On Mon, 9 Oct 1995 09:54:15 -0500 you wrote:
>Stephen writes
SJ>I find it difficult to understand TE's claim that "God can guide
>>events" without Him actually influencing and intervening.
BH>If you try to define the TE claim this way, no wonder you have
difficulty understanding it.
I am not trying to "define TE" any way. The words in quotation marks
above were Loren's, not mine.
BH>I would simply say that God's methods of controlling events in
nature are not entirely _visible_ to humans. Isaiah 55:8-9 comes to
mind.
I have no problem with this. In fact I believe it enthusiastically.
BH>If God did everything by direct intervention, then perhaps we could
>observe many of the things He does easily.
I do not claim that "God did everything by direct intervention". I
specifically state that I believe that God intervened *at strategic
points*, on the analogy of his interventions in human history.
BH>But when He chooses to use intermediaries, as He mostly does, His
>direction becomes less visible to human senses.
Agreed. I believe that God may create through "intermediaries", but
also that He may act directly. For example, when He wants
Acanthostega to grow a leg from a fin, God could cause a point
mutation by arrange a cosmic ray to hit the right gene complex at the
right place at at the right time, or He could just change the genes
directly, without any "intermediaries".
The essential difference here is that TE would say this was programmed
into the universe from the beginning and God did not have to
intervene. PC, OTOH, would say that God intervened, against a
background of normal natural causes.
BH>And there's no reason to believe that if we could work our way
>through all the intermediaries we would then in some sense "see God
>in action".
Now this is the interesting bit. If we could see everything, and
"work our way through all the intermediaries"would we ultimately: 1.
see God acting specifically to bring about Acanthostega's leg, or
would we: 2. see God acting generally and Acanthostega's leg grew by
the operation of normal natural causes? It seems that 1. is PC and 2.
is TE.
BH>We see three dimensions of space and one of time. How can we be
>certain that God does not see things in terms of more dimensions --
>both in time and space? And if he does, then we are simply not
>equipped -- and never will be so long as we are three-dimensional
>creatures with a linear view of time -- to see God's actions in other
>dimensions.
I agree with the above. But our minds can transcend these dimenstions
of space and time, at least to some extent. The question of whether
in the origin and development of life God intervenes directly at
strategic points, or always works solely theough the operation of
natural causes, is a valid one, even if we can only see "through a
glass darkly" (1Cor 13:12).
BH>It's not that he is guiding without influencing and intervening --
>a contradiction IMO. It is that he has means of influencing and
>intervening that are invisible to us.
No doubt. But the question is whether God's "means of influencing and
intervening" must always be through the general operation of normal
natural causes, or whether God does use more specific means, up to and
including intervening directly at strategic points.
BH>That's how it looks to me, anyway.
Consider the Exodus. God allowed nature to take its course for 400
years, until finally He intervened directly by calling Moses though a
burning bush (Ex 3:2). Now many of the causes that God used to free
the Israelites were natural ones, eg. Moses' and Aaron's words, some
of the plagues may have been natural ones, etc. However, if God had
let nature take its course, and had not directly intervened at the
burning bush, then Israel may have been in Egypt for another 400
years.
Eventually, normal historical processes might have worked without
direct Divine intervention. No doubt that Pharoah's regime would have
crumbled, and maybe the Israelites would have gone free eventually.
But then again, maybe they wouldn't. The pattern that would see the
Israelites freed without God's direct intervention at the burning bush
may have been there in phase space, but there is no guarantee that by
the operation of solely natural causes, the Israelites would have
found it, in the time frame available. It is equally possible (indeed
probably) that, without Yahweh's intervention, the Israelites would
have been crushed by the Egyptians and eventually beome extinct.
One could argue that God could have planed it better and arranged
purely natural historical forces to operate to free the Israelites,
without any need to intervene directly. However that is just academic
philosophising. The fact is that God *did* intervene decisively at
strategic in human history, not once, but many times (eg. call of
Abraham, Exile and Restoration, Incarnation, Paul on Damascus road,
etc). Indeed Amos 9:7 indicates that God intervenes at decisive
points in the history of other nations as well.
If God has intervened specially at critical points in human history,
why does TE seemingly rule out God intervening specially in a
analogous way in biological history?
God bless.
Stephen
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