Teleology & Neo-thomism (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, October 14, 2015, 15:15 (3328 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: QUOTE: “...when an IDer notes that some characteristics of organisms can be described by mechanics, informatics, thermodynamics, control theory, etc. he is not saying that organisms are machines. To describe some properties of an entity in mechanical (or more generally in scientific) terms and to say the entity is only a machine are two different things.”
> 
> Excellent observation. A bacterium is an organism. You may spend as long as you like describing its characteristics in mechanical terms, but that does not make it a machine.-Life is machinery but also that something extra we call 'living matter'. So far no researcher in OOL struggles has crossed that threshold. We have no idea where the threshold is. All we have is life and non-living.-
> dhw: Some eminent biologists also believe that every component of a multicellular organism is an organism in its own right. My liver, my heart, and my kidneys are all separate organisms? I don't think they believe that. I certainly don't. Who are these eminent biologists out in left field?-
>dhw: However, this poses a problem as regards free will. If you (not just you personally, but anyone) believe that God has given you the wherewithal to take your own decisions independently of your being contained within him, then you will have to grant that it is perfectly possible for him to give the same independence to the rest of the universe, i.e. that he can exclude himself if he wants to, and leave the world to run its own course. ID may not in itself be a form of deism, but it allows for deism and it allows for anthropomorphism.-It certainly allows for deism, but an anthropomorphic God is in the eye of the individual person.