SteamDoc@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 7/18/00 12:50:20 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
> crossbr@SLU.EDU writes:
>
> > Mechanism, mechanism, mechanism. That is the issue. Most Christians do not
> > deny that humans were formed by
> > the dust of the earth; the debate involves the mechanism: by what means
> did
> > fashion humans from dust? (By
> > macroevolution or directly? With direct divine action or without it? etc.
> > and every position in between.)
>
> Since Bryan is quoting John Wiester's "mechanism, mechanism, mechanism", we
> should probably stop and be sure he is not assigning Wiester's (and Dawkins'
> and I would claim Johnson's) God-excluding meaning to certain mechanisms.
Actually, I wasn't quoting Wiester (I'm not even sure who he is,
although the
name is familiar); if Wiester said the same thing, then my use of the
same
phrase was just a coincidence, or else the expression of something
previously
read and long-hidden in my subconscious. So, to answer your question, I
was not
saying or implying whatever Wiester meant by the expression. I said that
the
mechanism is the issue, meaning, *the issue in question*. I was
responding to
George's claim that (paraphrase) certain passages in Genesis 1 imply the
truth of
macroevolution. My response was that the passages in Genesis 1 do not
tell us the
mechanism; they tell us *that* God made the various life forms, and they
imply
that there is some kind of [unspecified] role played by second causes.
From an exegetical perspective it is certainly possible that these
verses give us
a phenomenological/descriptive account, not a [efficient] causal
account, with
respect to the role of the earth, the water, etc. In other words,
careful
exegesis of these passages does not tell us whether the formation of
life
occurred solely by second causes or not solely by second causes. If
certain
church fathers thought these passages did contain this information, then
I must
respectfully disagree with them. By the expression "by what mechanism?"
I mean
only "by what means?" Since Scripture does not answer that question, the
question, if it can be answered at all, must be answered by science.
In my view, the large-scale debate over these issues often confuses
the
theological questions and the scientific questions. "Did God create
life" is
clearly a theological question, and special revelation provides a clear
answer.
On the other hand, "by what means did God create life?" is a theological
question
that (as I've argued above) is largely unanswered by special revelation.
Therefore,
it becomes the task of the believing scientist to try to piece together
how God
did it. If scientists find that natural causes are capable of completely
explaining the molecule-to-man process and that the evidence points to
that
scenario, then that is a good reason to believe that God did it that
way. If
scientists find that natural causes are not capable of completely
explaining the
molecule-to-man process then there is good reason to believe that some
direct
divine action was involved. The bottom line is that special revelation
does not
solve the mechanism question; that question must be answered by science,
(if it
can be answered at all.)
> I think that in our recent discussions Bryan has agreed that "mechanism" is
> not *the issue* in the sense that the viability of Christianity does not
> depend on the truth or falsity of a particular mechanism. And that if one
> affirms the Biblical doctrine of Providence and God's sovereignty over
> nature, "natural" mechanisms for God's creative work should be no danger to
> Biblical faith. [I would add that those who incorrectly see natural
> mechanisms as eliminating God have an unbiblical "God-of-the-Gaps" theology.]
Agreed.
> Having established that mechanism is not a *vital* theological issue, is it
> an issue at all?
I think it is, in part because theology isn't everything. In my view,
there
are many genuine non-theological issues. I think that the question of
the means
God used to create all living organism is a very important and
interesting
issue, even though it cannot be answered by special revelation, and has
no
major theological implications.
> I think that is where what George has been saying comes in.
My understanding of what George was saying was not just that special
revelation
is *compatible* with the truth macroevolution, but that special
revelation
*implies* or *supports* the truth of macroevolution. That was the matter
over
which he and I disagreed.
> As we discover the mechanisms by which God did things, we can perhaps get a
> glimpse of the character of God. That character will not always fit our
> human presuppositions, and if insights from nature challenge us to reexamine
> some of those presuppositions, it can be an opportunity for growth. If our
> presuppositions about how we think God had to create (for example, thinking
> that he must leave "fingerprints all over the evidence", or for that matter
> thinking that God must never act "directly") keep us from that growth
> opportunity, it is our loss, and the church's.
I wholeheartedly agree. This position allows our scientific discoveries
to inform
our theology, and our theology to help interpret our scientific
discoveries.
best,
- Bryan
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