RE: [asa] anti-evolutionism and deism

That God sustains the creation means that He is constantly acting in His
creation. If God created all that exists and left it alone then that
something would self-exist, this would equate it to being God-like. The
only entity that is self-existing is God all else rely on His existence
in order to exist.

Moorad

________________________________

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Jon Tandy
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 6:51 AM
To: 'ASA Discussion Group'
Subject: RE: [asa] anti-evolutionism and deism

Thanks, David, this is very thought-provoking.

I've considered this recently, in trying to explain to others how does
God create today. Does he personally plant each and every dandelion in
my yard at night (it seems so, since they seem to come out of nowhere
the next morning)? If so, would someone please tell him to stop,
because I have enough! No, creation, and all sorts of other effects in
nature, can be explained in purely naturalistic terms without reference
to overt divine action. One of my favorite examples is the creation of
hail -- is hail created by God and stored in huge vats in the sky,
waiting to be thrown down upon the heads of the wicked (Job 38:22-23),
or is hail formed by moisture being caught in updrafts in the atmosphere
and frozen into larger and larger ice pellets, until gravity brings them
down to the ground in the form of hail? Obviously God can bring hail,
or stop the rain, or cause it to return again for his own purposes or in
response to the prayers of faith (James 5:17-18), but He still causes
those things to occur, as far as we can generally tell, through natural
processes.

Your comments are intriguing, because it is clear that YECists and other
theists have a point of agreement -- since about 4000 B.C., God has
acted in a way that allows his creation to produce, to "be fruitful and
multiply", *on its own* (so to speak) without reference to special
creation. Yet following on to George's comment, Christian YECists,
TEists, and others must surely recognize that God is in and through all
things (Col 1:16-17; Eph 4:6), and constantly sustaining His creation,
not stepping aside as the watchmaker of deism. The only difference then
really comes down to how did the whole thing come into play before 4000
B.C.? Did God act consistently before that time as well as after, and
cause/sustain the creation through outwardly *natural* means (being in
all, and through all, the whole time), or did God create a
discontinuous, fully formed creation, and then cause it to roll forward
with naturalistic cause/effect as the physical processes seem to reveal?

Obviously, that's the crux of most creation/evolution debate, do we take
the Genesis account as a literal, face value scientific record or not?
But I think approaching it from this angle helps to make a good case
that the progressive creation or TE position is highly plausible,
granting to God consistent attributes in how he has worked in creation
both before and after cerca 4000 B.C. And as pointed out, God is not
acting *less* today than during the (young or ancient) creation, but He
is unchanging and continues to act consistently.

Jon Tandy

        -----Original Message-----
        From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
[mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of David Buller
        Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2007 7:51 PM
        To: ASA Discussion Group
        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 Fri Apr 20 08:50:57 2007