From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Tue May 27 2003 - 15:01:00 EDT
I agree with the concepts that Howard has described as the functional integrity
of creation &/or Robust Formational Economy Principle (RFEP) - as far as they go. The
theological problem with them is that they don't go far enough. By this I don't mean
that they aren't sufficiently thorough in the ways in which they speak about things
happening in the world through natural processes. The difficulty lies in the other
direction: These principles, as Howard has expressed and argued for them, do not have
adequate theological grounding. In particular, I believe that their major problem is
that they are not properly grounded in christology.
Positively, I think that it is possible to develop these principles, or
something like them, from an appropriate christology. I have tried to do that in -
among other places - an article in the March 2001 Perspectives. It seems though that
Howard is not prepared to accept such an approach, and without it RFEP is a structure
without a satisfactory foundation.
In explaining this further I'll refer to a couple of Howard's recent statements
in the "Response to Howard ..." thread.
> In effect, his [Griffin's] question to me
> was, If supernatural intervention is unnecessary for the whole of the
> universe's formational history (as I believe it is) , then why not be
> consistent and dare to generalize to the position that supernatural
> intervention is not only unnecessary, but totally out of character for
> God. Reject supernaturalism altogether and adopt a naturalistic
> theism.
> You are correct to presume that my Christology differs in substantial
> ways from the Christology associated with traditional supernaturalism. So
> does my concept of the character and authority of the biblical text. (On
> Christology, I presume that if I were placed back in the 4th century I
> would have sided with Arius over Athanasius.)
In the first statement, Griffin is cited as appealing to the "character" of God
in support of "theistic naturalism." We then have to ask how we can know the divine
character.
I would say that we can claim to know the character of God only on the basis of
God's self-revelation. If we are to speak of God's "character," the concept must be in
some kind of analogy with the way we use the term for human beings, and people reveal
their character by their actions in specific situations. We can speak reliably about
John or Mary's character (I.e., what kind of people they are) to the extent that we know
something about the way they act in dealing with other people and with the world around
them.
Now Howard and I agree (I think) that God acts in the world all the time (though
the way we describe that action differs). But we also agree that that action takes
place in such a way as to make it possible for what happens in the world to be described
in terms of natural processes: That is one of the clear implications of RFEP. This
means that in a sense natural processes conceal God from our direct obvservation. Thus
observation of the ordinary course of nature cannot reveal the character of God. (It
may lead some to infer that there is a creator, but it cannot tell us who that creator
is - i.e., it cannot show us the character of God.) In any case, an appeal to what
happens in the ordinary course of nature to establish the character of God would make
the argument here circular.
So where does God reveal the divine character? Howard may want to present his
own answer. My belief is that God's character is revealed most fully in the event of
the cross where - most significantly for the present discussion - God is willing to
forego the privileges of divinity and enter into death for the sake of God's own
creation. This is not to be understood simply as suffering and death of a righteous
human being like the deaths of the martyrs, but in an important sense death in God
himself. And if this is the case it is possible to say (as Gordon Fee does in his
commentary on Phil.2:5-11), "In 'pouring himself out' and 'humbling himself to death on
the cross' Christ Jesus has revealed the character of God himself."
If the one who "was the form of God" thus acts kenotically - i.e., to some
extent voluntarily divesting himself of divine power and limiting divine action - in
this central revelation, it seems reasonable to suggest that God acts in the same way in
general in the world, choosing to limit his action to what can be accomplished through
lawful natural processes. And here something like RFEP becomes relevant.
But if one "side[s] with Arius over Athanasius" (cf. Howard's 2d statement
above), this line of argument isn't an option - or at least will be much less probable.
For then the event of the cross does not reveal the character of one who is "one in
being with the Father" but only of the first of God's creatures, who may be unlike God
in various ways.
Process theology argues for a limitation of God's action in the world and may
draw some inspiration from the example of Jesus and particularly the cross for so doing.
But this differs from the idea of kenosis in a significant way. With the latter
approach we are speaking of God choosing to limit divine action. God _could_ intervene
arbitrarily in the world but doesn't. In process theology God's influence on the world
is limited by the very nature of the God-world relationship. God can "lure" creatures
forward with greater or lesser persuasiveness but is not the sole cause of anything that
happens. In the former case we can speak of this limitation as revelatory of God's
character but not in the latter. Analogy: If I could embezzle money from my employer
& get away with it, the fact that I didn't would say something about my character. But
if my employer's surveillance and security systems are so good that I know I'd get
caught if I tried to steal, it says nothing about my character (though perhaps
something about my intelligence) if I decide not to try it.
One may ask what difference this makes. Waiving important questions of
theological truth, it seems to me that a statement of RFEP without explicit
christological grounding is much less likely to be persuasive to many Christians than
one with such grounding. The arguments of creationists and IDers rely to a great extent
anyway on the sense of many conservative Christians that the theology of people who
accept evolution &c is defective if not outright non-Christian. Of course I'm not so
naive as to think that they will automatically be won over by the sort of argument I've
presented for the ability of science to understand the world "though God were not
given." But I think it's much harder to deny the Christian character of such an
argument than it is of an approach which doesn't give Christ an important place in the
discussion.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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