Norm Woodward wrote:
>But the question I was addressing in the post to which you responded was,
Is God the "agent responsible" for causing each one of these events to
occur at some specific location and time? There is a theological
tradition
that appears set on ascribing to God both the power and desire to be in
absolute CONTROL of each event, one by one. In the context of that view
of
God, it would appear that God was the "agent responsible" for choosing
to
cause the Lisbon earthquake and the death of Darwin's daughter. It's
that
picture of a micromanaging and controlling divine agency to which Darwin
was, I believe, reacting with revulsion. (...)<
PR: I believe God is omnipotent, and therefore capable of "micromanaging
and controlling" everything - wherever and whenever he wants to. As far
as "natural" processes are concerned, I think he "drew with a broad
brush", in the sense of giving the general procedures (our "natural
laws") and stochastically distributed initial conditions. But he cares
about all details when the creatures are concerned to whom he gave free
will are concerned. With them, of course, he will not manage or force
the decisions he leaves them. But for each one of them, he will provide
many selections in cases where "naturally" many different outcomes are
possible.
The cases which cause us difficulties, like the Lisbon earthquake or
Darwin's daughter, must be "solvable" in some way, although in many
cases we may not have the full answer - and may never have it: God's
ways are beyond us. Let's just stick to the few principles we know from
revelation (combined with science):
(1) God is sovereign, omnipotent, all-knowing, all-loving;
(2) God is constantly active as Creator and as Provider;
(3) God abstains from interfering with some decisions by free-will
creatures;
(4) God created stochastic laws, abstaining from micromanaging
everything;
(5) God is the agent responsible for all other "natural" processes";
(6) God sometimes does miracles outside the realm of "natural" events;
(7) God takes the consequences of sin upon himself on the cross of
Christ;
(8) God sometimes hurts those he loves for loving purposes;
(9) God provides to those accepting Christ a future of unspeakable
blessing;
Peter
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2001 - 11:12:27 EST