Re: metaphors

Murphy (gmurphy@imperium.net)
Tue, 15 Oct 1996 08:31:26 -0400

Robert L. Miller wrote:
>
> George Murphy wrote in part:
>
> > Some care is needed in talking about what God has "told us"
> >about creation, for this language is likely to obscure the distinction
> >between what God reveals to us and what we find out by our efforts.
> >(Admittedly the two can't be totally divorced: People had to open their
> >eyes to see Jesus.)
> > God's reveals to us who God is and what God's will is for us,
> >things which we cannot discover scientifically. This revelation
> >involves creation, but in fairly general terms: God is the sole
> >creator, creation is good, &c. It is IMO a theological deduction from
> >this that the world makes sense and can be understood by observation and
> >rational processes _even by people who do not believe that the world is
> >created by God_.
>
> My statement is about the comparative difference between humans and God.
> Perhaps I can call it an uncertainty principle. Our ability to understand
> God's creative power (i.e. how did He create the universe?) is limited by
> our capacity for holding the requisite number of facts in correct
> juxtaposition in our comparatively feeble little minds. I agree that God
> reveals Himself to us but that revelation is limited by our intellectual
> capacity. Do you think that when we get to heaven we will able to find the
> answers to all our scientific puzzles?
>
>
> Bob Miller

No basic disagreement here. What I was noting was the
difference between our basically passive role in revelation and our much
more active role in scientific investigation. As to whether all our
scientific puzzles will be resolved in heaven, that depends. Probably,
if I'm interested, I'll learn the correct form of the electromagnetic
energy-momentum tensor in material media. But if I ask God "Why did you
create a universe embodying (approximately) Einstein's equations instead
of some other system, the answer will be "Because I chose to." Creation
is, as Torrance puts it, "contingently rational."
George Murphy