> From: "bivalve" <bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com>
> To: <asa@calvin.edu>
> Subject: Re: What does the creation lack?
> Date: Fri, Oct 26, 2001, 11:04 AM
> "Howard J. Van Till" wrote:
> >d. Peter Ruest's proposal (Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith,
> Sept. 2001, pp. 179-183): All requisite formational capabilities are
> present (no capability gaps), but they are not sufficiently effective. The
> possibility space (for viable material configurations) of the creation is
> so overwhelmingly large that the creation could not possibly have come to
> occupy the information-rich genetic portion of it without divine assistance
> of some sort. Divine assistance is needed to hurdle barriers of
> "astronomical improbability."
> >
> >What sort of divine assistance? Says Peter, "...miraculous interventions
> are not to be expected on theological grounds...." In David Griffin's
> language: no coercive action; no overpowering of creatures by the Creator.
> >How might God act effectively without miraculous or coercive action?
> >Peter's solution:
> >First, note that there are several physical processes for which many
> differing outcomes are possible. There are permanent epistemic barriers,
> however, that prevent science from gaining sufficient knowledge to predict
> which particular outcome will occur. Events of this sort play a key role in
> the formational history of life forms. Our presence as Homo sapiens, for
> instance, required that a particular string of possible outcomes actually
> occurred.
> >
> >Second, propose that God, without violating or overpowering the natural
> capabilities of any creaturely system, exercised the choice of particular
> outcomes (from among the various possibilities) in such a way that life
> evolved in the remarkably fruitful manner that it did. These exercises of
> divine choice represent occasions for God to inject new information into
> the creaturely system, essential information that was not attainable by
> creaturely means alone.
> >
> >Interesting proposition. Comments?
>
> Is there any particular reason to assume that God made these choices and
> injected new information in the course of creation history, rather than
> having created everything so as to bring about these events? Is there a
> way to tell the difference? How much difference is there, with God
> sustaining, maintaining, cooperating with, etc. all that happens?
The crucial point is the selection of one of many possible events during
the development of the biosphere. This is a concrete suggestion about a
possible biologically and informatically meaningful mechanism, whereas
"God sustaining, maintaining, cooperating with, etc. all that happens"
is hardly more than a label for a general principle with which all
theists will agree.
> The former would require something similar to the hidden variable
> interpretation of quantum events, if I have the terminology correct.
> However, the hidden variable determining the outcome of the event could be
> God's foreordination rather than anything theoretically accessible by
> physics.
As far as I know, "hidden variables" of quantum mechanics refers to
hypothesized, unknown constants of nature. If they exist, they
presumably were installed by God once at the beginning. On the other
hand, God's "hidden options", which I suggest, are something completely
different: these refer to God ad hoc selecting a given one among several
possible outcomes for an event not accessible to scientific observation.
This would happen very often during the history (of the universe and) of
life.
> There is also some correlation with the Calvinist-Arminian spectrum, an
> issue that we probably are not predestined to settle here.
There is no connection at all with the theological concept of
predestination.
Peter
> Dr. David Campbell
> Old Seashells
> 46860 Hilton Dr #1113
> Lexington Park MD 20653 USA
> bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
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