Hi Christy,
Perhaps this discussion may advance if your were to say what you understand by the phrase “ordained by God”. My view is along the lines of sanctified by God, specifically chosen by God for a special purpose, and thus is more in keeping with salvation.
If the term has another use in the USA I would like to know what that is.
Cheers.
@GJDS, well that was actually a helpful summarizing of the contention being discussed!
Point 9 of the Mission Statement:
"We believe that the diversity and interrelation of all life on earth are best explained by the God-ordained process of evolution with common descent. Thus, evolution is not in opposition to God, but a means by which God providentially achieves his purposes. Therefore, we reject ideologies that claim that evolution is a purposeless process or that evolution replaces God. "
In Dictionary.com, several definitions of “ordained” are offered… I think these two are the most relevant:
So… the mission statement seems to say God “decreed” or “destined” Evolution as a process he would use to accomplish his plan regarding Humanity and living things of the Earth.
The term “Ordained” is frequently associated with Any “divine decision” . . . so it seems like an uncommonly appropriate term for BioLogos to use.
As to your complaint about the term “BioLogos” itself… made many postings earlier … it seems to be a logical extension of the first words of the Gospel of John, don’t you think?
John 1:1-4
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
The Greek word “logos” is translated “the word”.
The Word of God is equated to God Himself.
And all things were made by God (the Logos).
And in God was Life (!!!).
Schematically:
Logos/Word = God
God > All Things
In God < Life
Frankly, I can’t think of a more poetic, And Biblically Inspired, name than Bio-Logos.
From me, 2nd George, to you 1st George, I think you should reconsider your hasty wrath in this matter. Perhaps the word “ordained” has been bugging you for months. Perhaps it just rubs you the wrong way. But perhaps “ordained” with a little “o” is less provocative and you can see how it was intended to be meant.
Peace to you, Brother of God’s Love:
George Brooks ,
On yet another page, there is discussion of the meaning of a One Sentence mission statement (back in 2014):
Mission Statement:
BioLogos presents evolution as God’s means of creation, so that the Church may celebrate and the world may see the harmony between science and biblical faith.
Evolution is a “means” of God’s creation … just as the Dinosaur Killing asteroid could be seen as a “means” for God to eliminate the creatures that were too large to savely allow the rise of hominids … and humanity in general.
Of course… that is an inter-locking concept with Evolution itself… but is not the entire Universe an “inter-locking” manifestation of all that God brings to creation?
This discussion will end with which semantics is preferred by whom - take the discussion outside the emotion laden evolution, and discuss, for example, chemical bonding. If some organisation with religious leanings made the claim in 1900, “chemical bonding is God ordained” and “this is how God operates, creates, etc.”, what would any dispassionate observer think of such theology? Since then he would say, God’s means of creating molecules has been corrected so many times that He and I find ourselves in endless confusion and puzzlement. Why has He ordained so many inept theories?
We have gone from orbitals circling atoms, to exchange of electrons, to hybridisation, to partial bonds, to wave mechanics, and we are not finished as yet.
Surely your god would have got it right when he ordained all of this? Or are we seeking another god with his gaps?
In any event, I think all opinions have been written and read on this subject.
It may appear to some that GJDS is being pedantic or trivial (he can’t surely, be both!), but in fact he’s just thinking more rigorously than some of us… and when we are making claims about what God has ordained, we need to be rigorous, because we tread on holy ground.
We start, perhaps, with a statement like: “God ordains evolution as a means of creation.”
To begin with, we have already confused the cause of creation (the divine word) with an effect of creation (the secondary cause “evolution”). So we have said nothing about creation itself, but brought God as Creator down to the level of another toolmaking creature, “using” evolution as we might use cabbages to make soup.
If we then define “evolution” in its accepted generic sense (as insisted upon by Joshua Swamidass, for example) of “change over time”, we’ve in fact only said “God has ordained change over time”, which is to say nothing about causes at all, but just recorded the fact that we observe change, which is trivial in a world of change (As GJDS rightly observed).
So we maybe put some meat on it by specifiying a particular theory of evolution, which as GJDS points out, deifies a particular current paradigm of human explanation. If we choose Lamarckism as our theory, it’s denied by Darwin. If we choose Darwinism, it’s denied by Mendel and heavily reworked by Fisher, Haldane and Wright. If we say Neodarwinism, it’s greatly modified and, by many, replaced by Kimura’s neutral theory (see Larry Moran’s recent column). And so on, if we bring to the table the challenges to the current paradigm by a range of Third Way researchers, and many still viable ideas that have gone out of fashion. So which theory was ordained by God?
Perhaps, to avoid that cul-de-sac, we back off to some more general proposition such as “God has ordained randomness in evolution…” And then we have to deal with the fact that, in science, “random” has no other meaning than “unknown causes”, so we are saying that God has ordained unknown causes to create, which is absurd at every level, other than redefining God as a thrower of dice. If we mean just “causes unknown to us”, rather than God, why don’t we just say, “We don’t really know what causes we mean”? In fact, we don’t know if our “unknown causes” are secondary causes at all, or the unmediated divine fiat.
All this logical confusion would, perhaps, be relatively trivial (though when is confusion about God ever trivial?) if it didn’t frequently lead to statements about theology of the kind, “Because evolution… then X”, where “X” might be “We have to rethink the exceptional nature of mankind”, or "We have to reject original sin, or “We have to reformulate our understanding of atonement,” or more generally, “We need to think of God as an enabler of opportunities, not as a ‘puppetmaster’ craftsman determining outcomes.”
It is sufficient for someone to say, “I am a Christian, and I find/do not find such and such a scientific theory persuasive.” It may be useful to say, “Here is why I believe that accepting this view does not threaten Christian faith.” But to go far beyond that is to make a religion out of science - and we all know the problems of Scientism.
It seems like you both want to play both sides of the discussion. For example, when I say that God uses cosmic rays to make pinpoint mutations… this idea is dismissed as way too specific. And yet it is known that electromagnetic radiation causes mutations.
And yet, if i use a more hypothetical description of how evolutionary forces combine together, this is dismissed because of the potential error there is in trying to enlist anything specific about Evolution in our current state of ignorance.
I would suggest that you cannot rightly dismiss both very specific and very general descriptions.
In Newton’s time, if someone asked him how God makes the planets circle the sun, he would say Gravity. When asked to define Gravity, he probably would have offered some hypothesis that has been fully rejected by now. And yet the description that Gravity is how God keeps the planets orbiting would still be correct.
Well of course everything we can know or even talk about here will be a construct in our minds! One should think that might go without saying --or didn’t here as the case may be. We all start already well-established in the faith that there is a real world and that we all hope and think that we can correctly know a few things about it.
Our table conversations don’t usually run:
“Could you pass the butter, please?”
“Well, I would if we didn’t already know that your desire for butter is just a construct in your mind. What epistemology are you using that makes you think you want butter?”
“Well, yes … but do you think you maybe go ahead and pass it so I can use it? --then you’ll be free to carry on about my epistemologies while I eat…”
@Jon_Garvey, I can appreciate the desire to make sure that we don’t forever be bending our theologies to whatever latest fad of knowledge we latch onto. But I don’t see anybody here doing this. What I hear is a general proclamation of praise to God – an attribution to Him, for the realities of nature whatever those realities be! It isn’t an ordination of science generally, much less evolution specifically, much less whatever strain of evolutionary understandings are currently favored. It’s a statement that God is creator and to be praised for what we see regardless of how correct, or incorrect or incomplete our understandings of it inevitably will be.
The psalmist praises God for his faithfulness exhibited in the reliable rising and setting of the sun. Are we to look down on that psalmist with a touch of pity and think, “well, too bad he probably wasn’t sophisticated enough to have this discussion of his epistemology with us – otherwise he might have been more wary about pretending that God has ordained these faulty geocentric understandings!” And of course none of us here (I trust) is claiming any such thing. We know good and well that the psalmist rightly praises God for the creation as he sees it, and we know that we do the same; in the end with probably just as many misconceptions of our own that may or may not ever be rectified in this life.
But none of that should keep us from praising God for reality such as we are permitted and enabled to model it in our minds.
…couple usual word edits / polishings added … yada yada
Maybe if we always remembered to say “Simon says” before we attempt to describe the process of Evolution, we wouldn’t get dinged by those who think we are being presumptuous ?
I am at a loss when confronted by this - are you suggesting the Academy must undo the disciplines and declare them branches of biology? Or perhaps you may have in mind a super-theory that subsumes maths, physics, chemistry, etc.? Both options would be rejected.
Statements such as yours, and also “God ordained this and that” cannot be taken seriously. @Jon_Garvey Jon is showing how the creation has been discussed by commencing with creation from nothing (primary cause) and subsequent coherent discussions that follow (Aquinas).
Saying God causes rain, or gravity, or beauty in the world, is correct because it is a way of praising God for His blessings and our planet. If Newton, after completing his work, were to say - this is to the glory of God, that would be correct. But Newton would never attribute his work to an ordination by God - such a view would have horrified him and other Christians.
And yet God has allowed Just These Kinds of descriptions to adorn his Holy Word. Do you doubt this? Then inspect this example of what the Bible says God ordains… and maybe you’ll take the “shrill volume” down a notch:
My specific point is this: When the writer of Job describes God’s use of storehouses for snow and hail… has he made a mockery of God and God’s ordained uses?
I think not.
George
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Job 38:22
Hast thou entered into the treasures [aka STOREHOUSES] of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures [STOREHOUSES] of the hail,
Job 38:23
Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?
Job 38:24
By what way is the light [heat] parted, which scattereth the east wind [the heat of the Sirocco] upon the earth?
[Background discussion from David Cline]
David Clines of University of Sheffield writes (“One or Two things You may not know about the Universe”):
“It is well known that in Hebrew cosmology there are storehouses in the heavens, but how many are they? There is a variety … there isa storehouse of rain (Deut. 28:12); of wind (Job 37:9; Jer. 10:13…); of clouds (Sir. 43:14); perhaps of the heavenly sea (Psa. 33:7; of darkness, cf. 1QS 10:2); of winds, snow, mist, thunder (1 Enoch 41:4; 60:11-21); of winds, meteors and lightning (1QH 1:12; 11QBer 2:7); and apparently of manna also (Psa. 78:23-24). In the present text, most readers recognize storehouses of snow and hail, but there is a third as well: heat…”
Verses 25-27:
"Who cuts a channel for the torrent of rain, a path for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land uninhabited, on the unpeopled desert; to satisfy a waste and desolate land, making the thirsty ground sprout with greenness?
Clines describes: "Lightning also, like torrential rain, follows a prescribed path in its journey to earth. Elihu in 28:36 has already used the very phrase we have here, ‘a path for the lightning of the thunder.’
Verses 28-30:
"Has the rain a father? Who sires the dewdrops? From whose womb comes the rime? Who is the hoar-frost’s mother? The waters become hard as stone, and the face of the deep is captured [by the ice].
Cline: [This] next strophe shifts our gaze from the dramatic downpours of rain, accompanied by thunderbolts, to the more placid provision of five kinds of moisture: in the form of rain and dewdrops, rime and hoar-frost[],** and ice (depicted but not named in v. 30)."
“Has the rain a father? . . . The answer is No! The rain, along with all the other forms of moisture, has no (mythological) father or mother, being nothing but the result of a divine act or, less probably, the operation of natural laws (cf. v. 33). The rain, along with all these other forms of moisture, was not brought into being once and for all in a primordial time, as the language of begetting and child-bearing might suggest. Rain and dew, rime and hoar-frost, are perpetually created anew by Yahweh in his daily care for his universe.”
**[.[Footnote: ‘Hoar-frost’ is a frozen dew that sometimes appears depending on the weather conditions. Dictionary.com describes the origin of “Hoar” as a word derived from Old Norse and Old High German, to refer to “silver” or “gray”, as in “gray with age”:
(ORIGINS:
before 900; Middle English hor, Old English hār; cognate with Old Norse hārr gray with age, Old Frisian hēr gray, Old High German hēr old (German hehr august, sublime) ].]
Verses 31-33
“Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loose Orion’s belt? Can you bring out the Mazzaroth in its season, or guide Aldebaran with its train? Do you determine the laws of the sky (heaven)? Can you establish its rule upon earth?”
[ King James renders 33 thusly:
“Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?” ]
CLINE: “The terms ‘binding the Pleiades’ and ‘loosing Orion’s belt’ do not refer to the original disposition of these stars at creation, but to the impossibility of interfering with their powers of rain-making. To bind the Pleiades would be to check the spring floods that they unleash, and to loose Orion’s belt would be to disable the autumn rains.”
“The laws of the heavens, which we hear of elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible only at Jeremiah 33:26 (‘the ordinances of heaven and earth’), are the regularities that associate a given constellation with a season of the year. These laws of association constitute the ‘rule’ of the heavens upon earth.”
Verses 34-38
“Can you lift your voice to the clouds, and make a flood of waters answer you? Can you send lightning bolts on their way, and have them report to you, “Ready!” ? Who gave the Ibis wisdom or endowed the cock with intelligence? Who can disperse the clouds with skill, and tilt the water jars of the heavens, so that the soil fuses into a solid mass, and the clods of earth stick fast together?”
Cline: In this section “… longer than all the others because of its climactic position, we are reminded that what Job cannot do, God can, and does. These verses envisage the falling rain from the clouds as a response to the voice of Yahweh. The lightning likewise does not fall of its own accord, but reports for duty to its master; each bolt is directed on its way individually by God. The law of nature, according to this cosmology, is that nature does what it is told.”
Something to think about here, @Relates (aka Roger) … if God can bind and direct trillions of quantum particles to create and direct lightning to its assigned target - - the idea that God can direct the occasional cosmic ray - - unseen - - to specific chains of genetic code doesn’t seem to be that much of a challenge to the Almighty.
[This is the posting where this text was originally posted…
God's use of natural laws & the Western scientific tradition - #246 by gbrooks9 ]
This. My understanding of the use of “God-ordained” is that it is simply an acknowledgement that nothing in nature happens outside of his will and plan.
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