By and large, I'm comfortable with Pannenberg's statement. I'll refer you
again to Hodge's discussion in Systematic Theology of the doctrine of
providence and it's sub-topic of concursus. Hodge rejects the notion of
continuous creation, however, and says that it is sufficient to simply say
that God's sustaining and preserving power is necessary for a creature's
continued existence and enablement to act according to its own nature.
Thus, Hodge is able to distinguish between creation and providence a bit
more cleanly than Pannenberg. Nonetheless, I think that the outcome is the
same with respect to the issue that Dennis has pointed out. The creation's
dependence on God at every moment makes whatever might be observed to be
the result of "natural" phenomena the result of divine action and removes
the notion of an autonomous naturalistic process. Thus, and as I've said
many times before, just because there is a scientific account of some
phenomena does not mean that God is not involved in that phenomena.
Dennis, thanks for the tip on the Pannenberg book. While I think I'm still
more in Hodge's camp than Pannenberg's on theology in general, it's nice to
see some modern theologians thinking about these issues that have
historically been a part of systematic theology. I'll check it out.
Terry G.
_____________________________________________________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Calvin College 3201 Burton SE Grand Rapids, MI 40546
Office: (616) 957-7187 FAX: (616) 957-6501
Email: grayt@calvin.edu http://www.calvin.edu/~grayt