@Eddie.
Thank you for your statement, which can provide a good basis for discussion. I hope that we can not allow the rancor that was a part of some of our previous discussion to interfere with our coming to an understanding now.
But before I address the issues that you have raised, we need to carefully look at the excellent statement by James Bradley, which is the basis of our discussion of randomness.
> Randomness is [nothing strange or fearful—it’s] a necessary part of living in a complex world in which there are many independent entities. Furthermore, [as other writers here have pointed out,] biological processes use randomness. Also mathematically, the most important theorem in statistics, the Central Limit Theorem, proves that even the most disorderly sets of numbers necessarily follow a highly ordered pattern when aggregated appropriately. Putting all this together, it seems that randomness originates in God and that God has built the world both to incorporate and to manage randomness. Brackets added for some additional clarity.
Randomness is a necessary, integral aspect of life and nature in that we live in a God created complex world. Evolution uses randomness to create changing life forms through Variation, while it uses Natural Selection to create continuity through adaptation to a changing environment. The basic theorem in statistics demonstrates that the most disorderly sets of numbers are not really disorderly when looked at with the proper perspective!
All of this leads me to the conclusion which I had already expected, but this essay clarifies and reinforces, which is Randomness and Order, Change and Continuity, the Many and the One, all of these pairs of seeming contradictions is at the heart of Who God is. God is the Trinity, the Many and the One.
Humans see the Many and the One as opposites and try to do away with one or the other. We religious folks cherish the One and avoid the other. Scientific folk like @Patrick cherish the Many and would like to do away with the One. Both have some good points, but both are wrong in that we all need to embrace both the Many and the One, Who is God the Trinity.
One problem with fully embracing the One and the Many is that we Westerners are still stuck with Western dualism, which leaves out the “and” of the spiritual in the One and the Many. Reality is not dualistic. It is trinitarian, physical, rational, and spiritual.
Eddie, you take a traditionally Western dualistic view of God against Nature. You appear to be looking for the God of the gaps. I am looking for the God of the facts, the God Who rules and works through Nature. God is not Nature, but God created nature to make a home for humanity.
I have shown you and @gbrooks9 how God guides evolution through ecology. You have not denied that it is true. Here you say that ecological Natural Selection can select evolutionary changes, but does not produce them.
There is some truth to this statement, however when one looks at genetic variation, you see how this is not really necessary. God has structured sexual reproduction in such a way to procure a maximum of diversity and change among flora and fauna on earth. In other words God has made life complex through random sexual reproduction Thus God in God’s wisdom has given Natural Selection a huge variety of genetic material available from which to select in order to create positive evolutionary change.
God of the facts. Not God of the gaps.