Walter Hicks wrote:
> george murphy wrote:
> >
> > Or
> > 4.) God is continually active in the world but limits his
>action to what can be
> > accomplished through lawful (including statistical laws) natural
>processes. Thus
> > the natural world viewed by itself, without any theological
>presuppositions, can be
> > understood without reference to God.
> >
> > 4 is the answer suggested by a Christian (as
>distinguished from a merely
> > theistic) view of divine action.
>
> Nice outlook, George. I think that I have seen you express this before.
> I have 2 questions:
>
> 1.) Why is this "Christian" as opposed to "theistic"?
I think the easiest way to see this is to look at most other
religious approaches
to evolution & to divine action in general. What do they say that
could not be said by
people of many other faiths as well as by Christians?
> 2.) This then says that the process is not random, which is a
> _contradiction_ of the theory of evolution as stated.
There is no guidance of evolution & no purpose for the
process that can be
discerned within the natural world. This does not mean that such
guidance and purpose
cannot be seen when natural processes are viewed in a larger
theological context. Quantum
theory & chaos mean that God has some freedom of action while still
limiting divine action
to cooperation with lawful natural processes.
Ephesians 1:10 says that God's purpose in creation is to
unite "all things" in
Christ, so that the Incarnation is a crucial part of that purpose.
But that needn't mean
Incarnation in a species precisely like ours, so that bipedal
intelligent beings needn't
have evolved on planet earth in order for this purpose to be accomplished.
Every hand that's dealt is random, but in the end the house
always wins.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
>
> I again quote what Morris has published:
>
> "The essence of evolution, of course, is randomness. The evolutionary
> process supposedly began with random particles and has continued by
> random aggregations of matter and then random mutations of
> genes."
>
> If this is not the correct _scientific_ understanding of evolution, then
> where is it wrong? and if it is wrong, then should it not be corrected
> _scientifically_ (not theologically).
>
> Walt
>
> ===================================
> Walt Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com>
>
> In any consistent theory, there must
> exist true but not provable statements.
> (Godel's Theorem)
>
> You can only find the truth with logic
> If you have already found the truth
> without it. (G.K. Chesterton)
> ===================================
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