Re: creation through travail

 
Don Winterstein wrote:
> ... Actually, a robust world that could do it all on its =
> own would fit quite well into key elements of my personal theology, and =
> it's possible that one day I'll come to embrace that view. Right now, =
> though, I choke on it, and I can't really say why. It's just not how I =
> see either God or the world. =20

Like you, I feel like choking on Howard's RFEP, having both theological and
scientific problems with it. I have discussed this with him in PSCF and on
this list, but without our reaching any kind of agreement.
 
> My inability to accept your RFEP in no way detracts from my respect for =
> your use of it as a tool against materialists. =20
>
> HVT: a) Does your version of "interventionist" entail the idea that God =
> is both willing and able to act on the world in such a way as =
> occasionally to impose new forms on material systems, forms that the =
> universe was never (by divine choice, presumably) equipped to actualize? =
>
> DW: The universe of course was physically capable in principle but on =
> its own would not have done in a finite time.=20

This is also my conviction, based on the amount of functional information
contained in the biosphere - although I cannot prove it. I also have severe
objections to Howard's "and able" and his implication of a lack of
"equipment" of the creation should divine intervention happen.
 
> HVT: b) Do you envision the character of God and of God's relationship =
> to the universe to be such that God is both willing and able to =
> intervene on some occasions by directly re-arranging atoms and molecules =
> into new or different structures?
>
> DW: Perhaps my key thesis is that God acts on and through creatures =
> that "beg" him to act: creation through travail. All life forms =
> interact at some level with God all the time. A particular one may go =
> happily a million years but then confront a crisis. At that point the =
> life form cries out with groans too deep for words. God hears, and in =
> collaboration with the life form itself comes up with something new. (A =
> common alternative is extinction.) So yes, God can and does rearrange =
> the physical components, but in response to the creature's travail and =
> through its collaboration. I can imagine God punctuating the =
> equilibrium in this way, causing large changes over short times. =20

Thank you, Don - this is a very interesting idea! It is new to me, but looks
quite plausible theologically. I just read the book of Judges, where there
is a repeated history of Israel falling into idolatry, being subjugated by
some foreign nation, finally coming to repent, crying to the Lord and being
rescued again. Why did God leave them in their misery, sometimes for many
years? He wants to be asked for help. This seems to be the only way faith
can again be apprehended and be established.
 
> I think God's activities as described in the Bible involve the same kind =
> of dynamic. Even though God much of the time is portrayed as taking the =
> initiative, in reality it's the people's travail that he responds to. =
> In a sense it's the people who bring on the intervention. =20
>
> The more "intelligent" or spiritual the life form is, the more capable =
> it is of successfully interacting with God to make something new. So =
> that's why it took the one-celled plants & animals a few billion years =
> to get anywhere. =20

To extend this principle of God responding to creatures' travail is somewhat
more difficult to understand than in the case of humans, who obviously are
gifted with the special capacity of consciously turning to the Lord. But it
might resonate with Paul's saying about the creation's "groaning as in the
pains of childbirth" in Romans 8:22. But the "groans that words cannot
express" (v.26) - to which you seem to be referring above - appear,
according to the context, to be higher, not lower, than human language.

> As for bare molecules, it must have taken them longer still. That lends =
> plausibility to the idea that life originated outside our solar system =
> and was seeded on Earth by spores. =20

In the case of the molecules, at least for the moment, I prefer to think
rather in terms of God's deliberate fine-tuning of circumstances in the
origin and development of the earth and of life. Extraterrestrial spores had
to originate somewhere. Crick's panspermia hypothesis (Crick F.H.C. & Orgel
L.E., Icarus 19 (1973), 341-346) is apparently no longer taken to be a
serious option (Kerr R.A., "Rethinking water on Mars and the origin of
life", Science 292 (2001), 39-40). I think the little additional time and
space an extraterrestrial origin might perhaps provide couldn't help enough
to make a spontaneous origin of life sufficiently more probable to be worth
while considering.

> These ideas are less than half-baked. But if I expose them, maybe =
> someone will be able to run with them better than I, or give useful =
> feedback. Down deep some such mode of creation through travail appeals =
> to me in a way that no other scheme has yet done. God does not fiddle =
> with his world but partners with it. =20
>
> Don

I don't see God's intervention as "fiddling" at all - which sounds like lack
of knowledge, ability, or power. He certainly knows what He was doing,
throughout the history of the universe. But I sympathize with your concept
of "partnering", although I don't yet see what it (and "collaboration")
would mean in this context or in the one of animal life.

Peter

-- 
Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
<pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution
"..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)