Re: [asa] Creation and Incarnation

Jon,

Personally I think the incarnational framework is a useful one when we
consider how God relates and reveals Himself to us. He revealed Himself to
us most fully in the person of Jesus, born as an "ordinary" infant though
miraculously conceived. He also revealed Himself to us in His written word,
written by people in specific times and cultures, though divinely inspired
(see Enns' "Inspiration and Incarnation" for a good recent exposition of
this theme).

And, He reveals Himself to us through general revelation. Here, though, it
seems to me the incarnational metaphor breaks down if we apply the concept
of incarnation to nature qua nature. It seems to me the incarnational
aspect of general revelation is our human noetic equipment. God allows us
to perceive through our limited human senses and understand with our limited
minds some snippets of things about Himself as we appreciate the beauty,
order, vastness, etc., of creation. But nature itself isn't incarnational
-- it's nature, something of which we humans are a part but which is
something different than us, and different than God. If we start calling
nature itself incarnational, that seems ultimately to lead to pantheism.

What you're really getting at, I think, is whether our noetic equipment can
perceive when God intervenes in nature in extraordinary ways. On this
point, I think the resurrection, and many other miracles recorded in
scripture, demonstrate resoundingly that this is the case. I'm not sure
whether this would have been so concerning the virgin birth, outside of the
Angel's annunciation of it to Mary and Joseph. Would Jesus' genome have
linked him to Joseph? We don't know.

But this does raise a perennial issue here: if we can observe miracles like
the resurrection that represent extraordinary interventions in the usual
course of nature, IMHO there's no reason in principle we can't observe
extraordinary incursions into other aspects of the created order, including
into the development of life. The demarcation question of whether this is
"science" seems irrelevant to me, except for the fact that "science" carries
so much weight in our western culture and is less likely to run afoul of
constitutional requirements. The real question should be what is the
"Truth."

There might be good reasons to suggest, as TE's typically do, that we
shouldn't expect God to have intervened directly in the development of life,
because "miracles" are very limited events given for particular purposes
having to do with redemption history. And, there may be good reasons to
criticize purported "design" evidence aside from the "science" demarcation
question. But I'd rather focus on a more wholistic epistemology than give
in to the implied positivism that underlies many demarcation arguments.

On 8/10/06, Jon Tandy <tandyland@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> I have just finished reading the first third of "Three Views on Creation
> and Evolution", edited by J.P. Moreland and John Mark Reynolds. The first
> third contains the young earth creation view, including their view that
> methodological naturalism is a faulty viewpoint because it limits science to
> not consider all causes, which could be supernatural in origin. Instead,
> they argue for what they call an "open philosophy of science" which they say
> means that when science looks at a phenomenon to find out its cause, it
> should be allowed to consider a wide variety of causes, natural and
> supernatural.
>
> The argument is in some ways a valid one, and yet IMHO full of holes. In
> considering this position, a thought began brewing which I wish to propose
> here for discussion. For many believers in Christ and the Bible, I
> believe the Incarnation of Christ may serve as a useful paradigm around
> which to frame questions concerning Creation. Perhaps in our agreement on
> the Incarnation, we might also come to closer unity on Creation questions
> (or the acceptance of alternative viewpoints within Christian belief),
> although this is likely too much to hope. As background, I believe the
> Incarnation of Christ was initiated miraculously through the Holy Ghost, not
> through natural procreation, as Luke records. I believe this is a
> reasonable assumption made by most (though not necessarily all) believers in
> Christ.
>
> I would start by asking the question, "How long was the time from the
> conception to the birth of Christ?" While the Bible doesn't tell us
> specifically, a reasonable answer is probably "about nine months." Why nine
> months? Because that is the time it takes for a baby to develop from fetus
> to full term. If this is a reasonable assumption, it means that the birth
> of Christ, though miraculous in origin, continued through normal human
> development; i.e. natural processes. If a modern pediatrician had been
> Mary's doctor during the pregnancy, he would have seen a normal development
> and birth of a baby, which he could have explained using his knowledge of
> biology. The only part he couldn't explain naturally would be Mary's claim
> of the origin of her pregnancy.
>
> Thus, the conception of Christ presents a singularity, a gap in the
> ordinary scientific understanding of human reproduction. The YECist (and
> OECist too) would probably claim that this shows the necessity of allowing
> for the supernatural in otherwise scientific exploration. Otherwise,
> science would never be able to explain the "first cause" of how Mary could
> have become pregnant, "seeing I know not a man." I believe this is a point
> which deserves further consideration.
>
> In answer to the YEC, I would ask why didn't God create ex nihlio a fully
> functioning man, Jesus, at 30 years of age, prepared to begin his ministry?
> He might have been created with strong muscles, possibly bodily scars, and
> an already existing set of memories and human relationships, indicating an
> "apparent history" of working as a carpenter in Nazareth (though he never
> really did). Or why couldn't God have created a full-term baby in Mary's
> womb (ignoring her potential discomfort at being immediately pregnant with a
> 10-pound baby), complete with a false history of having developed naturally
> in the womb? I would grant the possibility that God could, but the clear
> meaning of scripture as well as church tradition would preclude these
> possibilities. The scripture simply says that Mary was found to be with
> child, without requiring any "appearance of false history" in the
> development of the child.
>
> Thus in the Incarnation, God acted subtlely, causing a single
> discontinuity in the normal, natural order of things, but then allowing
> nature to carry out its normal processes toward the birth of the child. To
> me, if this can serve as any sort of useful illustration of the Creation,
> this points toward an OEC or TE view of things. According to the OECist,
> God acted miraculously at various points in Creation to set things in motion
> (Big Bang, first life, etc.), and then allowed time and natural processes to
> develop according to a natural order over millions of years.
>
> How would a Theistic Evolutionist respond to the Incarnation in this
> context? Would they allow for a non-scientific (non-naturalistic)
> discontinuity as the "first cause" for an otherwise natural human
> development? I mean in the sense of a scientific phenomenon, rather than a
> religious ideology. If so, then why could there not be similar
> discontinuities in the Creation, as with the OEC view? I am writing this
> with the understanding that the Theistic Evolutionary view of creation is
> that God did not act outside of normal, methodologically natural processes (
> i.e. they reject the periodic supernatural interventions claimed by
> OECists). Or would the TE say the birth of Christ (miraculous in its first
> instant, but fully natural thereafter) illustrates how God created a "fully
> gifted creation" in the first instance, which has ever since been operating
> according to marvelous but natural processes?
>
> The question is, is the miracle of the Incarnation something which can be
> considered "science", as Nelson and Reynolds might argue, to explain a
> scientific "first cause" of the man Jesus? It is a complex question. On
> the one hand, as Christians we must allow for the possibility of God acting
> miraculously within nature. But on the other hand, what can science
> possibly say about it? Can science answer the question of "how" the
> Incarnation took place? One might propose various scientific theories, such
> as:
> - God created a sperm ex nihlio which wiggled its way into an egg to
> fertilize it
> - God created a fertilized egg ex nihlio which then implanted and began
> growing naturally
> - God created and implanted a fully formed fetus of some age, whether
> hours, days, or weeks old and let it continue growing.
> - God took one of Mary's egg cells and miraculously implanted DNA to make
> it fertile, so it could then implant and grow naturally
>
> These might all be valid scientific theories, if we were to consider the
> conception of Christ to be within the realm of science, but they are wholly
> unprofitable and irrelevant. God has not chosen to reveal the answer to us,
> and it is beyond any reasonable method of scientific investigation. Is it
> therefore a question of science for which no answer will ever be
> discovered? If so, what is the benefit of calling it science? To me, this
> invalidates the insistence of YECists that supernatural occurrences must be
> considered science -- there is no way that science can study them.
>
> Or, is it outside of science because it was supernatural, though its
> effects could have been be observed scientifically in the growth of a
> fetus? In which case, how can methodological naturalism explain the real,
> physical existence of this unique child? To me, this calls into question
> the view that methodological naturalism is the only way to explain
> scientific observations, because this does not very easily account for
> supernatural causes.
>
> In summary, I don't know that this analogy from the Incarnation solves
> anything, but it does raise some important questions of what is science and
> how does miracle interact with nature. Each Creation paradigm will have its
> own response to the Incarnation.
>
> - The YECist might declare that the Incarnation is a good example of why
> supernatural causes must be considered by science. This real human life
> began with a miraculous conception, therefore we must allow for supernatural
> causes of otherwise scientifically observable phenomena. They might point
> out that Jesus' DNA would, presumably, have contained something from Mary's
> DNA and something from another source, which would have the appearance of
> genetic history, though he had been miraculously created; just as in the
> Creation, things were created fully formed, with apparent history appearing
> where necessary to make a functioning universe.
> - The OECist might reply that the Incarnation shows how God acts in
> nature. He acts at certain "first instances", and then lets time and nature
> take over. He didn't create a 30-year-old man, Jesus; just as in the
> creation, he didn't create a fully ordered universe with a false history,
> but rather let it develop naturally over billions of years.
> - The TEist might say the Incarnation shows how God works, creating a
> fully gifted human embryo in the beginning, which then developed naturally
> without the need for further divine intervention; just as God created a
> well-ordered universe, which had the capability of developing galaxies,
> elements, first life, species, plate tectonics, atmosphere, etc. to sustain
> our present existence.
>
> Hoping this will stimulate some interesting dialog,
>
> Jon Tandy
>
>

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Received on Thu Aug 10 16:06:52 2006