>BH>As Howard Van Till does, I tend to believe that the design is in
>> >the properties of entities in nature."
>> >
>DT>This seems to me to advocate a model of "design-for-self-
>> >assembly..."
>>
>BH> It doesn't look like self-assembly to me...
>
David Tyler responded
>There must be scope for further discussion on this at some time in the
>future. I accept that now is not the time.
While I was not intending to cut off discussion now, thanks. I need to
think of an appropriate example or analogy. One might be to imagine that
nature is a large collection of mechanisms all working together and very
finely tuned, so that by the merest of correctly timed inputs, God can
bring about significant changes in the outputs His mechanisms produce. He
lets some parts of the mechanism run "on automatic" at least part of the
time, but steps in when it suits His pleasure to redirect its behavior.
However, because the inputs are infinitesimal, no study of the behavior of
nature will show any unexplained forces in operation. So God is
continuously in control and able to achieve any level of detail He wishes
in his direction of nature, but without intruducing any disruptions.
Another analogy might be a superbly intelligent software architect who
decides to design a number of "intelligent" agents which can carry out
certain information retrieval functions with a minimum of supervision from
himself. He is an AI expert and designs programs that can clone themselves
and dispatch copies of themselves over the internet looking for information
he needs to do his job. The agents multiply, send copies of themselves to
other machines (and we hope they do this benignly so other people's
computing resources aren't compromised) and ultimately retrieve the
information he wants. Now: who or what retrieved the information? I'd say
it was the systems architect, because it was he who set the task, conceived
of a means of achieving it and implemented it.
>
...
>OK - I have misunderstood you. But I still don't have a grasp of
>what you mean by "design in the properties of entities in nature".
I suppose one way to say it is that I believe God has formulated the
characteristics of entities like protons, neutrons, electrons (as well as
smaller particles) and other entities made up of assemblies of these so
that a rich variety of objects can be made from them. Being omniscient and
sovereign He certainly planned for each of the properties and all of the
conceivable objects for a purpose that was well-known to Him.
>
>BH> The claim that the design is "in" the properties is easily
>> misconstrued.
>> What I was trying to convey is that I believe God has put a great deal of
>> creative effort into devising the minutest properties of the objects in
>> nature to make nature a mechanism that responds to His commands smoothly
>> and exactly in the way He wants it to.
>
>Are you referring to the commands expressed in the laws of physics
>and chemistry? If there is something more here, it perhaps needs
>exploring further.
Well, the laws of chemistry and physics are what we can see of course. I
believe there's more, and it certainly does need further exploration. But
I don't claim to be very good at that.
>
>DT>But I want to put to Bill the thought that his view of God
>> >guiding the process of evolution would be anathema to
>> >evolutionary biologists.
>>
>BH> Probably it would be to some. I think the evolutionary biologist
>> who
>> concludes that God is not involved because the methods He uses show no
>> evidence of God is making a fundamental error. Just because you cannot
>> see, touch or measure something does not mean it doesn't exist.
>
>Surely the issue is not whether the cause is amenable to study, but
>whether it is a natural cause or not?
I would say that a cause that is amenable to study -- using the normal five
senses -- _is_ a natural cause. How would _you_ define a natural cause?
>If the evolutionary process
>will not work because there is no special supernatural directing
>influence, the evolutionary biologist will have a problem with the
>causal explanation.
On the other hand, perhaps it does work because there _is_ s supernatural
directing influence. But since it's supernatural it doesn't show up in
fossils, gene frequencies, etc.
>
>> I wanted to return to another point you made. You said, "They would want
>> to say >>to you: Without God's special oversight of guidance (as distinct
>> from his >>general upholding of his creation)..."
>>
>> _Is_ God's special oversight distinct from His general upholding of
>> creation? We human beings may want to make distinctions like that, but do
>> we know what we're talking about?
>
>I consider that this distinction is embedded in your views! God's
>general upholding of creation is his providence - part of the
>thinking of TEs, PCs and YECs. No controversy here. God's special
>oversight/guidance is the "invisible" ingredient you are proposing to
>warrant the conclusion that evolutionary products are worthy of being
>regarded as designed by God. It is a form of continuous
>"intervention" which may be linked to PC views. Ultimately, I think
>you are making a form of "creation" / "providence" distinction here.
Hmm, someone else in a priave email criticized Howard Van Till (and perhaps
by implication, me) for not distinguishing between creation and providence.
Color me puzzled.
Is the distinction between creation and providence though the same as the
distinction between intervention (or commanding if you will) and
providence?
It seems to me tha an implication of my argument is that by using the five
senses, we shouldn't be able to distinguish between creation/intervention
and providence. Does that help?
>
I really appreciate your questions and challenges, David. (Stephen has been
involved in this thread a bit too, and I thank him.) I don't claim any
special credentials for thinking about these issues, and they can get
confusing when you push them far enough, but you questions have made me
think about some issues I haven't thought about before, and just possibly
given me some insight into how people who take a more traditional position
think about them.
Best regards
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)