On Wed, 15 Dec 1999 19:49:29 -0500, Howard J. Van Till wrote:
[...]
HVT>In contrast, the Fully Gifted Creation perspective entails the necessity of
>purposeful divine intention and conceptualization in order that there be a
>universe with a formational economy sufficiently robust to make something
>as remarkable as evolution possible. Given this high view of the Creation's
>God-given formational capabilities, there is no need for occasional
>episodes of form-imposing intervention.
[...]
I have previously called Howard's attention to his continued use of
pejorative language like " form-imposing" in describing creationist
positions which admit God's supernatural intervention in natural
history.
No ID theorist describes God's supernatural intervention as "form-
imposing". Howard makes it sound like nature is a stranger to God upon
whom God imposes. That Howard keeps using this pejorative language,
despite IDers telling him that is *not* what they believe, suggests that
either Howard is either insensitive, or more likely, the idea of God's
intervention is so repugnant to him, that he cannot speak about it
objectively.
The fact is that if God *planned* to intervene at strategic points in
natural history as He has done in human history (cf. Rev 13:8 "...the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."), then an integral part of
the design would be nature being able to seamlessly accept God's
infusion of new information and direction .
In fact, C.S. Lewis argued that if God intervened in nature, then nature
would seamlessly adjust to such intervention:
"It is therefore inaccurate to define a miracle as something that breaks
the laws of Nature. It doesn't. If I knock out my pipe I alter the
position of a great many atoms: in the long run, and to an infinitesimal
degree, of all the atoms there are. Nature digests or assimilates this
event with perfect ease and harmonises it in a twinkling with all other
events. It is one more bit of raw material for the laws to apply to and
they apply. I have simply thrown one event into the general cataract of
events and it finds itself at home there and conforms to all other events.
If God annihilates or creates or deflects a unit of matter He has created
a new situation at that point. Immediately all Nature domiciles this new
situation, makes it at home in her realm, adapts all other events to it. It
finds itself conforming to all the laws. If God creates a miraculous
spermatozoon in the body of a virgin, it does not proceed to break any
laws. The laws at once take it over. Nature is ready. Pregnancy
follows, according to all the normal laws, and nine months later a child
is born. We see every day that physical nature is not in the least
incommoded by the daily inrush of events from biological nature or
from psychological nature. If events ever come from beyond Nature
altogether, she will be no more incommoded by them. Be sure she will
rush to the point where she is invaded, as the defensive forces rush to a
cut in our finger, and there hasten to accommodate the newcomer. The
moment it enters her realm it obeys all her laws. Miraculous wine will
intoxicate, miraculous conception will lead to pregnancy, inspired
books will suffer all the ordinary processes of textual corruption,
miraculous bread win be digested. The divine art of miracle is not an
art of suspending the pattern to which events conform but of feeding
new events into that pattern. It does not violate the law's proviso, "If
A, then B ": it says, " But this time instead of A, A2," and Nature,
speaking through all her laws, replies, "Then B2" and naturalises the
immigrant, as she well knows how. She is an accomplished hostess."
(Lewis C.S., "Miracles: A Preliminary Study", 1963, pp63-64)
Indeed designing living things with a genetic code makes such seamless
infusion of new information possible, without violating or suspendiing
any natural laws.
HVT>Thus, ID (the Johnson et al form-imposing interventionist type) does have
>another rival -- a fully theistic worldview that has a high view of the
>Creation's formational capabilities.
[...]
Howard calls his view "fully theistic" but if it *denies in principle* that God
can (or would) intervene supernaturally in His creation, then Howard's
position is really bordering on (if it not actually is), a form of Deism:
"My concern is that Van Till's understanding of creation may inadvertently
minimize the role of extraordinary Providence and miracle in our
understanding of the biblical texts, reducing, in effect, God's creative work
to the category of "ordinary providence"-except in the case of the Big
Bang origin of the spacetime universe. This could amount, theologically, to
a functional deism in one's view of creation, with God supernaturally
involved in creation only at some remote beginning, and only subsequently
involved with creation in the role of sustaining it." (Davis J.J., "Response
to Howard J. Van Till", in Moreland J.P. & Reynolds J.M., eds., "Three
Views on Creation and Evolution", 1999, p228)
"Van Till's strong preference for a nature that evolves bases on its
properties (or giftedness) and his aversion to any "intervention" by God, his
gapless economy, borders on a deistic world view. Deism is the view that
God created a universe that operates independently, like a windup clock, in
contrast to biblical theism that sees God as Creator and Sustainer, like an
electric clock. His description of how he would pray for his surgeon was
surprisingly deistic in tone." (Bradley W.L., "Response to Howard J. Van
Till", in Moreland J.P. & Reynolds J.M., eds., "Three Views on Creation
and Evolution", 1999, p224).
Howard tries to portray ordinary Christian theists as adhering of something he
calls "interventionism":
"Adjacent to the pit of deism is the quicksand of interventionism.
According to that perspective, most things in the material world happen
"naturally" (in essence, naturalistically), but on certain special occasions
God breaks into this realm and supernaturally intervenes in the affairs of
the material world or its creatures..." (Van Till H.J., "The Fourth Day",
1986, p225)
But it is *Howard* who is the one out of step. The vast majority of
ordinary Christian theists believe that God can (and indeed *does*)
intervene in the affairs of this world. It is only a tiny minority of Christians,
(mostly scientists, theologians and philosophers), who appear to have been
taken "captive through [a] hollow and deceptive philosophy" (Col 2:8),
namely Naturalism:
"In metaphysics naturalism is perhaps most obviously akin to
materialism...What it insists on is that the world of nature should form a
single sphere without incursions from outside by souls or spirits, divine or
human..." (Lacey A., in Honderic T., ed., "The Oxford Companion to
Philosophy", Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1995, p604).
Steve
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"While naturalism has often been equated with materialism, it is much
broader in scope. Materialism is indeed naturalistic, but the converse is not
necessarily true. Strictly speaking, naturalism has no ontological
preference; i.e., no bias toward any particular set of categories of reality:
dualism and monism, atheism and theism, idealism and materialism are all
per se compatible with it. So long as all of reality is natural, no other
limitations are imposed. Naturalists have in fact expressed a wide variety of
views, even to the point of developing a theistic naturalism."
("naturalism", Britannica.com, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1999.
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/6/0,5716,56426+1,00.html).
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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