not a physical property

John Wilkins at Evolving Thoughts has a nice look at recent Vatican pronouncements about evolution:

Catholic intellectuals seem to be burdened with the notion that somehow evolution is a random process that contradicts providence, and therefore it has to be reinterpreted to be made palatable to believers. They may be right - there really is a random component to evolution, and there's not the slightest scientific hint that it has any kind of providential direction. But this is equally true of all scientific domains. It is true of gravity, subatomic physics, psychology, geology, and meteorology. Catholics and other believers need to deal with the fact that science just doesn't support theological virtues full stop. Not just evolution, but all science.

So, if a believer is going to deal honestly with science, they have to recognise that divine action and planning is something other than a physical process - it has to underlie it, or overlay it. This is a bit like Moore's Naturalistic Fallacy - that The Good is not a physical property. The [theologically] True is not a physical property either, so stop looking.

Good analysis. Check it out.