09.17.08
Evolution and the Problem of Evil
In his book Darwin’s God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil, biophysicist Cornelius G. Hunter explains that in Darwin’s day, some of the most commonly used arguments for evolution were theological arguments, not scientific.
And here is a blurb from Amazon on Hunter’s book:
Biophysicist Hunter brings rare depth and originality to this analysis of an often-neglected stream of Darwin’s thought, illuminating not only the original debates surrounding The Origin of Species, but also contemporary questions about evolution and religion. Hunter’s main argument is that most interpreters of evolution have misjudged Darwin’s metaphysical motives. Rather than an assault upon God’s existence, evolution was for Darwin and many of his contemporaries a defense of God’s goodness, a strategy for disassociating God from the often unsavory details of nature by introducing a blind process of natural selection.
It would seem that the ID proponents have failed to see the cogency of this difficulty. And as we grasp the failure of natural selection/Darwinism the problem resurfaces.
Long before the ID movement, the writer J.G. Bennett wrote a book which did not flinch at this problem and, with a acumen for science all the way to General Relavity, produced a strange concoction which tackled this issue head on with a sort of ‘gnostic demiurge’ version of the design argument. These designers were not so nice!
The Dramatic Universe
Bennett’s book, which I certainly don’t buy, is little more than science fiction (but what strange and brilliant science fiction), yet it carries out the problematic details of the design argument, with a sort of Kantian ‘as if’, with results that should caution us against facile ID thinking. The point is that ancient gnosticism has long disassociated divinity from worldly/cosmic entanglement.
I recommend the study of the eonic effect. It can rescue the Old Testament from this difficulty!!!
The Old Testament: An Eonic Riddle
The Old Testament divinity, as the New Atheists have shouted themselves hoarse pointing out, is somewhat unsavory character.