Posted on 07/27/2011 1:55:41 PM PDT by Red Badger
Thank God!!
It is clear that we have argued far too long over very little. You believe God's role in evolution was similar to the Aristotelian Prime Mover. I, OTOH, am very disposed to believe that God intervenes in the development of life on Earth. I admit it hasn't been proven, but I will not back down from my position that it is cognizable in scientific terms as long as one is careful in describing God as an intelligence that designed and continues to intervene in the formation and diversification of life on Earth. And I expect that evolutionary science will not be able to devise models of a purely cause-and-effect nature to explain all that we know.
It is interesting that for most Christians God certainly did intervene miraculously in the virgin birth of Jesus. Or if, like myself, you doubt the literal meaning of the story, it is still a kind of meddling with the natural course of events for God to place a Divine spirit which is ONE with Himself in the body of mother Mary. Either way, God intervenes in human affairs, hence in nature. The God of the Bible is personal, performs miracles, and is most definitely NOT an impersonal Prime Mover.
It has been a good learning experience to hear your honest thoughts on a complex, baffling subject like this. But I believe we should end the dialogue at this point, with no bad feelings on either side.
In praise of our Divine Father/Mother/Creator,
-- ARFAR
I'd say you've only read what you already understood and have not understood what you actually read. ;-)
Yes, I've certainly made a case for Aristotle's First Cause / Prime Mover.
But if you'd read what I wrote there, you'd have seen words to the effect of: God designed, created and manages the Universe to accomplish His purposes.
Manages?
Doesn't that imply interventions and mid-course corrections?
How can that be possible, if science's "methodological materialism" can find no physical evidence of it?
The answer is, the evidence is all around us, if we only chose to see it.
One place we can see it is in what science calls "random mutations" which drive evolution.
Well, how "random" are such mutations?
I argue they are only "random" to people who refuse to see the Hand of God at work in nature.
Indeed, I said, where-ever you look you can see that God is a Great Gambler, who must love the roll of the dice, but who always stacks the deck and loads His dice so they will eventually accomplish His purposes.
So, far from ruling out Divine interventions, I've pointed to them at precisely places where science, because it is science and not religion, can not see them.
But anyone who can see them does not need to worry about whatever science may discover next.
:-)
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