Re: [asa] Has a Christian Evolutionist written this yet?

Is the Almighty like man writ large, not competent to pay attention to
more than a limited selection of items at a time? Or is everything, laws
and chance, under his constant control and attention? Process theology
and open theology are the most recent versions of a limited deity.
Earlier versions come from John Stuart Mill and, as pantheism, from
Spinoza. But these are not the orthodox views. At least as far as
omniscience goes, Ephesians 1:4 and Romans 8:29ff would indicate that it
is unlimited. I fear that we tend to make God in our image rather than
transcendent.
Dave (ASA)

On Tue, 18 Dec 2007 22:39:49 -0700 Jim Armstrong <jarmstro@qwest.net>
writes:
I don't know if I can answer your second question, but the forces and
fields of gravity, strong and weak forces, EM are unchanging in their
character, providing something more like context or ambience. That is
quite different from biochemical , genetic, etc. entities that are more
about processes and individuals and change. It seems to me quite possible
that God, having created the requisite soil and growing conditions that
are prerequisite to a garden, expects only that it be and do as expected,
and turns to focus instead on what and how things grow in that prepared
context.

The constant-sustaining script has God is involved in continuing to spin
the plates of soil and growing conditions, sustaining them in the
condition of reality, while assuming new roles in guiding the emergence
and growing of the garden's plants (sort of like Bonsai, perhaps).

I'm not sure this is how the script runs in reality, but as long as this
alternative can be reasonably posited, that makes the constant-guidance
model a little less than certain. That was my point. But that alternative
was apparently not particularly relevant to the point Bernie was making,
based on his later post.

As an afterthought, when God pauses to declare some aspect of Creation
"good", doesn't that sort of imply some sense of completion? If so, what
is complete? Or, perhaps I should ask, what sort of completion continues
to require sustaining in some way to continue to manifest its
"done-ness"? It does not seem likely to be making reference to any
evolutionary aspect of Creation because evolution is a continuing
dynamic, not having reached a static endpoint.

JimA [Friend of ASA]

D. F. Siemens, Jr. wrote:

Isn't God just as involved in the ordinary working of the
universe--gravity, strong force, weak force, electromagnetism--as in the
biochemical, genetic, etc.? What kind of a situation are we in if the
Almighty is involved only in revelation and the like?
Dave (ASA)

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Wed Dec 19 22:30:42 2007