That [God] already knows the End — the purpose and goal of His Creation — does not affect its free development "In-Between" its Beginning and End...There are rules and guides to the system; but within those constraints, there is every possible scope for novelty to emerge in physical nature, via an evolutionary process.and
Perhaps [Mendel] would acknowledge that the only "mystical intervention" that God ever did was "in the Beginning" — and He's been pretty much keeping "hands-off" ever since...Given that, I really don't see what your problem with evolution is--what it is that you're insisting is there that "evos" somehow deny. If you said "In the beginning, God created a universe in which evolution, acting according to His laws, produced all the life forms we see today, with no need for further intervention," you'd get very little argument. But it seems that, for some reason, you can't bring yourself to say that.
But — the above is the essential message I have been trying to suggest —conditional on the following: I will not even attempt to overrule God by forbidding Him to perform a miracle every now and then if He wants to.
Were I to try to overrule God in this way, no less worthy a person than Isaac Newton would probably contradict me. It was his own understanding that a mechanical universe would tend to accumulate errors over time, unto total disorder in due course. And so God necessarily would have to step in from time to time, to set matters "aright" again.
Newton proposed that God's action was effected by means of a sensorium Dei — which I understand to be a sort of universal "field" that connects the material realm with the spiritual pattern it reflects.
Whatever the case, Michael Faraday evidently grasped the "field" principle here. And so gets the credit as the "father" of field theory to this day, in the process setting up the intellectual conditions necessary to the contemplation of quantum field theory....
Anyhoot, in closing, let me reiterate: Even Newton believed that God was constantly, directly involved with His Creation. Newton's name for God was: "The Lord of Life, with His creatures."
"Modern" science has the most wonderful history "behind it"!!!
Which history, it seems to me, modern science is trying to "forget" as soon as possible....
WHY??? Science is a public enterprise dating back millennia. It's an intergenerational collaboration going back to the dawn of history.
Why is "modern" (i.e., post-modern) science trying to drop such facts down the old "rabbit hole of memory," never to be seen again?
For if they do, they cut themselves off at the knees....
Or so it seems to me. FWIW.