All that said, I want to add two more dimensions to the picture:
1) Terry refers very nicely to "the reality.. that every creational fact
contains within it pointers to God--and I might add, unless that pointer to
God is recognized,the truth of the creational fact is not fully known."
This deserves expansion, for I think it points to a way (that Alvin
Plantinga might approve) of doing truly *Christian* science - namely, that
Christians will *from God's perspective* indeed do better science than
non-believers because they complete their work by offering praise and
thanks to God for what they have learned about Creation and for his hand in
making and preserving it. In this they have indeed discovered a *truth*
about the creational fact that escapes unbelievers.
2) As well as recognizing these pointers to God in everything, believers
can also recognize what I will call "signs" from God. These differ from the
"pointers everywhere" in representing some unusual mode of God's
interaction with his creation (which is, I think, the biblical concept of
"signs").
What is interesting about "signs" is that they often/usually do not
_compel_ faith, but rather tend to _confirm_ it. Thus, like the parables,
signs conceal as much as they reveal, and for the same reason: that "seeing
they may not see", etc. (see Isaiah 6/John 12; and George Murphy's
important Isaiah 45:15 ("truly you are a God who hides himself", for the
non-Lutherans)). My feeling (and I am still exploring this idea) is that
the act of Creation can be fruitfully thought of as a Sign, and thus its
right interpretation requires faith (which Hebrews 11:3 seems to indicate
very strongly).
At a more detailed level, I think there ought to be a basis here for some
agreement/truce between believers over the pros and cons of ID.
As Alvin Plantinga says in the current issue of PCSF (art. from the NTSE
conf.), believers all agree that "there are some things that God does
directly". Terry hints at this in his "However,I'm not sure that the
Biblical origin accounts require a miraculous interpretation (except for,
perhaps, the ultimate beginning and the origin of the human soul)". Surely
we who believe should be able to agree that there are special points (what
I am calling "signs") at which _we_ see God's hand to be especially visible
in his created order, even as we affirm that he made and sustains
everything. Even the staunchest proponents of "functional integrity", as
Plantinga says, agree on this.
The differences remain over whether these points have any apologetic value.
Peter
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Peter J. Vibert
Pastor Guest Senior Scientist
Wading River Congregational Church Biology Department
PO Box 596, 2057 North Country Road Brookhaven National Laboratory
Wading River, New York 11792 Upton, Long Island, NY 11973
tel: (516) 929-8849 Dept. tel: (516) 344-3415
fax: (516) 929-3523 e-mail: vibert@bnlvgx.bio.bnl.gov
e-mail: pvibert@i-2000.com
http://www.i2.i-2000.com/~pvibert/wrcc.html
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