ABSTRACT: I answer Stephen's question about "how exactly God was involved
with the world in Theistic Evolution."
Two weeks ago, Stephen Jones replied on this topic:
> LH> 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.
SJ> 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?
Here it comes: my best answer to the question, "How exactly was God
'involved' with the world under TE?"
Theistic Evolution covers a range of opinions on these four issues: God's
involvement in natural law, God's involvement in "chance" events, the
level of God's foresight and pre-planning, God's use of supernatural
actions. The range of opinions on these four issues corresponds to the
range of orthodox theological positions on God's providential action.
GOD'S INVOLVEMENT IN NATURAL LAW.
---------------------------------
One view is that God proscriptively determines every action and
interaction in the universe; natural laws are merely descriptions of
God's regular ways of operating; God is just as involved with "natural"
events as with supernatural events; the "apparent stability" of matter,
energy, and natural laws is only due to God's continued sustaining
activity, just as the apparent stability of an image on a c.r.t. screen
is due to constant electron bombardment. Another view (perhaps an
opposite extreme to the first) is that matter and energy have an
"ontologically genuine" stability; natural laws are proscriptive in the
sense that they describe the unchanging properties of what was created;
God is free to directly intervene into this ordinary operation of
nature whenever he wishes; God's supernatural actions are of a
fundamentally different character than "natural" events; God's
involvement with natural law could be summarized as initial _creation_
plus continued _acquiesence_ whenever he does not intervene.
GOD'S INVOLVEMENT IN "CHANCE" EVENTS.
-------------------------------------
One view is that God proscriptively determines the outcome of every
"chance" event (that is, an event whose outcome is not completely
specifiable in terms of initial conditions, such as a "measurement" in
quantum mechanics). Another view is that God designed chance events
and stochastic processes as part of creation (a consequence of the
natural laws) to grant a degree of flexibility and freedom to his
creation; God can also, when he so desires, work within the open
flexibility of creation to have an effect without it being an obviously
supernatural act.
THE LEVEL OF GOD'S FORESIGHT AND PRE-PLANNING.
----------------------------------------------
As this relates to evolution, one view is that God designed "genomic
phase space" and the chemical laws governing abiogenesis so that
certain "kinds" of lifeforms (including intelligent life) will almost
inevitably arise. Another view is that God was pleased to design the
system with a great number of divergent possible outcomes, within the
established limits, and to work with whatever happened to be the
specific result.
GOD'S USE OF SUPERNATURAL ACTIONS.
----------------------------------
One view is that God probably performed a number of supernatural acts
(either "quickly," or slowly through an accumulation of "small" events)
to guide biological evolution down the particular path it took;
however, we won't be able to tell from the fossil or genetic record
which _particular_ events or transitions were supernatural in nature.
Another view is that God probably worked entirely non-supernaturally --
through pre-planning, natural law, and "chance" events -- in biological
history.
Of course, one can take an intermediate or modified version of the views
presented above, and they are not completely independent of each other.
If you take an extreme form of the second view in each of these four
categories, you have something very close to (perhaps unacceptably close
to) deism. If you strongly favor the first view in these categories
(especially regarding "chance" events and supernatural actions), you have
something which overlaps with Progressive Creation. I'm not going to
argue here for any one view (or synthesis of views) in any of these
categories. I'm not going to say what I specifically believe because I
haven't fully decided yet (:-) and I want to be inclusive of others who
advocate T.E.
What unites these various views of Theistic Evolution -- and separates
them from Progressive Creation -- is the (tentative) belief, based on the
theological and scientific data, that it was not NECESSARY for God to
perform supernatural miracles in order for a biologically interesting
ecosystem to arise; that the possibilities for abiogenesis, the increasing
complexity of biological forms, and the appearance of higher taxa are
inherent in the natural laws and stocastic processes of chemistry and
biology; that if and when evolutionary biology reaches an empirical level
similar to present-day physics, macroevolution in terms of the regular and
continuous operation of natural mechanisms will seem as plausible and
understandable as stellar evolution does today.
----------------------------------------
Stephen continues:
SJ> 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.
That is a useful analogy, thanks.
Might I suggest that there are four stages of the artisan's "creative
phase," (Ugh, I'm following Aristotle's methods a little too closely here
for my tastes. ;-) which occur semi-chronologically this way:
1) Conception and planning.
2) Procuring basic materials. (_Ex_nihilo_ creation when God does it.)
3) Assembly.
4) Some amount of using, testing, and maintenance during assembly.
T.E. argues that God's supernatural actions in the first two stages could
have been of such a nature that the third stage, assembly, does not
_require_ explicitely supernatural acts; rather, God's activities of
"assembly" could be of the same kind as his providential care and
maintenence (which does not _preclude_ the miraculous).
I still don't see how the concept of creation being "finished" favors P.C.
over T.E.
----------------------
Stephen also asks:
SJ> How does TE draw this distinction of "meaningful interaction"
> between itself and Deism?
I sort of answered that above: T.E. has "meaningful interaction" between
God and creation so long as it does not take an extreme form of the
"second view" in all of the four categories above. If anyone wants to
pursue this question further, especially regarding natural law and chance
events, I recommend _Science_and_Providence_ by Donald MacKay and
_Science_Chance_and_Providence_ by John Polkinghorne. They're both very
short books, eloquent, and hopefully availably by inter-library loan.
SJ> 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.
"Reject" is too strong a word. TE argues that it is theologically and
scientifically reasonably to _expect_ that God did not supernaturally
"intervene at strategic points." Why? Because we might very well
eventually discover that it is quite possible, and unsurprising, for
therapod reptiles to evetually develop feathers by natural processes, just
as we eventually discovered that clouds of hydrogen and helium can turn
into galaxies, planets, and stars that burn for billions of years.
Why? Because when the choice is framed as EITHER God's direct
intervention OR deistic/atheistic natural processes -- especially on
issues where the theological and scientific data is unclear -- we are in
an apologetic trap similar to God-of-the-gaps.
---------------------------------
> 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.)
>
SJ> 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.
Amen. That's why I'm glad to be here, discussing with you just where to
draw the line.
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"Until you stalk and overrun, you can't devour anyone."| Loren Haarsma
--a tiger aphormism by Hobbes (_Calvin_and_Hobbes_) | lhaarsma@opal.tufts.edu