Skip to main content

A vastly complex web of contingency

I was intending to walk away from Darwin for a while but given that I've got readers who are very interested, I'll be happy to go there again. Here is a quote from Catholic Culture on the relationship between randomness and Providence. People have made this suggestion to me before, and I to them, and it always seemed nobody was understood. I think Dr. Jeff Mirus has done a nice job of explanation here:
Because of the importance (if not the certainty) of neo-Darwinian theory, it is vital that Christians understand that “chance” in the scientific sense does not in the least undermine the Christian understanding of Providence. In this discussion, I am indebted to Stephen M. Barr’s article “The Design of Evolution” in First Things (October 2005). Barr rightly points out that the notion of “chance” in science is precisely “statistical randomness”. Statistical randomness is based on nothing more than a lack of correlation among things or events which can still be helpful in understanding reality through the use of probability theory. We have statistical randomness in our world because, as Barr puts it, events “do not march in lockstep” but “are part of a vastly complex web of contingency.” Now contingency is such an important part of the Catholic intellectual tradition that it is necessary to quote Communion and Stewardship at length to better realize how Catholic thought fits in with the scientific notion of randomness: Many neo-Darwinian scientists, as well as some of their critics, have concluded that if evolution is a radically contingent materialistic process driven by natural selection and random genetic variation, then there can be no place in it for divine providential causality. But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a purely contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan. Communion and Stewardship goes on to quote Thomas Aquinas to emphasize how integral this understanding of contingency is to a coherent Catholic worldview. Some 700 years ago Thomas stated: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity, happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency.” For this reason, the International Theological Commission points out that “neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science.” Needless to say, Christians who are concerned that such randomness must be denied to preserve their Faith are guilty of the same misconception on the other side.
Any comments out there? I think this is cleared up some worries I had about the issue of randomness.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Reuters joins CNN on the bench

Makes room for CanWest to join the majors Kudos to CanWest for calling a terrorist a terrorist . Many, including The Last Amazon , will be happy to hear it. Reuters is among the worst of the major western news services, where I would also place the BBC and the CBC. Unsurprisingly, Reuters is not happy about the changes CanWest made to Reuters wire stories: Our editorial policy is that we don't use emotive words when labeling someone," said David A. Schlesinger, Reuters' global managing editor. "Any paper can change copy and do whatever they want. But if a paper wants to change our copy that way, we would be more comfortable if they remove the byline." Mr. Schlesinger said he was concerned that changes like those made at CanWest could lead to "confusion" about what Reuters is reporting and possibly endanger its reporters in volatile areas or situations. "My goal is to protect ...

Wordpress

My move to Mac has been very happy except for two issues - gaming and blogging. For websurfing and multimedia, a Mac is of course a terrific machine. Games on the Mac platform are often ports of games made for the larger PC market and that means a Mac gamer will have to wait for the port. I'm not a heavy gamer by any means but I am very happy that the Mac port of Civilization 4 is finally here. Well, my copy isn't here quite yet - but it has been ordered and ought to be here soon. The blogging issue is more complicated. I'm not fond of writing my posts in a browser window. This goes back to when I was first blogging and I lost one or two large posts into the ether. After that I moved to w.bloggar - a great little app that let me compose on my desktop and then click send when all was said and done. I have not been able to recreate that experience on my Mac, and not for a lack of trying! I looked at Marsedit , but that forces you to compse while staring at a bunch of HMT...

"A whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard"

This article argues that universities are obsolete . Herman Melville said that "a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard." Melville didn't need college to write "Moby Dick." He needed to read and spend time in the world. Before sailing out on a whaler in 1841, he had already worked on his uncle's farm and as a cabin boy on a ship to England. Peter Drucker urged high-school graduates to do likewise: Work for at least five years. If they went on to college, it would be as grown-ups. You wonder whether colleges, stripped of their education function, wouldn't find other lives as spas, professional-sports franchises or perhaps lightly supervised halfway houses for post-adolescents. The infrastructure is already in place. Putting aside the intellectual class' obsession with things passing and thus bringing the great moment of cosmic progression to a thundering conclusion (yawn), I do think there's something to this. The potential of the podcas...