Re: [asa] anti-evolutionism and deism

 
In a message dated 4/20/2007 7:09:52 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
gmurphy@raex.com writes:

> To follow up on all the excellent notes but especially Jon Tandys and
> Michaels. I have never figured out if:
>
> 1)God established and maintains the laws that we observe
> or
> 2)The laws that we observe are simply the normal (ie usual) way that God
> interacts with the universe. Implies that God continually makes decisions
> as to how matter-energy and space-time will behave. This would imply a
> view of providence that in some matters at least is extremely particular.
>
> I tend to lean towards #1 but don't have any real solid reasons for that
> choice. The Bible does not seem to say anything that applies or at least
> I have not found it. Doubt any experiment could tell the difference and
> am not sure it matters in any case as I am not a deist.

2) suggests that matter is just inert pieces of "stuff" that God moves
around according to arbitrary rules, like those of chess. The game does
have fixed rules but they could be quite different: There is nothing
intrinsic to the pieces shaped like horses that requires that they move in
the way that the rules of chess specify for the knight. But everything that
we know about, e.g., electrons & electromagnetic fields indicates that the
motion of an electron in such a field is closely related to what an electron
& an EM field _are_.

1) is more consistent with the belief that God actually cooperates with
created entities - i.e., that creatures actually do things in the world,
though they do not do them independently of God.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

In spite of the problems noted by George, I like view 2. This is the view
taken by Donald MacKay in his excellent booklet "The Clockwork Image" (out of
print). He stresses that scientific law is DEscriptive, not PREscriptive, a
concept which I often use to explain the relationship between God and science.
View 2 is simpler than view 1, and easier to explain.
 
View 1 may be more accurate, but it must be carefully nuanced so that it does
not become deistic (or does not give the impression of deism when explained
to others). C.John Collins does a good job of thinking through this in his
"Science and Faith". I just started reading David Wilcox' "God and Evolution",
which also does a good job of this.
 
I believe the root problem has nothing to do with evolution, but with sloppy
thinking about God's providence and immanence. It suggests a false dichotomy
between God and scientific law; people tend to think that effects are caused
EITHER by God OR by scientific law. We need to help people understand that
both can be true simultaneously.
 
Kirk

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Received on Fri Apr 20 13:19:37 2007