Allen Roy wrote:
> From: george murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
> > The possibility that God arranged an asteroid impact by
> adjusting
> > initial conditions of orbits within a range of parameters allowed by chaos
> +
> > quantum theories can't be ruled out. But you have a more serious
> theological
> > problem here in that you have put God at the level of other causal agents
> in the
> > universe. God as primary cause normally acts through secondary causes -
> > gravity, your hands, &c - to act in the world. If you want to argue that
> God
> > acted without the mediation of secondary causes in that "his thoughts"
> play the
> > same role as your hands, you are speaking about intervention which goes
> beyond
> > the capacities of creatures, whether or not the result "looks" miraculous.
> >
> Are you saying that God can only intervene to the capacity which his
> creatures are capable? If God chooses to act at any level of involvement He
> desires, why would that be a theological problem?
I am not saying that God cannot perform unmediated actions in the world
- though he seldom does and I think there is no compelling reason to say that
this ever happens, even in the case of events we see as miraculous. What I was
pointing out was that God is not a being alongside other beings, and that one
needs to be careful about describing his action as if it were simply the same
sort of thing as the actions of creatures. "One does not speak of God by
speaking of man with a loud voice."
Shalom,
George
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 16 2001 - 17:39:25 EST