are "special cases" of this more general, dare I say LIVING law?
I find that a most intriguing insight. It certainly has a heritage — going back to Pythagoras at least, ~600 B.C. And from him through Plato and Aristotle....
Open questions are so delightful to contemplate! The premature "closure" implied by Darwinist thinking is to be deplored, IMHO, FWIW.
Thank you ever so much, dear TX, for your wonderfully insightful essay/post!
And thank you ever so much for writing, dear brother in Christ!
Monod doesn't "continue" to uphold anything. He died in 1976. Does this say something about your idea of "recent times"?
Although abiogenesis v biogenesis was not addressed in Darwin’s theory, it is readily apparent that the theory became the intellectual justification for men who abhorred God or the very idea of God. A quick scan of the atheist websites and their forums would confirm that is so.
And ironically, the most embittered opponents of the intelligent design movement (esp. atheists) claim a hidden agenda, i.e. that ID is the cover for getting creationism back into public schools.
The hidden agenda crossfire is a goose-gander situation with scientists caught in the middle.
If we ignore the agendas and try to weigh the theory of evolution on its own merits, then we are in betty boop’s ballpark on this thread. Thank you for your illuminating essay-post, dearest sister in Christ!
Of a truth, when one closely examines the mathematical models (Rosen and Shannon) required to understand living organisms in nature, it becomes very clear under Rosen that living things entail a final cause whereas non-living things do not and under Shannon that living things successfully communicate whereas non-living and dead things do not.
That’s strictly an objective assessment based on the math and is not anti-evolution. But final cause (temporal non-locality) is a poison pill to anyone relying on happenstance to deny God.
But one cannot say something is random in the system if he doesn't know what the system "is" and we do not know and cannot know the full number and type of dimensions that exist, massless particles that have no measurable effect, etc.
Moreover, order cannot rise out chaos in an unguided physical system. Period. There are always guides to the system. Cellular automata and self-organizing complexity have rules. Chaos theory has initial conditions, etc.
Which brings me to the insights of my dear brother in Christ, TXnMA!
As you truly said, TXnMA, few consider relativistic time.
I very strongly agree with Jewish Physicist Gerald Schroeder that when we consider relativity and the inflationary theory, that six (earth relative) days from the inception space/time coordinates are equal to approximately 15 billion years from our present space/time coordinates.
God was the Creator, the only observer of the creation and the author of the only account of it. So it does not surprise me at all the description would be relative to the inception space/time coordinates.
God the Father has revealed Himself in four ways: in the Person of Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, in the Person of the indwelling Holy Spirit, in Scripture and in His Creation both physical and spiritual. And His revelations do not contradict each other.
Man is not the measure of God.
God’s Name is I AM.