Re: [asa] the Way Science Works/

1:24-25 is debatable. 1:11-12 I don't think is. It seems pretty clear that the author pictured this as plants coming from the previously bare earth much as they do today at God's command. That's the way that, e.g. Ephrem of Edessa (+373) understood it in his commentary on Genesis: "Thus, through light and water the earth brought forth everything. While God is able to bring forth everything from the earth without these things, it was His will to show that there was nothing created on earth that was not created for the purpose of mankind or for his service. ["Commentary on Genesis" in St. Ephrem the Syrian: Selected Prose Works (The Catholic University of America, Washington, 1994), p.82.] (Unnecessarily anthropocentric but that's another matter.) & in fact that's the way many of the fathers understood the creation of living things in Genesis 1, as Ernest C. Messenger [Evolution and Theology (Macmillan, New York, 1932)] showed.

Whether the author of Gen.1 meant the same thing in the case of sea creatures & land animals can be debated. Westermann (Genesis 1-11) thinks so in the latter case but not the former.

There is at least some amount of "mediated creation" of life - I think a better term than the more loaded terms like "design" or "process" in Gen.1. & the fact that this was a common patristic understanding indicates that it is not simply something being read into the text in order to make room for modern ideas of evolution - though mediated creation of life is an important component of a theological understanding of evolution. & it gets rid of the notion that the origin of life must have been a miracle - i.e., direct & unmediated divine action.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Carol or John Burgeson
  To: randyisaac@comcast.net
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Friday, July 27, 2007 1:27 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] the Way Science Works/

  Randy said: "Isn't there a sense in which Gen. 1:24 and 25 strongly suggests a design component? The verbs used do not imply ex nihilo creation but a process. "

  I know this has been argued by many on this list.

  Personally I have never been too much impressed by the argument. It just sounds like reading into the text what one wants to find.

  When I get to talk to the original author (maybe Moses, maybe not) in a few years, I'll ask him (or her) about it. My bet is that the answer will be "I really never focused on whether it was an event or a process."

  Burgy

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Received on Fri Jul 27 16:20:41 2007