DC >> 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?<<
PR>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.<
DC>> 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.<<
PR>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.<
DC>> There is also some correlation with the Calvinist-Arminian spectrum, an issue that we probably are not predestined to settle here.<<
PR>There is no connection at all with the theological concept of predestination.<
DC: Polytheists generally portray gods responding to what happens rather than fully sovereign. Even among monotheists, it is quite common to have a god of the gaps theology in which God is seen as absent from certain processes. Thus it is an important principle to have established. Once we agree on that, it raises the question of the difference between His dealing with hidden options versus ordinary events. This brings us to the question of predestination. Did God predestine the outcome of the hidden outcomes, or do they represent His responses to the course of events? The latter would seem to suggest non-omniscience.
There is also a question of the means. Is there any reason to prefer the idea of God directly causing a particular mutation to happen when needed over God designing the configuration of the Big Bang so that a cosmic ray at the exact time and place needed would produce the necessary mutation? He is equally involved in the process in either case.
Supposing that there are no unknown physical factors that influence radioactive decay, is there a way to distinguish between God foreordaining that a certain atom will decay at a certain moment, which He brings about at the necessary time, and your model of hidden outcomes?
I hope this clarifies my comments.
Dr. David Campbell
Old Seashells
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That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droigate Spa
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