"Howard J. Van Till" wrote:
>
> >From: Peter Ruest <pruest@pop.mysunrise.ch>
>
> > Doesn't Scripture
> > tell us He creates [bara'] individual human beings (Is. 43:7), who are
> > fathered and borne by natural procreation? Ps. 139:13 gives a similar
> > idea, and v.16 includes the individual's life history. What does God do
> > here? Nothing? In scientific language, an individual's personality and
> > life history is conditioned by his or her genome, some as yet poorly
> > understood epigenetics, and many even less well understood aspects of
> > the environment, whereas theological language adds God's providence. If
> > God is responsible for an individual's personality (not sin, of course),
> > wouldn't it be by means of some kind of (non-coercive, not violating any
> > physical law) hidden intervention in a huge number of details like
> > selecting, during meiosis, whether gene xyz of the ovum-to-be comes from
> > the mother's or the father's side, or letting a C-14 atom decay near a
> > given cytidylic residue at a given moment, etc.? No highly improbable
> > elementary events need be implied, the improbability arising from the
> > large number of bifurcation events composing the influence in question,
> > be it in the creation of an individual human being, or in the evolution
> > of a novel functionality.
>
> 1. The genre of all of the texts cited above fall in the broad
> category of poetry. Are you telling us, Peter, that you consider it
> responsible exegesis to employ these samples of Ancient Hebrew poetry
> as the basis for a modern theory of divine action involving hidden
> interventions that determine the outcomes of quantum events involved
> in genetic processes at the molecular level?
Howard, I am sorry, but I get the impression that you still have not
understood what I have been trying to say for quite a while. Have I
really failed to communicate my ideas? So let me try once more, although
this forces me to repeat various points I brought up in my PSCF papers
and on this list.
I consider the Bible as God's Word, not as just a collection of ancient
poetry (or other style pieces). If divine inspiration has any meaning at
all, biblical texts will often contain more than meets the eye of
secular exegesis. They will comprise a unity in which different passages
and different books may illuminate each other. No biblical text will be
fully characterized by a genre label like "poetry". Poetry is a mere
form designator, which will help to guide our exegesis but cannot
determine it fully. Biblical texts were written by fallible human
authors, but under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. How do you know how
much influence this guidance exerted on the writers' choice of ideas,
sentences, expression, and even words? And how do you know how much
influence was exerted by the cultural environment of the prophet? Is it
a foregone conclusion that nothing but the ancient middle eastern
culture is relevant? Or is there space for a spiritual (I hope)
discussion?
A divinely inspired text (no matter how exactly this inspiration is
defined) has a dimension mostly impossible in other texts: the
_possibility_ of multiple layers of meaning. If it is the same Creator
who originated and guides the whole creation and who inspired a prophet
to write about it (e.g. Genesis 1-3), then the text may very well be, at
the same time, (1) formulated in ancient near eastern language and
thought forms, (2) poetical in form, (3) basically theological in its
central message, (4) formulated in a language appropriate to the
specific theological message to be conveyed by the passage, (5)
understandable by people of all cultures and all times, (6) a narrative
basically transmitting a history which actually happened, (7) free of
basic errors of fact - even with respect to facts unknown to the
prophet, and possibly occasionally (8) allegorical.
Therefore, I am e.g. very skeptical about an "exegesis" reading Gen.1-3
as "myth" - I consider this to be eisegesis.
I never claimed to be formulating _the_ true and _comprehensive_
exegesis of the biblical texts I quote in support of my ideas. Neither
did I ever claim to be proposing a scientific theory explaining things
like quantum events or any other possible deterministic or stochastic
causes of mutations etc. All I am proposing is some ideas about how, on
the metaphysical level, I think a harmony between scientific
observations and theories, on the one hand, and the biblical text and
reasonable interpretations, on the other hand, might be attainable. Is
this something basically different from what you are doing with your
idea of "creation's functional integrity"? Why should it be considered
strange that a given event or process might have complementary aspects,
scientific, metaphysical, theological ones?
> 2. Are you telling us, Peter, that God manipulates the genetic makeup
> of every person so as to actualize particular individual
> personalities? If so, is God then responsible for some of the
> miserable personalities that I am acquainted with? May I, for
> instance, blame God for my own personality defects?
Again, you are reading something into my text which I didn't write
(eisegesis). You derogatively talk about God's "manipulating", where I
considered divine providence - as it might be seen from a metaphysical
viewpoint. Similarly, you talk about God being responsible for our sin,
which I explicitely excluded. The straw man of determinism you impose on
my formulations is just as eisegetic and unjustified. I am surprised
that you should believe, as it appears from this comment of yours, that
God should _not_ be directly responsible for _any_ part of an individual
human's personality. This question doesn't even depend on any theory of
ours about _how_ he would create an individual person. Or do I
misinterpret you here?
> 3. Are you saying that an individual's life history is also determined
> by God? If so, then wouldn't many pious believers with painful life
> experiences be inclined to question God's life determining skills?
Same comment as above. I never said or implied any such thing. I do
believe in God's perfect foreknowledge, but not in an ineluctable
predestination of everything, and I am convinced this is the biblical
teaching.
> Peter, you have also said in your PSCF Communication (Sept. 2001):
> "The Old Testament explicitly applies [the word bara'] to God's
> creating individuals -- not only humans [Ps 102:18, Is 43:7, Malachi
> 2:10], but even animals [Ps 104:30]."
>
> 4. Are you telling us that you believe that God determines the
> individual personalities of even the animals? Their individual life
> histories also?
>
> Howard Van Till
Again the straw man of determinism, which I have always clearly
repudiated! From science, I know that there are many fundamentally
"blind spots" for scientific investigation. From metaphysical
considerations, I conclude from this that God has plenty of "hidden
options" if he chooses to use them. From the Bible, I know that God
cares about his creatures, including animals, and that he guides various
aspects of history, using various means, up to and including
undisputable miracles such as Christ's resurrection. From science, I
know that a huge set of processes can be described by a reliable
combination of deterministic and stochastic laws. From metaphysics, I
speculatively conclude from this that God's acts of specific guidance
are probably mostly done by using "hidden options", and that his
specific predetermination probably doesn't include a majority of
individual events.
Peter Ruest
-- Dr Peter Ruest, <pruest@dplanet.ch> CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland Biochemistry - Creation and evolution ----------------------------------------------------------------- Creative providence in biology (Gen.2:3): "..the work which God created (in order) to (actively) evolve it" -----------------------------------------------------------------
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