Thank you for the suggestion. I have done just that of course. And I regularly explain my position here and when I interact with people. http://peacefulscience.org/
The Church goers I deal with immediately understand what I am saying. Most of the seminary and science professors I deal with immediately understand me too. The problem is with people in the origins debate that are trying to pursue agendas that benefit from misrepresenting me. They mighty struggle to understand. They struggle to remember. I talk about my theology of God’s action and providence all the time, but am continually misrepresented and asked to restate my position by ID and YEC advocates.
This is such a consistent pattern, that I am convinced its root is not in the subtle nuances of my communication. I’m always up for being a better communicator, and I will adjust and improve whenever I can, but this does not seem to be the stumbling block.
But there is a more important point here. Underlying this is the presumption that somehow evolution is a categorically different challenge to God’s action and providence than anything else. This is false. Evolution is no more a challenge to providence than free will, sin, human authority, germ theory and embryology.
For those of us that believe in God’s providence. We believe all things are governed by God’s sovereignty. Therefore, we think God is involved in all these things…
- The knitting of myself in my mother’s womb (see Psalms)
- The rise and fall of the Roman Empire (see Romans 13:1)`
- The election of Obama (and of Trump). (see Romans 13:1)
- And the specific borders between countries: e.g. between US/Mexico or Netherlands/Belgium (see Acts 17). http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/world/europe/belgium-netherlands-land-dispute.html
- The injury inflicted on me by the sins of my family (see the Genesis story of Joseph)
So, I know from Scripture that God is “acting” and “directing” in all these cases somehow. I’m convinced of this because I trust Scripture and believe it to be true.
However, in all these cases, the precise nature and existence of God’s action is hidden. Far beyond merely non-obvious, the details are entirely inaccessible to human inquiry. We cannot discern by any means the exact mechanism or way by which God is acting. His ways are beyond our comprehension here. In fact, pressing to hard to provide an answer carries real risk. In politics, it might make us claim God’s endorsement of a flawed candidate. It might make us validate the abusive acts of family members. It might make us claim a “just war” to reinstate borders. It might lead us down a fruitless search for a physical mechanism of God’s action in embryology (anyone see an analogy here?).
Theologically, there are two reasons this hiddenness makes sense in our faith. The first reason is the Cross. The second reason is Revelationism.
God is hidden in the Cross. It is not just that God is hidden in #1-5 and evolution, it is also that He is hidden in the cross. We see the machinations of the herodians, pharisees, and Sanhedrin. We see the volatility of the crowd, the betrayal and cowardice of his disciples. We see the wavering injustice of Pliate. The entire world collaborates to murder Jesus. He dies in insignificance, like a common criminal. Or so it seems. God is at work, but we cannot see it in any way at this point. Even knowing the end of the story, what was the detailed audit of God’s action in this conspiracy of men to accomplish the purpose of His Son on this earth? We do not know. He is hidden. Yet He is there, accomplishing His purposes. We have complete certainty of these even without being able to give a precise account of God’s action. If this is true for the Cross, why is not true in everything? In the Cross, we are thrust headlong into God’s hiddenness. Unless He reveal His ways to us, we cannot rightly see them. There is no way around this, not even by science.
Note: @George Murphy calls this the Cruciform pattern: http://biologos.org/blogs/archive/surveying-george-murphy’s-theology-of-the-cross, and this is a helpful read.
The Christian God is known by His self-revelation. This is a fundamental doctrine too. If God, by nature, is Hidden. How do we come to understand His ways? The fundamental teaching of our faith is that we cannot reach God on our own. He must reveal Himself to us. In these last days, He reveals Himself in Jesus and in Scripture. Through Scripture, we can come to certainty about God’s action in the world, but only to the extent that God reveals His action.
These two reasons: hiddenness and revelation undermine entirely any hope of delineating God’s action beyond what He reveals to us in scripture. We can certainly build models of God’s action. Theologically, however, I do not think we can adjudicate them.
My conclusion is settled agnosticism. Because of Scripture I know that God acts. My creative mind can enumerate possible models for His action. And I also recognize there are probably good and yet unknown models. So, I know that God’s action in evolution is not a logical impossibility.
However, in evolution God does not tell me in Scripture which of these models is correct. Therefore, there is no way to adjudicate which one is correct. So I am an agnostic. About God’s action in evolution, there is not much more to say with confidence.
Some insist for more. Not just people here but many in the ID movement. God does not give us this. We have to ask why this is so important for us to know, when it is not important enough for God to reveal to us. What makes evolution so unique that we must have an accounting of God’s action? God does not even provide this for Jesus on the Cross. What has distorted our view so much that this rises to such prominence?
There is a pattern at play for some. I do not presume this applies to everyone with these concerns. However, the pattern often looks like idolatry.