Dan Eumurian wrote:
>
> Joel Cannon wrote: [in part]
> >
> > Allan Harvey, responding to Bryan posted the following concerning
> > Phillip Johnson's evolution implies atheism beliefs.
> >
> > >
> > > In a message dated 7/7/00 10:49:08 PM Mountain Daylight Time, crossbr@SLU.EDU
> > > writes:
> > >
> > > > Also, I asked for substantiation for the claim that
> > > > according to Johnson "macroevolution disproves God". >
> >
> > > Though Johnson does not use the word "macroevolution", that is clearly what
> > > he means when he talks about an "evolutionary process that was to all
> > > appearances mindless and purposeless."
> > >
> > > Again I come back to my earlier point that, even if Johnson and the rest of
> > > the ID crowd do not believe it, the church hears the (unhealthy) message of
> > > total incompatibility between evolution (beyond little bits of
> > > microevolution) and theism. If that is a misunderstanding of the message,
> > > Johnson has dodged innumerable opportunities to correct the
> > > misconception. Instead, he seems to revel in being the guy who is battling
> > > the natural explanations of science in order to save God from being pushed
> > > out of existence.
> > >
> >
> > In fact, a number of Johnson's friends understand Johnson to hold that
> > evolution implies atheism or something close to it. At the very
> > least, they do not consider it worth refuting.
>
> This sounds to me to be a question as to how obvious God chooses to be.
> A guest on "Conversations with Jean Feraca" on Wisconsin Public Radio a
> couple of years ago argued that the universe is a self-generating,
> closed system, calling that supposed fact "neat." A few observations:
>
> 1) If a phenomenon inspires the adjective "neat," either the source of
> that phenomenon has an artistic flair, or the beholder should be
> accorded godlike qualities for descrying neatness where there is none.
>
> 2) There is biblical justification for seeing the workings of God as
> non-obvious. Examples include the "Messianic Secret" exhibited in Mark
> 1:43-45; 4:10-12; 5:43, etc.; Jesus' refusal to produce miracles on
> demand (cf. Matthew 12:38-39), and Paul's references to the Psalms,
> Moses and Isaiah in Romans 10:18-20.
> 3) If God worked in natural history through a process of variation and
> selection, perhaps there are traces of that process in salvation history
> (Heilsgeschichte) as well. Possible examples include the history of
> Israel's sin and judgment and the survival of a remnant; Jesus'
> references to the delegation of authority (stewardship--cf. Matthew
> 25:14-30) and subsequent rewards and punishments, and the references to
> overcomers in Revelation 2-3. If these are not direct connections,
> perhaps the processes are at least compatible.
I think your basic idea is on target but we can go deeper. The idea of
development of life through natural selection, with its attendant suffering, loss, &
death, is notoriously inconsistent with conventional ideas of God. So is God being on
the side of the slaves rather than the slaveholders in Egypt, God vindicating one who
had died under the curse of God's own law, and God justifying the ungodly.
It's not so much that we see traces of biological natural selection in salvation
history. Rather, believing in the God who is revealed in salvation history, we can
see that same God as the one who creates through the processes of natural selection
which science discovers.
> I suggest that just as God, who began the process of natural history,
> occasionally intervened in it for the higher purpose of salvation as
> recorded in Scripture, so he will occasionally make exceptions to the
> natural laws and processes he has instituted. The exceptions justify the
> rule, and both the rule and the exceptions glorify the Ruler.
Many of the miracles of salvation history, & especially those of the NT, serve
to point to Jesus as the presence of the God who works all the time through natural
processes in nature - cf. the use of "sign" (semeion) to describe them & C.S. Lewis's
emphasis in _Miracles_. What would be the corresponding sign value of, e.g., miraculous
intervention to create life (something which, in addition, the Bible gives us no reason
to posit)?
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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