Hmmm… I guess when I read the section I have here highlighted, I got the impression that you were opposed to God’s interventions. And so I thought you might have meant it in the same way that a few here mean it:
God might send an asteroid to change an ecosystem … but he would never mutate a gene.
Based on your most recent response I see that I misunderstood your previous post:
The, “was arranged by him” is referring to local action by God. You were correct, I don’t hold to interventions, though I’m not so much opposed to them as I feel they are unnecessary. God wants us ensconced in natural causes and He is more than capable of creating a universe that evolves man through these natural causes. Above I’ve stated a few ways of how we can understand how God could accomplish that, though, as I stated as well, we’ll never know all the details.
Maybe we should just take God at His word that what looks and feels natural really is. 
Why can’t I have God mutating a gene? I do, through natural causes, and over time beneficial ones are bound to arise and hence here were are. I really don’t think it’s all that difficult to understand, nor is it, “unbiblical”, as soon as we stop attempting to concord Genesis 1 with modern science.
@Richard_Wright1, I am fine with everything you write here.
I only discuss the OPTION of God intervening in real time to accommodate those who think that God regularly performs miracles by overriding Natural Law. I am content that he does everything by EXTENDING natural law.
Eddie, I believe that you’re comparing apples to oranges. The unfolding of the natural world is not a prophecy - there is no time-frame implicit in evolution while there is with Judas. Once man evolved and was ready to communicate with God, then prophecies come. The time-frame before that seems to me irrelevant.
I don’t agree with Falk et al in their version of, “nature’s freedom” - I don’t think one can believe in the God of the bible and accept the, “intelligent octopus” premise. We know that evolution is constrained - how, we don’t know. Maybe the laws of physics put into effect by God 13.8 billion years ago, working on the the specific properties of matter that God also created at that time somehow guarantees evolution to man. (BTW, that is what I mean by, “front-loaded” evolution.) Again, we can’t and never will know all the, “hows”. So, I still haven’t seen any scientific or theological issues that oppose the idea that God unleashed a free-running nature that he predetermined to evolve man using the laws He created.
I can’t adequately address the material/spiritual issue since I’m not a theologian nor have I studied the question to any extent. But I think looking at it that way may be a little deeper than my theory is attempting to go. The point is that God’s kingdom has always been under attack and He needed to intervene at times to assure man’s salvation. At same time, I don’t think one can say that biological or cosmological forces are, “under attack” from anything.
I agree with your position here completely … but with even more emphasis. I wouldn’t use the word peculiar. I would have used the phrase “EXCEPTIONALLY UNLIKELY”.
Sherlock Holmes would reply something to the effect that if everything else is impossible, then the unlikely must be true.
Do you mean necessary empirical evidence for the necessity of a Creator?
For the record, it is not an accusation. To refresh your memory, this is what you said:[quote=“deliberateresult, post:826, topic:4944”]
. I consider evolution to be among the very greatest testimonies to God’s power and wisdom. Imagine establishing a universe with physics and universal constants which inevitably produced life and the evolutionary processes which continually adapt and diversify that life."
[/quote]
Note the part where you declared that the physics and universal constants inevitably produced life.
I do not doubt that you believe that it is God who established the initial conditions whereby all matter (at least at the macro level) is constrained. On this much, you and I (and many other posters to this thread) are in complete agreement: God did indeed establish these initial conditions. But you go on to claim that the “physics and universal constants…inevitably produced life.” It is this specific claim that you and I disagree on. I firmly hold that the physical laws which produce the regularities of nature that make our universe both life permitting and comprehensible are not sufficient in and of themselves to “inevitably produce life,” and have laid out my reasons. I would like for you to flesh out for me the reasons that lead you to a different conclusion. Indeed I have begged you to share why you believe this.
And I am still waiting…
I’ll repeat the exchange. Gbrooks9 was apparently surprised at DeliberateResult’s characterization of my postioin:
So I was asked if DeliberateResult was correct in saying that I thought God did NOT establish “all of it.” So I posted:
So I’ve been quite clear in my position. Meanwhile, it appears that DeliberateResult is stuck in the false dichotomy which arises from thinking the Ultimate Causation discussed by philosophers is somehow in conflict with the Proximate Causation that is the focus of science. He apparently fears that accepting the “effectiveness” of the natural processes God created somehow poses a threat to the role of God. (Does he share the fear of those who say that accepting the role of natural processes in God’s plan for the universe thereby “leaves God with nothing to do” and thereby renders God “unnecessary”? I don’t know. I’ve often found DeliberateResults explanations incongruent. Perhaps he looks at my posts similarly. If so, I’m fine with leaving it at that as I have other interests, and a nagging manuscript deadline looming.)
Some people favor one of the traditional views of the Creator as a 24/7 trouble-shooter always on duty, tweaking and correcting a creation that never quite behaves as the creator intended. They see this ever-vigilant supervising deity as a tribute to such a deity’s importance. I see it as a less-than-omnipotent deity who hardly befits the powerful and transcendent YHWH God of the Bible! I believe the God of the Bible who doesn’t have to constantly hover and tweak to get his “very TOV” creation to “behave” as he intended. No, YHWH is more wise and powerful than that! He doesn’t have to continually “help things along” because of being unable to get it right the first time.
No. As a Molinist, I recognize that God chose a “reality path” for the universe which will without a doubt fulfill God’s purposes for it. It will inevitably accomplish God’s will and quibbling over some sort of imagined problem of natural processes producing life and the evolutionary processes which adapt and diversify life is an insult to the power and wisdom of God.
In fact, this is among the many reasons I eventually abandoned my participation in the creation science movement that grew out of the 1962 book by Morris and Whitcomb, The Genesis Flood. Besides the atrocious pseudo-science and the lack of support from the Biblical text itself, I could no longer accept the puny and weak deity of young earth creationism. That’s a huge topic for its own thread and far from the “My ID Challenge” of this thread. But I will mention that I’ll never forget an informal dinner meeting a bunch of us had at a Denny’s during the ETS conference where the major topic was Openness Theology. (Was that 2000?? I just don’t recall without looking it up.) Anyway, through an interesting set of circumstances, we discovered that a half-dozen of us had had remarkably similar backgrounds: reading The Genesis Flood and thinking it impressive at the time----and naively assuming that the authors had done their homework and accurately represented their citation sources and scientifically justifying the Young Earth Creationism of our church backgrounds. All of us had been creation science speakers in our respective denominations/church-fellowships and even had developed a steady flow of speaking engagements. Three of us had done campus debates on origins issues at major universities. Four of the six had significant scientific credentials and even professor appointments in science departments at public and private universities/colleges, though not in a scientific field directly relevant to the evolutionary science and geologic topics which we claimed to understand! Yet what I found most significant was that our change of mind was not just about gathering more scientific evidence recognizing our appalling errors. (We laughed at the stereotypical accusations that we all became old earthers and evolutionists because we were trying to impress or get along with the world-wide evil atheist scientific conspiracy.) No, in every case, it was because a recognition that (1) Young Earth Creationism was so strongly contradicted by our study of the Greek and Hebrew texts of the scriptures, and (2) we recognized that YECism demanded a very weak and puny deity who planted deceptive evidence within his creation in order to trick and manipulate. I don’t think I had ever been brave enough to admit that concern of Reason #2 until that dinner at Denny’s—and I had previously assumed that most ex-YECs became ex-YECs purely based on science, but it seemed that I was not at all the only one who got there by the theological route and refusing to tolerate such an insult to the power, wisdom, and holiness of God!
Looking back on my background within a church that was so swept up by the creation science mindset brought by Gish, Morris, and Whitcomb, I’m embarrassed at how willing I was to accept such a small view of God. And I shouldn’t be surprised that so many ex-YECs friends are now totally lost to the Church and even theism in general. I certainly agree with those who say that the best known Young Earth Creationist ministry leaders have helped created more atheists than Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris ever will. Ironically, Ken Ham co-wrote a book about the high rate of exodus of young people from Young Earth Creationist churches when they are exposed to the overwhelming scientific evidence for an old earth and evolution. The all-of-nothing, slippery-slope false dichotomies of YECism convince people that the creator is weak, irrational, and manipulative in his deceptions—by creating a universe he must perpetually tweak and which he fills with misleading evidence for a history which never happened. (Even the starlight in the night sky is alleged a huge collection of photon compilations of false star histories which never happened! The creator is a liar who makes dependable scientific investigation impossible. So the universe doesn’t make sense even though the creator constantly supervises and forces it into an unruly submission. Yes, the YEC-deity created the universe but wasn’t able to make it fulfill his will for it without 24/7 supervision to force it into submission. No thanks. I far prefer the omnipotent and omniscient YHWH God of the Bible!
I now consider my former brand of young earth creationism not only an insult to God but a kind of blasphemy. I still struggle some with the guilt I feel for having misled my audiences. And I wish I could go back and apologize to the teenagers in the youth ministry I led for two years in a Bible Belt independent Baptist church. Did they all abandon the Gospel when they discovered that I had taught them pseudoscience and a distrust of “secular science” (aka real science?)
I get very angry sometimes at the clownish antics of Ken Ham, Ray Comfort, Kent Hovind, Jason Lisle, Georgia Purdom, Tas Walker, and so many others. Yet, when I pause to reflect, I helped set the stage of the disaster which ignited into a destructive conflagration when the internet allowed YECism to multiply and infect a much wider spectrum of churches. By the grace of God, I can only respond in continued repentance by doing whatever I can to reverse the false teachings which I helped propagate.
[quote=“Eddie, post:840, topic:4944”]
Wouldn’t God know, from the initial disposition of the universe, a universe whose exact properties were determined by him, what had to evolve, and not only what, but where and when? Wouldn’t he have willed the time of the appearance of man, as well as the fact of the appearance of man? Or did he will only the appearance, and leave the time up to chance? It would be peculiar if God were Lord over “history,” but only a half-Lord over “nature.”[/quote]
Your question seems to assume that God didn’t know when man would evolve.
Also, how exact did God have to know about when man would evolve for you to feel that God’s sovereignty is intact? To within a million years? A thousand years? To within a millionth of a second? Does God have to know the exact angular momentum of every sub-atomic particle in the history of the universe for Him to be sovereign?
We probably should be suspicious of that thought, if we’re talking about the God of the bible. However, I am not making that claim, as I’ve said, I’m convinced that God, planning to use natural processes, knew for 100% certainty that man would evolve and in fact it was for that very reason that He created the universe. To what level of timing did God know about the appearance of living things I don’t know nor do I think it’s important to know.
Conflict between Darwin and the Bible only exists when one believes it does. It’s a erroneous train of thought held by YECs and the Richard Dawkins fan club.
Yet I am neither.
The truth is that with the exception of a very small minority (specifically, those who wish to believe that the TOE is true but God does exist; a position that requires - just as YEC does - a very specific interpretation of Scriptures. But unlike the YEC position, it is a position that does considerable damage to many foundational doctrines), most everyone who has looked into these things can plainly see that the TOE offers a narrative that is mutually exclusive of the proclamations of Scriptures.
I very much disagree with SF’s view that YEC has created any significant amount of atheists. Rather, from my own experience, the rejection of YEC has created quite a few darwinists, and darwinism, in turn, has created, as most will acknowledge, quite a few atheists. The testimonies abound.
Alas, it seems highly unlikely that SF and I will ever get to flesh this out, as he seems much happier to talk about me than to engage in dialogue with me.
Do I read this correctly? Are you claiming that the fact that people believe something counts as evidence for the truth of that thing?[quote=“fmiddel, post:843, topic:4944”]
If a Christian who champions front loaded evolution is willing to stand with the ID proponent in championing the clear evidence for the necessity of a Creator, I would call that big time progress and be happy to engage in an intercollegial debate about our disagreement.
Do you mean necessary empirical evidence for the necessity of a Creator?
[/quote]
Thia ia really frustrating. I have repeatedly supported the truth that evidence (of the highest caliber) for the necessity of a Creator of life exists. In turn, you repeatedly insist that I am saying that evidence is necessary. Please read what I am plainly saying correctly.
I’m not say that God can’t know every piece of His creation, He obviously can. But if God initiated the universe with 100% certainty that evolution as it has happened would occur, then I don’t think the timing question is important, though I think God probably knew when things would happen.
I don’t know what you mean by a, “small minority”. EC is a growing position in Evangelical Christianity, my church included and is the official explanation of how God created man of the Catholic church. As well many mainline Protestant churches or members of those churches accept evolution. And that’s just in the US. In my family of churches in Europe most believe in evolution so I would say that you overstated your case here.
I’m wondering what that interpretation would be. An EC can hold to both the Framework Theory or the Day Age Theory for interpreting Genesis 1.
I think that you’re both right about YEC or the rejection of it creating atheists. Since a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 is so far off from what God’s creation has revealed that it unfortunately has caused some people to reject God completely. At least EC offers them an option.
I guess I just have to say that disagree with that. I, as a non-evolution believing Christian looked at the evidence for TOE and accepted it still believing that God created the universe, which has evolved to man (instead of God creating man instantaneously) and that men sinned and needed a savior who came in the form of God’s son, who died as a sacrifice for sins so that man could be saved. The only proclamation of scripture off the top of my head that I don’t hold that you do is an historical Adam and Eve, but a lot of ECs believe in them.
Really? I haven’t noticed that. On the contrary, I see most people claiming a personal relationship with the Creator of Life, which is a very compelling kind of experience-based evidence. I see evidence every day that God is ruling his creation and providing lovingly for his creatures. It’s not scientific evidence, but I don’t think science is the only avenue available when ascertaining truth.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
This is a place for gracious dialogue about science and faith. Please read our FAQ/Guidelines before posting.