TG: "1. 1. God is no longer omniscience with respect to the future. You
explicitly state "that they are unpredictable and unknowable even to God".
Applied to history whether human or cosmic, this results in God not knowing
the outcome, and, given that events are contingent even to him, the only
way he remains sovereign is by divine adjustments that turn the course of
things back his way. Seems to me that you've always objected to this kind
of divine interruption, especially in cosmic history."
HVT: a. What is omniscience? Knowing everything, including a predetermined
future? Or, is it knowing *all that is knowable,* with the understanding
that the outcome of authentic contingencies is unknowable? I would choose
the latter.
b. Sovereignty, seen as having authority to which all creatures are
accountable, remains unthreatened. Sovereignty entails no irruptive action
to force a predetermined outcome. You seem still to be thinking of
sovereignty in terms of control and predetermining outcomes, which I find
highly problematc.
TG: "2. Your objections expressed in questions 5 and 6 are objections to
your inferences from the "control" position. As I said in my post,
authentic creaturely responsibility is not in the least diminished by God's
"control". You may not understand how this works--I sure don't--but
nonetheless God is fully in control and creatures are fully responsible."
HVT: Sorry, but this package of "full divine control" of all creaturely
actions and "creaturely responsibility" for that controlled action strikes
me as pure doublespeak. Why go to such extremes to protect a theological
perspective from rational re-examination? Once again, I think we place far
too much value on control, power, force, etc, and not enough on such
attributes as creatvity and generosity.
TG: "3. I think that you are guilty of making God's sovereignty analogous
to human sovereignty (as I pointed out originally) rather than vice versa.
I don't disagree with your comments concerning human sovereignty, but human
lordship is not nearly as comprehensive as divine lordship. After all, who
among human sovereigns sustains his subjects in their very being? Equally
confusing is making God's creativity analogous to human creativity (rather
than vice versa). Who among human creators determines the character,
properties, and being of the material used to create?"
HVT: But if God controls all that creatures do, then they have no "being"
worth having. As I see it, one of the "gifts of being" is the ability to
act, to employ one's God-given, dynamic, creaturely capabilities. But if
God controls all things, then creaturely action is a mere superficial
appearance. If so, then out goes the authenticity of creaturely being and
out goes the basis of creaturely responsibility for creaturely action.
TG: "4. With respect to the character of the creeds--I don't really think
that there are any new categories here. "Second causes, either
necessarily, freely, or contingently" (WCF V, 2) covers all the things I
know about. Furthermore, authentic contingency is *established* by God's
control as WCF III, 1 says. There is no guarantee that a cause will have
its proper effect or that any creaturely thing will continue to have its
properties apart from God's control. It seems to me that this is
philosophical and theological language that stands behind the language of
science. These are issues of ultimate goverance, ultimate sustenance,
ultimate origin, etc. (in the words you chose to use in *The Fouth Day*).
As you have been so fond of saying, confusion comes when we mix up these
ultimate concerns with science properly conducted."
HVT: a. To say that "authentic contingency is *established* by God's
control" just makes no sense to me; more doublespeak. However, it would
make perfect sense to say that "authentic contingency is *established* by
God's sustaining of authentic creaturely being."
b. I find myself not using the "governance" language as frequently as in
The Fourth Day, precisely because of the way that so many persons
extrapolate quickly from sovereign governance to coercive control or
micromanagement.
TG: "To be honest here, it seems to me that you are leaning more and more
toward a creation that has been endowed with autonomy, i.e. ultimate
governance lies in the created thing itself. No doubt you would say that it
is a God-endowed and God-gifted autonomy, but it is autonomy that differs
little from the self-governed governance of the Naturalist. No name-calling
intended, but I'm having a hard time seeing the difference if you are
saying what I think you are saying."
HVT: Chris Kaiser, in his book _Creation and the History of Science_ argued
that an essential part on the "creationist tradition" is the concept of the
"relatve autonomy" of the Creation. I would agree.
Perhaps "governance," like "sovereignty," also needs to be defined, not in
the language of power and control, but of authority and accountability.
Thanks again, Terry, for your comments. I hope we will both benefit from
gaining a better understanding of our differences on this set of issues.
Howard