Re: [asa] God as Cause

Is it your sensibility that the primary purpose of God in Creation is
about and played out in the physical, or could it be more about what
happens or is enabled in that physical context?
If God puts in place the basic blueprint and physical resources which in
turn operate to bring about (or into being) the physical entities
mentioned in these passages, is He any less the "causor"?
It seems that the grass/auxins dichotomy you suggest is derives from a
snapshot in our time, but is not a necessary dichotomy. They are not
mutually exclusive descriptors.
In us humans, there are all manner of processes that sustain our lives
from subatomic to biological. Is it your sense as well that every aspect
of every chemical/physical process, at every scale from atomic to
biosystem, is actively sustained and directed moment by moment by God?

JimA

Bill Green wrote:

> How many of you believe that God cause all things?
>
> It seems that the Bible has a lot to say about causes.
>
> Isaiah 45:7
> I form the light and create darkness,
> I make peace and ??create calamity;
> I, the Lord, do all these things.?'
>
>
> Amos 4:13
> For behold,
> He who forms mountains,
> And creates the ?wind,
> ?Who declares to man what ??his thought is,
> And makes the morning darkness,
> ?Who treads the high places of the earth--
> ?The Lord God of hosts is His name.
>
>
> Psalm 147:8--9
> Who covers the heavens with clouds,
> Who prepares rain for the earth,
> Who makes grass to grow on the mountains.
> ?He gives to the beast its food,
> And ?to the young ravens that cry.
>
>
> Psalm 147: 15--18
>
> He sends out His command to the earth;
> His word runs very swiftly.
> ?He gives snow like wool;
> He scatters the frost like ashes;
> He casts out His hail like ?morsels;
> Who can stand before His cold?
> ?He sends out His word and melts them;
> He causes His wind to blow, and the waters flow.
>
>
> These verses seem to teach that God causes all natural processes, from
> plate tectonics (mountains) to wind and frost, growing grass and
> running water.
>
> I have read some articles about "complementarity" on your website, but
> I am not clear as to whether many of you believe that God actually
> directly controls natural processes.
>
> The "complementarity" view, it seems, could include a view in which
> the theological perspective is superfluous or only necessary for
> certain purposes. It seems to me that in order to avoid this
> situation, and in order to affirm the Scriptural definitions given
> above, we must ascribe to God the direct causation of all of these
> processes, and the scientific explanations as descriptions of his
> activity. Scientific or material "causes" are not "causes," but only
> sequential events, all caused by God. How can we say, for example,
> that God causes the grass to grow when we are in church, but then say
> that auxins and cytokinins cause it when we are in the lab? If auxins
> and cytokinins are sufficient, then why invoke God at all?
>
>
> Thanks for your input.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Bill Green
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
>

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Thu Jan 4 18:31:51 2007