“No, it is you who is attempting to conflate randomness with supernatural action.”
I really don’t think so. I’m well aware of the difference between those two concepts.
“Saying that mutations arise in a random fashion in no way removes God as knowing beforhand what the change would be and being in absolute control - without any sort of supernatural causation or intervention necessary.”
No, saying that mutations function that way does not, however naturalistic science does remove that possibility. You can’t sit here and say that every random event in the universe happens exactly as God planned it, in such away as to arrive at a predetermined result, and say that is a view that is consistent with naturalistic science, because it is not. You are basically transforming, through a logical postulate, probabilistic forces into deterministic ones. You are saying that the forces which naturalistic science, through experiment, has observed to be random are not truly random, for random processes do not result in predetermined outcomes, unless you want to start delving into special cases like symmetry breaking.
What you are effectively doing is saying that a random process only seems random, because we, as humans, do not have the capacity to detect or comprehend all the variables which determine its outcome. If we did, then we would be able to predict it with the same accuracy that we can predict well understood probabilistic processes. Now, this might be a correct assertion, I’ll grant you that, but it is not an assertion that lines up with mainstream science.
So in reality, unlike the type of guided evolution believers who posit discreet instances of supernatural intervention to explain the “guiding”, who are only creating a hybrid theory of evolution, you are actually creating a hybrid theory of science in general. After all, if processes worked the way that you think, it would have ramifications on pretty much every scientific theory, and not just evolution.
“The dichotomy you are attempting to set up exists only in those who cannot acknowledge that there is no conflict between faith in God and acceptance of scientific theories.”
Well, I do acknowledge that you can have faith in God and still accept scientific theories, so I think that statement is simply hogwash.
“Faith that evolution unfolded according to God’s will in no way is ascribing supernatural “guiding” or causation to evolution - any more than faith that the universe obeying gravity unfolded according to God’s will is ascrbing supernatural “guiding” or causation to gravity.”
Of course it is, you just ascribed to that exact thing in that very sentence:
“evolution unfolded according to God’s will”
That is plainly a statement of supernatural causation. There is no plausible way to deny it, unless you say God is not supernatural, or His willing something is not a cause.
You’re simply playing with semantics here. It seems you don’t like the term “guiding”, but you are perfectly happy to call it “willing”. Fine, I’ll use your terms. You believe in “God-Willed Evolution”, not the standard Theory of Evolution as proposed by naturalistic science.
One either has faith that God is in control of random events (as the Bible says He does), or one doesn’t.
That is completely different than accepting the physical mechanisms that cause mutations and how they contribute to evolution.
The physical mechanism is the same - if you think God is in control or you reject that view.
My faith is not the same as the scientific theory; but as creationists cannot seem to seperate the two distinct and absolutely seperate concepts; no wonder you are having so much difficulty.