... on God and Evolution.
[Schönborn] quoted one such neo-Darwinist as stating: “Modern science directly implies that the world is organized strictly in accordance with deterministic principles or chance. There are no purposive principles whatsoever in nature. There are no gods and no designing forces rationally detectable.”
This pairing of determinism and chance has always struck me as problematic. The logic seems to be that once something happens, presumably by chance, a process of causation kicks in (by chance again?). I would imagine that chance could put the kibbosh on the chain of causation at any point. So it would seem that "time and chance happeneth to them all," including causation. So the ultimate principle is chance, pure randomness, which would suggest there is no ultimate principle.
I reviewed Schönborn's book: A Catholic theologian on God and science.
[Schönborn] quoted one such neo-Darwinist as stating: “Modern science directly implies that the world is organized strictly in accordance with deterministic principles or chance. There are no purposive principles whatsoever in nature. There are no gods and no designing forces rationally detectable.”
This pairing of determinism and chance has always struck me as problematic. The logic seems to be that once something happens, presumably by chance, a process of causation kicks in (by chance again?). I would imagine that chance could put the kibbosh on the chain of causation at any point. So it would seem that "time and chance happeneth to them all," including causation. So the ultimate principle is chance, pure randomness, which would suggest there is no ultimate principle.
I reviewed Schönborn's book: A Catholic theologian on God and science.
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