Bryan R. Cross wrote:
............................
> The quotation from Johnson listed below does not state or imply
> that if macroevolution were shown to be true, God would be disproved. Rather the
> quotation below (from what I can tell) simply claims that those who talk about
> God as having created by natural processes alone are not talking about God as He
> really is. It is a theological statement about the nature of God, not a
> counterfactual statement about what would be entailed by the scientific
> demonstration of macroevolution.
At which point I note, as I have done repeatedly, that the picture of the
creation of living things in Genesis 1 indicates quite clearly that they were created
_mediately_, being brought forth from earth & water at God's command. This was
understood & discussed explicitly by a number of the church fathers - Ephrem of Edessa,
Gregory of Nyssa, &c.
There is no theological reason at all for thinking that life must have come
into being by _direct_ divine action. The question here is not whether miracles beyond
the capacity of natural processes have occurred but whether life has to be attributed to
such a miracle, & it is entirely gratuitous to claim that it must. Johnson's statement
is indeed a theological statement but it is bad theology.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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