Dear Sir,
We are glad that Bob Alloway (Nov en) seems to agree with our main point (Oct en) that the image of God in man has to do with our intrinsic nature. He says: ‘… theistic evo-lutionists would agree that (Adam and Eve) were designed – and would say, ‘[human beings] didn’t just evolve by chance’.
What needs to be emphasised, however, is how far Alloway’s views differ from the now typical version of ‘mainline’ theistic evolu-tionists like Francis Collins. In his The Language of God, for example, Collins says ‘… once evolution got under way, no supernatural intervention was required.’ (p.200) He also discourages any ‘serious consideration (being) given to the Intelligent Design perspective’ (p.202) and carefully avoids even the idea of design because, as he says, ‘… it seems to be another ‘God of the Gaps’ theory imposing the presence of the divine where none is needed or desired.’ And ‘BioLogos (TE) is not intended as a scientific theory’.
This effectively makes Collins’s ideas indistinguishable from those of the USA’s National Center for Science Education: ‘… It needs to be said clearly: all educated people understand that there are no forces outside of nature’ (2009).
These are the views we had in mind when writing our article. We wonder what Mr Alloway makes of them.
Yours faithfully,
