Bob Dehaan responded to Allan and Howard:
To Allan:
... Miracles made no permanent change in nature, but were temporary
interventions for specific purposes within the context of God's redemptive
work.
Staged creation is a spinoff from God's creative act that originated the
universe rather then from his redemptive actions. Let me repeat what I wrote
to Howard: << In the idea of staged development God bides his time until
"the fullness of time" has come, introduces new organization when the
creation was ready to sustain it, builds greater complexity on what is
already developed.>>
To Allan and Howard:
Suppose you have iron filings scattered about randomly on a sheet of paper,
and underneath it is a wire attached to an electrical power source. You run
a current through it and the iron filings are organized into the pattern of
an electromagnetic field. Simple middle school demonstration. I think I got
it straight, didn't I?
I have, however, never heard a physicist say that the iron filings were
_coerced_ or _persuaded_ into the pattern they take. God's action
analogically calls new patterns and systems into being, much as the
electromagnetic field brings the pattern in the iron filings into being. As
I said, God's action in nature is more like a field or a wave, than a
reductionist/particle approach which I think you have used to characterize
my position.
****************************
My comment:
I am at least the third person who finds it difficult to understand
your distinction between "temporary interventions" where God introduces
order (when the creation was ready to sustain it) and a classical
understanding of miracles or "form-imposing actions" (creating a
field is a form-imposing action).
All of us are either physicists, or have significant training in
physics. To us, in talking about new order or capabilities without a
change in the physical properties (i.e. change in fundamental
constants) of the universe or manually rearranging atoms to achieve
greater order, you seem to be articulating a theodicy (a description
of how God has acted) that does not fit with a modern understanding of
physics. It is roughly akin to postulating an object that goes faster
than the speed of light. It should not be accepted lightly.
A fundamental understanding of the universe in light of physics is that:
1. Fields in the sense that you appear to be thinking about them come
from particles, or in the case of EM waves, changing fields (which
were originally produced by accelerated particles).
2. Order (and capability) in the physical world, including our bodies
comes from the forces between particles and quantum
mechanics. Ultimately what can happen, what nuclei if nuclei
occur, what ordered systems (e.g. magnets,
crystals, molecules). That is really the point of fine-tuning
arguments---precise relationships between the constants are
necessary for life (or matter as we know it) to be possible.
Are you suggesting that one of these items is incorrect?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joel W. Cannon | (724)223-6146
Physics Department | jcannon@washjeff.edu
Washington and Jefferson College |
Washington, PA 15301 |
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