Re: [asa] Random and design

Sorry, I don't follow this at all. I see the scenario I've sketched as conferring as much freedom as possible on every aspect of God's world. If God has forced any outcome at all (and I'm not sure he has even though I believe he has), it would only be because he realized the world was headed in a direction harmful to his purposes for it. The evidence suggests God has given his world as much independence from himself as possible.

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: D. F. Siemens, Jr.<mailto:dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
  To: dfwinterstein@msn.com<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Thursday, November 23, 2006 12:03 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] Random and design

  In other words, freedom is an illusion, purely wishful thinking.
  Dave

  On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 06:18:22 -0800 "Don Winterstein" <dfwinterstein@msn.com<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>> writes:
    The idea of an infinitude of possible routes is well suited to what we know about the course of organic evolution. Organisms of many kinds flourished and then went extinct. How many of them were necessary for humanity? How many could have been replaced with alternatives without significantly altering the final outcome? Were dinosaurs really necessary? The fossil record suggests almost anything could have happened. In the end, I trust, God would still have wound up with some sort of creature "made in his image." Probably we'd have looked different--maybe a lot different, but we'd still be capable of knowing God. And God wouldn't have had to store every minute detail in his memory but could have let things largely determine their own course--

    which, to all appearances, is what he did.

    Don
      
      ----- Original Message -----
      From: D. F. Siemens, Jr.<mailto:dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
      To: dfwinterstein@msn.com<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>
      Cc: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
      Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 11:37 AM
      Subject: Re: [asa] Random and design

      This is an "all roads lead to Rome" with a vengeance. How are there an indefinitely large (quasi-infinite) set of routes all of which end in the same perfect place? Sounds like "six impossible things before breakfast."
      Dave

      On Wed, 22 Nov 2006 01:34:27 -0800 "Don Winterstein" <dfwinterstein@msn.com<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>> writes:
        Dave,

        I don't see it that way. I understand that you are contending that, in order for God to foreknow his people, he must foreknow in full detail all events that lead to his people, including the QM choices that every particle in the sequence makes, all the way from the big bang. That gives me a headache just thinking about it. I would hope that God would have better things to do with his cognitive apparatus--whatever it is--than store all this info.

        The model I like instead is that yes, God knows the outcome, but there's an infinitude of different ways of reaching it. I visualize God as one who gives a nudge here and there when the world starts taking routes that don't look promising, but otherwise he lets it ferment on its own without such interventions. (Let's not at this point get into what "on its own" might mean!)

        And yet--as I've stated here before--I credit God with doing a whole lot better job of running my life than I would have done on my own. That is, things have meshed extraordinarily well in many different ways despite rather than because of my best efforts. So I see him as intimately involved. At the same time I feel free as can be, apart from just a bit of pressure to do for him what I need to do.

        So I see God controlling things behind the scenes but not at all like a puppeteer. It's as if things just work themselves out on their own; but I give God the credit. This may be nonsense, but it's the most accurate description I can come up with. The older I get the more clearly I see his hand in my life, and this perception makes me believe he does more than a little behind-the-scenes nudging.

        In your terms I'm combining unpredictability with precise prediction: the process is not fully predicted, but the final outcome is. And this is possible because there's an infinitude of routes to an acceptable destination, i.e., a destination compatible with God's foreknowledge. (One possibility is that God knew us at the outset as spiritual beings but didn't know how our physical bodies would turn out. He let the world decide that.)

        The big difference between us is that I see God as one who continually interacts in ways that have creative significance while you see God as one who knows it all in detail at the outset and somehow has set it in motion to arrive at its known conclusion. Does this sound right?

        Don

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Received on Fri Nov 24 10:02:56 2006