Re: agreeing about a mere creation?

"It seems necessary to come against the view that "natural" doesn't count
as God's work, and also against the more subtle error that views "natural"
as an inferior way of working, just a fallback position in case God didn't
leave fingerprints like we expect a "real" God to do." ~ Allan

For your consideration:

An inferior way of working:
http://www.str.org/free/commentaries/evolution/michaelb.htm"

Star Light & the Age of the
Universe:
<http://www.str.org/free/solid_ground/SG9807.htm>http://www.str.org/free/solid_ground/SG9807.htm

Janice

At 10:16 PM 7/28/2005, SteamDoc@aol.com wrote:
>Craig R. proposed:
>----(begin quote)------
> With the current state of knowledge it seems impossible to know with
>certainty, so instead of criticizing either type of creation -- totally
>natural or with some miraculous-appearing divine action -- as being "less
>worthy of God" it seems wise to adopt a humble attitude. Each of us should
>admit, like Job, that "surely I speak of things I do not understand, things
>too wonderful for me to know" and decide that either way -- whether it
>happened with one mode of action or two -- God's plan for
>design-and-creation was wonderful and is worthy of our praise.
> Therefore, a proponent of old-earth creation (or young-earth creation)
>should be willing to praise God for designing a universe that was totally
>self-assembling by natural process, with no formative miracles, in case
>this is how He did it. Similarly, a proponent of evolutionary creation
>should be willing to praise God for using both modes of creative action,
>for cleverly designing nature to produce most phenomena without miracles,
>and for powerfully doing miracles when natural process was not sufficient,
>since this might be the way He did it.
>-----(end quote)-----
>
>I'd be happy with Craig's statement.
>
>My only quibble would be with the term "totally natural". That could be
>misleading if some interpreted "totally" to exhaust all aspects. Probably
>somewhere on the page (and maybe it is already there, because I know Craig
>appreciates this) it should be clear that Christians believe God is
>involved (providence, concurrence, words like that) even in processes that
>are "totally natural" from a physical standpoint. I don't have any
>brilliant idea for how to tweak the sentence -- maybe just putting quotes
>around "natural" would help.
>It seems necessary to come against the view that "natural" doesn't count
>as God's work, and also against the more subtle error that views "natural"
>as an inferior way of working, just a fallback position in case God didn't
>leave fingerprints like we expect a "real" God to do.
>
>Allan
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>Dr. Allan H. Harvey, Boulder, Colorado | SteamDoc@aol.com
>"Any opinions expressed here are mine, and should not be
>attributed to my employer, my wife, or my cats"
Received on Thu Jul 28 23:58:07 2005