Woodward Norm Civ WRALC/TIEDM wrote:
.............................................
However, I found another quote more germane to an interest of mine.
> Dr/Mr./Rev Peacocke asked "Can religion learn to outgrow its reliance on
> claimed authorities and popular images of a God who acts and reveals by
> supernatural means?"
>
> I found this interesting because I have been asking myself, and others, is
> "Theistic Evolution" actually "theistic" or is it "deistic?"
>
> And I have received some interesting responses, both externally and
> internally. And one of the responses, that I received from an OEC mentor,
> was to check you guys out.
>
> If you would, please respond to my question. I will be away for the
> week-end, but I would like to see your comments, and to share my
> "revelation."
The question of whether "theistic evolution" is theistic or deistic
cannot be given a single general answer, for it depends on how this view is set
out. If the idea is that God created things initially so that life could evolve
on its own, without any divine action, then it's a deistic view. If God is
supposed to be active in some way in the evolutionary process then it's
theistic. Nothing really profound there - it's a matter of definition.
But many people (including myself) who might be labelled "theistic
evolutionists" aren't very happy with the term. My own primary objection to it
is that I'm not interested simply in a generic theos but in the God revealed in
Jesus Christ, the Holy Trinity. In line with this, the symposium that we had at
the ASA annual meeting this past summer on theology and evolution was titled
"Evolution as a Work of the Trinity." There is to be a report on this in (I
think) the next ASA newsletter.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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