Re: Re[2]: Fw: Underlying assumptions
Murphy (gmurphy@imperium.net)
Thu, 12 Dec 1996 07:15:51 -0500Gladwin Joseph wrote:
>
> The evidence that Glen Morton and others have alluded to on this list that
> the religious impulse in the human species is very ancient supports Paul's
> contention that the unrightous recognize the evidence and with deliberation
> twist the evidence to mean worship of the created thing instead of the creator.
{Responses here both to Joseph & Miller}.
Yes, the unrighteous twist the evidence. But why? Because they
don't approach it in faith in the true God - which is why they're
unrighteous.
If the religions people create are indications of some deep
sense of the need for God, they are at the same time signs of human
sinfulness.
> How many of us humans have come to know the GOD of
> Abraham Isaac and Jacob through natural revelation? I think
> none. All of us have had some form of
> supernatural intervention in time (the span of such
> intervention is not relevent here), either being born into
> christian families or have been close to christian
> influence, and have heard God's revelation through a
> material medium (that is essential as long as we are
> humans-i.e.,body-spirit unities). Therefore, to interpret
> Paul's contention to mean that God can be known through
> nature but that people twist the evidence makes it rather
> unfair to these people and indirectly implies an "unjust
> god". I am not sure how you unravel Paul's words on the
> rationale for universal disbelief. I am curious to know how
> one resolves this conundrum.
&, I woul;d again note - no one in the biblical story comes to
believe in the true God, the one who brought Israel out of Egypt &
raised Jesus, from observation of the world & reason.
> I am curious about another question. Do those who hold to
> the Functional integrity model hold to an Universe that is
> eternal? Or did God intervene in Creating creation and
> therefore the universe has a beginning?
I don't think the universe is eternal. I believe that we should
, as far as possible, attempt to understand God's origination of the
universe through natural processes which are God's creations - which I
admit sounds strange: I gave an article in _Perspectives_ some years
ago the title _The Paradox of Mediated Creation ex nihilo_. God makes
things able to make themselves!
There are limits to the extent to which this is possible. I do
not think that science can explain why the processes of our universe and
the laws which describe them, and not others, are in fact operative.
SHALOM,
George Murphy