Re: [asa] Rejoinder 9C from Timaeus - to George Murphy

Comments interspersed below.

Shalom
George
http://home.neo.rr.com/scitheologyglm

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Tandy" <tandyland@earthlink.net>
To: <asa@lists.calvin.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 7:32 AM
Subject: RE: [asa] Rejoinder 9C from Timaeus - to George Murphy

> George,
>
> In looking over (not yet reading in great detail) the article on the
> proposed explanation for the virgin birth, I find several fundamental
> questions and thoughts come to mind.
>
> 1. I find myself usually drawn to "natural" explanations of Biblical
> miracles, such as how the parting of the Red Sea, the manna, or the
> burning bush could have been natural occurrences used by God. And yet, I
> have often asked myself, Why? Why do I find such seemingly inordinate
> affection for finding a natural explanation for such things, rather than
> just accepting the Biblical account as an act of God? Is it that I find
> such things more believable as natural events, rather than acts of divine
> fiat? If so, why? Have I partaken too much of post-Enlightenment
> naturalistic philosophy, that finds it difficult to accept things that
> don't have natural explanations? Does anyone else besides me struggle
> with this kind of question?

There are probably a number of factors that lead to such feelings. OTOH
there are, as below, good theological arguments for natural explanations.
OTOH some people want to nudge God out of the picture. & perhaps Christians
who know something about the history of science & its relationships with
theology are aware that on too many occasions an "only God can do X" claim
has been made & eventually falsified & don't want to get burned again.

> 2. On the other hand, as mankind increasingly discovers the capacity and
> amazing variety of natural phenomena, and in the light of those
> discoveries we continue to reevaluate God's action in the world, maybe
> such ideas are part of a revelatory process by which God is showing how he
> can and does actually work in the world. For instance, to use one
> example, if we find that the plagues on Egypt were all possible (even if
> extraordinary) phenomena, then our conception of God's action has changed.
> Instead of making new frogs out of dust, God (to use your term)
> "cooperates" with the ordinary forces of nature, to ensure that the
> unlikely but possible events all occurred precisely on cue.
>
> It's not like Timaeus characterizes, 95% natural and 5% God, but 95-100%
> natural and 100% God. God "cooperated" with nature, so that he was fully
> engaged in determining the outcomes. The above formulation sounds
> surprisingly similar to the formulation of the Incarnation -- Jesus was
> 100% God and 100% man.

Yes. & in fact there's a more detailed way of putting your latter point.
The idea that God cooperates with creatures in what goes on in the world has
a pretty exact parallel in the teaching of the 6th Ecumenical Council that
there are two "energies" (i.e., operations) in Christ, divine & human, which
are in accord in everything he does.

> 3. Isn't the above getting at what you meant by "kenosis" in relation to
> creation? Rather than using unnatural fiat activity, God subordinates his
> action primarily to the realm of influencing natural forces into action
> according to His divine will and timing? In my example of the plagues,
> (to use your terminology) the set of "divine miracles" could overlap with
> the set of "natural phenomena".

Yes, this is what I mean by kenosis. God is not absent or inactive, but
limits action to what can be accomplished through cooperation with
creatures.

> 4. Returning to the discussion with Timaeus for a moment, I think this
> gets back to a fundamental distinction. If God acted as I described in
> the plagues of Egypt, from an ID perspective the broad picture of Moses in
> Egypt is seen as "intelligent design" over the events in question. From a
> TE perspective, this set of events could be described by methodological
> naturalism; i.e. (at least hypothetically) each event could be explained
> in terms of natural forces acting in unlikely but ordinary ways. I think
> there is value and truth in both perspectives, but I don't understand how
> to describe God's interaction with nature in "scientific" terms, as ID
> apparently tries to do.
>
> One could say that God "caused" some rapid increase in frog population.
> Then the lice and the flies were natural consequences of the huge piles of
> dead frogs (I don't know, I'm just speculating at this point). Then God
> "brought" a disease on the cattle to produce the boils, and so on. But in
> saying that "God caused" or "brought" or "influenced" the natural forces,
> it seems we have left the realm of science almost entirely except for the
> parts which could already be explained without reference to God at all.
> Thus, for the Christian these events are seen in the light of faith, and
> for atheists trying to discredit the Bible, they are seen as examples of
> why divine explanations are unnecessary.

& particularly with regard to the miracles of Jesus in the gospels, the idea
that these were examples of very rare but nevertheless "natural" phenomena
whose possibility God had provided for in creation strengthens the
understanding of their "sign" value. The fact that Jesus turns water into
wine & multiplies fish & bread in sudden ways is a clue to his identity as
the one who does those things all the time in the world through natural
processes. (The latter point was emphasized by C.S. Lewis in _Miracles_.)
>
> 5. And yet, in reference to the article on the Incarnation of Christ, I
> find that particular one to be "over the top" for me. In one sense, an
> androgynous Christ might have some theological appeal, in that he can
> fully represent both men and women. But this was never theologically
> necessary, as we always imagined Him representing all humankind before
> this scientific hypothesis. Postulating a possible natural (though
> extremely unlikely) generation of the physical body of Christ is so far
> "beyond the pale" naturalistically, that it's still in the category of
> "miraculous fiat", not to mention it's pure speculation and could never be
> proven. It's like trying to suggest a naturalistic explanation for the
> wine at Cana. It seems not only completely unnecessary, but to me it
> feels like it steals away some of wonder at the mystery of the Biblical
> events.

Actually the belief that Christ represents women is jeopardized - though not
ruled out - by traditional claims that women can't represent Christ (as an
argument against the ordination of women).

On your point though, we should distinguish between what is possible _in
principle_ & what could ever be expected to happen without some special kind
of divine initiative. (I made this point in the paper I gave at the asa
meeting in August about time travel. The fact that God _might_ have used
some sort of retrocausal effect in bringing about the resurrection of Jesus
doesn't mean that the feat could be duplicated by some advanced technology -
as one sees by looking at what would be required for time travel by
macroscopic objects.)

> In this, I have to sympathize somewhat with those who feel like the
> mystery and wonder of other Biblical miracles is lost in the search for
> increasingly natural explanations, like the Big Bang and evolution
> explaining the mystery of "creation", or a very large Mesopotamian
> hurricane explaining the Biblical flood. It's not that those things might
> not be correct explanations, but it does seem sometimes that the "life" of
> those events is sucked out by the increasing emphasis on the "natural"
> mechanisms. This is why I appreciate the articles by the Haarsmas (such
> as in "Perspectives...") and others, in trying to restore a focus on the
> wonder of God's activity, while simultaneously exploring the natural
> phenomena. I think this focus is too often missing from these
> discussions, and is probably one reason why TE doesn't make more and
> faster headway with the average Christian. It doesn't appeal to most of
> us theologically in the same way that traditional "miracles" do.

I understand the feeling, but why does the fact that we understand something
mean that there can be no awe or wonder involved in contemplating it?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
> Behalf Of George Murphy
> Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 1:51 PM
> To: asa@lists.calvin.edu
> Subject: Re: [asa] Rejoinder 9C from Timaeus - to George Murphy
>
> In my latest response to Timaeus I've gone into a bit more detail about
> kenosis, but want to reply briefly to Jon's comments about the virginal
> conception of Jesus.
>
> While I think many modern theologians underestimate the textual &
> theological support for this, there is no indication in any of Paul's
> writings that he was familiar with the claim that Jesus was conceived of a
> virgin. Of course that doesn't mean it's not true but does point to the
> fact that if it is true, Mary would be the only person who would have
> direct evidence of it. In that sense it is a miracle that's pretty well
> hidden, in contrast to his healings, crucifixion & resurrection.
> (According to I
> Cor.15 there were > 500 witnesses to the risen Christ.)
>
> Then we have to ask in what sense the virginal conception of Christ was
> "miraculous." Was it something entirely beyond the capacities of
> creatures?
> 25 years ago Edward Kessel published "A Proposed Biological Interpretation
> of the Virgin Birth" in the asa journal (now PSCF) -
> http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1983/JASA9-83Kessel.html . Whether or not
> the mechanism he discussed would be capable of producing a viable male
> human I am not competent to decide, but this does point up the fact that
> the set of "miracles" need not be disjoint from that of "natural
> phenomena."
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://home.neo.rr.com/scitheologyglm
>
>
>
>
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Received on Wed Nov 19 12:58:03 2008