>The gigantic assumption here is that only by empowering creation with
>certain
>formational capabilities AT THE START can God be, what, efficient? Good?
>
>IOW, Howard sees interventionism as per se inefficient or imprecise or "less
>than perfect."
Howard replied:
<<I don't recall saying any of those things, Jim. How about trying to
construct a reply in which you refrain from placing words in my mouth?
I don't want to do that, Howard. I respect you tremendously. Science Held
Hostage was an important book for me. I'll expect you to autograph my copy
when I come through Grand Rapids.
But when we deal with assumptions, we HAVE to try to put them into words. My
main complaint against your theological construction (a) is that it ASSUMES
that "withholding" is somehow NOT what God would ever do, because it is
somehow not like him, or not all good. I tried to identify in words what your
hidden assumption was (that was why I used a lot of question marks). Choose
your own wording for it, but I'd like to know exaclty WHY you make this
assumption, especially in light of what I wrote about God's "withholding" in
salvivic history.
<<What kind of gaps are you talking about? It is essential once again to
define
our terms. Granted, there are, and always will be, _epistemological_
gaps--our knowledge will always be incomplete. The question is whether or not
these epistemological gaps--missing pieces of information--warrant the
presumption that there are corresponding _ontological_ gaps--missing
self-organizational or transformational capabilities in the Creation's
formational economy.>>
By GAPS, I was talking about the recognition of gaps in the "developmental
economy" which is what your originally wrote about, viz.:
HVT <<the presence of these presumed gaps in the Creation's formational
economy is thought to be empirically discernible.>>
Clearly here you are referring to gaps in the physical world, the
developmental canvas of nature. My objection to your point (b) is that I do
not think it is the AIM or DESIRE of Christian apologetics to go hunting for
gaps. It is merely the recognition of, and theoretical/theological explanation
for, those gaps.
Nor do I think epistemological gaps are part of this issue. Such gaps exist
for all of us, but that's another matter (entirely philosophical). And I don't
think you meant to bring in ontology--the theory of being--but TELEOLOGY, the
theory of orderly becoming.
Eschewing philosophical terms, I'm talking about physical gaps in nature,
which most everyone agrees exist (this is what spawned punc eq, of course). I
do realize some do not believe there are gaps in the "developmental economy,"
but they have yet to demonstrate this evidentially. Darwin's original vision
was of countless transitions on an upward gradational path. The history of
evolutionary thought since then has been a huge effort to explain away what is
obviously a counter-intuitive fossil record.
For some Christian apologists, this is a significant fact in the larger
cultural struggle with Naturalism. It would be wrong in my view to ignore this
fact.
Jim