Re: ASA positions on science/faith issues

>>> "Terry M. Gray" <grayt@lamar.colostate.edu> 3/31/2005 2:26:50 PM
>>>asks, relative to the statement on origins used at Messiah:

I'm wondering if anyone knows the history of this term [Ted: continuous
creation] and how it
came to be used to mean what I think your document and Keith means it
to mean. In my reading of various systematic theologies, "continuous
creation" means that God re-creates the universe moment-by-moment
giving only the appearance of continuity of existence. This is
rejected as heresy (and different from a doctrine of sustenance). I'm
not suggesting that Messiah's document or Keith is using the term in
this sense.

Ted replies:
Although I did draft this statement, there was a good bit of discussion and
some editing by committee before it ended up in precisely this form. And it
was several years ago. I no longer recall exactly why/how this particular
term (continuous creation) came up. It might have been the preferred term
by some in our old natural sciences department, and it might have been meant
as an alternative term for "progressive creation." (PC, incidentally, was
in use at least as early as 1830 in this country. Ramm endorsed it in 1954,
but without I think realizing how long it had been in use. It's
pre-Darwinian and in context quite definitely referred to the OEC views of
some of the early natural historians on both sides of the pond. Ramm used
it in just the same way, so I gather that it had at least one stable meaning
all that time.)

As for the point you raise about the view that God re-creates the universe
moment by moment, I have not previously heard this described as heretical.
Heresy of course always has a context--heretical to a particular group of
religious believers, for a specific reason--that I'd like to know about in
this case. It's possible that our statement might imply this to some
readers, and it might also be a position held by someone here, I don't
really know. I associate your sense of the term with "occasionalism," a
formal philosophical position often assocaited with Descartes, who can be
understood to be presenting that view of divine creation in his Principles
of Philosophy, book 2. Malebranche might also be in this category. (As it
happens, if you look up the term in the old Encylopedia of Philosophy, there
is no entry, but you do find references to Cartesianism and to Malebranche.)
  I have sometimes leaned toward the view myself, inspired by the strong
form of divine immanence that is found in the works of people like Dick Bube
or Charles Coulson; Hooykaas might have leaned this way also. I do not take
the position to be heretical. Mainly it stresses the mechanical passivity
of matter and the constant activity of God in the world; it can be seen as a
denial of the genuine efficacy of secondary causes, which obviously raises
questions from scientists (who might think of it as heretical
scientifically, if they are strong realists), but I'm puzzled why
theologians would apply the label to it.

Ted
Received on Thu Mar 31 15:00:38 2005