From: richard@biblewheel.com
Date: Thu Jul 31 2003 - 17:19:43 EDT
George wrote:
>
> With the topic at issue, the question is whether the emergence of life
on earth ~3.5 x 10^9 yrs ago can plausibly be understood as the _effect_ of
natural processes. Now I admit that we don't know what those natural
processes may have been - whether it was simply a complex combination of
processes we now know, or whether some radically new breakthrough akin to
the development of QM might be required. But explaining the Lamb shift
required new ideas too - e.g., renormalization.
>
> I would briefly assess the 2 basically different approaches to the
origin of life as follows:
>
> Natural processes
> Pro: Science has an excellent track record of explaining puzzling
phenomena.
> There are many detailed relationships & analogies between
living & non-living systems.
> Various theological approaches, including chiasmic
cosmology, suggest that God works
> in the world through natural processes.
>
> Con: We don't have any kind of detailed understanding of how this
might have happened.
>
> Immediate divine action:
> Pro: Miracle provides a simple and unambiguous explanation of the
origin of life.
>
> Con: Miracle can provide a simple and unambiguous explanation of
_anything_ but this
> approach has no predictive power.
> There is no good theological reason to think that life
originated miraculously: The Bible
> never says this and the imagery of Genesis 1 points
in the other direction.
>
>
I don't understand the last line. The word yatzar, used in the sentence "And
God formed man from the dust of the ground," seems very clearly to imply
direct form confering action, . Could you elaborate?
Thanks,
Richard Amiel McGough
Discover the sevenfold symmetric perfection of the Holy Bible at
http://www.BibleWheel.com
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