> I am fully with you in your conviction that God is fully in control
> of all things. So this cannot be the reason why I am not attracted
> to theistic evolution! I see myself in the tradition of Charles
> Hodge, the Calvinist theologian, who objected to Darwinism because of
> its implications for Design in Creation.
> [...]
> I can understand how TEs retain a sense of purpose, although I am
> not fully convinced that they reflect the biblical emphasis on
> purpose. However, my objections are concerned primarily with the
> crudity of the mechanism: to allow contingency free reign is hardly
> the best way to effect a design intention.
> [...]
> Let me make my point again using this Scripture. David is filled
> with a sense of awe about the process of birth. What extraordinary
> things go on within the womb! The first 9 months of a baby's life
> are spent in the "secret place", where God achieves a wonderful work.
> We know this to be the process of development. We know now that
> there are natural causes for every change in the unborn baby. But we
> are only beginning to understand those natural causes - they are so
> complex, so intricate. When we do understand them, they are
> breathtaking.
>
> David's worship of the Designer magnifies God's omniscience, his
> omnipotence, his wisdom and his personal interest in our lives.
> Today, we can relate this to God's government of his creation: there
> is nothing miraculous about the formation of our bodies in the womb.
> God uses tools: tools which display his omniscience, his omnipotence,
> his wisdom, and which testify to exquisite design.
>
> I find a total contrast between these thoughts and the idea that God
> has created using the "tools" of Darwinian evolution. Creation is a
> glorious work of design - but I have never yet read or heard a
> Theistic Evolutionist convincingly show how the "tools" of
> evolutionary change (namely variation and natural selection, which I
> termed blunt instruments in my last post) reflect the omniscience,
> omnipotence and wisdom of God.
Did God precisely determine your genetic make-up, down to the level
of which genes you inherited from which parent?
If your answer is "no," then you allow for some very significant
"free reign for contingency."
If your answer is "yes," God does precisely determine our genetic
make-ups, then tell me: what do you think of the crudity of the "tools" of
meiosis and recombination?
If genetic mutation and variation is a "crude tool" for evolution, then so
are meiosis and recombination are crude tools for designing new human
individuals. If God controls the tools of meiosis and recombination to
design individuals to exact specifications, then mutation is no more crude
a tool to design species. And how can natural selection be a crude tool
if sparrows are watched over so carefully?
Loren Haarsma