>Maybe we don't need to limit God to standing in the office - maybe TE
>is correct?
But of course, God is standing in the office; God is omnipresent,
omnipotent, omnicient. I that sometimes in our discussions we forget the
fundamental Creator/creature distinctions. On these omni- attributes, God
is totally unlike us. We have no clue what it means to be omnipresent. I
suggest that when we think of God's governance in the world whereby he
sustains and controls all things that we can't think in human governance
categories. God is the enabler that gives all of his creatures at each and
every moment their ability to do what they do.
Glenn has raised the problem of evil question and this has come up before
and no doubt this is a great philosophical and theological problem. But it
seems to me (and to historic Calvinism in general) that the Bible doesn't
flinch over this. God is holy and altogether good, but in some mysterious
way he purposes (without authoring in the classic Reformed formulations)
evil and accomplishes his will and glory through it and in spite of it.
In my EC position this absolute governance of God at the most fundamental
level of creatureliness is essential to preserving God's design and purpose
in evolution. And I believe that the scriptures (Psalm 104, 135, various
passages in Job, Matthew 6, etc.) teach that God has this role in natural
phenomena so that whatever comes to pass, whenever it comes to pass, and
whereever it comes to pass, together with all necessary pre-conditions and
contingent and chance (from our point of view) causes are the result of his
plan and purpose and primary causation.
Terry G.
_____________________________________________________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Calvin College 3201 Burton SE Grand Rapids, MI 40546
Office: (616) 957-7187 FAX: (616) 957-6501
Email: grayt@calvin.edu http://www.calvin.edu/~grayt