Anglican minister supports atheists world view

Amazing exchange on Twitter:

Dickson has confused 'evolution' which was the point here, with a mere scientific technicality; as though scientific discourse is independent of its social setting and motivations. Now, I'm not applying this broadly to science that is objectively established, although Kuhn tells us that here too that can be the case, but to the idea of evolution which is not that.

Evolution is a summative and therefore boundless ideology that brings with it (and indeed relies upon) bundled concepts of life, relationships (ethics), the nature of the real and how the real 'works'. If evolutionists are honest, or thorough, it also brings a theory of knowledge. But that theory would undermine its credibility, so evolutionists usually employ a creationist theory of knowledge, unwittingly.

Evolution as a construct in these terms, with  its auxiliary postulates (such as a long age for the universe) envelopes and defines theism. Dickson gave the game away!

Theism is reduced thereby to an epiphenomenon of matter-as-basic and is dependent completely upon its ontology.

The world-view of the Bible inverts this. Matter is not basic, but is, as it were, an epiphenomenon of will. And not just a 'will' in panentheistic terms, but in the particular terms of the Bible: the will of God whose nature being love makes fellowship: within the 'god-head' and between himself and his creation an essential outworking. And the 'matter' is important; it is part of the intention of creation, unlike the idealism we read in modern theology that has more to do with neoplatonism than Christianity.

Wise Willy

"I was inspired by my grandfather and my father, who have championed international conservation for over fifty years.  They helped to bring about a revolution in attitudes towards our natural environment.

From them, I learned that our relation to nature and wildlife goes to the heart of our identity as human beings: from our sheer survival, to our appreciation of beauty and our connection to all other living things."

The Duke of Cambridge's speech on the illegal wildlife trade at the World Bank, Washington D.C., USA 

Our self-identity is not in the Creator, a person, but in 'nature': the 'heart' of our identity? I would have thought that the heart of our identity is our ability to reason, communicate, love, forgive, indeed, worship. But no, its our relation to wildlife. Remember that next time you see a lion tear an antelope to pieces or a pederast argue that his 'love' is part of nature.

What do you mean: "prove"?

I recently read a conservative Christian claim: “no human being will ever be able to prove whether or not God exists, as that would then make him/her superior to God.”


A friend offered this comment:


1.      That seems to be a non sequitur. How does that conclusion follow from the premiss? The only “reasonable” suggestion I can attribute to the syllogism is that a priori you believe that, ultimately, God is incomprehensible and we, ultimately, can’t reason to God. That makes Paul a confusing person (and confused?), given that he has said we can in Romans 1: “because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being UNDERSTOOD by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead”. Note the word “understood”, further note the Greek and further even still note what the understanding leads to i.e. the GODHEAD! Unless of course you believe atheists have the intellectual power to reason to the Godhead and then, well, just ignore the answer after REASONING correctly. But this would contradict your premise that man can’t reason to and prove God, wouldn’t it?

2.      Can’t prove whether God exists or not? What on earth does that mean? You completely limit (?misuse) the word ‘prove’. Of course you can prove God exists! What do you think apologetics are about!? If you can’t prove God exists, then why have apologetic organisations? Why waste your breath trying to appeal to atheists’ reason, unless your review of the DVD isn’t really an appeal to reason.

And then you go and contradict yourself by saying “this does not mean, however, that Christian faith is irrational or contrary to logic and reason”. If it’s not contrary to logic and reason, it must be reasonable and logical (The Law of the Excluded Middle applies), and thus provable. An analogy: If a man were to say, “All cats are mammals, and all mammals are animals, so therefore cats are animals” but then says he can’t prove cats are animals, a listener would insightfully say the chap’s lost his marbles or seems to not understand the power of logic and reason. This feline syllogism is no different to, say, the Argument for God’s Existence from Design or the Kalam Cosmological Argument for His existence.

Tevelyan 3

Tevelyan 2

1942

In volume 4 of his English Social History, published in about 1942 (pp 44-45 in the illustrated edition), Trevelyan writes of the 'serious' character of Victorian society:

...This 'seriousness' affected even the 'agnostics' who, in the last part of the period, challenged not the ethics but the dogmas of Christianity, with increasing success on account of Darwinism and the discoveries of science.

He goes on to write:

In the Twentieth Century, on the other hand, self-discipline and self-reliance are somewhat less in evidence, and a quasi-religious demand for social salvation through State action has taken the place of older and more personal creeds. Science has undermined the old forms of religious belief, but even now the strength and the weakness of England cannot be understood without some knowledge of her religious history.