Over the years one criticism made by Darwinian evolutionists of any theory of divine agency in creation has been that the creationists rely on negative argumentation. Creationists don't offer evidence for divine agency, critics allege, so much as offer arguments against naturalistic evolution.
I've always thought this a strange objection because, in fact, negative arguments, properly understood, are a perfectly legitimate way to argue.
Creationists and other theists often employ the following disjunction: Either the universe and life are best explained by divine agency or they're best explained solely by natural processes and forces. Natural processes and forces, however, are inadequate by themselves to explain either the existence of the universe or many of the facts about life. Therefore these are best explained by a divine agency.
Of course, creationists offer reasons for believing that natural processes and forces are inadequate, but basically their argument can be represented as: Either P or Q; not Q; therefore P, and it's a proper, logical form of argumentation.
So, it's odd that Darwinians would object to it, but their objections are even odder given the fact that, as Cornelius Hunter at Darwins' God points out, the Darwinians argue in exactly the same manner for which they criticize creationists.
Hunter points out that because the evidence for naturalistic "molecules to man" evolution is so thin those who believe it frequently resort to the same disjunction I outlined above. The difference is that their argument goes more like this: Either God had a role in the creation or everything is the result of natural processes. God did not have a role, the Darwinians argue, therefore it must all be the result of natural processes even if we can't explain how it all happened.
It seems to be a case of "Only we Darwinians can argue this way. You creationists can't."
Of course, the only way anyone could conclude that God had no role in the creation of the universe is if one knew a priori that God did not exist. So, it turns out that the defense of Darwinism is often predicated upon the theological assumption of atheism rather on scientific justification.
Yet many people think that if we let creationism or intelligent design into the public schools we'll be introducing religious ideas into the classroom. It's ironic that they don't see that religious ideas are already there. They've been smuggled in via the Trojan horse of Darwinism.
RLC
