RE: [asa] Four views

We have to be very careful not to embed God in spacetime and, of course, I am not referring to the Incarnation. The category "God intended" sounded very much as a temporal development of His actions. I am not comfortable with that kind of talk; however, I realize it is difficult for humans to think and talk about God in any other way. In fact, it may be quite impossible to avoid that type of limited way of referring to a Supreme Being.

Moorad

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From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of philtill@aol.com
Sent: Wed 12/17/2008 2:45 PM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Four views

I have problems with the categories "God intended" versus "God didn't intend." I don't know how it can be that God didn't intend any of the things that actually happened. If it happened, then obviously he intended it. I think you have to define what you mean by "unintended", and I'm not sure it can be defined very precisely or meaningfully.

Example: did God intend for us to have a broken gene for Vitamin C production, or was it an accident of evolution? I don't think this is a real either-or choice. I think God intends every accident to occur. By "accident" we simply mean that there were secondary causes and from our limited perspective they seemed to lack design.

Maybe we can define it in terms of probability: pseudogenes are probable in the set of all possible universes because of Darwinian mechanisms. Then we can say TE believes God intended the universe to be typical among the set of all possible universes in that it contains a great many secondary causes that are common within that set. Thus, broken genes indicates the predominance of ordinary secondary causes. ID says OTOH that these ordinary secondary causes aren't sufficiently effective to produce in many situations and so there exist many improbable features of life in this univerese. But either way, we can say God **intended** it to happen exactly as it did happen.

Phil

-----Original Message-----
From: Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com>
Cc: asa@calvin.edu <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:50 am
Subject: RE: [asa] Four views

Randy said:

" TE: Human beings are the intended, purposeful result of God's creative act."

I don't think TE's necessary say that humans were God's intent- the final form

could have been different. Being made in God's image doesn't necessary mean the

human image (shape and body plan) is God's image. What does it mean to be "in

God's image?" Theologians debate it, even within the same Christian camps and

sects.

...Bernie

-----Original Message-----

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu <mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu?> ] On Behalf

Of John Burgeson (ASA member)

Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 8:39 AM

To: Randy Isaac

Cc: asa@calvin.edu

Subject: Re: [asa] Four views

On 12/16/08, Randy Isaac <randyisaac@comcast.net> wrote:

> Perhaps one might summarize some of the various metaphysical viewpoints like

> this:

>>

> TE: Human beings are the intended, purposeful result of God's creative act.

> How do we know this? Because God has revealed it to us in his Word. We may

> or may not find direct evidence of it, or the mechanism for it, in the

> details of the intermediate evolutionary processes but even if we did, the

> basis of knowledge is God's revelation. Revealed knowledge.

>

I would tend to modify this just a litttle bit. The sentence "Because

God has revealed it to us in his Word" is too restrictive. I think he

has revealed it to us also in other ways, for some of us actual

epiphanies. So I'd just say "Because God has revealed it to us."

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Received on Wed Dec 17 15:02:43 2008