[much deleted]
> I'm not one who believes that faith in God is irrational or that the
> Christian faith is invisible to reason (although I do want to be careful
> not to elevate reason to a position where creaturely reflection passes
> judgment on the Creator--that's the real original sin!) However, for God
> to call my belief that God operated through secondary causes that can be
> analyzed by scientific methods "the human imagination, not the reality of
> God" is simply a provocation that calls into question centuries of
> reflection on how God interacts with the world and Phil Johnson's sincerity
> in bring all theists on board.
Terry, can you please elaborate on what exactly you meant by "secondary
causes"?PJ's point was that the actions of God in creation are not undetectable,
and that they would not show up as mindless and purposeless. Are you disagreeing
with that?
> Of course, as some of us have stated over
> and over again, God is involved actively in the ordinary operations of the
> universe. The particular combination of genes in my daughter is a
> consequence of chance recombination and independent assortment events, but
> the combination is exactly what God wanted. Anything for which we think we
> understand the mechanism in science is God-directed as much as any miracle
> for which we can't understand the mechanism. Also, but perhaps for another
> discussion, the natural theology that Johnson espouses in this quote, while
> of a long and noble tradition in the English speaking world, is one that
> may not have its roots in Biblical thinking.
I guess I am not clear on what you are disagreeing with PJ on. And if you do have
the time, I would like to ask if you could elaborate also on why natural theology
does/may not have its roots in Biblical thinking.
Thanks!
Adrian.