>> Progressive Creation - God provided laws and mechanisms of the cosmos
>> and life, and started them off, and was continuously involved
>> immanently in sustaining, controlling and guiding them through natural
>> processes, and in addition intervened transcendently at strategic
>> points to introduce new information and direction.
The idea of God intervening has bothered me in the past, for the reason
that it can be taken to imply that nature didn't proceed as planned by God,
so God had to intervene to patch things up. I don't believe this is what
Stephen is claiming. What he _is_ claiming I believe is that God _plans_
to intervene because He derives _pleasure_ from intervening (IOW words the
Calvinist formula, to wit: it pleased God to ...) If God chose to
intervene at particular times because He wanted to be a "hands on" God,
then I have no problem with that.
I would still argue however, that He generally influences nature in a very
elegant, artistic way that does not introduce unseemly jerks and glitches
into the behavior of nature. This may be because He loves order, because
He does not want to thrust Himself on unbelievers, because He wants men to
see a consistent nature that will yield regular principles when studied, or
some combination of the forgoing.
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)