Re: The Oldest Homo Sapiens: Fossils Push Human Emergence Back To 195,000 Years Ago

> > Dave,
>>
>> I've never understood this accusation. Can't God do whatever he
>> wants? Even in his special creation.
>>
>> TG

I tend to think somewhat like Dave on this, so let me take a stab without using loaded words like "bumbling" (although I've used worse in the past!).

Christianity teaches that humans are special to God, and that God's creation culminates with humankind, especially in the person of Christ. That is, the creation according to traditional Christianity is anthropocentric.

Given this premise, it's hard enough to make the billions of years without humans seem reasonable. Add the appearance of aimlessness in the origins and extinctions of species to those billions of humanless years and the minds God gave us all are going to start asking why. Yes, we acknowledge that God can do what he wants, but doesn't it tend to make us feel less important than the traditions taught to find that almost none of world history involved us? So there's a need to account for God's behavior. If we're so important, why did God spend three billion years or so nurturing only bacteria?

Rational people seek rational explanations. We don't demand an explanation, because we know that Christianity is foolishness to the wise of the world. Still, we know from the successes of science that the human mind can comprehend much of the world quite well. Therefore we conclude that God must have had some deep underlying reason for bringing us into existence in the slow and circuitous way that he did. To say that each species of bacteria, etc., was a special creation suggests that there was no deep underlying reason but that God was simply--pardon the expression--playing with his world.

If God was primarily interested in humans, and his methods involved only special creations, our imperfect, finite minds can easily think of ways he could have reached his goals much more efficiently than the way he actually chose. So why did he unnecessarily deprive himself of success for so long?

Now I don't have anything against God's playing with the world, but if that's what he was doing, I get the impression that humankind isn't as important to him as our religion has told us.

Don

PS - Well, I guess I resorted to a loaded word after all. Sorry.

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Terry M. Gray<mailto:grayt@lamar.colostate.edu>
  To: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 12:38 PM
  Subject: Re: The Oldest Homo Sapiens: Fossils Push Human Emergence Back To 195,000 Years Ago

>
> > Dave,
>>
>> I've never understood this accusation. Can't God do whatever he
>> wants? Even in his special creation.
>>
>> TG
>>
>Terry,
>The point simply assumes that the deity understands as much about
>efficiency as human engineers. During the '70s, approximately, they hung
>one device after another on automobile engines to control pollution, and
>to correct the mess that the previous addition had made. I had a '72 car
>that never ran right, despite the attentions of an engineer sent out from
>Detroit. Then they got the bright idea of rethinking the whole matter,
>along with the development of computer chips and other devices and
>techniques, and regained efficiency. The miserable gas mileage and slow
>modification was a consequence of human limitations. Indeed,
>if Ford, Olds, etc., had understood what we know today, they would not
>have invented horseless carriages.
>
>If God is creating each species or genus /de novo/, then we assume that
>he would produce a finished form, not one that would die and have to be
>superseded time after time with new fiat creations. We would not have
>found a half-dozen creatures on their way to becoming the efficient
>cetaceans of today's oceans. You can find this principle in Augustine,
>who claimed that the Almighty created everything instantaneously, though
>it had to unfold over time. But the unfolding was perfect, not
>Ambylocetus or Pachycetus on their way to becoming efficient. In
>contrast, if God is using secondary causes to produce developed creatures
>over billions of years, we expect the half-way entities. To be sure, God
>acts as he sees fit, but does he know what he is doing beforehand, or
>does he bumble along like his creatures, us? We are as efficient as our
>understanding and finances allow us to be. Why should we expect God to be
>less efficient than omniscience and omnipotence allow him to be if he is
>acting directly rather than mediately? Indeed, I would further ask why
>God needed six days to fashion the heavens and the earth when he could
>have had everything up and functioning in less than an attosecond.
>Dave
>Dave

  Why is efficiency a matter of perfection? Why is instantaneous a
  matter of perfection? What is a "finished form"? Perhaps God wanted
  to supersede time after time with new fiat creations. (BTW, I don't
  actually think this is the case.) You're sounding like the
  Aristotelian who thinks that circular orbits are perfect and
  elliptical orbits are not.

  Why does separate creations of similar forms indicate a bumbling
  along? It may be bumbling for us, but since we know that God could
  have done it differently, it isn't bumbling for Him. It's fully
  compatible with His perfect will and purpose.

  I don't think this argument gets you anywhere with Hugh Ross or YEC's.

  TG

  --
  _________________
  Terry M. Gray, Ph.D., Computer Support Scientist
  Chemistry Department, Colorado State University
  Fort Collins, Colorado 80523
  grayt@lamar.colostate.edu<mailto:grayt@lamar.colostate.edu> http://www.chm.colostate.edu/~grayt/<http://www.chm.colostate.edu/~grayt/>
  phone: 970-491-7003 fax: 970-491-1801
Received on Thu Mar 3 05:53:00 2005