Don Winterstein wrote:
> [snip]
>
> Your criticisms might apply if God's interventions were totally
> arbitrary, but not if they were purposeful. I favor interventionism,
> partly because that's what the Bible witnesses of with respect to
> human history. But the interventions wouldn't be arbitrary in any
> case. God has intervened in a special way when there's been a need
> for it. It's easy for me to believe there have been needs for it now
> and then ever since the Big Bang, as I don't believe the universe is
> quite robust enough to have made us on its own.
I respect that you feel that this God-created incredibly capable
universe is capable of a mind-boggling array and sequence of things, yet
remains in some measure incapable of reaching and fulfilling the
designer's end objective. Still, to my mind it seems equally reasonable,
and actually a bit more coherent (not a comment on rationailty!) and
straightforward, to think about God being able to set in motion a
slightly (?) more capable - i.e., completely capable - universe that has
the capacity to fully accomplish physically ALL that He intends in that
domain. To suggest otherwise is to perhaps imply some limitation in
God's ability as a designer. Of course, it pretty much seems to follow
then that God's contemporary works and interactions would then lie
mostly (or perhaps entirely?) in the aspect of reality we name
metaphysical. That might not be too surprising given a nature of God
that transcends and preceeds (so far as we can speculate) all notions of
space and time.
>
> People who insist that God has never intervened in a special way honor
> philosophical elegance more than truth. Interventions admittedly
> would make the world potentially messy in terms of our ability to
> understand it, but at some level the world really may be messy. Like
> all living organisms.
Others like Howard Van Till have several times on this thread have
commented that a fully competent physical universe does not preclude any
special intervention. It also seems to me that the idea of "merely
honoring philosophical elegance" might be a tad harsh, given even our
recognizable limitations with respect to having access to the whole
domain of truth. Finally, your comment re "messy" probably applies even
more strongly to trying to grasp fully the concept of a universe that
is doing exactly and fully what God intended. That REALLY "messes" with
our sense of what is "right" - almost unavoidably biased by our own
personal and human perspectives.
> Now that you raise the issue, scientific data do not establish that
> God is not intervening arbitrarily in our world as we speak. In any
> large set of measurements there are always wild points. One could
> argue that some of the wild points are valid data. I.e., the
> observer just happened to measure when God was intervening. So for
> any isolated measurement you still have to append that "God
> permitting." Scientific theories explain only averages.
Hmmm. It sort of suggests a self-imposed bound on what God might allow
Himself to do in order to avoid upsetting the overall predictability and
understandability (with respect to humans) of His creation. And of
course at the other extreme, it could be consistent with completely
God-sustained order wherein we might nonetheless observe a few rogue
behaviours, perhaps because He incorporates a bit of uncertainty in
order to accomplish what He wishes.
Regards - JimA
> [snip]
Received on Sun Mar 14 12:43:15 2004
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