What is the difference between tenets and assumptions?
Something that my be relevant here–
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He made the storm be still,
and the waves of the sea were hushed.
Then they were glad that the waters were quiet,
and he brought them to their desired haven.
That’s a piece of Psalm 107.
What’s interesting is that some church Fathers considered the calming of the storm by Jesus a “fulfillment” of this passage – not so much that it was a prophecy but that it indicates that Jesus is God.
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Miracles aren’t really related to the point I was making. Richard is claiming that God isn’t in charge of everything and I was countering that.
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God never ever causes storms meteorologically or metaphorically in our lives either, right? And as the storm on Galilee shows, sometimes they’re the same thing.
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?
Hebrews 12:7
Dogmas are assumptions founded on text, tradition, and reason. Tenets are portions of dogma, as in “one tenet of my faith is . . .”
O FCA. That is not what that means!
It means that if the weather is controlled by God it is by His will alone and therefore there is no pattern to follow or means of guessing what He will do next! It has nothing to do with dependability or even faith in God.
That is not what you and Dale are saying!
You are saying that the weather is subject only to God’s direct control.
I am saying that it is subject to forces that were set up by God.(And that He does not interfere with them as a matter of course, only in exceptional circumstnce (miracles)
Perhaps you are not arguing what you think you are.(I know that is what Dale thinks)
Richard
What does O FCA mean?
We are saying you conflate science with ‘philosophy’. When we talk about science, we talk about it obeying the fundamental constants of the universe and the way we find out how it works is by observing the mechanics of it, methodologically. Without a divine-o-meter. VFB. It can tell us nothing about meaning or purpose. Period.
If you want to talk about meaning and purpose, now you can talk about God’s providence and sovereignty. But that is not science.
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Anything to add? (Don’t miss the irony in the last sentence, and it’s a rhetorical question.) The Hebrews verse says God does send problems our way. Wouldn’t a person in sports expect tough tests from their coach while training?
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If there is “no pattern to follow” that means that God isn’t dependable but is no different than “the gods of the nations”. Someone who follows no patterns but just whimsically decides what happens next is someone who can’t be trusted.
So yes, it does have to do with dependability: a God who has “no pattern to follow” is a god who can’t be trusted.
It’s exactly what I’ve been saying all along.
That’s a mechanistic God, which is not the God of the scriptures. The God of the scriptures says that if there is wholeness, that came from Him, and if there is calamity, that came from Him; that everything that comes into existence comes from Him. He is the Παντοκράτωρ (pan-to-KRA-tor), the all-ruler, ruling everything by His might.
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We knew we had a good cross-country coach when he had us doing relay sprints . . . up sand dunes . . . after running eight miles to get there.
I don’t think our coach was tougher than God.
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The moment you start claiming Scripture over reality you are no better than YEC.
Your view of God is the one that @mitchellmckain abhors.and I was trying to claim does not apply to Christianity.
God is neither manipulative or domineering. He does not dictate the weather, and no scripture will change that.
Richard
Since you brought me into this, then I will have to take a look.
Sounds good to me.
On the contrary. Yours is the god which sounds mechanistic to me. The weather demonstrably follows mathematical laws. So if you claim God is doing it all then it is God who is controlled by these mathematical laws – ergo a mechanistic god.
I would say instead that the moment you put scripture in opposition to reality then you reclassify the Bible as fantasy literature.
That everything came from God doesn’t mean God controls and decides everything which happens. Clearly He makes the rules. But this isn’t the same as control. You may think God cannot create the world without being in absolute control over everything but I think God can. And if it is His choice then the question becomes whether we believe in a God who values love and freedom or a God who prefers power and control. I definitely believe in the former not the latter.
But… let’s see what the Bible actually says…
First of all let’s dispense with the book of Job. The point is that God is telling us that we do not understand how God does things and thus to claim that the book of Job is telling us how God does everything is absurd.
Passages in Matthew and Luke only mean that God CAN influence the weather not that God controls all the weather.
As for the rest of the bible the message is only that God provides. He is the creator and all things exist because of His work of creation. It is not about providing an explanation of how God does things or how things work – that is not what the Bible is about.
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You are ignoring the main point so I will ask you bluntly
Do you believe that God controls the weather directly and always?
and
Do you believe that God controls the deviations of DNA and therefore controlled the development of all creatures?
Yes or no will suffice, but you can clarify if you wish.
Richard
I will say, on the other hand. That the weather is not absolutely determined by these mathematical laws. Nonlinearity means fluctuations can be selectively amplified to give unpredictable results. But natural law still dictates the probability distributions, so God controlling all the quantum fluctuations would be an alteration of the laws of nature. So given the scientific discovery of the laws of nature, the most this allows for are the rare intervention of miracles, which are by definition an exception to the rule.
Well, you will have seen enough of my comments about our Father’s providence to recognize that is a loaded question and not a yes or no answer even if you are blunt, depending on whether you are looking at it from the VFB, science, of the VFA, theology and ‘philosophy’. We do not talk about providence in science because @St.Roymond has not even provided a proof of concept or prototype divine-o-meter to use for even the most rudimentary scientific experiment.
I was just being thankful for God’s providence in storms as I was admiring the beautiful sky while walking down our lane to the county road to get the mail. If it weren’t for storms he sends (or allows, if you prefer), we would not appreciate fair weather as much as we do (or should).
The answer to your question also depends on the separation of church and state, to use a metaphor for the separation of the VFA and the VFB. Since you are routinely conflating them, there apparently is no answer you can accept.
You’ve seen this a few times, and it answers your question whether you recognize it or not:
…the most common mutations, transitions, are not really ‘copying errors,’ because the keto-enol transition of the base is driving them and the polymerase is working correctly. So if you’d like, that can be seen as providence more than chance. - John Mercer, molecular biologist
He addresses the VFB in the first sentence and the VFA in the second, and the author of Proverbs does both in one sentence, the first and second clauses respectively:
The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.
Proverbs 16:33
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That’s exactly backwards.
I “claim” that God is doing it all because that’s what the scriptures say: “Apart from Him is nothing made that has been made”. So every new molecule, every mutation, is His doing.
A mechanistic God is one who sets up Creation and lets it run like a machine, but that is not compatible with God being Παντοκράτωρ (pan-toh-KRA-tor), the All-Ruler.
What I think isn’t the point. God sustains the existence of everything and is thus in control of everything. He is the one who makes everything that comes into existence and thus is in control of everything.
Everything continues to come from God. He is the source of all wholeness and of all calamity, the source of all the rain and cosmic rays and mutations. Without Him ruling all this there would be no evolution, no chemistry, no geology.
But He does it all in accord with the rules He chose; the alternative is that He is capricious and undependable.
That’s the reason that science works: He does all these things and He does them faithfully in accord with what we call “natural law”.
Both Job and Matthew agree that it is God Who sends the rain. Job has the language about storehouses, indicating that God controls the supply of rain.
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That would also be conflating the VFB and the VFA into only the VFB.
On the contrary, God controlling all the quantum activity of the universe is what makes the “laws of nature” – if He wasn’t in control, things would cease to exist.
This idea of "laws of nature " as though God made a machine and lets it run is a modern invention that is alien to the Old Testament. The old covenant scriptures know nothing of a division between what God does and what nature does; nature is merely the activity of God running the world. When it says that he sends the rain, it means that any time there is rain God sent it; when it says He sends lightning it means that when there is lightning God sent it; when it tells us that He sends clouds, it means that if there are clouds then God sent them; when the scripture says He brings the wind from His storehouses, it means that if there is wind, He brought it.
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No, it is not, and I fail to see why you refuse to answer directly.
VFA & VFB are still an excuse for separating your faith from your science. Frankly, I have never understood how or why science is so important to you. Not that I want to know particularly.
However, I will acknowledge that you have shown me more respect than @St.Roymond.
Don’t get me wrong, I despise your view of God. It is a bit like communism, fine in theory but cannot work in practice. It’s not that I do not understand the principles of providentialism, or even deny the appeal, but there are too many cruel or callous consequences. As I said elsewhere, the result is not the relationship with God that I hope for. (or recognise)
Richard
Emphasis on “every”.
Ancient peoples appealed to gods for all parts of life because they understood that the divine is in control. The Old Testament tells us the same thing, except that it isn’t gods who are in control, it is just God. The old covenant scriptures are emphatic about God running the weather, but the concept extends to all things.
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