From: Don Winterstein (dfwinterstein@msn.com)
Date: Sat Apr 12 2003 - 03:34:01 EDT
Joel Cannon wrote in part:
> First, I think that [Don] would acknowledge that needing to deal with
> doubt by recourse to fine-tuning or other "design" arguments makes the
> Christian claim that God reveals himself most clearly in Jesus less
> credible.
"Need" is not the right word. If something is useful to me, I use it.
God revealed himself most clearly in Jesus, but we don't have Jesus except
in some spiritual sense. Nobody I know has Jesus incarnate. Every
Christian must depend on someone or something less than Jesus incarnate.
Children need parents. Christians need fellow believers. In no way do such
needs make the witness of Jesus less important. Reductio ad absurdum:
Anyone who needs the Bible makes the claim that God reveals himself most
clearly in Jesus less credible. Conclusion: We don't throw out useful
witnesses just because somewhere there happens to be a superior witness.
> Second, the bible and Christian tradition holds that the primary sphere
> of YHWH's revelation is in human history. More particularly,
> Christians believe that YHWH revealed himself in the history of
> Israel, and has revealed himself most clearly and most decisively in
> Jesus of Nazareth. To be complete, I should add that Christian
> tradition and the Bible also talk about having confidence because of
> through the Holy Spirit (the experience of God).
Agreed. But this "experience of God" is not as consistent as a rod of iron.
Everybody suffers letdowns.
If you were consistent here with your first point, you'd have to throw out
all revelation in human history except that of Jesus lest you demean him.
> If God's actions in history and Jesus are the ways YHWH has chosen to
> reveal himself, isn't that the most natural way for us to a) deal with
> doubt, and to b) engage unbelief? ....
If that works unfailingly for you, go with it. It doesn't work unfailingly
for everyone.
> Third and finally, the intelligent design defense (and the Dawkins
> attack) and Don's sense of assurance from fine-tuning are based on an
> assumption of what God must be like .....
I won't address others' assumptions. My own assumption is that God is the
creator and that from observing the creation we should be able to know
something about him. People of God have always believed this, and the Bible
supports the idea. The apostle Paul no doubt had many OT references such as
those in Job and Psalms in mind when he said (in Romans 1), "...God's
invisible qualities...have been clearly seen...from what has been made...."
Discoveries of science now make it much more difficult for many
knowledgeable people to see God in the creation. I don't have a problem
seeing God in the creation in a mystical sense, but I sometimes do in an
intellectual sense. Intellectually we don't see God, we must infer him.
The fine tuning is one of several things that helps me make that inference.
Just as Job looked at God with awe in the thunderstorm, I look at God with
awe in the cosmic fine tuning. And if I suppress the intellect just a bit,
I also can see God in the thunderstorm.
Don
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