Re: [asa] Neo-Darwinism and God's action

I think I see a problem, which may be more semantic than
philosophical/theological. Is God competent to create a world with
metaphysical contingency, or is it merely apparent contingency? Is there
any level of human freedom, or is everything produced by divine
providence or causality? Does God determine my actions rather than know
what I will do?

It's obvious that I exist within a causal situation. There are many
things I cannot decide to change. Gravity is one. I can normally only
lift part of me if I have support elsewhere, or momentarily accelerate in
jumping. My moral freedom is only within the choices allowed by the
causal situation. In choice, I am causing A rather than B, or vice versa.
It is a limited choice. Now, if the resulting action is the result of a
quantum event in my brain, it is not my choice, no matter what we are
conditioned to call it. It must be the same if my action is the result of
divine action on brain, spirit, or whatever it may be. Despite all
protestations otherwise, this must result in God being the cause of
sinful actions equally with neutral or moral actions. However, if God is
eternal, outside of time except in the incarnation, and knows all
temporal activity from outside, then he can allow me to act freely within
the strictures of causality.

Open and process theologies claim that God is free by being in time and
thus limited in knowledge of what creatures may do. This is overt, but I
think is covert in Molinism, with the twist that God can know through
counterfactuals.
Dave (ASA)

On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:04:27 -0700 "Terry M. Gray"
<grayt@lamar.colostate.edu> writes:
> Randy,
>
> I think you have understood him correctly.
>
> Personally, I think the only way out of this "problem" is to have
> God
> involved in some way in every single thing (even the most minute and
>
> the most fleeting) that happens. The Reformed theologians (and
> others)
> have called this concurrence and it is a sub-category of the
> doctrine
> of Providence.
>
> Westminster Confession of Faith:
>
> III, 1
> God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his
>
> own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass:
>
> yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence
>
> offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or
> contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
>
> IV, 2
> Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the
> first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet,
>
> by the same providence, he ordereth them to fall out, according to
> the
> nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or
> contingently.
>
> Random events are in the category of contingency. Thus, according to
>
> this historic Presbyterian and Reformed way of understanding
> scripture, even chance events are ordained by God.
>
> Logan Gage is mistaken to think that there is no difference between
>
> physical and metaphysical randomness. God "orders" some of his
> "decree" to "fall out" by chance events. Such events look entirely
> like chance events to us the human observer, even though they are
> completely ordered by God. Even Calvin talks about the ill-fortune
> (bad luck) of the fellow killed in the forest when a branch fell on
>
> him while passing by. But, no doubt, for Calvin it was part of God's
>
> plan and decree. I suppose it's semantics of sorts. I'm happy to
> call
> things that look like random events in terms of statistical analysis,
>
> random, even though I know that from God's perspective and purpose
> they are not at all random. From God's point of view nothing is
> random, it's all decreed and ordained. (And that goes also for the
> free choices of free agents!)
>
> Some discussion of all this applied to process theology, open
> theism,
> and intelligent design can be found in my paper "Give Me Some of
> That
> Old-Time Theology: A Reflection on Charles Hodge’s Discussion of
> Concursus in Light of Recent Discussions of Divine Action in Nature"
>
> found on-line at http://www.asa3.org/gray/GrayASA2003OnHodge.html
>
> TG
>
> On Feb 14, 2008, at 8:16 PM, Randy Isaac wrote:
>
> > Jack Haas just drew my attention to Logan Gage's response to my
> > letter in the Jan 2008 issue of CT. I would greatly appreciate
> your
> > views on the last two paragraphs of his article. We have touched
> on
> > randomness several times in this forum and I believe it continues
> to
> > be one of the fundamental questions. Logan seems to believe that
> if
> > there is divine guidance there will necessarily be evidence of
> non-
> > randomness. Or have I misunderstood him?
> >
> > Randy
> >
>
> ________________
> Terry M. Gray, Ph.D.
> Computer Support Scientist
> Chemistry Department
> Colorado State University
> Fort Collins, CO 80523
> (o) 970-491-7003 (f) 970-491-1801
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>
>

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Fri Feb 15 15:23:43 2008