>>...God intervenes in human
>>history because it suits His purposes. If He can accomplish His
>>purposes in biological history without intervening, then I presume He
>>wouldn't.
Stephen responded
>
>Agreed. But no-one has demonstrated that God *could* "accomplish His
>purposes in biological history without intervening". By analogy, God
>has intervened in human history, so it is reasonable to assume that He
>couldn't accomplish His purposes in human history without intervening.
I'm the one who introduced language that implies things about God's
capabilities. I sense things will get messy and we will smother in a mass
of increasingly detailed definitions if we pursue that avenue too far.
Sorry.
>
>BH>However, I disagree with your implication that TE implies God does
>>not intervene. I am simply claiming that God's means of intervention
>>(or more properly, as a Calvinist, I should say "governance" since to
>>me intervention implies a change in plans) are not necessarily
>>visible to humans.
>
>Why does intervention imply "a change in plans"? Why could not God
>have *planned* to intervene? Rev 13:8 says that Jesus was "the Lamb
>that was slain from the creation of the world.". This indicates that
>God *did* plan to intervene in human history.
Here's how the online dictionary (http://c.gp.cs.cmu.edu:5103/prog/webster)
defines "intervene":
n.ter.vene also in.ter.ven.er \.int-*r-'ve-n\ \-'ve--n*r, -.no.(*)r\
\-'ve--n*r\ \-'ven-ch*n\ vi [L
intervenire to come between, fr. inter- + venire to come -m more at COME
1: to enter or appear as an irrelevant or extraneous feature or circumstance
2: to occur, fall, or come between points of time or events
3: to come in or between by way of hindrance or modification {~ to settle a
quarrel}
4: to occur or lie between two things
5a: to become a third party to a legal proceedings begun by others for the
protection of an alleged interest
5b: to interfere usu. by force or threat of force in another
nation's internal affairs esp. to compel or prevent an action or to
maintain or alter a condition -
in.ter.ven.or n
It seems to me that the relevant definitions (2,3,4) imply that
intervention is something that occurs as particular times, and that
inbetrween interventions, the flow of events just occurs without any divine
interaction. I would prefer to say that God continuously interacts with
His creation. And continuous oversight is governance, not intervention.
Maybe I'm nitpicking, but this distinction is important to me.
>
>SJ>If science cannot resolve the difference between TE and PC, then
>>the decisive factor is theology and one's interpretation of the
>>Biblical evidence.
Science, as I've said before, is not the right tool to resolve such
differences. To ask science to resolve the difference between PC and TE is
somewhat like asking an automechanic to explain the thermodynamics of
combustion.
>
>BH>If science were static, that is if we could know that a particular
>>discipline has gone as far as it can go and no further understanding is
>>possible, then I'd agree with you totally. But there's no way of knowing
>>whether additional investigation will yield additional knowledge, other
>>than pursuing it.
>
>Unfortunately you and I are not going to live forever (in this life
>anyway!). We must make our hearts and minds up on what we do know
>*now* . I am willing to stick my neck out and say that science will
>not be able to resolve the difference between TE and PC, at least in
>my lifetime (I am nearly 50 so that's in another 20-30 years! :-)),
>so for me at least the decisive factor in closing between TE and PC is
>my theology and my interpretation of the Biblical evidence.
Agreed. I suspect that when we all see the Lord, He's going to tell us how
Calvinists had x wrong, how Arminians had y wrong, how PC's had z wrong,
and how TE's had a wrong. Remember what Paul said: "for now we see through
a glass darkly..."
>
>There is one caveat on the above. IMHO it is possible, even likely,
>that Darwinist macro-evolution will collapse of its own internal
>contradictions, eg. Haldane's Dilemma, etc. Then the "E" in TE
>would presumably collapse along with it?
If it did, then of course. For it to collapse under its own internal
contradictions, those contradictions, if they exist, must be stated and
demonstrated in a way that makes sense to practitioners in the field. To
date that hasn't been accomplished by creationists.
>
>BH>So it seems to me very unlikely that there will ever be a juncture
>>in history -- prior to the Lord's return -- at which scientists in
>>any field will be ready to use the Bible to resolve an ambiguity in
>>the interpretation of physical evidence in their fields. They would
>>rather continue investigating.
>
>Perhaps when the Lord returns we will not need "scientists" (1Cor
>13:12)? :-)
Perhaps not. Science seems rather trivial when compared with being in His
presence. Science is intended to be a way of learning about natural
phenomena with the physical and intellectual capabilities available to
anyone who wants to practice science. To make science explicitly take
account of revelation, I suppose you'd have to have Christian Science (no
relation to Mary Baker Eddy :-)), which would probably split into
evangelical science, Catholic Science and..., Hindu Science, Moslem
Science, Jewish Science, Animist Science, ... In such an environment, it
would be difficult tof Christian Scientists to witness about Jesus Christ
to other scientists, and that IMO would be a great loss. For science to
work as a multinational, multicultural enterprise, it has to impose some
limitations on itself. Perhaps shedding these limitations could unshackle
science and yield great progress. But try to get the scientists to agree
on _whose_ metaphysics they will adopt.
>
>I can understand that 99.99%, even scientists who are Christians, will
>not use the Bible of the time in resolve ambiguity in the
>interpretation of physical evidence. This is because 99.9% of the time
>science is concerned with questions of the ongoing operation of
>physical laws and normal natural events.
>
>But the issues that TE and PC differ on are the 0.01% of issues that
>are to do with *origins*. In the case of *origins*, we are dealing
>with unique, unobservable and unrepeatable events. Science, OTOH can
>only deal with regular, observable and repeatable events. Where
>science attempts to reconstruct the past it can only do so in terms of
>inferring regular processes that operate now operated then.
When events are not repeatible, we can still use science to learn about
them by studying multiple lines of evidence. The point that creationists
seem to ignore (or not respond to or it goes over their heads or...) is
that multiple lines of evidence support the current theory of evolution.
Dan Ashlock, one of the talk.origins regulars put it this way once, (loose
paraphrase) "There are about 100 lines of independent evidence that support
the currently accepted theory of evolution. Even if 95 of them were
totally bogus, the probability that the theory is correct is still 1 -
2^(-5) = about 97 percent." If your argument were correct, then it would
seem also futile for historians to ply their trade.
>
>It is precisely those areas that science cannot handle that the Bible
>claims to speak.
TOTALLY AGREE. Who God is. How man is to stand in a right relationship
with God.... Science can't tell us diddly about these issues.
Bill Hamilton | Vehicle Systems Research
GM R&D Center | Warren, MI 48090-9055
810 986 1474 (voice) | 810 986 3003 (FAX)
hamilton@gmr.com (office) | whamilto@mich.com (home)