Iain Strachan wrote:
> > George again:
> >
> > "Now of course it is still possible that God did create the whole
> > thing with apparent age and apparent evidence of evolution. But it is
> > clear
> > that God didn't _have_ to do that."
> >
> > Not having universal knowledge, I'd have to modify the word "clear" with
> > "it seems to me."
> >
> > George again:
> >
> > "... & if God did indeed create a universe
> > with not only apparent age but apparent evidence for evolution, it seems
> > to
> > me very hard to avoid the claim that God is "deceptive.""
> >
> > With that I will agree. But "very hard" is not the same as "impossible."
> >
> > George again:
> >
> > "Maybe such deception is part of the divine wisdom, but it is still
> > deceptive. Perhaps it has the nature of a test, a bit like problems we
> > sometimes make up for students with superfluous information to test their
> > ability to get to the hard of a situation. We are trying to mislead them
> > with a higher end in view, but we are still trying to mislead them."
> >
> > I suppose this position might be taken by a person who argues that since
> > scripture is inerrant, that early Genesis tells how (and when) things
> > took place, and since scripture must always trump science, then there is
> > no deception involved. I think you and I can agree that arguing with such
> > a person is really futile, since our point of departure is on a
> > fundamental (sic) assumption.
> >
>
> It seems to me that you can't get away from the "deceptive God" idea
> whichever line you take. Suppose you adopt the idea that God works through
> evolution; long ages and so forth. The general idea, as I understand it is
> that God subtly guides things through evolution so that human beings evolve
> from atoms. Now evolution, of course, is supposed to be a random process,
> where the only directing force is selection pressure. But here, we are
> postulating that God has a Hand in it too, so it turns out to the outcome He
> wishes, and that thereby, Adam is "created". So now what you have is the
> appearance of a random process, but which is not random, but guided subtly
> by God in a manner so it appears to be random. To parody Einstein's famous
> quote "God does not play at dice", we find that "God plays dice most of the
> time, but sometimes He cheats and gets aways with it". To me, that also
> seems deceptive.
>
> However, maybe just as in the teacher analogy given above, I don't have a
> problem with "deceptive". As I argued before, the Emmaus Road experience is
> deceptive, in that they are prevented from recognising Christ. Then
> afterwards, they are able to reflect that their hearts burned within them on
> hearing the truth about Christ, even though they didn't know who it was who
> was speaking that truth. That, perhaps is what they (and we) have to learn
> from the passage, that the truth convicts you.
You make a very interesting point here. God does indeed work in a
hidden way in evolution, & in a sense in everything God does (Is.45:15), &
especially in the cross. So to the extent that hiddenness is deceptive, yes,
God is deceptive.
Moreover, this deceptiveness has in common with the deceptiveness of
apparent age arguments
the idea that we have to give revelation priority over scientific investigation
if we are to know the truth about God's relationship with the world.
But there are also profound differences. The apparent age argument
requires God to have filled the universe with false information - i.e., apparent
evidence for billions of years of evolution which never happened. Acceptance
of revelation then requires us to "see through" this pseudo-evidence & realize
that the history which it seems to point to is unreal. Creation through
evolution OTOH doesn't require false evidence: The billions of years of
evolution really happened. Revelation requires us to "see beyond" - not "see
through" this evidence to believe that God has been at work in what has been
happening.
& in fact that's not just true of evolution. God is also hidden - &
thus "deceptive" - in the processes which supply our daily bread. We have to
see "beyond" or "beneath" the natural processes by which we get our food to see
God at work in them.
The understanding of "revelation" is also quite different with these two
views. The apparent age argument requires that scripture (& Genesis in
particular) is revelatory by being a divinely inspired account of the details of
historical events. Some who accept evolution (& a number on this list) may have
such a view of revelation, but it is not necessary (or, I would argue, correct)
to do that in order to understand that evolution is God's creative work.
Instead, one can understand Christ (& the OT history of which he is the
culmination) to be God's fundamental revelation which shows, _inter alia_, that
God does indeed hide himself, & that scripture is witness to this revelation.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Feb 14 2001 - 08:17:33 EST