Transcript Should Science Make You Lose Faith in God?

Evolution
Intelligent Design
Leading Scientists
 Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, The Edge of Evolution
 William Dembski, The Design Inference, Intelligent Design, No
Free Lunch
Behe’s Mousetrap
Mathematism
Principles of evolution
 Evolution: Species undergo genetic change over time.
 Gradualism: This takes many generations
 Speciation: Ancestral lines can split into different species.
 Common ancestry: We can always look back in time and find
descendents joining at their ancestors.
 Natural selection: Well-suited individuals survive to produce
more offspring.
 Processes other than natural selection can produce
evolutionary change.
Monsignor Segur
“These infamous doctrines have for their only support the most
abject passions. Their father is pride, their mother impurity,
their offspring revolutions. They come from hell and return
thither, taking with them the gross creatures who blush not
to proclaim and accept them.”
Three dangerous ideas
 Suffering is a necessary part of creation.
 All living things share a common ancestry.
 Natural selection is random, “algorithmic,” not imbued with
any purpose.
Evolutionary Theology – A Reading
List
 Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science
 Kieth Ward, Divine Action
 Arthur Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age
 Alister McGrath, Science and Religion: An Introduction
 John Haught, God After Darwin
William Paley and Natural Theology
 The existence of a watch implies the existence of a
watchmaker.
 The appearance of design in nature implies the existence of a
designer, i.e. God.
 The God-of-the-gaps argument
 Is the creation of the universe another gap?
Evolutionary Theology
 Creation
 Eschatology
 Revelation
 Grace
 Divine Power
 Redemption