"Howard J. Van Till" wrote:
...........................................
> Actually Griffin maintains rather strong reasons for rejecting
> creation ex nihilo. He sees ex nihilo as the grounding for
> supernatural (coercive) intervention. Remember, the concept of
> "coercive" action applies to forcible action on something that already
> has its specific form of being, not to the act of
> selecting/actualizing the whole system (within the limits of
> applicable metaphysical principles).
.................................................................................
I think there are good arguments for creatio ex nihilo, but want
to shift to a related & even more fundamental issue, that of
justification.
This is the heart of the theology of the Reformation. (I'm
approaching this from a Lutheran standpoint but think a great deal would
be echoed by Reformed Christians.) "The chief article of Christian
doctrine", "the article by which the church stands or falls is that we
are justified by God, for Christ's sake, absolutely without any
cooperation or contribution on our part. "Synergism", the idea that
sinners "work with" God to accomplish their justification, is the
dirtiest word in the classical Lutheran vocabulary. Even the faith by
which Christ is accepted is God's work - I Cor.12:3. (That's where
Lutherans have problems with some of the descision theology of
Evangelicalism.)
& this seems to me to be in considerable tension with process
views of God's action. The doctrine of justification says that God is
the sole cause, not just one cause among others, of justification.
While God does work through the means of grace to bring about
conversion, justification is not a matter of God persuading a human
agent to do something.
& that's where the tie with cen comes in, because that is
fundamentally the claim that the world depends for its existence
entirely on God. Paul makes the connection in Romans 4: God is the one
"who justifies the ungodly" (v.5) & "who gives life to the dead and
calls into existence the things that do not exist."
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Apr 05 2002 - 11:23:36 EST