----- Original Message -----
From: "Howard J. Van Till" <hvantill@novagate.com>
To: "Moorad Alexanian" <alexanian@uncwil.edu>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2001 1:29 PM
Subject: Re: Response to: What does the creation lack?
> >From: Moorad Alexanian <alexanian@uncwil.edu>
>
> > I honestly do not know how you know when God "irruptively breaks the
> > continuity of creaturely cause/effect relationships and coerces
creatures
> > (any member of the Creation, animate or inanimate) to do something
beyond or
> > contrary to their God-given capabilities."
>
> If you see a tree shedding its leaves in the fall and growing a new crop
of
> leaves the following spring, I think it would be reasonable to say that
such
> things are possible because God is sustaining the being of the whole
> creation, so that its atoms, molecules and cells are able to function
> without interruption in a manner that follows from their God-given
> character.
>
> If, on the other hand, you were to see a tree rise out of the ground,
shake
> the dirt out of its root system and proceed to fly by flapping its
branches,
> I think it would be reasonable to consider the possibility that you are
> seeing a supernatural intervention.
I think there is much in between the two cases that you consider. How about
a "withered fig tree?" Where do your ideas come from? Can you say God has
nothing to do with them? If a plague hits the land, can you univocally
conclude that God had nothing to do with it? Moorad
> > He who sustains the creation is
> > in full control and it is hard for humans to know how that translates
into
> > what we experience and know.
>
> All I intended to say was that when we talk about divine action, we need
to
> distinguish between the differing actions of (1) sustaining something in
> being and (2) performing a supernatural intervention.
>
> The matter of "full control" that you now introduce raises a new question.
>
> Howard Van Till
>
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