Dan Eumurian wrote:
> > 3) If God worked in natural history through a process of variation and
> > selection, perhaps there are traces of that process in salvation history
> > (Heilsgeschichte) as well. Possible examples include the history of
> > Israel's sin and judgment and the survival of a remnant; Jesus'
> > references to the delegation of authority (stewardship--cf. Matthew
> > 25:14-30) and subsequent rewards and punishments, and the references to
> > overcomers in Revelation 2-3. If these are not direct connections,
> > perhaps the processes are at least compatible.
George Murphy wrote:
> I think your basic idea is on target but we can go deeper. The idea of
> development of life through natural selection, with its attendant suffering, loss, &
> death, is notoriously inconsistent with conventional ideas of God. So is God being on
> the side of the slaves rather than the slaveholders in Egypt, God vindicating one who
> had died under the curse of God's own law, and God justifying the ungodly.
> It's not so much that we see traces of biological natural selection in salvation
> history. Rather, believing in the God who is revealed in salvation history, we can
> see that same God as the one who creates through the processes of natural selection
> which science discovers.
I think we basically agree. In what ways is the God of salvation history
the *same* as the God who creates through the processes of natural
selection? The slaves in Egypt were God's holy and spiritually free
people, swimming upstream, as it were, against an idolatrous,
authoritarian regime. As a far, far distant analogy to Christ, the
animal with a positive mutation who dies after having produced progeny
and provided for their care and protection has done its duty. (Need I
add, in the case of Christ it was no mutation, but rather a conscious
act of bringing forgiveness and eternal life to humankind?) God is not
satisfied with the development of the best dinosaur; he wants to push
the envelope. The theme of our church's annual PraiseFest today was
"Sing a New Song." The Lord doesn't simply want the best human
morality--he wants us to be open to the "new thing" he is doing, which
is founded on the best of the old.
>
> > I suggest that just as God, who began the process of natural history,
> > occasionally intervened in it for the higher purpose of salvation as
> > recorded in Scripture, so he will occasionally make exceptions to the
> > natural laws and processes he has instituted. The exceptions justify the
> > rule, and both the rule and the exceptions glorify the Ruler.
>
> Many of the miracles of salvation history, & especially those of the NT, serve
> to point to Jesus as the presence of the God who works all the time through natural
> processes in nature - cf. the use of "sign" (semeion) to describe them & C.S. Lewis's
> emphasis in _Miracles_. What would be the corresponding sign value of, e.g., miraculous
> intervention to create life (something which, in addition, the Bible gives us no reason
> to posit)?
In C.S. Lewis' _That Hideous Strength_, Mark, the young professor, was
*almost* unaware of each step he took into the clutches of the evil
organization *N.I.C.E.,* the National Institute for Coordinated
Experimentation. If the onset of life was one more stage in the
expression of God's nature, it may have been a small miracle, but it was
a miracle just like all the others. Charles Conti, on p. xxxii of
_Metaphysical Personalism: An Analysis of Austin Farrer's Theistic
Metaphysics_, writes, "Anthropology leads to theology by honouring the
source of nurturing motives. It also allows for their personification.
More simply, nurture implies a Nurturer. This confirms theology's stake
in Christology, in the humanization of God." I may have taken this out
of context, but I think it applies.
"One thing more" in this long and late post: the miracle of the creation
of *human* life was a step into the *big leagues* of spiritual
accountability and relationship. It was no doubt one of those things
which all creation eagerly awaited. (cf. Romans 8:18-25) All the world's
a stage, and there is an audience. On with the show!
Dan Eumurian
La Crosse, WI
hope4you@CenturyTel.net
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