" A third answer might be that the ID er is continuously at work.
This might be a troublesome question for Mike. If he answers that the
future development is encoded in the original design, then he's have a
hard
time distancing himself from views like Howard Van Till's functional
integrity view (which I presume he would want to distance himself from).
The other two views ( periodic and continuously) might be taken to imply
a
Creator always fooling around with His creation -- like an engineer who
can't make up his mind."
Interesting perspective. You propose a three-part set of possibilities --
the ID er (God, we might presume, although this is not a necessary
assumption) creates the earth and makes changes to it:
1. With Functional Integrity (Van Till's position)
2. Periodically (progressive creation)
3. Continuously
Isn't position 1 and Theistic Evolution pretty much the same? I'd think
so.
Likewise position 3?
It's the second possibility that interests me the most, since it is
definitive of my own position. You say "an engineer who can't make up his
mind," but that is only one possibility. Call it 2a. Here are others:
2b. An engineer who is just fooling around, for his own amusement
2c. An engineer who is not omnipotent, but who creates, and having
created, sees room for improvements and changes after he sees ho the
creation is performing.
2d. ...
We speak of God being omnipotent, but that's just in our terms. Maybe He
is not. Or maybe he deliberately limits himself in the creation process
to see what happens!
I can live with those possibilities.
Why else am I a PC? Two arguments come to mind; there are others, I
suspect.
1. God HAS communicated with me on occasion. As a result, my course of
action was changed -- history took a different course than if He had not.
2. God HAS communicated with others on occasion -- scripture has many
examples. As a result, people did different things -- history was
changed.
The communication, in the sense used above, is clearly non-natural. There
is no causation (atoms bumping into other atoms) going on to cause it. So
God is clearly interacting with his creation, at least sometimes. This
rules out Functional Integrity.
But it is also periodic -- not continuous! I don't "hear" from him all
the time, just sometimes. I suspect it is only when I am thinking deeply
on some scripture passage by the way -- but that's a secondary idea.
"Periodic," of course, isn't the best word -- it implies a cycle.
"Spastic" comes closer.
Copying Glenn on this as it turned into a "why I am a PC" note rather
quickly!
Cheers.
Burgy
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