Re: [asa] anti-evolutionism and deism

Hi David

It seems to me that the Bible is chiefly about God's interaction with men and women. The early chapters of Genesis are included to teach that God did indeed create everything. Getting that out of the way, the Bible then spends 65+ books dealing with God's dealings with men and women. As scientists we pretty much operate under the assumption that nature runs "on automatic". That would perhaps earn the accusation of deism if we stopped there. But we are also scientists who have a relationship with Jesus Christ -- what (65 96/100)/66 books of the Bible deals with. We believe that God is active in the affairs of humanity, so we're not deists.
 
Bill Hamilton
William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
248.652.4148 (home) 248.821.8156 (mobile)
"...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31

----- Original Message ----
From: David Buller <bullerscience@gmail.com>
To: ASA Discussion Group <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2007 8:50:48 PM
Subject: [asa] anti-evolutionism and deism

I've been discussing interpretations of Genesis with my youth pastor, and he recently gave me a copy of his YEC-perspective syllabus notes which take an anti-evolutionary stance. In order to refute evolution from a theological perspective, it said that in the evolutionary creationist/theistic evolutionist view:

1. God creates at the level of minimal existence

2. God steps aside while creation progresses onward

I discussed with him how deistic this seemed to me. It presupposes that when God isn't acting supernaturally (creating through evolution), He is "at the level of minimal existence" and has "stepped aside." Yet this is exactly how (with very few miraculous exceptions) God acts in the natural world today! This view forces them to say that God is of "minimal existence" and has "stepped aside"
today. In their own YEC view, God was actually only "active" for six days, and left it alone after that.

My youth pastor responded by saying, "well there are some things that God lets happen," stating that God's ways of working have changed to the less-miraculous. I responded by pointing out that this doesn't mean that God is acting any less, only differently. The syllabus implied that God was acting
less today (or at least that is the unavoidable philosophical conclusion). I pointed out the many instances where the Bible says God did something, yet we accept a natural explanation (e.g., meteorology, embryology).

Anyway, what do you all think? Do the professor's statements lead to a deistic view of the natural world? I would enjoy your insights!

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Received on Thu Apr 19 22:09:11 2007