And a very Happy Birthday to your beloved mom!
Indeed, the quote from C.S. Lewis aligns very nicely with several of Rosen's insights in Life Itself. Interesting that a mathematician/biologist would independently find himself in agreement with points Lewis made decades earlier. I'm sure if Rosen had relied on any of Lewis' insights, he would have credited him as he faithfully did so many others.
It also brings to mind the point you often raise in these debates, namely the enormous difference between saying what a thing looks like versus what it "is."
Biologists of course rely on observation and measurement and rarely even mention the "what it is" issue - though it is of great importance to the physicists, mathematicians, philosophers, theologians, etc.
LOL dearest sister in Christ! I was on the verge of mentioning that difference, but then realized I had already gone on at such length that it was time to give the reader a break.
But since you mention the issue, these are my thoughts about it.
Kant drew the distinction between phenomenon and noumenon. A phenomenon is something susceptible of sense perception. For instance, sight — what the eye registers, and the optic nerve and relevant brain functions process, is simply the pattern of light reflected by an object of perception. That's it. And of course, that reflection can only be of the surface properties of the object, which we call its appearance, or "what it looks like." But the underlying reality of which the phenomenon is the outward appearance is simply not something that can be discovered on the basis of sense perception, of direct observation. What Kant called the noumenon is the thing as it is in and for itself that remains forever concealed from sense perception.
Phenomenon v. noumenon is the basic distinction between what a thing appears to be, and what it actually is. The latter is not available to us via simple sense perception.
It is clear to me that Darwin's theory is more interested in what things "look like" than it is in what things actually are. If it was interested in the latter, it would have to take questions of origin — of the origin of Life — much more seriously than it does.
FWIW.
And yes, it is striking that C. S. Lewis and Robert Rosen "align very nicely" — one a professor of Mediaeval and Renaissance literature, a world-class literary artist, and a great Christian evangelist; and the other a mathematical genius and biological theorist whose religious attitude, if any, is unknown.
I guess that just goes to show the unity of Truth, even though the One Truth is mediated through different perspectives....
Thank you so much for your birthday wishes for my Mom! She is truly an amazing woman, spirited and strong!
And thank you for your kind words of encouragement and support, dearest sister in Christ!