On Mon, 22 Apr 1996 13:30:15 -0400 you wrote to Loren:
LH>Here, I think, is a more accurate portrayal of all TE's: We allow
God's intervention at any time in history, but we believe, based on
the scientific evidence and for various theological reasons, that a
>non-interventionist scenario is currently the best working hypothesis
>for studying and understanding biological history.
BH>To some readers this is going to read as though "we allow God's
>intervention at any time in history, but we really don't believe it
>happens." I don't believe that's what Loren means, although I really
>should let him answer for himself.
That's what it amounts to. Denis claims that TEs/ECs don't even
believe that God intervened in the origin of life, although perhaps
Terry Gray disagrees with him on that? Loren wonders why TEs can't
get their point across either to the atheists or the creationists. It
is because to the plain man, a God who does not intervene is not worth
praying to or indeed believing in in a personal way.
BH>I personally would prefer to say that we acknowledge that God may
>intervene at any time, and that indeed He may be intervening
>continually. However, based on experience and some theological
>reasons, we expect God's interventions (really "acts of oversight" is
>more appropriate) to be mostly law-like and not observable by normal
>physical means.
What exactly are these "theological reasons"? If the Bible
teaches anything it is that God is an interventionist God.
And what exactly does "mostly law-like" mean? There is no law of
nature called changing water into wine, yet when Jesus did it at the
Cana wedding in a unique miraculous intervention, it integrated
smoothly into existing natural laws of chemistry and physics.
God is not bound to obey His own laws, as Warfield emphasises over
and over again:
"He is not imprisoned within His works: the laws which He has
ordained for them express indeed His character, but do not compass the
possibilities of His action.." (Warfield B.B., "Christian
Supernaturalism", Presbyterian and Reformed Review, viii. 1897,
pp58-74, in Craig S.G. (ed.), "Biblical and Theological Studies",
Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Co.: Philadelphia PA, 1968, p8)
"He to whom all nature is but a speck of derived and dependent being
cannot be thought of as, in the reach of His operations, bound within
the limits of the laws which operate within this granule and hold it
together." (Warfield, p9)
"It is equally inconceivable that His activities with reference to it,
or even within it, should be confined to the operation of the laws
which He has ordained for the regulation of its activities and not of
His. What power has this little speck of derived being to exclude the
operation upon it and within it of that almighty force to whose energy
it owes both its existence and its persistence in being? Have its
forces acquired such strength as to neutralize the power which called
it into being? Or has it framed for itself a crust so hard as to
isolate it from the omnipotence which plays about it and successfully
to resist the power that made it, that it may not crush it or pierce
it at will through and through? Certainly he who confesses the
Christian's God has no ground for denying the supernatural act."
(Warfield, p11)
"But let us not fancy, on the other hand, that the providence of God
any more than the immanence of God is a formula adequate to sum up all
His activities. God is the God of providence: but He is much more
than the God of providence. The universe is but a speck in His sight:
and its providential government is scarcely an incident in the
infinite fullness of His life. It is certain that He acts in
infinitely varied modes, otherwise and beyond providence, and there is
no reason we can give why He should not act otherwise and beyond
providence even in relation to the universe which He has made. In our
conception of a supernatural God, we dare not erect His providential
activity into an exclusive law of action for Him, and refuse to allow
of any other mode of operation....The laws of nature are not bonds by
which God is tied so that He cannot move save within their limits:
they are not in His sight such great and holy things that it would be
sacrilege for Him not to honor them in all His activities. His real
life is above and beyond them: there is no reason why He may not at
will act independently of them even in dealing with nature itself:
and if there be reason why He should act apart from them we may be
sure that the supernatural God will so act. The frank recognition of
the possibility of the supernatural act, and of its probable reality
on adequate occasion, is in any event a part of the Christian man's
heritage.'(Warfield, pp12-13)
On Mon, 22 Apr 1996 15:39:59 -0400 you added:
BH>Hmm (with growing appreciation for Loren's work in trying to make
>some of these ideas clear) I note that my modification of Loren's
>statement could be misinterpreted. I said "we expect God's
>interventions (really "acts of oversight" is more appropriate) to be
>mostly law-like and not observable by normal physical means."
>
>I meant that the fact of divine intervention is more often than not
>nonobservable.
That is non-controversial. Both "divine intervention" and claimed
macro-evolutionary events are "onobservable":
"These evolutionary happenings are unique, unrepeatable, and
irreversible. It is as impossible to turn a land vertebrate into a
fish as it is to effect the reverse transformation. The applicability
of the experimental method to the study of such unique historical
processes is severely restricted before all else by the time intervals
involved, which far exceed the lifetime of any human experimenter."
(Dobzhansky T., American Scientist, vol. 45, December 1957, p388, in
Moreland J.P. ed., "The Creation Hypothesis", InterVarsity Press:
Illinois, 1994, p277-278)
BH>This will be called "blurring creation and providence" by Stephen
>Jones. However, I think a more accurate characterization is simply
>that I'm not drawing the line between creation and providence where
>Stephen wants it.
It's not a question what *I* want. It's that the Bible itself draws a
"line between creation and providence", and Christian theologians down
through the ages have placed Creation and Providence into separate
theological categories, as a cursory glance at just about any
Systematic Theology will show.
It is really a question of whether TEs/ECs allow Scripture's
metaphysical categories to have priority over those of Science:
Ps 119:11 "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin
against thee."
God bless.
Steve
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