Re: Evolution: A few questions

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dick Fischer" <dickfischer@earthlink.net>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2004 2:10 AM
Subject: Re: Evolution: A few questions

> Burgy (who sometimes agrees with me) wrote:
>
>
> > Dick posted:: "The prime difficulty I see with progressive creation (PC)
> > is that it demands that God must interact in the progression of life in
> > order to bring about new species... ."
>
> > Not so. PC does not "demand" anything. The position simply observes that
> > God can do whatever He wants to.
>
> John, what do you think "progressive creationist" means? The essential
> difference between PCs and YECs is that PCs recognize the old age of the
> earth and think life forms were sequentially created by God rather than
> simultaneously.
>
> Or was that just a test to see if anybody was paying attention?

    Gotta agree mostly with Dick on this one. (But I would say "intervene"
rather than "interact.") Theories & theologies demand things - i.e., if
they are correct, certain things have to be so. Maxwell's electromagnetic
theory demands that there be transverse EM waves that travel at 300,000
km/sec. But of course we can't then "demand" that there really be such
waves - or rather, we can demand it but nature doesn't have to pay attention
to our demands. It's the task of observation to find out whether or not our
theories are in accord with the way the world is.
    Similarly, PC demands that God intervene at intervals in the development
of life. But then we have to ask (a) if scripture requires that we
understand God's creative action in that way) & if PC is coherent with a
broader theology of divine action & (b) if there is any scientific evidence
that there have been the kinds of discontinuities in evolution that PC
demands.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Thu Jun 17 08:21:33 2004