> 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.
You've put your finger on a foundational problem, a lack of
familiarity with serious modern theology among many involved in
science-religion discussions. Such theology is not hidden in
seminaries, but people have to be willing to hunt for it. A couple of
suggestions:
1) Some seminaries have evening, summer, &c introductory
courses in theology specifically for those who are not planning to study
for the ministry but want to get some insight into modern theology.
2) There are good books available (& of course a lot of Dreck!)
A good way to start might be with Ted Peters' _God as Trinity_
(Westminster/John Knox, Louisville KY, 1993). Ted has been strongly
involved in science-theology dialogue and this book deals with some of
those issues, but it is fundamentally a survey of modern approaches to
trinitarian theology.
3) Approach the subject with an open mind. That doesn't mean
putting faith up for grabs, but it does mean being willing to do some
new thinking about the way in which we understand what we believe.
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@imperium.net
http://www.imperium.net/~gmurphy