<<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. >>
Stan, you have truly hit the proverbial nail on the head. It seems to me also
that Terry is merely expressing a preference for one way of God working, but
then dismissing the other on less than compelling grounds. For example, Terry
wrote:
<< It's an open question and so I'm completely
open to scientific theories that don't appeal to divine intervention that
attempt to explain the origin of life. But if he didn't *intervene*, he
was still in absolute control of the process through his providential
governance of the world. It happened exactly when, where, and how He wanted
it to. It was designed by him for His purpose. >>
But how can you only be "open" to "scientific" theories that DON'T appeal to
divine intervention, yet at the same time be open to this "absolute control"
or "tweaking" model? There is no qualitative difference. It is only a
preference for one non-natural model over another. But why?
Jim