> Abstract: A response to Del Dratzch's question: "What exactly
> does upholding come to?", with a return to the "intervention"
> discussion and whether such phraseology has deistic overtones.
>
> ... But whether God works by providence or by miracles, the
> power is the same. If these things are so, then "intervention"
> is a term that sees things from a human perspective, not God's.
>
> ... I'm coming from a perspective which says that God IS active in
> every 'natural' event - and that this truth is necessary for the
> foundations of science and the identification of natural law.
>
> ... Without wishing to comment on these points any further, it seems
> to me that our understanding of how God upholds His creation is
> very important - and in my view, failure to get this right is a
> step towards a deistic mind-set. Do others share my concerns
> about tendencies towards deism and semi-deism? If so, I'd be
> interested to learn how they approach these issues.
I've read a number of Christian authors on this topic, and there seems to
be two broad perspectives: [1] emphasizing that God is active in every
natural event (with the same power as in miraculous events);
[2] emphasizing the fact that creation is something _other_ than God
(while still being contingent upon God for continued existence).
The second view causes worries about deism and an overly mechanistic view
of creation; the first view causes worries about "monotheistic pantheism"
and a confusion of the different types of God's Will. (*)
In one sense, this topic is tangential to the discussion of evolution.
Young-earth creationism, progressive creationism, and evolutionary
creationism can each be formulated under each perspective.
In other sense, however, this topic is very important to the discussion of
evolution. When arguments for YEC, PC, or EC are formulated exclusively
under one perspective or the other, arguments over terminology often
result!
Since David Tyler has already expressed his preference for the first
prespective, I'd like to get his (or anyone else's) reaction to a very
well-written piece which (IMO) emphasizes the second perspective:
---------------------
[Stephen T. Franklin, "The Theological Foundations of the Christian
Liberal Arts in Relation to the Distinctives of the Christain Liberal
Arts College/University," _Christian_Scholar's_Review_ v.24, n.3,
March 1995, p.254-6.]
The doctrine that God is the creator of heaven and earth is the
_Magna_Carta_ of Christian liberal arts. God's creation of all
things means that all truth comes from God. Therefore, the Christian
is free to pursue the truth anywhere and any time. Even more, to be
faithful to the doctrine that God is the creator of all things, the
Chrsitian is under an _obligation_ to acknowledge truth wherever it
may be found. The confession that God is "the maker of heaven and
earth" implies that Christian higher education must include
considerable exposure to the range of scholarship in the arts and
sciences.
The doctrine of creation is far richer than the mere claim that God
"started up" the world a long time ago. God's creative activity
continues in the present, and it will continue in the future. It is
helpful to distinguish three distinct "aspects" or "moments" within
God's act of creation, regardless of whether we are considering God's
creative acts in the past, the present, or the future.
The Christian doctrine of creation affirms, first, that God is the
origin of all that is. God calls each thing into existence. Second,
every major Christian theologian has further affirmed that while each
creature depends upon God, the creature is also a different entity
from God. A creature is neither God nor a part of God. To be more
precise, we may say that each created thing has its own existence and
its own capacity to act upon other created things; this created
existence and these created powers, while totally dependent upon God,
are distinct realities from God's existence and powers. And third,
each created thing is called to serve and to glorify God, and God
will judge each creature on the basis of its obedience to that call.
Taken together, the three steps in God's creative act, therefore, not
only give each thing its existence and its capacity to act and to be
acted upon, but also give each thing its purpose. It is the
creature's responsibility to decide how to answer God's call, how to
fulfill its divinely given purpose. While "personal" agents have the
greatest latitude in deciding how to answer God's call, all creation
must in its own way respond to the divine word.
The second point in the doctrine of creation is worth some detailed
attention. The second point may be called the "secular" moment in
Christianity. That is, each created thing has its own identity and
can truly interact with other creatures. This "secular" dimension of
the Christian doctrine of creation is one (but only one) of the
primary causes of the development of physical science in Europe.
Christian scholars in late medieval Europe drew an important
conclusion from their doctrine of creation: because God created each
entity with its own integrity and power (this power being dependent
on God while remaining numerically distinct from him) and because
these entities can truly interact, a science of "causes between
created things" was possible. Thus, when the necessary technological
and economic advances had occurred, and when the Greek heritage of
mathematics, logic, and dialectic and been recovered, the Christian
doctrine of creation, together with these other factors, resulted in
the evolution of modern science out of the soil of Christian Europe.
Several important implications for education flow from the existence
of this "secular" moment within the Christian doctrine of creation.
Christians are free to accept truth about the world no matter what
its source -- even if that source makes no appeal to religious
considerations, as in the case, for example, of physics or sociology.
Christians are also free to engage along with non-Christians in
political, educational, legal, and health care professions, as well
as brick-laying, auto mechanics, and other trades and professions.
We may even say that there is nothing in principle to prevent one
from learning philosophy from the pagan Greeks, Muslims, Buddhists,
or atheists. Christians should also be taught to delight in
exercising their own creative powers, whether in music, mathematics,
painting, or architecture, for these powers are both truly their own
and yet also a gift from God. Thus the classroom in the Christain
school -- not to mention the Christian head! -- must have its
windows open to the vastness and diversity of God's entire creation.
The secular moment, however, is neither the first nor the last point
in the Christian doctrine of creation. The first point is that
creation begins in God, and the third point is that creation's goal
is to serve and glorify God. The doctrine of creation entails that a
Christian education should encourage the student not only to study
the liberal arts in their secular autonomy but also to investigate
their divine source and telos.
By using the word "secular," I hardly wish to affirm a rigid
dichotomy betwen the sacred and the secular. Within the total
doctrine of creation, all things are sacred, having their source and
destiny in God. Thus even a "secular" field such as law can be a
sacred activity if done in a spirit of worship and commitment to
Jesus Christ.
By the term "secular" I do wish to indicate, however, that the second
step of creation teaches that creatures are not idenitical with God,
and thus we can study creatures apart from the divine source and
destiny. The resulting knowledge, while radically incomplete and in
need of reintegration into the larger picture of divine source and
telos, is not necessarily wrong. By the term "secular" I also wish
to indicate that our primary source for chemical knowledge, for
example, is experimentation and not revelation. The term "secular"
also implies that the expression of human creativity is legitimate in
art and literature as well as economics, etc. Lastly, when I speak
of a "secular" discipline such as physics and a "religious"
discipline such as theology, I have in mind that the secular
discipline draws its data and methods pirmarily from this second
moment of creation whereas theology, as part of its own internal
organization, explicitly refers to the first and third steps in the
doctrine of creation, to other doctrines, and to revelation.
(In this article, Franklin goes on to discuss the impact of the doctrines
of Sin and Redemption on Christian scholarship, and describes the
distinctives of Christian liberal arts education. I highly recommend it.)
==============================================================
(*) I often think that a uniting of these two perspectives (God's
activity in every natural event, and the "otherness" of creation) is to be
found by looking at the "different types of God's Will."
[John Polkinghorne's, _Science_and_Providence_ (from pg. 6-9)]
If [God's actions are], like many human acts, complex, then the
unpacking of that complexity may involve the recognition of
different levels of relationship between God and the world,
expressed through different modes of interaction. It is then the
task of theology to show the mutual consistency of these differing
kinds of involvement and so to exhibit the underlying harmony that
enables them to be spoken of as the acts of the one true God. The
Christian understanding of God requires that such a range of
possible action be available to him....
Concern with this problem has had a long history. The Fathers of
the Church were not unaware of it, in the terms appropriate to
their own way of thinking. Maximus the Confessor distinguishes
three forms of will in God. One is that of acquiescence (or
concession). He illustrates it by reference to an example that
poses severe difficulties for us -- God's permitting Satan to put
Job to excruciating test in order to demonstrate his
blamelessness.... The second will of God that Maximus
distinguishes is his "economy." The Greek word _oikonomia_ had
primary meaning of administration or oversight, from which its
reference widened to cover a variety of orderly circumstance....
Certainly the recognition of God's preservation of the regular
order of the world must be seen to be a large and important part
of his action upon it.... Yet order must not congeal into
rigidity.... Maximums goes on to speak of a third will of God,
that of purpose (_eudokia_, good pleasure). His illustration is
the call of Abraham.
==========================================
Discussion, anyone? :-)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I try to make everyone's day a little more surreal. | Loren Haarsma
--Calvin (_Calvin_and_Hobbes_) | lhaarsma@opal.tufts.edu