Thanks for writing, because I've been thinking about your past complaints.
My candid impression is that you are trying to get all your information about
this complex subject via the Internet. However, that is probably futile. You
need to read some good books on the subject. There are lots of them. They will
offer careful definitions of terms and much more careful reasoning than the kind
that comes off the top of the head when writing email.
My suggestions include "I Believe in the Creator" by James Houston
(Eerdmans); "The Galileo Connection" by Charles Hummel (Inter-Varsity), and "The
Meaning of Creation" by Conrad Hyers, "Putting it all Together" by Richard
Bube, and "The Fourth Day" by Howard Van Till.
Now to keep you from being totally frustrated, I will try to respond to
your comments briefly. Warning - this is off the top of my head.
> How can a person be a "theistic evolutionist" or the more favored
> "evolutionary creationist"? If some people interpret data that
> leads them to believe there is an evolutionary process going on
> everywhere (let's not digress to discussing why it's inconsistent,
> as in cockroaches, turtles and alligators) then I don't understand
> why a "theistic influence" is needed. In other words, at risk of
> oversimplifying this issue, if creation itself continues to evolve
> (whatever that means), why is God needed for directing the evolu-
> tionary process?
There is a hidden, unquestioned assumption behind your question and your line of
reasoning, which is very common among people today. That is, what I call the
clockwork paradigm. God created the world like a complex clock, and he has to
intervene and wind it up occasionally. That is God's job; otherwise He would be
unemployed and useless. Meanwhile, the clock usually runs by itself,
independent of God (what we call "autonomy").
This whole paradigm, which was developed before Newton, ignores the true
doctrine of Creation, which is a theological, ontological doctrine that says
that God is the creator of the whole physical universe out of nothing, including
all time, space and matter. God is not a creature, so no scientific theory can
either defend or refute the doctrine of creation. Ontology refers to existence.
It answers the question, "why does anything exist?" Genesis answers that.
It tells the Who and the Why, not the How. The latter is for science to
investigate. (All Bible believers are, in this sense, creationists).
The clockwork paradigm also ignores the doctrine of Providence, which is
God's continuous and faithful rule in the world -- e.g. see Psalm 104. God is
sovereign over all creation, He is immanent (present everywhere), and He is not
a passive spectator. And the world is therefore not autonomous. Nothing takes
God by surprise.
I commend to you the confessions of Reformation Christianity, such as the
Second Helvetic Confession of 1566 or the Westminster Confession of 1647. They
lay out these doctrines very carefully and scripturally.
>
> I'm most certainly not a Deist ("God set it all into motion and
> sat back on His Throne to watch...") but this idea of "theistic
> evolution" seems to have a bit of a deist flavor to it.
>
On the contrary, it is the YEC creationist view that is deist. Because, as I
said above, it assumes that the relationship of Creator:creature is like that of
clockmaker:clock. This view opens up the possibility that God didn't make a
fully functional creation at the beginning, and he has to intervene (via "gaps"
like special creation of new species) from time to time.
> I guess I'm revealing that I don't believe in evolution of species,
> although there's certainly a lot of evidence of change in the natural
> world. Are all you specialists trying to say that change *is*
> evolution? If so, why didn't you say so in the first place? Why use a
> "loaded" term like evolution and creatively (pardon the pun) develop new
> terms with evolution in it? Seems like a bit of unnecessary red-flag
> waving, or something like that.
>
It's just that I don't single out evolution as any different from other physical
theories, in terms of its theological implications. The confessions of the
churches for centuries have acknowledged the validity of "second causes", i.e.
processes in nature that are not direct miracles of God, and that these second
causes, whatever they may be, are not to be disparaged; on the contrary, they
are to be studied "for the Glory of God, and the relief of human suffering."
Label this "theistic evolution" if you like; I prefer simply to keep to the
old-fashioned language of the Reformation's theology of nature.
Paul Arveson, Research Physicist
73367.1236@compuserve.com arveson@oasys.dt.navy.mil
(301) 227-3831 (W) (301) 227-1914 (FAX) (301) 816-9459 (H)
Code 724, NSWC, Bethesda, MD 20084