This is one of the most important theological questions asked on this list
recently.
It is foundtional to understanding problems with YEC, ID, and secular
evolutionist views. This is not the place to articulate an adequate
response, but a brief
comment should be reiterated now and then by those of us who have tried to
resolve this issue. Actually you gave a good answer in my judgment.
The problem is that in our modern culture (including the evangelical
Christian culture), we have inherited some aspects of the
Newtonian-deistic theological
view of the relationship of God to nature. This view separates creation into
two parts: the supernatural and the natural. The supernatural consists of
"miraculous", usually sudden events, and the natural consists of lawlike,
self-operating processes. Apologetics based on this foundation consists in
demonstrating the existence of God via the existence of evidence for
supernatural events among the ordinary or natural events. In fact all study
of nature tends to focus on building such an apologetical case. This pattern
was begun by Scholastics in the Middle Ages, which is why I
suggested awhile back that nothing much has changed in this debate since then.
All that has changed is the subject matter in question. During the 12th-18th
centuries, the main subject was astronomy. During the 19th century, it was
geology. During the 20th century, it is biology. But the underlying
theological
debate was the same.
Not all Christians took this approach, however. Especially since the 16th
century,
many Christian natural philosophers tried to frame the relation of God to nature
in terms of Providence, which embraces both God's timeless, transcendent
sovereignty over creation, and God's immanent, contingent interactions with
history. In this view, "natural laws" are simply the faithfulness and coherence
of God's ordinary Providence, as described in many of the Psalms. Miracles
in this view are not sudden and scientifically unexplanable events. The miracle
(and the profound mystery of the doctrine) is that a spiritual Creator can
interact with a physical creation that He made, without being Himself a
creature.
"Miracles" as exceptional events can of course occur, but instead of seeing
these as 'breaking laws', they are seen as special actions by which God
chooses to show signs or messages to humans.
The complete, delicately-balanced description of this doctrine can be found
in creeds such as the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647. I urge all of
you to get a copy of this (it should be available in any Presbyterian church of
any kind). George Murphy, a Lutheran, emphasizes other aspects of this
theology, particularly the profound significance of the Incarnation, when the
intersection of Creator and creature becomes most intimate. But at any rate,
we feel that a lot of the confusion about these issues stems from the scarcity
of study of theology. Most of us, as lay people, are never able to get
access to
this field, because most of the time it is sequestered in seminaries, due to our
clergy/laity separation.
Seen in the light of the doctrine of Providence, people pursuing ID
theories are
chasing idols -- as is disclosed when they say that the Intelligent
Designer could
be an alien creature, not the Creator. Likewise people pursuing YEC are chasing
idols -- as is disclosed when they say that 'scientific creationism' should be
teachable in public schools because it doesn't require belief in God.
To Burgy and the rest who feel somewhat frustrated:
May I remind you of the story of Elijah, who ran off to the cave and felt
sorry for
himself, whereupon God told him that "I reserve seven thousand in Israel --
all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal" (1 Kings 19:18). Don't worry
about what's popular, just beware of idolatry and seek the truth at all
times -- we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth (2
Cor. 13:8).