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    God could have used the evolutionary process to achieve i... — Carmelics
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    Home/Divine Attributes
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    God could have used the evolutionary process to achieve intended ends.

    Divine Attributes
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.A God who is responsible for the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe could shape the trajectory of the evolutionary process.
      ?

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    • 2.Controlling the laws of nature and initial conditions is sufficient to ensure that a process achieves certain ends.
      ?

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    • 3.Evolutionary theory does not require that the process be unguided in the metaphysical sense.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Darwinian evolution proceeds via undirected variation and natural selection, making specific outcomes (e.g., Homo sapiens) highly contingent and improbable.
      ?

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    • 2.A God with specific intended ends would require a process reliably producing those ends, not one where outcomes depend on mass extinctions and genetic drift.
      ?

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    • 3.Controlling initial conditions and natural laws cannot determine specific biological outcomes in a chaotic, path-dependent process like evolution.
      ?

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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Elliott Sober and others argue that any 'guided evolution' thesis is empirically equivalent to unguided evolution, making it unfalsifiable and explanatorily idle.
      ?

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    • 2.A hypothesis that is compatible with every possible evolutionary outcome provides no genuine explanatory work and cannot ground theological conclusions.
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    Divine AttributesNatural Theology

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    Related

    A God who is responsible for the laws of nature and the initial conditions of th...A God with specific intended ends would require a process reliably producing tho...A hypothesis that is compatible with every possible evolutionary outcome provide...Controlling initial conditions and natural laws cannot determine specific biolog...
    +4 moreShow less
    Controlling the laws of nature and initial conditions is sufficient to ensure th...Darwinian evolution proceeds via undirected variation and natural selection, mak...Elliott Sober and others argue that any 'guided evolution' thesis is empirically...Evolutionary theory does not require that the process be unguided in the metaphy...

    Similar

    If God guided the evolutionary process with the goal of creating moral...76%Under naturalism, evolution is an unguided process selecting for survi...75%Under metaphysical naturalism, the evolutionary process is unguided74%A guided evolutionary process is not subject to the same debunking cha...74%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: moral-arguments-god
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    But what about the randomness that is a crucial part of the Darwinian story? The atheist might claim that because evolutionary theory posits that the process by which plants and animals have evolved is one that involves random genetic mutations, it cannot be guided, and thus God cannot have used evolutionary means to achieve his ends. However, this argument fails. It depends on an equivocation in what is meant by “random.” When scientists claim that genetic mutations are random, they do not mean
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit