Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- 1 What is the problem?
- 2 What is chance?
- 3 Order out of chaos
- 4 Chaos out of order
- 5 What is probability?
- 6 What can very small probabilities tell us?
- 7 Can Intelligent Design be established scientifically?
- 8 Statistical laws
- 9 God's action in the quantum world
- 10 The human use of chance
- 11 God's chance
- 12 The challenge to chance
- 13 Choice and chance
- 14 God and risk
- References
- Further reading
- Index
3 - Order out of chaos
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- 1 What is the problem?
- 2 What is chance?
- 3 Order out of chaos
- 4 Chaos out of order
- 5 What is probability?
- 6 What can very small probabilities tell us?
- 7 Can Intelligent Design be established scientifically?
- 8 Statistical laws
- 9 God's action in the quantum world
- 10 The human use of chance
- 11 God's chance
- 12 The challenge to chance
- 13 Choice and chance
- 14 God and risk
- References
- Further reading
- Index
Summary
Much of the order in the world is built on disorder. This fact makes it difficult to speak unambiguously about whether or not it expresses purpose. For when many chance events are aggregated, order often appears. This chapter substantiates the claim that haphazard happenings at one level may lead to lawfulness at a higher level of aggregation. It begins with simple processes such as sex determination and moves on to the regularities which appear in networks of many kinds.
ORDER BY AGGREGATION
Much of the debate about whether chance and God are compatible centres around the alleged inconsistency of believing that God's purposes are constant and in recognising the uncertain behaviour which characterises much of the world we live in. The former speaks of God's presence and the latter of his absence. We thus seem to be presented with the stark choice: God or chance. Sproul, and those who think like him, cannot conceive of a world in which the two could coexist. The purpose of this chapter is to show that things are not as simple as this crude dichotomy suggests. Order and disorder are closely connected and one may be a precondition of the other. This and the following chapter explore this relationship and so prepare the ground for a positive role for chance.
The essence of the point I wish to make in this chapter is contained in the simple example of coin tossing that was used in chapter 1.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- God, Chance and PurposeCan God Have It Both Ways?, pp. 28 - 54Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008