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To: ConservativeDude
You are saying, then, that, if Scripture teaches that God constantly intervenes and actively governs the world (which it does), not to mention the other "scientific" claims that Scripture makes which are rather central to the entire history of redemption (a few of which are in my previous post), and these claims are inconsistent with science/evolution (which they are), then Scripture is to be disregarded, because it is not holding up to real world scrutiny, as you define real world.

Nope. How does God intervene? Is it through natural processes? Did He foresee the need for intervention prior to the creation of the universe and thus built His intervention into the "prgram?"

212 posted on 08/02/2005 8:03:56 AM PDT by Junior (Just because the voices in your head tell you to do things doesn't mean you have to listen to them)
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To: Junior
How does God intervene?

Many ways. Sometimes supernaturally, sometimes in more normal ways.

Is it through natural processes?

It can be

Did He foresee the need for intervention prior to the creation of the universe and thus built His intervention into the "prgram?"

Quite possible

232 posted on 08/02/2005 8:13:33 AM PDT by Asphalt (Join my NFL ping list! FReepmail me| The best things in life aren't things)
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To: Junior

"Nope. How does God intervene? Is it through natural processes? Did He foresee the need for intervention prior to the creation of the universe and thus built His intervention into the "prgram?""

Your ignorance of Scripture is now blaring. Throughout Scripture, God intervenes according to His good pleasure. He does not do so through "natural" processes which I take to mean processes which look natural to the naked eye. Take for one obvious example near the beginning of the book, the entire episode of the plagues, the flight from Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea and so on. These events were obviously not "natural" and even Pharoah knew before it was over that they were not natural.

It just gets worse from there. History is taught in Scripture not as natural history, but an account of sustained divine intervention. If you read the Psalms and the minor Prophets, it goes even further, in that it attributes things like the weather to God's active intervention - and to whether or not man is obedient to His law or not. Then....obviously the New Testament miracles are not a natural part of any program. Water into wine, lepers healed spontaneously and instantly, resurrections of Lazarus and Jesus. Moreover, throughout Scripture believers are encouraged to pray, and Scripture teaches that prayer itself can be the intermediate cause by which God does something.

On the theological point, obviously God in some sense foresees all of this...He ordains both ends and means. He allows us the privilege of participating in some of those ends and means, and that is what we experience as human freedom comes in. That is why we experience that prayer does seem to "change things."

The worldview I have given a very brief sketch above is utterly incompatible with the evolutionary worldview.

Look, it's not skin off my back if you reject Scripture. But I am troubled with this mushy thinking that says you believe in Scripture and in evolution. At least Jefferson had the guts and intellectual honesty to throw away most of his Bible.

What I am looking for in this discussion is for people to take firm, resolute, consistent and well-thought out positions. That is lacking on this thread. When I was a grad student in philosophy many many years ago, I used to love to read Anthony Flew...he was a hardened atheist and a hardened anti-socialist. He was just the greatest in terms of rigor. I was (and am) a believer, so I didn't agree with his attacks on religion. But I always appreciated his rigor and his integrity. That is what I look for in serious thinkers. (Of course to make this more interesting is that Flew is now a theist...that is a whole nuther topic, though).


236 posted on 08/02/2005 8:19:54 AM PDT by ConservativeDude
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