>What is the difference between God saying in human language to Abram:
>"Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to
>the land I will show you." (Gn 12:1), and God "saying" in genetic
>code to Acanthostega: "grow a foot from your fin and your descendants
>will go to a land that I will show them"?
>
>After all, Genesis 1 depicts God in Gn 1:22 saying to animals (which
>can't speak human language): "Be fruitful and increase in number and
>fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth."
>and then in Gn 1:28 saying a similar thing to man: "Be fruitful and
>increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish
>of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature
>that moves on the ground."
>
>The first may have been expresed in the language of the genetic
>code and the second in human language? The common factor is the
>Logos (Jn 1:1). If so, then this may be a fruitful area of common
>understanding of Divine intervention between TE and PC?
Personally, I don't have a problem with this view. In fact I rather like
it. If that makes me a PC, so be it. I have articulated something like it
myself (and the person I related it to said, "but we know God didn't do
that"!).
How would such a view become a part of a program of scientific
investigation, though? What "smoking gun" would convince _all_ observers,
whether they be atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Moslems or whatever, that a
transition could only have been instigated by a direct act of God? There
are several possible responses to this difficulty. 1) For a Christian, it
ought to be a reminder that what we can study with our five senses and
logical inference is interesting and useful, but not particularly important
in the grand scheme of things. God is sovereign and has let us peek into
some of the mechanisms He uses to accomplish His oversight, but it's only a
peek. However, it's very tempting to want to use one's understanding of
revelation to dictate what science should conclude; 2) For a scientist it
ought to be a reminder that science is ill-equipped to investigate the
spiritual realm. However, some scientists make the error of interpreting
it as an indication that there _is_ no spiritual realm. Neither of these
tendencies IMO contributes to real learning about how nature works under
God's oversight.
Bill Hamilton | Vehicle Systems Research
GM R&D Center | Warren, MI 48090-9055
810 986 1474 (voice) | 810 986 3003 (FAX)
hamilton@gmr.com (office) | whamilto@mich.com (home)