Where, exactly, does the boundary between “microevolution” and “macroevolution” lie?
What mechanism, exactly, prevents that boundary from being crossed?
What evidence do you have that such a boundary, and such a mechanism, actually exists?
He opposes “Darwinism.”
Which is another example of someone using a word that means one thing to themselves and something completely different to their audience.
Then we need a better term, one that indicates that what science seeks is how God runs the universe, and that science is limited by the senses God gave us plus whatever tools that fallen man can invent.
That’s why the “view from below” terminology is helpful: noting that we are speaking “from below” is an acknowledgment that we are fallen and thus limited to those senses and tools.
Yes. Acknowledging that in science we are stuck with the fallen abilities of fallen man is what acknowledging that we are using the VFB is about: it is humility before God, and from there it is a reminder that the claims of science are only as dependable as the abilities of fallen man.
Richard has demonstrated that he considers himself suited to judge both the scriptures and God, so I doubt that any scripture will sway him.
It’s interesting that Jewish thought has never shied away from the conclusion that if God is upholding all things in existence then obviously He is responsible for all that happens – a responsibility He accepted at the Cross. What Richard fails to grasp is that God upholds everything in accordance with the rules He has established, which is to say that He is faithful and trustworthy even in matters so “small” as how mutations work. That is the basis of science, since if God did not uphold things those things would cease to exist, but instead He upholds them in accordance with His own rules. Since He is faithful to do so, then we can investigate those rules, which is what all of science is actually about.
I wish I still had the initial handout from my first college biology professor; he put the relationship of God’s faithfulness and science clearly and eloquently enough to be clear (and exciting) to a bunch of barely-settled-in college freshmen.
And in the view from above, point out that the methods we use are limited to what the Fall has left us with – maybe call it the “fallen nature system”.
Or from my point of view, how are they treating the text wrong? what difference does that make? how do we be faithful to the Holy Spirit when seeking to understand what He inspired?
He reminds me of that one fellow student who claimed to have calculated how many times God would have had to intervene in evolution to get modern humans, except in comparison I would say that Behe is dealing in inconsequentials, because identifying “irreducible” mechanisms isn’t all that useful or helpful.
I still like the comparison to constructing a building: no small series of actions, such as laying a dozen bricks or connecting a pair of wires, will get you a building, but all together those small changes add up to something greater than the sum of its parts.
I always get a laugh out of that because when LeMaitre first proposed the idea he was roundly accused of trying to smuggle God into science!
I still love the mental picture one lecturer used: there was nothing, and nowhere, then God poked His finger into a place that became a place when He did that poking, and that poke made everything explode into lots of somethings in lots of wheres.
Origen made essentially the same point.
How dare you! I have said no such thing. I am no more qualified to judge Scripture than you are. And no one has the authority to judge God. I would certainly never claim either.
Scripture v science? Bad idea.
Using scripture to justify science? even worse idea.
Scriipture on one hand claims desease and deformity comes direct from God then refutes it in Job (et al)
If God controls the minutia He is blessing some, and curseing others using criterai we cannot fathom or see. A person born with a crippling defect is not going to see God as being providential to them, especially if He was the definate cause!
Are you going to tell me that God deliberately caused the strokes that made my father a progressive vegetable over twenty years. My father, who was an ordained minister! Yes we prayed over Him, and Yes He was healed, but not in the physical sense, God gave him the strength to endure, and live. But that is not providence in the way it has been proclaimed on this forum, If you had watched him slowly deteriorate you would not be so glibb.
Richard
You are apparently using selective memory to ignore the fact ‘in the way’ hard providences have definitely been ‘proclaimed on this forum’ and endured. Our late friend @gbob comes to mind and the pain he endured for two decades. So glib. But that in turn reminds of a cool instance of God’s providence in his life as well: My Turkish translator experience.
Ouch
Such things sit well with you?
I can’t even count the number of people I have come across who lost faith due to the cruelty life (God?) threw at them. Or because He failed to live up to their view of His care. Apparently you are happy with a callous and uncaring side to God? If you truly believe in God’s continued and complete control then you must.
Richard
He doesn’t seem to grasp that when God said, “I form wholeness and I create calamity” covers the whole range of existence! To say that things happen apart from God denies God’s competence – and with the Jewish scholars I say it is proper to attribute everything to God rather than deny His control.
When it says that He upholds all things, that means “all things”; it isn’t limited to the things we like – which is kind of the point of the Isaiah passage. God isn’t saying that light and darkness, wholeness and calamity, are things that He forms or creates occasionally; the stress is on the “I”: “I am the one who fashions wholeness and creates calamity”, not any other, which means that if there is any wholeness, God fashioned it, and if there is any calamity, God created it, and that includes everything in between as well.
It is telling that many survivors of Auschwitz and Treblinka still affirmed that God was in control of everything and their faith survived, while those who thought God was only in control of good things ended up hating God and abandoning their faith.
Our God is an awesome God – He reigns.
How? Through providence.
The Hiding Place – Corrie Ten Boom.
Was a Calvinist.
I am not sure that your providential outlook includes predestination?
I would agree with you except that I do not think He reigns in the manner you insist.
(And you do not have the authority to claim certainty, or deny my viewpoint)
You are entitled to your viewpoint. You are not entitled to ridicule or dismiss mine.
Richard
How, then?
Remember Maggie and Rich Stearns: was he sovereign in their lives? How did he show it? And he ‘predetermined’ all the myriad circumstances in everyone’s lives, where they had to be, what stoplights had to be red or green, for them to be when they had to be there for the orchestration of events to work the way they did. ‘Predetermined’ is in scare quotes because it is a tensed word that does not strictly apply to our timeless (or timefull, omnitemporal) God.
Oh dear. 
Calvin (I’m pretty sure) knew there was a paradox between our responsible free will and God’s sovereignty, but he accepted the paradox, not denying all the scripture that you and all other Arminians must. Knowing that God is omnitemporal (based on the spacetime slices that we know exist from relativistic physics, plus the fact that God is omnipresent)… knowing that God is omnitemporal gives us a little more understanding and reason to trust his faithfulness. That certainly is not to say there isn’t still a wonderful mystery that we will not be able to get our heads around.
Look, your whole approach is based on miracles that you seem to think are just common or garden. God just does not intervene all the time! And He certainly does not govern when the rain falls specifically or how much wind is blowing. I can’t even count the number of times the weather has forced me to change my planes or interfered with my business. And I am not going to blame God for it!
Yes God does intervene in my life, I have given Him carte Blanche, but he doesn’t do it 24/7. I make my own plans and 99% of the time they succeed or fail by my efforts,and not because God interferes. I have my life. Christianity is a major part of it, but I also run a market stall. God does not supply me with customers or people to buy from. My reputation is more than enough. I couldn’t live with your viewpoint.To me it is untenable.
I refuse to blame God for any illness or accident.
When I was a teenager there was a youth club leader I got very close to. I went to see him several times but the last time, just after I left he at down in a chair and died (peacefully) I was furious with God! But He showed me that I was only furious because I hadn’t expected it.
Dan’s time had come. But that does not mean God had waited for that precise moment to take him.
I Have seen God’s influences. I know them. I recognise them, but they are not every day, or even every week. When I preach I can feel HIm watching over me and prompting me, but only once has He actually taken over and preached for me. It was a long time ago. I had the opening sentence and no more (not for lack of trying) I started in faith and I am told it was the best sermon I had preached to date. (It was on Romans 8). It has never happened since, although I know that He does occasionally suggest I jump something or add something to my notes.
The point is, God is not the manipulative control freak you claim of Him. He lets the world turn and is very selective when He does act. (Because He knows the repercussions) Often when people ask for something they do not realise what effects that one change might make in terms of those around.
The Lord’s Prayer says that we want His will to be done on Earth as it is Heaven, but that is a future hope not a present reality. If it did there would be no need for Christianity or the church.
Can’t you see all the evil in the world? How can you claim that God is controlling it? Why does He need us if He is doing it all Himself!
Richard
He cannot send storms? He is sovereign over them in any case, I hope you believe. Did he not ‘send’ Joseph to Egypt under less than pleasant circumstances, including multiple betrayals and prison? I’m afraid you’re missing the glorious forest.
Well there you go then. It’s too bad you’ve forgotten what it says (or he said through you?).
Of course He can. He just doesn’'t
We are not talking about biblical characters, or even how the Bible views biblical events. We are talking about everyday life
I said God doesn’t provide me with customers. Actually, He did once. The advertising for a sale I was doing failed, but on the day it was as if it had all been done. But that was the exception not the rule
I am not Joseph and neither are you!
Richard
Object all you want, but it won’t change reality. You’re missing the glorious forest of God’s sovereignty, something for his children to rejoice in!
… one element of Gensis 1 that evolutionists seem to overlook. Whether it was 7 days, 700 days or 7,000,000,000,000 days God created!.
Widen your view. GOD created the universe. Genesis 1:1 and 1:3 show God taking full and complete credit for inventing time, space, matter, and energy (light). Folks who obsess over the intellectual puzzle that Creation poses have taken to calling the the Big Bang.
God Created a universe in which evolution was an active element. Distracting oneself with a numerical measure (7 trillion) of a generic term (days) loses sight of the issue - God Created.
nature creates, not God?
Word salad.
Agreed. That was @RichardG’s word salad – he is an expert chef garde manger.
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