Re: Classification scheme for ID debate

Robert L. Miller (rlmiller@garlic.com)
Wed, 8 Oct 1997 00:08:12 -0700

Craig Rusbult wrote in part:
>
> Robert Miller says,
>>I take "special intervention" to be raising Lazurus from the dead, but most
>>of God's answers to prayer accomplished by the agency of His immanence.
>
> Yes, Lazarus was indeed special intervention. And obviously so.
> But I don't see how "answers to prayer" can occur by mere "immanence"
>-- instead, it seems that the actions of Joshua-and-Moses (in Exodus 20?),
>with Joshua taking direct battle-action in the valley below, and Moses
>praying to God on the hill above, are a good example of God's
>mode-of-action in answering prayers. This seems more like "theistic
>action" than a situation where God's action is limited to simply sustaining
>the natural processes; during Joshua's battle the implication is that the
>prayer -- and God's active "special response" to it -- made an important
>difference in what happened.
>
>Craig R
>
I suspect God's working in this world is more on a continuim rather than in
one mode or the other, with "special intervention" at one end and immanence?
at the other. Raising Lazurus from the dead would fall at the special end;
Moses praying for Joshua perhaps would lie toward the special end; keeping
us healthy or providing us with food and shelter might lie toward the
immanence end. God has encouraged us to ask for things of Him in prayer,
both for ourselves and for others, and has indicated that He will respond.
It may require a "special intervention" or it might call for jostling a few
electrons to cause some subtle change that will appear to us as part of nature.


Bob Miller