Del Dratzch wrote on 9 May 1996:
"But the idea I wanted to at least suggest was that God obviously
(I think it's obvious) could have created things in nature with
an inherent ability to continue to exhibit lawed behavior without
any further action on His part.... The question, of course, is
then: what exactly does upholding come to?
I'm not sure how to answer that question, but I am relatively
suspicious of the view that God is directly active in every
'natural' event, etc. I suspect that that leads ultimately to
the view that there simply are no such things as genuine natural
laws, that all actions (and events) are God's actions, and so on.
I'm not sure exactly what it is about such consequences that I
don't like, but I'm not sure it gives the creation due credit for
being _what it is_ and for being in some robust sense _real_.
It is dependent - absolutely. It is a creation - no question.
But it does have a character and status of its own, and I think
that that should be given due recognition, even while admitting
that it is in some way upheld."
The Scriptures present us with a Christ who is not only the Agent
of creation, but also the One by whom the physical world is
upheld. Since He is both Creator and Sustainer, we can infer
that the "power" He uses is the same. There is a directness
about the way the Bible describes God's relationship with His
creation: He makes the rain fall and the grass grow; He feeds the
animals; in Him we live and move and have our being. God's
providence is described by us in terms of natural law; miracles
are described by us as incomprehensible departures from natural
law. But whether God works by providence or by miracles, the
power is the same. If these things are so, then "intervention"
is a term that sees things from a human perspective, not God's.
I want to shift the focus now to the Newtonian world-view. The
cosmos is a machine and its workings are mechanical. Although
it is possible to hold these ideas to be complementary to the
Biblical view of providence, it seems to me that few actually
did. The mechanical view led to people thinking of the world as
having an existence independent of God. God was no longer needed
- although He might intervene from time to time to adjust the
mechanism. This led to a "God-of-the-gaps" mentality which I
would class as semi-Deism. It also led to a denial of
intervention which became full-grown deism. The essence of
deism is then the "autonomisation" of nature, rejecting the
moment-by-moment dependence that is conveyed by the sustaining
and upholding terminology of Scripture.
The discoveries of quantum physics have made the mechanical view
of the world a discarded image - at least for those who
understand a little about quantum theory! The deterministic
concept of mechanism does not fit comfortably into the scenario
of statistical uncertainty that has been unveiled. How is this
new understanding of nature to be incorporated into the Christian
worldview?
My first thought is that it is a lot easier to recognise
"upholding" in a world where energy and matter are equivalent,
and where there is a wave/particle duality. We are freed from
images of tiny cogs in an enormous machine which turn in an
absolutely predictable way - unless there is some "intervention"
from an outside source (God).
However, it seems to me that the semi-deistic and deistic
tendencies are just as real in a quantum mechanical world.
(a) The semi-deistic style of intervention can still take place -
now operating at the level of uncertainty described by quantum
mechanics. This might be referred to as "tweaking", "nudging",
"insensibly directing", etc. God's government of His creation
is seen (in this view) more in the way He steers it by these
undetectable means rather than in the way He upholds it.
(b) the deistic emphasis is to so emphasise "continuity" that
this quantum mechanical world reaches a state of "self-existence"
and people think of it as effectively autonomous.
This brings me back to the words I cited from Del at the
commencement of this post: "I am relatively suspicious of the
view that God is directly active in every 'natural' event".
I'm coming from a perspective which says that God IS active in
every 'natural' event - and that this truth is necessary for the
foundations of science and the identification of natural law.
If I adopted Del's view of the relationship between God and the
physical world, I would regard myself as becoming a semi-deist.
Since I don't think this is the way forward, I've made this
response to Del - my analysis may be wrong and if it is, I wish
to know why.
But the points I am making seem to me to be relevant to a number
of contributions people have made. For example, we have had
discussion of "tweaking", "miracles", reference to the concept
of a "gapless developmental economy" and words like this:
"Nature is a finely tuned, responsive machine that God has built
for His good pleasure. He has established ways of controlling
it to carry out His desires. The machine is in a sense
autonomous, because it operates according to rules. But God is
able at any time to intervene in a number of ways ..."
Without wishing to comment on these points any further, it seems
to me that our understanding of how God upholds His creation is
very important - and in my view, failure to get this right is a
step towards a deistic mind-set. Do others share my concerns
about tendencies towards deism and semi-deism? If so, I'd be
interested to learn how they approach these issues.
Best wishes,
*** From David J. Tyler, CDT Department, Hollings Faculty,
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.
Telephone: 0161-247-2636 ***