LH>ABSTRACT: "Providential care" seems to me a fine understanding of
God's
>activity in biological history. The difference between "creation" and
>"providence" is not the difference between "miracles" and "no miracles,"
>so what is it?
LH>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. :-)
LH>(I inject this into our PC vs. TE discussion because TE is so
frequently
>asked to explain how it differs from Deism.)
I find the above distinction useful. However, I would like to know how
exactly God was "involved" with the world under TE. Glenn has likened
his version of TE with a wave maker machine. The maker sets it us and
departs, with no further involvement (if I understand Glenn
correctly). Terry,
OTOH says if the tape of life was re-run, then it would come out
exactly
the same. This is in contradistinction to Gould who has said it the
tape
was re-run, man would probably not arise. How does Terry's
tape-playing mechanism differ from Gould's?
I think I know Terry's answer and I find his views more palatable than
Glenn's. On the face of it, I still regard Glenn's wave-maker as
Deistic.
LH>Onward:
>...I see a continuum between God's "miraculous" acts and his
>"ordinary" acts describable by natural law...You...said
>that you see a strong distinction between "supernatural" and
>"natural" acts. Could you elaborate on..this distinction....
>
>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...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.
>
LH>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?
Some of God's providential care may involve the miraculous, just as
some
of God's creative activity involved natural cause. I had prepared a
long
analogy of an artist who paints a painting, but scrubbed it. I saw a
painting
as involves two stages: 1. A creative phase in which the conception in
the artist's mind is brought into being. This stage involves processes
that
may be identical to the maintenance phase. The creative phase ends
when the artist decides his work is finished, ie. his conception is
realised. 2. A maintenance phase when the artist maintains his
painting
in the original condition. This involves protecting it from harm,
cleaning
it, and occasionally touching it up. But no new feature is introduced.
This analogy may be inadequate, because it is purely on a natural
plane.
It differs from God's creation in that a human artist cannot truly
create
ex-nihilo like God. But otherwise it is probably apt.
LH>THIS is the kind of activity where Theistic Evolution scenarios and
>Progressive Creation scenarios meet each other on "middle ground."
I am happy to find "middle ground" :-)
>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..the heavens and
>the earth WERE COMPLETED..God had FINISHED THE WORK he had been >doing...he RESTED FROM ALL THE WORK OF CREATING that he
>had done..." (Gn 1:31-2:4 emphasis mine).
SJ>...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...
>
LH>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)."
>
LH>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.
They are not miracles of *creation*. They are not bringing into being
the genuinely new.
LH>If the frequency of miracles does not distinguish God's creative
activity
>from his providential activity, what _does_ (aside from creation being
>"finished")?
Creation being "finished" is important. It expresses how the Creator
sees
it. From a biological perspective, no new designs are being
introduced.
LH>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. :-)
>
LH>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).
Yes. How does TE draw this distinction of "meaningful interaction"
between itself and Deism? Why does TE reject God intervening directly
at strategic points? For example, to directly create feathers on a
small
therapod reptile and therafter natural processes would turn into a
bird, until further direct interventions were needed to be made, eg.
avian lung, etc.
LH>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.)
It may be that Christians been wrong at times where they draw the
line,
but it does not follow that they were wrong in trying to draw it. The
Holy Spirit is still teaching the church.
LH>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.
Have a restful holiday, Loren. Don't feel you have to answer this
before you
go. It can wait. :-)
God bless.
Stephen
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