Re: Evolution: A few questions

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Payne" <bpayne15@juno.com>
To: <dickfischer@earthlink.net>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Monday, June 14, 2004 11:47 PM
Subject: Re: Evolution: A few questions

> On Sun, 13 Jun 2004 13:58:33 -0400 "Dick Fischer"
> <dickfischer@earthlink.net> writes:
>
> > Furthermore, if God operated in the way that PC and ID suggests, there
> is no
> > evidence of it. So not only is the Creator a bit clumsy at times, He
> does
> > it without leaving a trace. So He pulls the switches, right ones and
> wrong
> > ones alike, and makes it appear as if it all happened naturally?
> Sorry,
> > this scenario doesn't fit the God of the Bible who is "perfect in all
> His
> > ways."
>
> The Lord said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or
> mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord?
> (Exodus 4:11)

      Bill, your citation of this verse without further comment in response
to Dick suggests that you're making the same basic mistake that all
"creationists" & IDers keep making no matter how often it's pointed out.
Saying that God does something in the world need not mean that God must do
it by "intervening" in natural processes. God may act by "cooperating" with
creatures (as in the view I prefer), by "persuading" things in the world
toward particular outcomes (as in the process view) or in a number of other
ways that various theologians have suggested. Chapter 12 of Ian Barbour's
_Religion and Science_ describes nine different ways that have been
suggested of understanding divine action.
        My point here is not that you have to accept any particular one of
those views. But just quoting a Bible verse that says that God did
something doesn't prove anything about the way in which God did it.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Tue Jun 15 07:50:58 2004