On Tue, 23 May 1995 11:01:34 -0400 you wrote:
>A brief comment offline about your recent post responding to Mark. Thanks
>for the concise statement of your views. I think I better understand your
>position, although I still don't understand what you mean by the "divine
>energizing" necessary for evolution to occur. I can get my mind around the
>concept that God continuously sustains the fundamental properties of the
>universe--the laws of nature, if you will--but I'm not sure that is what
>you mean.
I am not sure that Hodge'e idea of "energizing" is the same as
Terry's. Hodge says:
"The fact is clearly revealed that God's agency is always and
everwhere exercised in the preservation of his creatures, but the mode
in which his effciency is exerted, further than that it is consistemt
with the nature of the creatures themselves and with the holiness and
goodness of God, is unrevealed and inscrutable. It is best, therefore,
to rest satisfied with the simple statement that preservation is that
omnipotent energy of God by which all created things, animate and
inanimate, are upheld in existence, with all the properties and powers
with which He has endowed them." (Hodge C., "Systematic Theology",
Vol. I, 1960, James Clarke & Co., London, p581).
Hodge is saying this "energy" belongs to God and is not a property of
the creatures. It is therefore analogous to God's "energy" in creation
which always arised from within God, not from within the creation.
>In any case, is that concept sufficient to explain how He might
>use the process of evolution (which is influenced as much by the
>contingencies of history as by natural law) to accomplish a very *specific*
>goal, the creation of man's body (including his mental capacities)? I
>don't think so. Or is the "divine energizing" mysterious and hidden
>(although I believe you have explicitely rejected vitalism in a former
>post; I don't remember whom you were writing to)?
If Terry maintains this "energising" is a property of the creature,
rather than a power of God, then I think it is, by definition, a form
of vitalism.
Of course I could be misunderstanding Terry. Like you, I await his
clarification.
Stephen