On Wed, 17 Jan 1996 15:43:27 -0500 you wrote:
EO>Abstract: I think this is a fascinating possibility that has the
potential
>to reconcile the PC's divine intervention with the TE's natural law. It
>also may bear relevance on the "Philosophy of Science/ID" thread debate
>about whether the complexity of living systems can be reduced to the laws of
>physics.
[...]
EO>Now let's apply this insight.
>Consider the spontaneous organization of the first functional protein from
>its constituent components. Let's say God establishes natural laws under
>which you would expect this to occur on Earth only once every 30 gazillion
>(or insert your favorite astronomical number) years or so. However, he
>chooses to allow that extremely improbable event to occur in the first 2
>billion years of the earth's history.
We need to clarify exactly what this "chooses to allow" means? If it
means God works through His established "natural laws" then it should
still "occur on Earth only once every 30 gazillion...years or so", so
you are still with TE.
However, if you mean that somehow God over-rode his His established
"natural laws" then that is PC.
EO>Thus, looking from a TE perspective, God worked through the natural
laws
>that he established to bring about His purposes--he only lets one such event
>happen every 30 gazillion years and he didn't make any exceptions to the
>rule.
Here again is the conundrum. How does God "lets one such event happen
every 30 gazillion years" and and at the same time "he didn't make any
exceptions to the rule." If the rule is "only once every 30
gazillion... years", then choosing to allow it "to occur in the first
2 billion years of the earth's history" is (if words mean anything),
making an exception to the rule.
EO>Yet, when viewed through a PC's eyes, it is a miraculous work of
God
>that such an improbable event occurred so early in time. (This turns the
>tables on the classical definition of a miracle as "violation of the laws of
>nature". In this view, the extraordinary quality of miracles is not their
>occurrence, but their timing.) Both assertions are correct. In this case,
>the TE/PC distinction is merely a difference of which aspect of God's action
>that you choose to emphasize. I think a similar dynamic might exist in the
>reductionist/ID debate. A die-hard reductionist will, like the TE, argue
>that naturalistic laws are sufficient to explain life's complexity while the
>ID advocates will rail on about how improbable it is that it occurred.
It may be that the God to who ultimately decides every random throw of
a dice (Pr 16:33) is able to resolve the conundrum of allowing events
that should occur "only once every 30 gazillion...years" according to
His established natural laws, "to occur in the first 2 billion years".
However, theology has always maintained that even God cannot act out a
truly logical contradiction (God "cannot deny himself" -- 2Tim 2:13).
There seems such a logical contradiction between your first two
premises. Either: 1. The event occurs according to God's natural
laws "in the first 2 billion years", even though under those natural
laws it would be expected to "occur on Earth only once every 30
gazillion...years"; or 2. God "chooses to allow" it to occur "in the
first 2 billion years", but not both.
It seems to me that if 1. is true, then 2. is redundant, and if 2. is
true then 1. is superseeded.
In addition, there is a theological problem here. If God's choosing
to allow something to occur is equated with God's working through
natural law, then we seem to be at a type of deistic position, where
God is not free to work independently from His own natural laws. If
however we say that God's chosing to allow is not always the same as
His working through natural laws, then unfortunately we have not
managed to "reconcile the PC's divine intervention with the TE's
natural law"! :-)
Sorry if this has been a bit long and rambling! :-)
God bless.
Stephen
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