Re: ASA positions on science/faith issues

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Davis" <TDavis@messiah.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>; <grayt@lamar.colostate.edu>
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005 2:59 PM
Subject: 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.

"Continuous creation" may have the sense that God re-creates the universe at
every instant, but such a view is effectively the same as a static picture
in which God made everything just the way it was supposed to be in the
beginning. I.e., God never does anything genuinely new. But without making
any such philosophical claim, the Reformation catechisms (Luther or
Heidelberg e.g.) treat provision of the necessities of life for each person
as part of what it means to confess faith in God as the creator. Especially
when this idea is elaborated in the traditional doctrine of divine
cooperation with creatures it means that God is always active as the
creator. In a sense it has been a relatively small step - though with major
consequences and provoking a lot of controversy - to recognize that God
actually brings new things, such as new species, into being, through such
activity. I think that this kind of thing is what a lot of people mean
today when they refer to "continuous creation," even though it may not be
what was traditionally understood as _creatio continua_. In particular, the
view I've sketched clearly is _not_ a denial of secondary causation.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Thu Mar 31 15:17:22 2005