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

On 2/15/08, D. F. Siemens, Jr. <dfsiemensjr@juno.com> wrote:
>
> 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?

Doug responds:
Okay, the discussion went down this direction anyway (see my earlier post in
which I restrained myself from critiquing on the traditional Reformed
concept). I used to be pretty solidly Reformed in my thinking, but now I am
no longer comfortable with Creation in which there is only a mere appearance
of contingency. Isn't God sovereign enough to create a world in which he
does not have to determine all events? Behind the clever, nice-sounding
language of the WCF statement, there is a bald contradiction: God can't
determine all events at all levels without also being the author of sin. No
matter how many fancy theological words you try to use, it just doesn't
work. Part of what makes the creation so amazing is that God made something
that is truly other than himself, something that is given the freedom to be
itself. And no, I'm not being a Deist, because I believe strongly that God
can and does interact in the causality/contigency stream of His creation to
make his will known and to "woo" his bride. But I don't think that the he
determines all events. He is sovereign over all events because he could
determine any events he chooses. Several times recently I've heard
preachers, etc. comment that the world and it's material structure would
completely melt into nothingness if God stopped sustaining it by his
thought. I am questioning that notion nowadays. What makes his creation a
true creation is that it really does exist; it is not merely a dream in
God's mind. Without God's sustaining input in our affairs, our universe
would no doubt be a despairing place to be, but I do think we exist outside
of God's mere thought.

Actually, I'm not sure that I hold strongly to any of these ideas, but this
is the only forum in which I think (hope) that it's safe to ask the hard
questions. I look forward to reading responses and additional posts in this
thread.

Doug

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Received on Fri Feb 15 18:01:46 2008