Paul “God is the Ground of All Being” Tillich must be one of those religionists.
Shall we talk about meteorology. 
I’m hopeful that Mr. T.W. Rogers understood implicitly what I was getting at:
@Dale regarding the original question for the thread, this extended quote from Lewis’ Screwtape Letters in Widder’s commentary on Daniel seemed particularly fitting:
You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to over-ride a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs — to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot “tempt” to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
He is such an amazing God. I am listening to this song in my head from the morning, So Will I (100 Billion X). The worship leader sang it with such a beauty, and dare I say anointing, that it was if he was telling the story for the first time.
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So you don’t think there are any biological influences on human behavior? Do you think its just co-incidence that the vast majority of violent criminals throughout history in every culture just happen to be male?
Hi Tom, thanks for responding. I did start reading the links you posted but then I saw McAuthur rejects evolution. His views are therefore not relevant to my question
You make sure that the scientific view is understood.
So where is God’s glory in TOE?
TOE says nothing about God!
Richard
Hi Roger, Thanks for your note and for looking into those links. Yes, MacArthur rejects evolution but only because nowhere in the Biblical record is evolution mentioned or remotely described as any creative mechanism. Your question is still crucial and demands an answer as to how and why “sin” or evil exists and the God of the Bible answers those questions. I’ll close by referencing Romans chapter 5:12-21 for you to consider as you look for answers to your question. Thanks, Tom
So where is God’s glory in majestic clouds and brilliant sunsets? Meteorology says nothing about God! (Over and out. 
)
You haven’t answered the question.
I am not talking about anything other than TOE
Richard
No you avoided it.
If they are the same.
Where is God’s glory in
Meteorology, TOE, Cosmology…
God’s qualities are supposed to be visible in His works. Show me God’s qualities in TOE
Richard
No, it appears that analogical reasoning doesn’t work for you…
The theory of evolution is not ‘His works’, it’s about how his works work physically, as is meteorology. There is no theology involved.
There is glory in majestic clouds and brilliant sunsets that reflect God’s beauty and glory – it is not in meteorology. The science of meteorology says nothing about God.
Likewise, analogically, there is majesty in God’s majestic and brilliant creatures, but it is not because of evolution nor is it in the theory of evolution. The science of the ToE says nothing about God.
If the process of evolution is understood correctly, God’s brilliance in another sense can be seen in it though, that he created such a marvelous system to produce such diversity. But that is not itself part of the ToE – the science itself says nothing about God.
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This may or may not help, but another example would be to look at a Lamborghini, if someone is an exotic sports car aficionado. There is ‘glory’ in the car itself, not in the technical manual about the car. The latter is the ‘science’ about the car – the beauty of the car is not in the science.
Or, at this time of year, we see God’s glory reflected in his creation in the magnificent autumn colors. The beauty we see and awe we feel in an overwhelming landscape is in the trees and their hilly or mountainous environs – it is not in the science about how and why the colors change, although that is cool enough in its own right.
But according to TOE He had no part in making them!
How can God take credit? All He did was start the process. He had no part at all in the construction. The fact that any of it is of beauty is seconndary at best. What mattered was that it sufvived.
Why can’t you see? It is not the mechanics, it is the principles. The way it is done.
Hitler was known by the fact he used war to get what he wanted. It was the method that defined him. Ghandi used passivity. It was this that defined him.
If God used TOE then it is that methodology that defined him, not whether is a scientific explanation or not.
TOE shows no care for shape or form. TOE shows no care for the individual. TOE actively works against the weak. TOE encourages strength and dominance. IS that how you see God? There is no providence in TOE. It is self making. Any glory is reflected at best. All God can be congratulated on is making a successful system.
Your analogies just show that you have no idea what I am driving at.
Richard
Science1 says nothing, pro or con, about God. Did God make the beauty of the clouds and the autumn leaves? Don’t look to science for an answer.
Likewise the failure to understand them. Why is it only evolution that is upsetting? It should be all science.
1 All science (which just happens to include biology), is methodological naturalism, not the philosophical naturalism that YECs and at least one other person we know of try to force it to be. Some atheists make the same mistake, e.g. R.Dawkins – Christians should not.
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So does vulcanology. Oh yeah, and meteorology.
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“Bring forth!” is the closest to one.
A Psalm of the Designer
Evolution declares the glory of God,
and the chromosomes in cells proclaim His handiwork!
Day to day pours out research,
and night to night reveals studies.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them,
yet their message has gone out to the whole earth,
and their words to the ends of the world.
He has set a tent for DNA,
which sends its messengers out from its chamber
like strong men they run their course with joy.
Its reach is from the birth of the Earth,
its circuit all around it,
and there is no life apart from that reach. selah
O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory within the cell.
When I look at all life, the work of your fingers,
the nucleus and the mitochondria§, which you have set in place –
What is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild,
the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
Oh Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
§ or, “the plants and all animals”
As anyone who on a summer afternoon has watched a tiny cloud appear and then grow to become a cumulonimbus that punctures the boundary and spikes upward into the stratosphere could affirm!
And then to run the math and computer models is also awesome.
“All”? A system that based just on the rules of chemistry can start with a single cell and bring forth all this variety, and you minimize it by saying, “all”?
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