Re: [asa] God as Cause

Mmm, seems to me both. He who causes is responsible for the effect, I
would think (though I'm not completely clear on what cosmological
evolution comprises). JimA

Gregory Arago wrote:

> Would it be properly expressed to say that God caused/causes
> cosmological evolution to occur? Or, that the effects of cosmological
> evolution were/are caused by God?
>
> g.a.
>
> Jim Armstrong <jarmstro@qwest.net> wrote:
>
> ...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
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> 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 19:51:53 2007