Whatsisface
Well-known member
It was a contrived story designed to make a point, but it's poorly done as no scientist worth his salt would sayLennox has advanced degrees in the philosophy of science as well as math.
"Sometimes, when in conversation with my fellow scientists, I ask them "What do you do science with?"
"My mind," say some, and others, who hold the view that the mind is the brain, say, "My brain".
"Tell me about your brain? How does it come to exist?"
"By means of natural, mindless, unguided processes."
He seems to be steering a middle path between evolution and God having a hand in it. He cannot prove any of this though, it's just his belief.There are many Christians who are dualists and would not agree that the brain= the mind. I quoted Jerry Coyne below who was commenting on John Lennox. I'm wondering if Lennox is a dualist. I have read about it yet but I'd like to know more about his thoughts below. It might help me to reconcile my faith with evolution.
"Finally, Lennox claims that miracles do occur, and that there are at least three times God intervened in nature beyond reviving Jesus: the Big Bang (he doesn’t think it could happen naturalistically), the origin of life, and the evolution of humans. He seems to accept the rest of evolutionary biology, but argues, like a true Intelligent Design proponent, that the origin of life and the evolution of humans either couldn’t happen naturalistically and thus involved the hand of God. This kind of human exceptionalism is a trademark of the ID/creationist Discovery Institute."
Mathematician John Lennox embarrasses himself by trying to reconcile Christianity and science
Reader Alexander called my attention to this item in the Science Focus section of the BBC. (Note that it's in the science section, not the "religion" section!) It's a 33-minute podcast interview withwhyevolutionistrue.com
But that's what it is.As for natural selection, I still loathe to call it a guided process even an unaware guiding.
It guides in the same sort of way that the Earth's gravitational field will guide a meteor that get's too near to it, by means of natural processes.This sounds like an oxymoron to me. I will agree that the natural environment had a part to play in the extinction and destruction of some organisms, but it didn't select nor guide. It was simply the environment in which the organism prospered or died off. Call it what you will. I know what you are talking about.
Yes, I agree that a universe that has no caring is unguided in the way you mean guided. But that is what we see, an uncaring universe and yet you ascribe to it a divine guidance.I think he understands it. He is replying to Dawkins quote,
"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music."
This sounds unguided to me also.
From the point of view of evolution, our brains/minds evolved to help us survive, so they can be trusted because they produce results.The process of the development of man's brain came about through evolution which is unguided and mindless in that the process of evolution does not have a mind nor is it guided by someone that does have a mind according to atheists. How can it be trusted if the brain is the mind and came from lower animals? Why do you think Darwin would have a problem with this?
We don't know the context of Darwin's quote. It could be that the quote is rhetorical and that later he gives an answer or statement that clarifies his thinking on this. Do you know the context of it?
What evidence do you have that the mind is other than the brain?I understand the human mind to be other than the brain. The brain is made of matter. The mind is made of spirit. Therefore the mind/soul/spirit of man comes from God. It is God-breathed. This is what I'm trying to find out from other Christians that agree with evolution. How do incorporate dualism with evolution.