I’ve largely left this thread alone since many of the questions I had to to other’s opinions were adequately answered by others. Though this general topic has seen to be spreading through other discussions across the forum. Personally, I do think that shows how messy of a topic this is and it’s at the heart of what Biologos is trying to do. Something that I have been pondering is just our relationship to what we perceive on how God should of created things. I think evolution is portrayed as being anti-Christian because for non-theists, its easy to debunk a literal 6 day creation and undermine their faith. For creationists, if they’ve been told through popular media and popular atheists that God and evolution are incompatible, of course they’ll cling to a YEC style creation. But for folks who ascribe to TE, what we understand as God’s involvement in the process is partially determined by what we believe on how God would create the world.
Going pretty far back, I appreciate a different stance on this Mitchell. However, I do struggle with seeing little difference in this with the the complication of “the blueprint model”. I appreciate the insight of natural law not being casually closed and how that offers a “natural” explanation to permit God’s involvement. But it seems like that is strictly a faith claim and not one that can be remotely seen evidentially. And it still leave the question of God’s necessity in the story of evolution, because we do have to admit that God’s involvement to most, if not all wouldn’t be clearly seen. What to you, if anything, would suggests God’s handiwork in creation and the evolutionary story that would speak clearly of him being part of the paradigm?
You take a similar but different approach to Mitchell, that still ends up at God’s necessity in my opinion. Once again both you and Mitchell separately have demonstrated that God intervening in nature is probably not the best terminology to use. But as others have pointed out, if even if God is sustaining and upholding creation, or some other theologians suggests God’s continually and eternally creating, how we distinguish natural from divine sources or causes? If we suggest this to non-theists, it seems we are adding a “unnecessary element”. It doesn’t seem like we can give non-thiests any good answers on God’s necessity from the stance of the natural world (And God of the gaps never really helped us either)
Ultimately though, I want to ask the question is whether it’s our inability to envision a God who is necessary, upholding creation, intervening in the natural world that isn’t causally closed but seemingly no direct evidence of him in the system He created. Do you think that’s what God wanted, to create a system that works well enough to almost assume that it doesn’t need the ultimate source or doesn’t clearly show a design outside of itself (aka are we just reading design and intent where it’s all just a product of the system to seem “designed”). Should we be bothered by this seeming void that just leads us back to the problem of divine hiddeness? I don’t know honestly. To me most claims that God is doing more than we can clearly say to me seems like a total matter of faith. And maybe that’s where honesty needs to lie. That evolution does more to not contradict the claim of Divine providence and existence rather than giving us a clear direct support for Him. I wrestle however then how much of God can we “read” in ToE on its own terms and if that should be enough to convince anyone of it’s potential ultimate source?
What presuppositions do we bring into these discussions when we assume God had to create in a certain way or be visible enough to show His existence to the very creatures He wanted to have relationship with?