Ron Cowie: "Theistic Evolution" (2021) - 007

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from Sundaes —
The third point is false. Darwin believed in God, and Darwinism is not about "life coming".

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from Ken Gilmore —

• Cowie fails to accurately summarise what evolutionary creationists believe.
• I do not postulate a hybrid model of evolution in which God constantly intervenes any more than I postulate a hybrid model of thermodynamics in which God constantly intervenes in the motion of individual molecules.
• The term ‘God-Directed Evolution’ is one coined by Christadelphian evolution denialists and is one I reject. I don’t believe in God-directed atmospheric physics, God-directed general relativity or God-directed quantum chromodynamics.
• I too would give nothing for a theory of natural selection that required miraculous intervention at any one stage of descent. I would say the same about any scientific theory which required divine intervention to make it work.
• Cowie’s statement that ”Darwin had no time for these ideas – he thought God had to be excluded”, apart from betraying the usual creationist obsession with Darwin as the high-priest of evolution, also misunderstands Darwin’s position on the subject.

— Ken Gilmore

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from Bruce —
There are some errors here.

1. God is the Creator, not was the Creator. His work of creation is continuing, as Genesis says (see The Redundant Final Word); also at Psalm 102:18.
2. As I understand it, evolution has only taken place in the most recent period of God's creation. There was no "gradual evolutionary process" over billions of years.
3. "TE" is not capable of accepting anything: it's a concept, not a person. Even as a concept, "theistic evolution" is pretty incoherent, in my view, meaning something like "evolution, and just in case you've been misled I'll tell you I do believe in God".
4. I believe in God and I believe in miracles, and I believe in the observable world: what's wrong with that? Bro Ron should show some awareness of the Bible-based reasons for believing that God made the actual world as understood by scientists.
5. There is no "they". I don't label myself as an "Evolutionary Creationist" or talk about "God-Directed Evolution".
6. It should trouble no minds to appreciate that a theory of natural selection would fail if it required divine intervention: in that case it would become a theory of miraculous selection, no?

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from Jonathan —
Ron Cowie is perhaps the least qualified person in the world to define what TE/EC believe, but never mind...

• OK, but its not a "belief" held in religious terms, its just an acceptance of the facts
• Darwin's theory is not about "upward progression of the species" so the premise is wrong
• Darwin's theory is not about life's arrival, rather he is concerned with the evolution of the species. In his concluding statement he says "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
• Whilst some take on the term "Evolutionary Creationist" (EC) the term "GDE" is universally despised because of its deceitful origins. None of us identify with it, so this statement by Ron Cowie is merely imagined and untrue.
• Darwin no more excluded God than included God. Darwin was an observant scientist who thought deeply and wrote about what he observed.

Much of which is beside the point. It doesn't matter a hoot what Darwin thought; the facts of evolution speak for themselves via the infinite number of independent witnesses that make an incontrovertible case. Darwin was just the first to pull the pieces together into an evolutionary framework, which quickly proved so successful there was no turning back. And that was true 100 years ago. Today the evidence is so overwhelming and comprehensive there is simply no excuse for denialism.