What is divine intervention? Do you mean that God was not involved, or
that the physical nature of humans was created by God without the use of
miracles? The Biblical account clearly requires God's involvement in all
that happens, but whether there were physical miracles in the process of
creating living organisms is less clear. Glenn's approach involves some
miracles, in an effort to explain the physical evidence while taking as
literal as possible of an approach to Genesis 1-11. Neither the physical
evidence nor the Biblical account is precise enough to be certain how they
mesh.
Obviously, the spiritual nature of humans is not something that arose
naturally. Whether there are supernatural laws that describe how God acts
in regard to spirits or whether He simply "inserted" a spiritual nature at
the proper time, it is outside of science.
>Secondly, how does the Fall fit in to your scenario? As I see it,
>if we evolved from animals then surely it is reasonable to expect us
>to behave like them too? This doesn't mean that the law of the jungle
>prevails - Frans de Waal has written an excellent book about the origins
>of morality among apes. Why do we have to propose a Fall to explain the
>behaviour of the human race?
The most important reason to propose a Fall is the Biblical account. It's
also the best explanation I know of for why humans know better but do
wrong.
Creation of our physical nature by natural selection does not say anything
about what is morally right or wrong. It does suggest that there will be
certain tendencies to behave like animals. It takes a philosophical or
religious basis to decide which of these tendencies are right or wrong.
wrong use. For example, the reproductive drive is well-used if it is
channeled into love for your family, being fruitful and multiplying, etc.
but wrongly used if it is expressed as promiscuity or other deviation from
the Law.
David Campbell