For the same reason that I post here even though I sometimes wear blue jeans. In other words, huh? I post here because I think it’s possible to live a life of faith, including the Christian faith, while accepting science, and I support Biologos’s efforts in that direction. I post here because as a scientist I don’t like to see science misrepresented, something that is often done by creationists. Living a life of faith has pretty much nothing to do with being convinced of the truth of some model of divine action in the world, however. I recall Jesus telling people to follow him; I don’t recall him saying anything about believing a theory of the source of biological information.
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I’m not questioning your faith.
Biologos promotes a specific model of creation. You “support their efforts in that direction”, but then are dismissive of “being convinced of the truth of some model of divine action in the world.”
Their position leads to options 1 or 2. But when presented with a list of options, you claim we have no clue.
These seem inconsistent?
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I didn’t infer that. The possibility never entered my mind and had nothing to do with my response.
If Biologos promotes a single model of creation, how is their position compatible with two of your options? And why isn’t their position compatible with your third option? In any case, even if they did propose a single model, supporting their mission doesn’t require that I share all of their beliefs.
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In principle Biologos could stretch to include option 3, but it carries theological difficulties I assume EC would not support.
One model, with two possible outworkings that I can see.
I had to smile when I read that. It’s a small God who is going be distracted or obsessed by minute particulars. If a butterfly flapping its wings in China…
That might evoke more than a smile. 
DEISM? Nope. I am not a Deist.
Well I am certainly a theist. God created the universe for a relationship and God certainly interacts with what He has created. But I believe God does so as a shepherd and not a micromanager who tries to control everything. And no, I do not believe God overrides mutations to cause evolution to proceed in certain directions. His interactions seem to be more of a corrective nature like with a flood or an asteroid to put a stop to things He doesn’t like.
Indeterministic Deism, eh? Interesting distinction. My previous answer still applies. But to make it clear, I am not a determinist either, nor the theist equivalent either (absolute predestination).
And I guess that gives my answers to 4 and 5 as well… I believe in a supernatural (i.e. spiritual) creator who is NOT a necromancer creating golems of dust and flesh or advocating the black magic of blood sacrifices.
Distinctions and debate between creation models (TE, CE, PC, ID, YEC, etc) can be distracting and divisive. In practice, Christians can hold to any of these and still have a healthy, orthodox faith. All positions acknowledge God as creator.
So why bother making distinctions? Well, truth is still at stake. For example, Biologos is strongly critical of YEC, claiming it to be science denial and/or misrepresentation (and I’m inclined to agree). ID makes its own objections to EC (again, I’m inclined to agree).
How we conduct these discussions, and the time and priority we give them are revealing. The apostle Paul gives this warning, which I think has some application here—at least it gives me pause:
“But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned. (Titus 3:9-11)
Kind of ironic since the whole young earth nonsense supposedly stems from estimating a beginning of creation based on the genealogies in the Bible.
Like it or not there will always be people who don’t buy into the specifics of Christianity and we will be your neighbors. I’m of the belief that how we treat each other matters. It’s just plain decency. I’d prefer atheists were a whole lot more civil and considerate about things they don’t understand. But of course there are plenty of believers who are quick to condemn what they won’t really try to understand too.
You’re here, so it must not be too foolish?
Not enough? ; - )
Option 1 minus the Deistic “God set stuff up and let it go, with no intervention” aspect. So somewhat closer to 2, but not typically intervening in a scientifically detectable way.
Dale, I think that you should think this thou3ght through again. If the universe truly the mind of God, then it is God. Believing the universe is part of God is pantheism, which has many problems.
No one seems to take seriously John 1:3 (NIV2011)
[3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.] which gives Jesus, the Logos, the central role in Creation.
If God created the universe out of Godself, that would bring God down to the level of the universe.
God is wise enough that God can use God’s natural laws to guide evolution. Miracles have nothing to do with evolution. Miracles are signs from God. They have little to do with natural law.
MarkE “Option 2 may—or may not—avoid the pitfalls of deism, while still harmonising with methodological naturalism.”
Option 2. The creator adds information post-Big Bang, e.g. by overriding random mutations to cause evolution to proceed in a certain direction."
Mark, then you should be interested in my proposal. The Creator adds information after the Big Bang, like climate and environment, that causes natural selection direct evolution to proceed in certain directions. Nothing needs to be overridden. Many mutations never see the light of day.
There is no reason why God cannot use natural selection to guide evolution. Are we afraid of the word natural? God made nature, so God can use it as needed according to God’s laws.
Maybe you should not extrapolate to more than what is being said, and you certainly should know me well enough to know that I did not mean that the information in the universe is the entirety of the Mind of God, and suggest that I was promoting pantheism. Good grief. I did not say it was all the Mind of God, my implication actually being that the information in the Mind of God is more than sufficient sustain the universe. Yes, I suppose I could have been more clear by saying information from the Mind of God.
I see God more as an artist or an orchestra conductor, not a computer programmer or engineer. So I think the Big Bang primed the canvas or set the stage. God has been creating ever since through processes we can describe with scientific laws. I believe God can manipulate reality, but I don’t think this is always a “miracle” (in the Hume sense) or an “intervention.” I think it is just what happens when God’s sphere and our sphere overlap and a little bit of Heaven breaks in on Earth. Our ability to comprehend reality is limited by our embodied experience in a physical world. I think God operates on a different dimension that our minds are not equipped to process because it is beyond our embodied experience and all our metaphors break down.
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If you can allow God to be omnitemporal (not that we can get our heads around that concept), the orchestra conductor analogy works quite well. It is a dynamic and cooperative endeavor with bidirectional feedback and any dissonance that occurs is not the conductor’s fault. I will still maintain that he can and does providentially intervene without breaking natural laws, because, among other reasons, we have objective evidence that he has.
Yes. (I might pluralize ‘dimension’. ; - )
No. Information is not destroyed or belittled, and neither does the idea suggest that information is all that God is. And information can be transferred with the source not losing any. Is the glory of a cloud diminished by the transfer of the information about its size, shape and speed (hey, a trinity… of 's’s) being transferred to the reality of its shadow on the ground? Hardly.
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