From: D. F. Siemens, Jr. (dfsiemensjr@juno.com)
Date: Tue Sep 16 2003 - 15:57:19 EDT
What seems to me to be overlooked in this matter is that, unless one
adopts deism, God is involved. This holds in traditional theology, open
theology and process theology. In none of them is God required to move
things demonstrably. Somebody earlier noted that the lot is supposedly
random, yet its outcome is in God's hands. There are, of course, some
versions of theism that argue that God's hand _must_ be evident in
miraculous interventions. ID and YEC (for the most part) fit this
pattern. Apart from such direct manifestations of divine power, they
adopt a deistic view of the universe's inherent powers. What I've
encountered in OEC argues that God has acted many times, but not that his
hand must be obvious in events.
The question seems to me to be: Do you accept God's direction is all
aspects of the universe he created and sustains?
Dave
On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 11:27:42 -0700 <richard@biblewheel.com> writes:
> > Re: "Evolution is nothing like this. There is no specific "end
> result."
> > That's an interesting assertion (and a pretty commonly held
> notion). But
> > just for argument's sake, how do you know that?
>
> > Another perspective suggests that creation is toodling along just
> finem
> > guided generally or specifically (your choice of flavor) by a plan
> and
> > processes put in place from the outset.
> > From inside that plan, we would likely have no way of "divining"
> the
> > outcome or even a reasonably full picture of the objective(s).
> JimA
>
> I can't say that I "know" it, but neither can I imagine an
> alternative. The
> theory of evolution is based on non-directed processes like random
> mutation
> and natural selection (rm+ns). If your suggestion is correct, then
> it seems
> like it would take fine tuning to an entirely new level where the
> intial
> conditions would need to be specified to such an extent that the
> whole
> mechanistic/deterministic cascade of causes and effects that led to
> the
> apparently *random* result of the appearance of man in the
> evolutionary
> chain would in fact be inevitable.
>
> This seems like a bit of a stretch to me. And that's why I asked
> Howard to
> fill in the gaps in his RFEP which seems very vague when it attempts
> to
> accomodate the Christian understanding of God and Creation. The
> Bible
> declares that God formed man. The RFEP seems to be saying that God
> formed
> the universe in such a way that things *like* man would be an
> inevitable
> consequence. But if I am reading him correctly, it seems like he
> denies that
> God *specifically* formed us since the RFEP seems only to assert
> that some
> sort of creatures would evolve, while not specifying exactly which
> creatures.
>
> Is this correct Howard? Or do you believe that God specified exactly
> which
> creatures would evolve when he created the world?
>
> Richard Amiel McGough
> Discover the sevenfold symmetric perfection of the Holy Bible at
> http://www.BibleWheel.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
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