George,
Thanks for the questions. Sorry for the long delay in responding to them.
<<Bob -
When you say "Divine action kicks in when a given stage has run its
course"
it sounds as if God is not doing anything while a stage is running its course.
I.e.,
If not - if God is also active with natural processes during each
stage -
then what is the difference between that action & what takes place to move
from one
stage to another? Why could not natural processes - with divine cooperation
- be
capable of achieving these transitions? Teilhard de Chardin
pointed
to the analogy between such transitions (e.g., the development of
consciousness) &
phase changes in a material when it's heated. No miracle happen, but
something
qualitatively new emerges.
(To suggest that is not, of course, to claim that we now understand
all the
physical processes that make the emergence of life, consciousness, &c
possible.) >>
I posit that God is active all the time, "sustain[ing] all things by his
powerful word" (NRSV< Heb. 1:3). I take this to mean, roughly,
providence--upholding, governing, cooperating, in your term. This is going
on all the time. In transitions God did a new thing, a creative thing, added
new formational capacities, to borrow Howard's term. Creation moved to a
new, more complex stage of development, and God's action goes into the
providential mode again.
To illustrate. A person is driving down the highway on cruise control.
Ahead of him is a slower moving truck. The person decides it's time to pass
the truck so he "kicks" the car into overdrive, passes the truck, and then
continues on his way in cruise control again. Providence, creative action,
providence returning.
The above is intended to address your question: "what is the difference
between that action & what takes place to move from one stage to another?" I
hope it clarifies my position. I cannot give you more on God's creation of
new formational capacities in terms of physics, chemistry not just because I
have not been trained in those disciplines, but because answers have not been
forthcoming even from specialists in them.
I do not call "kicking in" miraculous. The term miracle I reserve for
solutions of situational problems from outside the boundaries of nature, for
purposes related directly to salvation history, seen mostly in the times of
Moses, Elijah, and Christ.
Teilhard's analogy. It misses the point that a higher level of complexity
is arrived at in the new stage of development. The different phases of water
do not form a hierarchy, as far as I know. Staged developmental creation
forms the hierarchy of nature.
In my system, a better analogy is the making a bowl of Jell-O. Boiling hot
water is action of providence in the prebiotic world, dry Jell-O powder is
the new formative capacity. Gelatinous dessert is the new stage of
development that forms when Jell-O powder is added to the boiling water.
Until the powdered Jell-O powder is added, the water is powerless to produce
the dessert.
To answer your question more directly, you asked, "God makes use of what
natural processes have done & then adds something. Isthis what you mean?"
My answer, Yes.
You started with this understatement: "Both Bob & Howard's positions here
seem open to some question." Both our positions are speculative and have not
risen to the level of hypotheses, which I my profession at least, implies
that it is subject to confirmation or disconfirmation. Neither of our
positions qualify in those terms as hypotheses. I cannot answer all the
questions about my position even to my own satisfaction. But I think the
development of creation in stages comes pretty close to a chronological
description of the history of the universe.
Hope this helps.
Bob
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