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Stephen,
Our discussion has helped me formulate a tentative one-sentence summary of
how Theistic Evolution differs from Deistic Evolution:
Deistic Evolution proposes that God was essentially uninvolved in
the natural world after the initial creative act (at least until
human beings came along); Theistic Evolution proposes that God
interacted with the natural world (during biological developmental
history) in the same way as his *providential care* of the world
today.
There is a variety of types of God's action which fall into the category
of "providential care," and these pretty much span the variety of opinions
_within_ the Theistic Evolution position. I'll say more about that at the
end of this letter. For now, I'd just like to ask if other reflectorites
think it is a useful and, more importantly, accurate statement. (As
accurate as a single sentence can be. :-)
(I inject this into our PC vs. TE discussion because TE is so frequently
asked to explain how it differs from Deism.)
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Onward:
> LH>This is the biggest loose thread in our discussion, and may well be
> >the source of much of our final disagreement. I have said before
> >that I see a continuum between God's "miraculous" acts and his
> >"ordinary" acts describable by natural law. (Events such as
> >receiving spiritual insight as a result of prayer, or the seven years
> >of abundance and famine in Joseph's Egypt, falling somewhere between
> >the two ends of the spectrum.) You disagreed with this, and said
> >that you see a strong distinction between "supernatural" and
> >"natural" acts. Could you elaborate on why you believe it is
> >important to make this distinction, and give some examples of how you
> >would classify some "borderline" examples? Thanks.
SJ> The "strong distinction" I see between God's "supernatural" and
> "natural" acts, is described inherent in the two words themselves. In
> God's "natural" works, He does not create anything new, but transforms
> that which already exists. However, in God "supernatural" work, He
> brings something geneuinely new into existence. Sometimes the
> distinction is not clear. Perhaps the best examples are from the life
> and work of Jesus:
>
> 1. Miracles of creation ex nihilo....
> 2. Miracles of replication....
> 3. Miracles of transformation....
> 4. Miracles of repair....
>
> All of Jesus' miracles involved means, even where the primary factor
> is God's ex-nihilo creation of new material.
I would like to know how you classify:
1) The years of abundance and drought in Joseph's Egypt.
2) A person receiving spiritual insight in answer to prayer. (Since
mental states have physical brain correlates, we can assume that
"spiritual insight" also includes physical effects.)
Do you see these as a special kind of "natural" activity of God?
Or would you class them under "miracles of repair"? Or something
in between?
THIS is the kind of activity where Theistic Evolution scenarios and
Progressive Creation scenarios meet each other on "middle ground."
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SJ> In terms of creation, the best way to make the distinction between
> God's "miraculous" acts in creation and his "ordinary" works in
> providence is to first recognise the fundamental discontinuity that
> Genesis 1 sets a between God's work of creation and his ongoing work
> of providence:
>
> "God saw ALL THAT HE HAD MADE, and it was very good. And there was
> evening, and there was morning--the sixth day. Thus the heavens and
> the earth WERE COMPLETED in all their vast array. By the seventh day
> God had FINISHED THE WORK he had been doing; so on the seventh day he
> RESTED FROM ALL HIS WORK. And God blessed the seventh day and made it
> holy, because on it he RESTED FROM ALL THE WORK OF CREATING that he
> had done. This is the account of the heavens and the earth WHEN THEY
> WERE CREATED..." (Gn 1:31-2:4 emphasis mine).
>
> While creating something and maintaining it might at some points
> require similar processes, scripture indicates there is a fundamental
> difference between the two as far as God's work is concerned.
>
> To me this is a major problem for TE theories that see creation and
> providence as essentially continuous. Any Christian theory of origins
> that does not recognise the essential qualitative difference between
> God's work in creation as described in Genesis 1 and his ongoing work
> of providence, is to that extent, IMHO not a truly Biblical theory.
> What I have seen of TE is that it does not seem to recognise this
> fundamental distinction.
I must be misunderstanding you here. I would summarize the above
paragraphs as saying, "God's 'creative' activity is different from his
'providential' activity in that:
1) Creative activity includes miraculous acts.
2) Creation was 'finished' with the making of human beings; God is
resting from his work of creation (but not his work of
providence)."
I agree that the second point follows straight from the text, but I don't
see how the first point fits in. Surely the frequency of miracles has
*increased* since human beings were created. Events which we attribute to
God's "providential care" of us sometimes border on the miraculous.
If the frequency of miracles does not distinguish God's creative activity
from his providential activity, what _does_ (aside from creation being
"finished")?
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Now that I've challenged you with those questions, I'd like to return to
the first point of this post. (I must surely be an academician. I can't
leave a good, one-sentence summary alone. :-)
I suppose it is stating the obvious to say that God's "providential care"
involves more than just his foreknowledge and his wonderfully wise design,
more than just his gracious granting and sustaining of every creature's
abilities. (If providence only went that far, it would be little more
than Deism.) God's providence also includes a meaningful interaction,
even a personal interaction, with his creation in ways which, very often,
we would not classify as "miraculous" (although miracles are not
excluded).
I agree that there is a difference between God's "creative" activity and
his "providential" activity. But also note, Christians have
(historically) been surprised, at times, to find things which we had
thought fell into the "miraculous" category actually better classified
under the "non-miraculous providential" category. (e.g. planetary motion,
changing of the seasons, maintaining ecological balance, stellar and
planetary formation.)
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Well, I'm sorry to leave this discussion right in the middle, especially
since we seem to be making progress, but I leave on Thursday for a
two-week vacation, so I won't be writing anything new until after August 3.
God bless,
Loren Haarsma