Thanks for your response, David. Before we proceed, I ought to point out
that Terry used "intervention" and "oversight" together in a sentence.
There is a possibility he may have meant them to be synonyms.
>
>INTERVENTION: normally, intervention is treated as a form of "God-of-
>the-gaps" thinking. What does a TE mean by intervention?
Apropos entries from American Heritage Dictionary for Macintosh definition
of intervention are
3. To occur as an extraneous or unplanned circumstance: He would have his
degree by now if his laziness hadn't intervened. 4. a. To come in or
between so as to hinder or alter an action: intervened to prevent a fight.
b. To interfere, usually through force or threat of force, in the affairs
of another nation.
Based on those definitions I have trouble using the term "intervention"
with anything God does in nature. Certainly I believe that God is
sovereign over nature. As you say below, He is continually exercising His
sovereignty over nature. So "intervention" doesn't seem a very appropriate
term. Now I certainly believe that He intervenes in the affairs of men,
and I'm not trying to argue that all of nature is simply a mechanism that
runs on automatic. However, I would prefer to think of His governance of
nature being implemented by making planned inputs to a finely tuned machine
which responds to His inputs. This is somewhat like St. Basil's view in
the Hexaemeron that God commands and nature, which He has gifted with the
ability to obey, obeys.
>According
>to my understanding of TE, there is no break in the chain of natural
>causality - so I can find very little scope for any form of
>intervention within TE.
Here I would quibble. The problem is not that there is no break in the
natural chain of causality. The problem is that we with our limited
investigative capabilities may never be able to identify such a break or
even be aware of its existence. Hugh Ross likes to talk about the
extradimensionality of God. I have no idea whether he is right or not, but
if God functions in more temporal and spatial dimensions than we do, then
it is quite easy for Him to perform actions that are not detectible by any
means of investigation we have available. .
>At the quantum mechanical level, a case has
>been made for God intervening without apparently deviating from the
>pattern of natural law - but I have suggested earlier that this is
>not TE but PC.
On a philosophical level you are correct, of course. However, the very
statement of the mechanism, "intervening without apparently deviating from
the
pattern of natural law" points up the problem. Suppose this is indeed how
God "does it." Can you devise a research program that will establish that
this is indeed what God does? You can't if the above statement is correct.
_Observationally_, "intervening without apparently deviating from the
pattern of natural law" is not distinguishable from "no intervention." The
atheist at this point will invoke Occam's Razor and conclude that there is
no reason to believe that an intervention which by definition cannot be
detected is occurring. As a Christian I consider this response arrogant.
Our inability to investigate something does not mean it doesn't exist.
It is not TE because evolutionary theory would not
>recognise it. According to this view, no quantum mechanical
>manipulation is necessary for life to evolve.
But, as I have pointed out above, there is no empirical way to establish
that no quantum intervention is occurring. The issue is outside of
science.
>[I have also suggested that "intervention" is not a very helpful term
>anyway in the Christian vocabulary - it has all sorts of semi-Deistic
>overtones. My own view is that there is total continuity of Divine
>government, wherein God has complete sovereignty about the way he
>governs his creation].
Agreed.
>
>OVERSIGHT: This is a word which is often used - but it is capable of
>being interpreted in more than one way. Oversight can have
>connutations of "correction" when things do not go according to plan.
>If oversight implies any form of "intervention" - see comments above.
>The non-controversial understanding of this word relates to God's
>upholding and sustaining power, continuously imparted to the
>creation. God has not created a Cosmos that is autonomous.
>
I agree with your second definition of oversight: "God's upholding and
sustaining power, continuously imparted to the creation". Governance might
be another good term. In fact, the Westminster Confession of Faith teaches
that there is not anything in creation which is not under His sovereign
control (however, it teaches also that He is not the author of evil) and
has extensive Scriptural references to substantiate these claims. If this
is the case, and I believe it is, then it would not be possible to find an
object or event in creation that did not in some way show His design. That
makes attempts to look at certain objects and say "that's so irreducibly
complex, it must be designed" quite difficult.
Bill Hamilton
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