>From: "D. F. Siemens, Jr." <dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
> As I considered Howard and Peter's views, which look different, I
> wondered just how different they are in their outworking.
[skip a bit]
> Peter argues that the possibilities are so varied that God has to direct
> matters so that the world as we know it will result. This emphasizes
> "special occurrences" rather than constant care, but seems pretty close
> to a twin of Howard's view. It strikes me that what we have is more a
> matter of emphasis than of actual difference. Both hold that the world is
> as it is because God so wills it and makes it so.
>
> Am I missing something?
No, but you have found a key point that needs to be emphasized.
My proposal is that the creation, gifted by God with all of the requisite
resources, capabilities and potentialities for the actualization in time of
all creaturely structures/organisms, and enabled by God's blessing (a
non-coercive but effective action that ensures the fruitfulness of
creaturely actions), is fully capable of accomplishing what evolutionary
science envisions without need for occasional supplementary interventions
(such as bridging capability gaps or jumping over improbability hurdles).
Part of my proposal is that the creation lacks nothing that it will need to
accomplish the broad intentions of its Creator. What looks like a creaturely
action really is a creaturely action.
Peter's proposal (if I correctly understand it) differs at one key point:
because of improbability hurdles, God must act decisively (by making
specific choices) in a multitude of biochemical and genetic events in order
to ensure the appearance of life in general and Homo sapiens in particular.
In those instances, what looks like a creaturely action is really the
outcome of a divine action (the choice of a particular outcome).
Furthermore, since the values of all relevant probabilities are presumably
also the product of divine choice, both the ineffectiveness of creaturely
action and the need for later compensation are there by divine design (as in
Bob Dehaan's model).
Howard Van Till
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Oct 27 2001 - 16:16:05 EDT