What God can (or has) done

Terry M. Gray (grayt@Calvin.EDU)
Thu, 27 Jul 1995 12:05:31 -0400

>BH>Stephen, your observation cuts both ways. Those of us who accept
>>evolution are frequently puzzled by the question of just what it is
>>that a PC objects to about evolution.
>
Stephen Jones wrote:
>In a nutshell, it denies that God can (or has) intervened directly in
>biological history. Theologically, TE seems a different view of God
>that one reads about in the Bible.

Whoa! This evolutionary creationist (or theistic evolutionist, if you
prefer) denies neither the can or the has (God is "intervening" moment by
moment by his providential rule; I'd suggest that ).

Also there is a big difference between "can" and "has". Not a single
theistic evolutionist that I know of has ever said that God cannot
intervene directly in biological history. The question is simply "has he?"
In our view, the evidence suggest that he has not "intervened" in the
sense that he has contravened his ordinary means of governing the universe.
The chance and contingency side of the evolutionary story give God plenty
of room to accomplish his will in a way that is entirely consistent with
ordinary means.

Sorry, Stephen, I see God using ordinary means all over the place in the
Bible. There is nothing inconsistent with the God of the Bible and the God
of this TE. Even in the miraculous God seems to use ordinary means. God
doesn't need a wind to pile up the waters of the sea (right, he could just
scoot all the water molecules out of the way so that there is dry ground,
couldn't he?) but he chose the cause a great wind to blow.

My exception in the creation of man is rooted in the text of scripture. I
see no way to accomodate the creation of Adam with an evolutionary account.
I see no such textual or theological difficulties when it comes to origin
of life or origin of basic kinds.

You complain all the time about some of us confusing you with YEC's. Don't
be so quick to give us EC's or TE's theologies that we don't have.

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