Hi Jon.
How are things in mother England?
Eddie,
I bet you are a good professor. You may remember that I have a BA in German and Philosophy and an MA in Religious Studies. It looks like we have the some interests.
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Sorry for the great deal of confusion I am “creating” 
.
To lay out some of the questions, they are in regards the purpose of the question. For example…
[quote=“jongarvey, post:39, topic:1461”]
But I though the thread was about how God created us, not about how he deals with us once we are created. How did I cooperate or resist before I existed? [/quote]
This is a question about language and word choice and its tilt on our metaphysics. It is not so much about what the correct metaphysics is, per se, but what actually is the language of Scripture, and if the move from “create” to “design” had an uncontemplated affect on our metaphysics, and wondering if another word in the mix like “craft” or “command” might elucidate it.
With that in mind, I’m calling to question arguments like this:
I’m not sure this is the case, and I am not appealing to Open Theism or even molinism. I’m just saying that because create and design have different meanings we have to be much more careful in statements like this.
I will perhaps write to all of you soon.
God Bless,
Charles
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Charles, you are always so kind and civil, like a breath of fresh air.
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In my opinion, there is a lot more to biology than the study of molecules. I see the DNA as an implementation detail, not as the whole of an organism. I do not see DNA as a blueprint for the organism. Rather, I see the organism as coming to its full self during the development stage. And I see development as intelligent and adaptive, not merely a purely mechanical process.
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I agree with you, Joshua, that we should be careful about our language. That is why, in response to your question, I tried to offer a careful set of observations about “creating”, “crafting”, and “designing”, giving examples of usage in everyday life and commenting on your examples from the Bible.
The verb “create” in Hebrew is used something like 19 or 20 times in the Old Testament. It isn’t that common a verb in the Hebrew text. I am trying to think of any occurrence of the verb where it isn’t implied that God conceived in advance of the thing he wanted to create – what it would look like, how it would function once created, etc. I can’t think of one. Can you?
If it is the word “design” that worries you, perhaps you could specify what bothers you about the word. I’m not suggesting that God sat down at a drafting table and struggled for hours trying to figure out how to make his designs work. I think he conceived his designs instantaneously, with the full set of working parts and all the adjustments of means to ends appearing to his divine mind all at once. Is it the image of intellectual labor that bothers you? My conception of design doesn’t require that.
By design, I mean merely, “Generate in the mind a clear picture of the thing to be created.” God doesn’t say to himself, “I think I want to create something that can in some way move or talk and maybe dance or sing a bit, and maybe is a mammal and maybe not, and maybe bipedal but maybe quadrupedal.” That’s not the Biblical picture of God’s intentionality. God has something definite in mind, when he says, let there be light, let us make man, etc. I call that definite thing his plan or design. That plan or design precedes the actual physical existence of the thing. I don’t see how this goes against any statement in the Bible or any statement about creation in any of the great theologians.
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And somehow I had the impression that ID claimed that there was no assertion that God is the designer.
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ID, per se, has no view regarding the identity of the designer. But most ID proponents are Christians, and virtually all of them are theists or deists, so naturally they identify the designer of the earth, living things, etc. with their God: the Jewish God, the Christian God, the Muslim God, the Deist God, etc. But that’s a personal conclusion that doesn’t follow from their ID arguments.
If you ask my opinion about how the various features of the world came into being, then speaking scientifically and philosophically, I’d say that it required design (which doesn’t mean that no natural laws were involved at any stage). But I don’t derive that conclusion from Christian revelation or any religious faith.
If you ask my opinion as a Christian (albeit, some would say, a rather poor example of one), I’d say that the designer of the the world was the Christian God. But that conclusion has nothing to do with design theory per se. I can’t draw that conclusion based on the writings of Dembski, Behe, etc.
Joshua here is talking as a Christian to other Christians. He is assuming that Jon, myself, and the others to whom he is addressing his question find the Bible and its meaning important. Therefore, I am answering from within that framework. If he had asked us what we could say about design in nature based on reasoning from nature alone, I would have given a different sort of answer. But he asked us whether the words “design”, “craft”, etc. capture the Biblical understanding of creation. He is asking a textual and theological question. So it’s perfectly appropriate for me to talk about God.
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Sunny and autumnal, and I’m spending the week mowing and raking the wild-flower meadow!
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I would love to come to England one day. Maybe I could meet my Williams Wynn relations and other family members. I would be happy to meet you and your family one day. If not on earth, then in Heaven. I would also visit Wales, where my 13th century ancestors Llewellyn and Lady Joan of Wales lived when John was King of England. I hope you don’t mind the silly family pride that my father’s clan had. You are a highly intelligent man, Jon. It would be an honor to meet you. Perhaps I can join in tomorrow and listen to the philosophy, science, and theology. It was good to hear from all of you.
Charles
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Or, is it better to clarify to: Is “meticulous design” or “broadly crafted” a better way of understanding God’s style of creating? Perhaps broadly crafted is better than *meticulously designed”?
God said creation was good, then very good. Neither of these convey perfection and I don’t expect to find perfect design in His creation. For non-human biology I’m open to “evolution as tinkering” as opposed to “engineered by a designer”. However, for humans the tinkering aspect seems to be incompatible with any understanding of Imago Dei I have encountered. How much of the Imago Dei we view as in the flesh and how much is soul/spirit seems to be important.
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Actually, We cant say God relies on trial and error processes to Sanctify us. Sanctification is a process. Whether it involves trial and error from God’s perspective is doubtful.
Craftsmanship involves a personal touch, an aesthetic sensibility and an exchange with the medium. I agree with the first two being associated with Gods act of creation.However, for there to be an exchange with the medium, the medium must “inform” the craftsman. i.e the craftsman’s knowledge of the medium is incomplete and the medium does things he is unable to anticipate. For example a sculptor working on wood is not familiar with all aspects of every part of the piece of wood. Texture, firmness and color may vary from place to place, and the artist needs to listen to the wood to “craft” whatever form he had in mind incorporating what wood reveals of itself into his vision.
When we view God in this manner, he is no longer omniscient… thus leading to an open theist perspective.
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So, does prayer demonstrate that God is not omniscient too? Doesn’t God just already know?
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How does God’s Knowing change things with prayer?
It implies he does not know if we don’t tell. Yet we tell. I’m just suggesting that in the same way the wood can tell God how to craft it, without implying he is not omniscient any more than prayer implies the same.
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God is not informed of the problem by our prayers. However, Prayer does lead to Gods intervention in our life.If we don’t pray, said intervention need not happen.Its a matter of willingness/seeking Gods help. We are seeking him of our own free will. Though he knows this beforehand, our agency in seeking him freely is significant.
However, the problem with the analogy of the craftsman , is that the wood is not conscious, nor does it posses agency. If the information is already known, what is role of any kind of feedback? How is a feedback that has been clearly anticipated beforehand important except in the context of design?
All analogies including “design” fail. I’m just exploring. This seems more coherent: Creation as Call and Response?
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Let me take it a little further, though perhaps too far…
One whacky trichotomist idea I have is that perhaps Adam and Eve were created spiritually alive with the full Imago Dei and became “dead in their sins” after the Fall. As a result their descendants could interbreed with creatures that were born spiritually dead, but having flesh and soul aspects of the Imago Dei. This would allow for some form of constrained evolutionary “tinkering” to result in some aspects of the Imago Dei with us asymptomatically able to approach the full Imago Dei via justification (being born again spiritually) and sanctification finalized in glorification.
I think the crafting vs designed question becomes more clear in how personalized the entire process is. We seem to be allowed a large degree of individuality leading me to favor the entire process from the creation of the universe to this moment as being broadly crafted as opposed to meticulously designed. The mystery to me is in God’s omniscience, not his will. How does he know the end from the beginning without meticulous design? He’s omniscient!!! Poof problem solved, right?
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