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I suppose that I may admit to a minor form of Newton's "Pantocreator" viewpoint: I believe that our Creator established the laws of physics as a part of his overall design, set things in motion, and allowed them to proceed accordingly. However, I suspect that He keeps things in order and proceeding according to His plan by the exertion of subtle, and mostly undetectable, corrective actions. (We scientists describe such actions via the esoteric and technical term, "tweaks"...) LOL!
Chaos theory describes such effects by analogies -- such as the cascading effects of the flap of a butterfly's wing in some remote place eventually causing a profound effect elsewhere. IOW, if He does guide by intrusion, His actions are imperceptibly subtle -- and, when He does intercede to the extent of violating His physical laws ...we call that a "miracle"...
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FWIW, as a scientist, I probably would not be as accepting of the possibility of divine intrusion and intervention in the physical realm -- were it not for the profound experience of having experienced His guiding hand in my own life -- many times!
Oh my, but I too, have felt that guiding hand in my life. So I have no doubt whatever that God can act within the physical realm of created nature (of which I am a part) if He so wills it. In short, He has "tweaked" me, more than a few times. On at least one occasion, He may have saved my life.
Newton called his God Pantocrator (which means "ruler of all that there is") "the Lord of Life with His creatures." He presumably is not in the world of His Creation, but ineffably interfaces with it, at Will, via what Newton called the sensorium Dei. This sensorium suggests to my mind a sort of universal field that mediates divine Presence.
But then again, God doesn't need anything like a field to facilitate His acts. Or so it seems to me. Yet perhaps Newton, being a scientist, simply needed to think and speak in such terms.
It's great to see you, TXnMA! Thank you so very much for writing!
Hi TXnMA! I meant to ping you to reply #136, thinking you might find it of interest....