-----Original Message-----
From: Howard J. Van Till [mailto:hvantill@novagate.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 8:23 PM
To: asA@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: Response to: What does the Creation lack?
Peter,
After offering a rather lengthy definition of "macroevoution" you say:
> For the moment, let me call it macroevolution-T, as its
> defining feature is the transastronomical improbability of such a
> macroevolution-T step.
As I have noted before, I sincerely doubt that we know enough about all
possible pathways (and in the presence of all possible environments) to do a
numerical evaluation of the probabilities in question. Without those
numerical values, how would we know if "hidden options" need be exercised?
> The conventional view of evolution claims that the various known
> evolutionary mechanisms are fully adequate to account for all of
> evolution. With this, I disagree: in my opinion they are incapable of
> successfully producing macroevolution-T. However, for the theological
> reason given above, this fact must be hidden in "God's hidden options",
> which are not accessible to scientific investigation. At present, the
> vast majority of the available evidence suggests that macroevolution-T
> is an all-pervasive reality.
See comment above.
Later you express a rather comprehensive view of God's _responsibility_ for
what takes place in this world:
> God is the agent responsible for:
> (1) all explicitely (in the biblical record) creative acts;
> (2) all "natural" events and processes (in the Bible often attributed to
> God);
> (3) all parameter selections in the realm of "hidden options";
> (4) all miracles not reducible to "natural" events and processes
> ("signs").
> The only exception to God's activity and responsibility is the free will
> he has given to some of his creatures (humans and angels) - in some
> circumstances.
Isn't this the perspective that led Darwin to ask whether God was
responsible for the Lisbon earthquake (that killed thousands of people,
including many at worship, as I recall) or the death of his daughter? Are
you really comfortable with the idea that God is the "responsible agent" for
all such events? These are examples of events that cannot be ascribed to
faults in human free will.
---Not to be heartless about natural catastrophes, I would think everyone
here knows the ultimate outcome it there were no earthquakes or volcanoes;
we would all probably be underwater. And we know of the benefits of the
ecology due to windstorms and typhoons, and lightning, and other
"disasters." Or what our world would be like if all our loved ones were
granted physical immortality.
Sure, we would like to say, "But God, Not to us, and ours," or "...not in
OUR neighborhood," or "Not NOW!"
But we would then have to answer the Cosmic Question, "Why not?"
Norm
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