>Given that, I'm not sure any
>useful distinction, even ontological, remains between MIRM and your
>"Smoothly Blending Theistic Action." Again I'd raise the question of
>what category thunder and lightning are in, and whether there is any
>reason to insist (or even expect) that the evolution of life must be
>in a different category.
One part of my response, referring to INTERNAL and EXTERNAL changes
brought about by God, are discussed in an earlier post.
Re: differences between thunder and life-evolution, we can think in
terms of "need" and "interest".
NEED: Based on rational scientific evaluations, I'm satisfied with
current scientific explanations for thunder, but not with explanations for
prebiotic chemical evolution. Due to important differences in need,
current ID-theorists are careful to "choose their areas," and they will
make claims for chemical evolution (based on scientific evaluations) that
they will not make for thunder. // And, yes, there are also theological
reasons, due to Biblical interpretations, and also because organic
macro-evolution and its corollaries (such as sociobiology) are at relevant
for questions such as "what does it mean to be human" and "what is the
relationship between humans and nature".
INTEREST: God is probably more interested in some situations (like the
Israelites vs Amalekites, in Exodus 17) than in most situations involving
lightning-and-thunder. Of course, if lightning does or does not strike a
person or property, this should be important for God, but still I think
there are "degrees of caring" -- if the Israelites had been totally
destroyed, this would have destroyed God's covenant with Abraham; but if
one person is killed by lightning, life goes on for the rest of us.
summary: I would be satisfied if lightning was placed at any part of
the "normal-miraculous continuum" discussed in my most recent TD#1 post;
lightning could be at the normal-end because it seems to occur according to
natural laws; but God can, of course, control lightning (in a way that
appears either normal or miraculous) if he wants. By contrast, if God
wanted life (so there was INTEREST), but lifeless chemicals did not
naturally self-assembling themselves into life (so there was NEED), then I
think this should be placed on the miraculous-end of the continuum.
{ If others, such as Terry or Keith M, disagree about the "need" for TA,
because they think "prebiotic evolution by MIRM" (as proposed by
naturalistic science) is plausible, then they might reach a different
conclusion about where to put it on the normal-miraculous continuum. }
Craig R