On Wed, 28 Jun 1995 19:07:04 -0400 you wrote:
>Stephen wrote:
SJ>I keep asking the same question. If God can intervene directly and
>supernaturally in human history (against a general background of normal,
>regular, historical process), why cannot God intervene directly in biological
>history (against a general background of normal, regular, biological
>process)?
GM>I think God didn't need to get involved in biological life
regularly.
I agree. God doesn't *need* to get involved in anything. But that
wasn't my question. I asked "why cannot God intervene", not why did
God need to intervene?
Your answer mentions "regularly". Are you conceding that God did get
involved irregularly?
GM>I think he was smart enough to program the information into the
fabric of the universe from the start.
Again, it's not a question of God being "smart enough". We are agreed
that God is omniscient. It's a question of why God cannot intervene
if He choses to. According to Christianity God *has* intervened in
human history (eg. Exodus, Incarnation, Pentecost, etc). On your
reasoning this would seem to be an admission that He was not "smart
enough" to "program" the "information" that determines human history
"from the start"?
GM>Those programs I posted can create an infinity of unique pictures
from a few lines of code. All that information is in the phase spaces
of the nonlinear systems.
This is an assumption that your "unique pictures" are living things.
This has yet to be demonstrated.
It also seems to assume that life is nothing but a program run by the
DNA code. Scripture teaches that all animals and man have something
called "the breath of life" (Gn 1:30; 2:7; 7:15,22). Is this nothing
but a program run by the DNA code?
GM>Similarly, God could easily put all the information necessary for
the evolution of life into the DNA phase spaces.
No doubt all the genetic information needed for the development of
life is in the DNA phase spaces. You are assuming along with
naturalism that there is no dualism (ie. body + mind/spirit) in
"life".
GM>All it would take is for God to start a reproductive system and the
rest could happen according to His design.
I am not clear if God has any more part to play in this "system"
Glenn. If He has, please indicate what it is. If He doesn't, how is
yopur position any different from Deism, where God winds the universe
up like a clock and then lets it run itself according to the rules
built into the clockwork mechanism?
Even if what you say above is true (and I am not sure it is), even
Neo-Darwinism maintains that the environment causes certain code
changes (ie. mutations) that cause advantages to the possessors in
that environment, to be favoured in the reproduction of the next
generation.
Why cannot God do His own direct selecting, just as He did with
Israel? The consistent pattern of Biblical history is that it was the
weak things that God chose:
"The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you
were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all
peoples." (Dt 7:7)
"But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God
chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the
lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things
that are not--to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast
before him. " (1Cor 1:27-29).
This is the complete opposite of natural selection. It is Divine
freedom
to select as He wishes, for His own reasons.
Again my question is (which you have not really answered), if God
followed this pattern of direct intervention in human history, against
a background of normal historical process, why could He not have
intervened in biological history, against a background of normal
biological process?
Stephen