From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Mon Oct 14 2002 - 09:46:14 EDT
A couple of weeks ago under the above heading I proposed the following
discussion topic:
> If one believes that angelic beings in scripture are not
> simply literary devices
> or theological metaphors (though they are those things in some cases)
> then it's natural
> to ask how, as part of God's creation, their relationships with the
> physical world are
> to be understood. How would we talk about angels in the context of modern
> science-theology dialogue?
A couple of people suggested useful references but I'm not
sure my point got
through, perhaps because I was too brief. Let me elaborate.
Whatever else Christians may say about angels, they must be
seen as beings
created by God. This point is obscured by the common practice of
referring to God &
angels together as part of "the supernatural." The fundamental
biblical & theological
distinction we have to make is not supernatural/natural but
creator/creature, and angels
must be put on the creature side of that divide.
That being the case, an attempt to understand angels by the
use of observation
and reason - i.e., science - is NOT the same kind of thing as trying
to investigate GOD
scientifically. Whether or not science can in fact enable us to
understand angels -
especially in view of the extremely limited observational data! - is
of course another
matter.
The existence and actions of _all_ creatures rests ultimately
upon the creator.
While various theologies and models of divine action have been
proposed (Barbour lists
10), we cannot expect to understand the "causal joint" between God
and creatures
entirely in terms of the natural sciences. This is true whether the
creatures we're
talking about are cherubim, human beings, or quarks.
But the "joint" between angels & the physical world (i.e.,
the world that our
normal science investigates) is a different matter. (Here I assume
that, as in some of
the biblical stories, angels do sometimes interact with the physical
world - e.g., that
Mary actually heard Gabriel speak to her.) Here we are talking about
interaction
between creatures and I see no theological reason to say that science
- perhaps of a
quite speculative sort - couldn't make any headway in understanding
it. (I should note
that I'm a theorist, not an experimentalist!) The flip side of that
is that it isn't
clear that such scientific investigation would be of much theological value.
I would suggest that if anyone wants to reflect on this topic
it would be best -
for several reasons - to bracket off the question of _evil_ angels,
at least to begin
with.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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