A Beautiful Truth
February 27th 2005, 07:34 PM
I'd like it if Calvinists could overlook the following quotes and give me input.
I think that what Charleen is speaking about does fit something that I read from Kenneth Miller. Even though he, Kenneth Miller, is against ID, he speaks about it somewhat, perhaps the second theory here, in talking about the laws of the universe are set up to bring about life.
But he also speaks about this idea of 'chance' and how can we reconcile that with a loving God, or a God who is in control. He speaks that it is understandable in science just as it is understandable in life. He uses the illustration that our parents, more or less, meet by 'chance', we are born of them, and yet, we believe that God has His hand in all of this too.
page 213 of 'Finding Darwin's God' by Kenneth Miller
"Remarkably, what the critics of evolution consistently fail to see is that the very indeterminacy they misconstrue as randomness had to be, by any definition, a key feature of the mind of God. Remember, there is one (and only one) alternative to unpredicatability--and that alternative is a strict, predictable determinism. The only alternative to what they describe as randomness would be a nonrandom universe of clockworks mechanism that would also rule out active intervention by any supreme Deity. Caught between these two alternatives, they fail to see that the one more consistent with their religious beliefs is actually the mainstream scientific view linking evolution with the quantum reality of the physical sciences.
We need not ask if the nature of quantum physics 'proves' the existence of a Supreme Being, which it certainly does not. Quantum physics does allow for it in an interesting way, and certainly excludes the possibility that we will ever gain a complete understanding of the details of nature. We have progressed so much in self-awareness and understanding that we now know there is a boundary around our ability to grasp reality. And we cannot say why it is there. But that does not make the boundary any less real, or any less consistent with the idea that it was the necessary handiwork of a Creator who fashioned it to allow us the freedom and independence necessary to make our acceptance or rejection of His love a genuinely free choice."
...
page 236-238
" A Christian, specifically, sees his life, his family, and his small place in history as parts of God's plan. He has faith that God expects him to use his talents and abilities in God's name. He accepts the adversity that comes into his life as a challenge from God, and he sees apparent misfortune as an opportunity to do good in the service of both God and man. These non-controversial elements of Christian teaching are so ordinary that we sometimes forget what they imply about the interplay of history, free will, and chance. To put it simply, they mean that God, if He exists, surpasses our ordinary understanding of chance and causality. Christians know that chance plays an undeniable role in history, and nonetheless accept the events that affect them in their daily lives as part of God's plan for each of them. This means that Christians 'already' agree that the details of a historical process can be driven by chance, that to allow for individual free will the outcome of such a process need not be preordained, and that the final result of the process nonetheless be seen as part of God's will. These ordinary elements or religious teaching merge smoothly into everything we know about evolution.....
History itself is an unpredictable process, and it need not have turned out the way it did. That much is self-evident. The question for us now is whether the inherent unpredicatability of history should lead any person to conclude that God could not have used that historical process to produce the world in wich we live today. I submit that the answer is no, that the ebb and flow of human history is entirely consistent with the Western conception of God.
Evolution answers the question of chance and purpose in exactly the same way that history answers questions about the course of human events. To a biologist, evolution is subject to chance and unpredicatability, just like human history. Its outcome is uncertain, and like to be unrepeatable, just like human history. And evolution admits to not obvious purpose or single goal, just like human history. History, like evolution, seems to occur without divine guidance. No one seems to think that a religious person engaged in the study of history must find a way that God rigged human events in order to cause the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, or the Holocaust. Yet curiously, that is exactly what many expect of a religous person engaged in the study of natural history--they want to know how God could have ensured the success of mammals, the rise of flowering plants, and most especially, the ascent of man.
My answer, in every case, is that God need not have. Evolution is not rigged, and religious belief does not require one to postulate a God who fixes the game, bribes the referees, or tricks natural selection. The reality of natural history, like the reality of human history, is more interesting and exciting.
The freedom to act and choose enjoyed by each individual in the Western religious tradition requires that God allow the future of His creation to be left open."
(He then quotes an Ian Barbour)
'Natural laws and chance may equally be instruments of God's intentions. There can be purpose without an exact predetermined plan.'
"How is this possible? I would submit that if we can see the hand of God in the unpredictable events of history, if we can see meaning and purpose in the challenges and trials of our daily lives, then we can certainly see God's will emerging in the grand and improbable tree of life."
(end of quote)
edited to add: Please reply with regard to the free will/ predestination aspect of the article, thank you.
I think that what Charleen is speaking about does fit something that I read from Kenneth Miller. Even though he, Kenneth Miller, is against ID, he speaks about it somewhat, perhaps the second theory here, in talking about the laws of the universe are set up to bring about life.
But he also speaks about this idea of 'chance' and how can we reconcile that with a loving God, or a God who is in control. He speaks that it is understandable in science just as it is understandable in life. He uses the illustration that our parents, more or less, meet by 'chance', we are born of them, and yet, we believe that God has His hand in all of this too.
page 213 of 'Finding Darwin's God' by Kenneth Miller
"Remarkably, what the critics of evolution consistently fail to see is that the very indeterminacy they misconstrue as randomness had to be, by any definition, a key feature of the mind of God. Remember, there is one (and only one) alternative to unpredicatability--and that alternative is a strict, predictable determinism. The only alternative to what they describe as randomness would be a nonrandom universe of clockworks mechanism that would also rule out active intervention by any supreme Deity. Caught between these two alternatives, they fail to see that the one more consistent with their religious beliefs is actually the mainstream scientific view linking evolution with the quantum reality of the physical sciences.
We need not ask if the nature of quantum physics 'proves' the existence of a Supreme Being, which it certainly does not. Quantum physics does allow for it in an interesting way, and certainly excludes the possibility that we will ever gain a complete understanding of the details of nature. We have progressed so much in self-awareness and understanding that we now know there is a boundary around our ability to grasp reality. And we cannot say why it is there. But that does not make the boundary any less real, or any less consistent with the idea that it was the necessary handiwork of a Creator who fashioned it to allow us the freedom and independence necessary to make our acceptance or rejection of His love a genuinely free choice."
...
page 236-238
" A Christian, specifically, sees his life, his family, and his small place in history as parts of God's plan. He has faith that God expects him to use his talents and abilities in God's name. He accepts the adversity that comes into his life as a challenge from God, and he sees apparent misfortune as an opportunity to do good in the service of both God and man. These non-controversial elements of Christian teaching are so ordinary that we sometimes forget what they imply about the interplay of history, free will, and chance. To put it simply, they mean that God, if He exists, surpasses our ordinary understanding of chance and causality. Christians know that chance plays an undeniable role in history, and nonetheless accept the events that affect them in their daily lives as part of God's plan for each of them. This means that Christians 'already' agree that the details of a historical process can be driven by chance, that to allow for individual free will the outcome of such a process need not be preordained, and that the final result of the process nonetheless be seen as part of God's will. These ordinary elements or religious teaching merge smoothly into everything we know about evolution.....
History itself is an unpredictable process, and it need not have turned out the way it did. That much is self-evident. The question for us now is whether the inherent unpredicatability of history should lead any person to conclude that God could not have used that historical process to produce the world in wich we live today. I submit that the answer is no, that the ebb and flow of human history is entirely consistent with the Western conception of God.
Evolution answers the question of chance and purpose in exactly the same way that history answers questions about the course of human events. To a biologist, evolution is subject to chance and unpredicatability, just like human history. Its outcome is uncertain, and like to be unrepeatable, just like human history. And evolution admits to not obvious purpose or single goal, just like human history. History, like evolution, seems to occur without divine guidance. No one seems to think that a religious person engaged in the study of history must find a way that God rigged human events in order to cause the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, or the Holocaust. Yet curiously, that is exactly what many expect of a religous person engaged in the study of natural history--they want to know how God could have ensured the success of mammals, the rise of flowering plants, and most especially, the ascent of man.
My answer, in every case, is that God need not have. Evolution is not rigged, and religious belief does not require one to postulate a God who fixes the game, bribes the referees, or tricks natural selection. The reality of natural history, like the reality of human history, is more interesting and exciting.
The freedom to act and choose enjoyed by each individual in the Western religious tradition requires that God allow the future of His creation to be left open."
(He then quotes an Ian Barbour)
'Natural laws and chance may equally be instruments of God's intentions. There can be purpose without an exact predetermined plan.'
"How is this possible? I would submit that if we can see the hand of God in the unpredictable events of history, if we can see meaning and purpose in the challenges and trials of our daily lives, then we can certainly see God's will emerging in the grand and improbable tree of life."
(end of quote)
edited to add: Please reply with regard to the free will/ predestination aspect of the article, thank you.