{"id":100952,"date":"2023-07-10T23:03:18","date_gmt":"2023-07-11T05:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=100952"},"modified":"2023-07-10T23:03:18","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T05:03:18","slug":"nothing-new-under-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2023\/07\/nothing-new-under-the-sun.html","title":{"rendered":"Nothing new under the sun?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"World<\/a>
Looking back at the very building where I\u2019m currently sitting on a balcony.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Surprise!\u00a0 Something has just been posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:\u00a0 Interpreter Radio Show \u2014 July 9, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n

In the 9 July 2023 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, Martin Tanner, John Gee, and Kevin Christensen discussed Come, Follow Me<\/em> New Testament lesson 32, Jeremy Runnells and John Dehlin\u2018s claim that \u201csecond sight\u201d means \u201cimagination,\u201d and the article this week by John Gee. They were then joined by historian Ron Esplin to discuss his new Brigham Young Papers Project and its first volume, which will be published in August.\u00a0 Their conversation is now available, shorn of commercial breaks and without any charge, at the link given above.<\/p>\n

The \u201cNew Testament in Context\u201d portion of this show, for the\u00a0Come, Follow Me<\/em> New Testament lesson 32, \u201cA Minister and a Witness,\u201d covering Acts 22\u201328, will also be posted separately on Tuesday, 25 July 2023.<\/p>\n

The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard weekly on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, though, I want to share a few more passages from Logan Paul Gage, \u201cUnderstanding Design Arguments,\u201d in Ann Gauger, ed., God\u2019s Grandeur: The Catholic Case for Intelligent Design<\/em> (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2023), 20-31.\u00a0 Logan Paul Gage earned his doctorate in philosophy at Baylor University and currently chairs the Department of Philosophy at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.\u00a0 Ann Gauger, the overall editor of the volume in which Professor Gage\u2019s article appears, is Director of Science Communication and a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute Center for Science and Culture, and Senior Research Scientist at the Biologic Institute in Seattle, Washington. She earned a bachelor\u2019s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received her Ph.D. from the Department of Zoology at the University of Washington, in Seattle. Thereafter, she held a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University, where her work focused on the molecular motor kinesin.\u00a0 She serves as an editor of the journal BIO-Complexity<\/i>, and her scientific work has been published in\u00a0Nature<\/i>,\u00a0Development<\/i>,\u00a0Journal of Biological Chemistry<\/i>,\u00a0Genetic Regulation of Development<\/i>,\u00a0In Vitro<\/i>,\u00a0In Vitro Cell and Developmental Biology<\/i>,\u00a0BIO-Complexity<\/i>, and\u00a0Biological Information: New Perspectives<\/i>.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s not forget about Professor Gage.\u00a0 Here\u2019s one of the passages from him that I marked:<\/p>\n

\n
As far back as Socrates in the fifth century BC, we see the father of Western philosophy making an explicit design argument. His student Xenophon records Socrates\u2019s view that we have been most favored by the supreme deity. We are uniquely arranged in body and mind. All other things appear to be here for our benefit. And nature itself seems consistently arranged in the best or finest way. All of this, Socrates argues, bears witness to divine providence.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The opposing narrative came from the Greek atomists like Democritus, Leucippus, and Epicurus. Humans, they claimed, are intelligent of course. But this intelligence is a late arrival on the scene. Ultimate reality isn\u2019t intelligent. What fundamentally exists are atoms and empty space in which the atoms collide. Just as you hear many today saying silly things like, \u201cLove is just a chemical reaction in the brain,\u201d so too did the atomists believe that all phenomena really reduce down to the properties of material bodies. For the atomists, highly organized beings like ourselves self-organize by accident. There are an infinite number of worlds. So with an infinite amount of time, every combination of atoms must manifest itself somewhere! Sure, organisms look intelligently designed, but poor accidental designs disappeared while good accidental designs survived. . . .<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
There is truly nothing new under the sun. There are differences, to be sure, but the atomist narrative clearly anticipates not only Darwin\u2019s theory but multiverse scenarios as well.\u00a0 (21)<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n
\n
As even Richard Dawkins recognizes, \u201cBiology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.\u201d\u00a0 Like the atomists before him, of course, he thinks this design is only apparent and not real.\u00a0 (22)<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

And, from what I\u2019ve read, I think that this distinction is spot on though often ignored by critics who can\u2019t be bothered to take a serious look at the matter:<\/p>\n

\n
Creationism begins with the biblical text and attempts to reconcile scientific information with a certain understanding of the biblical narrative. Intelligent design begins with the scientific data and argues that it is far more likely the product of intelligence than unplanned accident.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Reddish,<\/a>
One of the cedars along the Wild Pacific Trail, from an official Ucluelet website<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

We started this morning off with a stroll through the \u201cancient cedars\u201d along Ucluelet\u2019s Wild Pacific Trail.\u00a0 They are huge and very complicated in their root structure and branches.\u00a0 They\u2019re estimated to be about eight hundred years old, making them rough contemporaries of England\u2019s King John and his enforced signing of Magna Carta<\/em>, and one of them is more than twelve meters (in other words, more than forty feet) in circumference at its base.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Then we drove back across Vancouver Island, passing by Kennedy Lake and Sproat Lake and through the Cathedral Grove area of lush old-growth forest where we have always stopped for a walk on previous visits.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very other-worldly place, with the sunlight filtering through its soaring eighty-meter-high canopy.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the hiking trails there have been closed off during this trip.\u00a0 We also passed on through Nanaimo, where we enjoyed exceptionally good pizza at Mambo Gourmet Pizza<\/a>.\u00a0 (That\u2019s a nod to my most obsessive critics, who are sometimes driven into impotent frenzy by my restaurant recommendations.)\u00a0 We also bought some \u201cNanaimo bars,\u201d for which the town is famous.\u00a0 The bakery on which my foodie son had set his heart was closed today, alas, but we found another source of Nanaimo bars that came recommended.\u00a0 I confess that they don\u2019t do a lot for me, and I don\u2019t think that that\u2019s merely a result of having chosen the wrong purveyor.\u00a0 My tastes simply don\u2019t incline in that direction.<\/p>\n

And now it\u2019s dusk here at the southern end of Vancouver Island.\u00a0 Having spent some time in the swimming pool with my wife and a granddaughter, I\u2019m looking out over the Inner Harbour at the last traces of a beautiful sunset.\u00a0 Life is good.<\/p>\n

Posted from Victoria, British Columbia<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Surprise!\u00a0 Something has just been posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:\u00a0 Interpreter Radio Show \u2014 July 9, 2023 In the 9 July 2023 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, Martin Tanner, John Gee, and Kevin Christensen discussed Come, Follow Me New Testament lesson 32, Jeremy Runnells and John Dehlin\u2018s claim that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":100955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36410,15349,12176,36404,36407,16798],"class_list":["post-100952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-atomism","tag-creationism","tag-democritus","tag-epicurus","tag-leucippus","tag-socrates"],"yoast_head":"\nNothing new under the sun?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Surprise!\u00a0 Something has just been posted on the 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