Bryan R. Cross wrote:
>
> I apologize for all the line breaks in previous post. Here is a better
> version (hopefully).
>
> - Bryan
>
> SteamDoc@aol.com wrote:
>
> > In a message dated 7/18/00 12:50:20 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
> > crossbr@SLU.EDU writes:
> >
> > > Mechanism, mechanism, mechanism. That is the issue. Most Christians
> do not
> > > deny that humans were formed by
> > > the dust of the earth; the debate involves the mechanism: by what
> means
> > did
> > > fashion humans from dust? (By
> > > macroevolution or directly? With direct divine action or without
> it? etc.
> > > and every position in between.)
> >
> > Since Bryan is quoting John Wiester's "mechanism, mechanism,
> mechanism", we
> > should probably stop and be sure he is not assigning Wiester's (and
> Dawkins'
> > and I would claim Johnson's) God-excluding meaning to certain
> mechanisms.
>
> Actually, I wasn't quoting Wiester (I'm not even sure who he is,
> although the name is familiar); if Wiester said the same thing, then my
> use of the same phrase was just a coincidence, or else the expression of
> something previously read and long-hidden in my subconscious. So, to
> answer your question, I was not saying or implying whatever Wiester
> meant by the expression. I said that the mechanism is the issue,
> meaning, *the issue in question*. I was responding to George's claim
> that (paraphrase) certain passages in Genesis 1 imply the truth of
> macroevolution. My response was that the passages in Genesis 1 do not
> tell us the mechanism; they tell us *that* God made the various life
> forms, and they imply that there is some kind of [unspecified] role
> played by second causes. From an exegetical perspective it is certainly
> possible that these verses give us a phenomenological/descriptive
> account, not a [efficient] causal account, with respect to the role of
> the earth, the water, etc. In other words, careful exegesis of these
> passages does not tell us whether the formation of life occurred solely
> by second causes or not solely by second causes. If certain church
> fathers thought these passages did contain this information, then I must
> respectfully disagree with them. By the expression "by what mechanism?"
> I mean only "by what means?" Since Scripture does not answer that
> question, the question, if it can be answered at all, must be answered
> by science.
> In my view, the large-scale debate over these issues often confuses
> the theological questions and the scientific questions. "Did God create
> life" is clearly a theological question, and special revelation provides
> a clear answer. On the other hand, "by what means did God create life?"
> is a theological question that (as I've argued above) is largely
> unanswered by special revelation. Therefore, it becomes the task of the
> believing scientist to try to piece together how God did it. If
> scientists find that natural causes are capable of completely explaining
> the molecule-to-man process and that the evidence points to
> that scenario, then that is a good reason to believe that God did it
> that way. If scientists find that natural causes are not capable of
> completely explaining the molecule-to-man process then there is good
> reason to believe that some direct divine action was involved. The
> bottom line is that special revelation does not solve the mechanism
> question; that question must be answered by science, (if it can be
> answered at all.)
If we start with the basic belief that God does all the things that happen in
the world, & thus (if we want to use this language) is their first cause, there are
then two questions which should not be conflated.
1) Does something happen by means of natural processes as second cause, &
2) if so, what are the actual processes & their laws through which it happens.
I think that there are good theological reasons (which I sketched briefly before) for
saying that
1) with possibly a few miraculous exceptions, God does everything though
natural processes, &
2) it is the task of science, not theology, to understand what those processes
are.
Most Christians would be willing to say that God makes the sun shine though natural
processes. It is a matter of theological indifferences whether the sun shines becuase
of chemical combustion, gravitational contraction, or nuclear fusion.
Concerning Genesis 1, I certainly do not think that the language about the earth
& waters bringing forth life teaches a specific mechanism of the chemical evolution of
life. (Nobody who accepts evolution, e.g., imagines that animals sprang directly out of
the ground.) It does, however, point very strongly toward the earth & waters being able
to bring forth life in accord with God's will. The point can be made more strongly if
we look at the Hebrew. The verb in 1:11, "Let the earth put forth..." is tadhshe' &
that in 1:24, "Let the earth bring forth ..." is totse'. Both are the Hiph`il, or
active causative form, of the of the corresponding verb, & thus mean that the earth is
to cause plants and animals to come forth. (1:20 is not so specific. The verb is in
the Qal & means simply "Let the waters swarm ...".) Thus the text seems to say that the
earth is a genuine secondary cause of living things.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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