Thanks for the question. I'm a bit embarrassed by my choice of words, but
I guess I have to live with it. Hopefully no one will print them in a
magazine.
I think that the key to understanding my position is to recognize that I'm
a Calvinist and follow the understanding of scripture as outlined in the
Westminster Confession of Faith concerning the decree of God and his
providence.
III.1. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his
own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so,
as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the
will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes
taken away, but rather established.
V.2. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the
first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the
same providence, he ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of
second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.
I believe that God is intimately involved in the moment by moment workings
of his creation--in other words, tweaking is the norm. Observed regularity
is due to God's regular governance. Does this make me PC? I don't think
so, because God's actions, due to his own choice of regular governance, are
understandable in terms of scientific investigation. Thus, I can describe
God's work in terms that utilize secondary causes. As long as I can do
that then there is no intervention.
One of the difficulties here is that we often fail to recognize that God's
interaction with the world is totally unlike our own. We MUST come to
grips with this. The existence of each thing in the world is dependent on
God's sustaining will. Things have the properties that they do because of
God's sustaining will. Causes have effects because of God's decree and
Providence. God does not move matter around like game pieces.
What of the criticism of Leibniz and Howard Van Till? Well, I detect in
both a bit of creaturely autonomy that I think is unbiblical. According to
Howard, creation operates with creaturely capacities given to it by God. I
can live with this language, BUT under the confines of my previous
paragraph, i.e. the endowed capacities are not given, then, to operate
autonomously, but are dependent at every moment on the power of God.
Howard and I have talked at length about this--I accuse him of autonomous
creatures--he accuses me of puppet-string creatures. I will readily admit
that the mystery between divine sovereignty and creaturely responsibility
is present here. I choose to affirm both and live with a bit of mystery,
which in my opinion is the Biblical choice. I guess that it seems
reasonable for me to admit that I as creature may not comprehend all of the
Creator's interaction with the world.
Take for example some random radiation damage that leads to some
mutation... This is all describable in terms of probabilities, physics,
genetics, evolutionary biology, etc. Does the existence of such an
explanation mean that God was not intimately involved? I don't think so!
It happened just the way he planned it and caused it, but since most of the
time he works in a regular manner (according to his covenant faithfulness),
the event is quite describable using science.
I hope this helps.
TG
>=========================================================================
>In this context I feel that I can respond to some recent criticisms of
>computer based evolutionary studies. The main thing that these teach us is
>that there is such a thing as unanticipated emergent properties.
>Properties and behaviors THAT WERE NOT PROGRAMMED INTO these systems arise
>spontaneously without the tweaking of the programmer. Now I will readily
>admit that the computer environment itself and the rules by which it works
>is a designed environment, but I believe that about creation as well--God
>made the world and the rules by which it works--and, of course, he tweaks
>via providence far beyond what any programmer does. So if we see novelties
>arise in these computer environments it should be of no surprise to see
>novelties arise in a God-created nature.
>=========================================================================
>
>Terry, can you explain what in your mind qualifies as "tweaking via
>providence", and how this is to be distinguished from "intervention"
>in the strong PC sense of the word? It seems here that you are walking
>a very fine line between the Creator governing his creation in the usual
>TE view (which results in law-like regularities in the behavior of creation)
>and the PC view of a Creator who infused new information or matter at strategic
>points in the unfolding of His creation. If you are suggesting that God
>"tweaks" the behavior of creation in ways that are beyond our investigation
>(shrouded in quantum uncertainty a la Heisenberg, for example), then I don't
>see how that differs in principle from the PC view.
>
>I believe it was Leibniz who objected so greatly to Newton's view that God
>needed to correct for supposed perturbations in planetary orbits in order to
>ensure stability for the solar system. Howard van Till argues forcefully
>that PC-type models should be rejected for the same reason today...because such
>models imply defects in the original creation, which seem unworthy of an
>omnipotent Creator. But it seems to me that the same objection should be
>raised against a model involving a Creator who "tweaks" his creation. This
>is the source of my confusion. Can you help by explaining what you had in
>mind?
>
>Thanks in advance,
>
>Stan Zygmunt
>Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
>Valparaiso University
_____________________________________________________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Calvin College 3201 Burton SE Grand Rapids, MI 40546
Office: (616) 957-7187 FAX: (616) 957-6501
Email: grayt@calvin.edu http://www.calvin.edu/~grayt
*This mission critical message was written on a Macintosh with Eudora Pro*