You know how God makes things conform to his will? Wow. How does God let you know things that only God can know? Emails? lol.
I wouldn’t have a clue … and neither do you. Please stop talking rubbish and making idiotic claims to divine knowledge. You’re making a fool of yourself.
You think evolution - a process that can allegedly be explained by purely natural mechanisms - is more impressive than a man being raised from the dead? Fascinating.
I must have forgotten. Where did I state that?
There is no dichotomy. Accepting evolution does not indicate deism, or that miracles are impossible. It just means, that even as we normally go though the course of our days subject to natural law, so too has the history of the planet. Clear thinking informed by pervasive evidence confirms this.
And yes, I do find creation pretty impressive. We are fearfully and wonderfully made.
This is not what I said. According to CS Lewis To be attracted by the idea that everything in nature is solely based on some basic rules and forces of nature, that is a sign of influence of a naturalistic mindset. I read Miracles last Christmas (however in Dutch). Lewis writes that The naturalistic worldview is, that nature is fundamentally democratic structured. The supranaturalist worldview is, that nature has a monargistic structure. In Dutch on page 85 of Miracles, Lewis states that only supranaturalists have a good sense of nature since they have the correct view on it.
that’s an interesting viewpoint. Thank you! I’m going to have to think on that. I should try to read it visually rather than by Audible.
That’s kind of sad that you have not experienced any, or even know of any, of God’s providential interventions. You should read about George Müller or Maggie. In his orchestration of all of those cool providences no natural laws were broken by the God who is wonderfully sovereign over time and place, timing and placing. I agree, you are clueless – no argument there!
Not as much as someone else who will remain monikered ‘Buzzard’. 
That makes the same mistake as @Buzzard, and as Ron @rsewell noted well, things operate normally from day to day:
It also makes the same mistake as YECs notoriously do in ignoring Jeremiah 33:25:
This is what the LORD says: If I have not established my covenant with the day and the night and the fixed laws of heaven and earth…
Jeremiah had a naturalistic mindset? I don’t think so.
That does not mean supranaturalists cannot be mistaken about the validity of God’s use of evolution.
Where in the world did you get that notion?
Besides which, evolution can be studied and understood, while rising from the dead can’t be studied – so which is more impressive is meaningless.
And that’s exactly what we should expect given the truth that God is faithful: He doesn’t go about whimsically changing the rules He chose for the universe.
How can it not be since what you were responding to was the proposition that “the sublime elegance of nature” points to a Creator?
Okay but that’s not what was said – what was said is that the basic rules of nature point to a Creator. Lewis would not call that evidence of a naturalistic mindset since he believed the very same thing. Nothing was said about nature being “solely based on some basic rules and forces of nature”.
You’re making a leap to a conclusion that doesn’t follow from what he wrote. I would have to agree that none of us “have a clue” whether God “always [has] to perform a supernatural miracle” in order to answer prayer, because none of us knows enough about the ‘natural’ world to make such a judgment. Plainly some answers to prayer involve supernatural miracles, e.g. how a lawn mower I was using ran for quite some time on an empty gas tank, much longer than could be accounted for by gas still in the line or the fuel filter or even fumes.
I’m not so sure of that.
It’s not a leap to conclude that God’s ‘customary’ M.O. in communicating special providences does not apparently violate the natural order – witness the aforementioned examples.1 Those who decry God’s sovereignty denialistically, whether believers or whatevers, typically say, ‘Oh, it’s just coincidence’, even when there are whole compound, complex and interrelated sets that are beyond probabilistic explanation. It’s not a coincidence that the naysayers clearly demonstrate their denialism.
Granted, we do not and cannot know how he orchestrates those which do not violate the known natural order any more than we can explain supernatural miracles that obviously do. Perhaps both involve a quantum interface between the ‘natural’ and the ‘supernatural’ which God uses in his supradimensionality?
1 One fun pair that I’ve referred to elsewhere is not all that long ago from Jim @jstump. The second one is especially delightful, when he was providentially literally turned around. The natural order, from what we can know, was not interrupted – what ‘scientific laws’ were violated?:
I bumped into someone online who maintained that God IS the quantum interface.
Quantum mysticism?
My first thought on seeing that picture was, “Wow, someone still crafts rail fences well!”
Jeremiah was a 21 century scientist? I don’t think so.
According to Lewis, supernatural acts don’t break natural laws, they use them or regulate them.
Many biblical miracles plausibly make use of natural laws but have exceptional timing. A landslide can block off the Jordan, allowing crossing. Exodus cites the wind God used to part the sea. One of the fish species in the sea of Galilee tends to pick up shiny stuff. In other cases, as far as we can tell, natural law is set aside, but such incidents seem to be minimized. The axe head floated but then had to be fastened back on better in the ordinary way. Water turned to wine had to be served just like usual. Visions are used to get Peter and Cornelius talking with each other.
Whether or not you happen to be predestined to accept the Westminster Standards, they represent a theological summary written in the 1640’s, before modern scientific issues were prominent. Ch. 5, point 3 states “God, in His ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at His pleasure.” The Bible sees things that happen by natural law as being from God, e.g. Ps. 29 sees God behind a storm.
Evolution, like any other scientific model, should thus be seen as an attempt to describe God’s ordinary working in creation. Whether it is a good scientific model can be left to scientists. Dawkins’ claim that evolution enables intellectually satisfied atheism should be taken as an insult to the intellect of atheists, not as a credible philosophical assessment. Even on his own terms, evolution does not explain earth history nor the universe, so major gaps in physical understanding of origins remained after the development of evolution by natural selection as a model of biological origins. But he is also committing the circular reasoning error of claiming that because he says that nothing exists beyond the physical, therefore physical explanations explain everything, therefore everything is explained physically and nothing beyond the physical exists.
I’d love to see Dawkins’ response to that! And for that, matter, to this–
Oddly enough I’ve never seen him called on that one.
I just read the introduction and first essay and have to say it is well worth the read! My only negative comment is that the ebook version is ludicrously overpriced.
As an atheist I would describe Dawkins’ claims as cringey. I think they are far more insulting to theists, as if theists wouldn’t also be intellectually satisfied by learning how biodiversity is produced in nature. Dawkins seems way more focused on beating down a religious strawman than he does understanding his fellow human beings.
Personally, I couldn’t care less about Dawkins’ religious screeds. However, I do find it fascinating that quite a few ID/Creationists follow Dawkins’ theology instead of the theology shared by other Christians on this site.
Dawkins is a bit more nuanced than that, if memory serves. At times he seems to admit that there could be something outside of the physical that he is just ignorant of, but his subsequent screeds betray what little nuance he attempts to create. He can be a good communicator when it comes to scientific concepts, but a philosopher/theologian he is not.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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