Blogroll: Geocreationism.com
Having decided to blog a couple of times per week about my blogroll, I’m going to start with a site I just added, Geocreationism.com. If you’ve been following this blog for any period of time, you will have noticed occasional comments from Geocreationist, and this is his blog.
I have a couple of reasons for including it. First, he disagree with a number of positions I take, but is open to dialog. That’s an excellent start. Second, his position on creation and evolution illustrates one of my key contentions: This is not a black and white issue in which there are only two sides. One of the defining features of the moderate position, as I see it, is refusing to be held to a choice of extremes. That’s why moderates are frequently very annoying to extremists–we refuse to get stuck with only two options. Sometimes even if you give us A, B, C, and D, we want E-none of the above.
Before I go to a particular post, let me look at Geocreationism’s subtitle: Geocreationism – Showing harmony between mainstream science and scripture. It’s very easy to forget that when we look at the interaction between science and scripture that both sides can vary. One can differ on a view of science or of a particular scientific theory, or one can differ on the interpretation of scripture. Any type of reconciliation or harmony involves both. This subtitle is one I would not use, for example, because I don’t think there is any need for harmony simply because I don’t believe science and scripture address the same questions. There are occasional overlaps, but these are incidental, I think. This is one of the issues for Christians. Just what is scripture trying to address, and in what way does it address it?
We’ll see some of this in action in a recent post, Evidence for Creation (Review) – Ground Rules for the Review. Geocreationist is reviewing Tom DeRosa’s book Evidence for Creation – Intelligent Answers for Open Minds. In laying out his own ground rules he distinguishes what he calls “Darwinian evolution” and “Theistic Evolution.” He defines Darwinian evolution as largely equivalent to atheistic evolution, though he sees little difference between that and the various deistic views.
He contrasts theistic evolution, in which he says that God not only starts everything, but “He started every wave of Evolution as well.” In his view, God is still distant in this view of theistic evolution, and thus he presents his own third view: geocreationism, or geocreationist theistic evolution. In this case, God is continually present and concerned. I’ll have to read more to see how this impacts the process along the way.
Now I must say that this terminology is somewhat surprising to me. For example, evolution occurring in waves with God starting each wave sounds very much like old earth creationism to me. Further, Geocreationist describes his view in this way: “Evolution would occur with our without the randomness, as long as God remains involved; remove God however, and the randomness would not be enough.” That latter view sounds somewhat like ID or “guided evolution” to me, depending on how one fills in the details.
If I’m reading all of this correctly, I’m going to fall into the “Darwinian evolution” camp. My problem with being placed there is that I don’t think God is distant. For each and every law of nature I believe we can say it happens “because God.” In other words God wills gravity, and should he stop willing it, there would be no gravity. Not to worry, however, he’s pretty fond of gravity. God also wills variation and natural selection, and those produce certain types of order according to that law. Remove God and you remove everything.
Now I know that there are some views that allow for indetectible divine intervention, but I’m not particularly interested at the moment in things that are even theoretically indetectible. I believe that God creates the laws, i.e. the system, which in turn produces everything that we see. God can intervene, but he would do so because he wants to, primarily because he wants to communicate with these weird creatures who have come into being.
I have one further comment initial comment. Geocreationist appears to be looking for at least an historical outline in the Genesis accounts. I think this is doomed to be a disappointing search in the long run. I do not believe that the literature involved was written with the intent to provide a narrative history of anything, but rather to express God’s relationship to creation using the cosmology and symbolic language of the time. I will blog more on it as time goes on, but I have found that everything tends to fit quite nicely when read in that context.
Henry,
I appreciate the feedback, whether it be on your blog or mine. I am willing to change some of my viewpoints if they are shown not to work. It is more the intention that matters to me. For example, I am trying to forge a theory that has God present. It would seem that you agree with that intent, even if you disagree with the solution. If therefore it turns out you are correct (remove God and the laws stop working), then I would have no problem with that. At this point however, I am not convinced.
In regards to terminology, that’s a tough one for me, because any use of common terminology will conflict with at least someone’s notion of what that terminology means. “Theistic Evolution” is one such term. I always risk being misunderstand when I use it.
Also, you are correct that the “harmony” I see has required some compromise in both science and scriptural interpretation. The scientific compromise is primarily in my embracing somewhat recent (1999 to 2001) research into how zircon crystals formed 4.4 billion years ago. I say it’s a compromise because it hasn’t been embraced yet to my knowledge, and the fact that it establishes Day 1 to me is my proof that it’s correct. Secular scientists would never say that. The compromises I’ve made in scriptural interpretation, well, they will certainly be evident as you read them, but my intention is to embrace them as history.
Finally, I think you might perceive an inconsistancy in my view, in regards to God’s continual presence. In some posts I say that God only acts during the “days” and not the nights. In other places, I say He is present during the entire thing. The inconsistancy comes from my view that the Father and Son have different creative roles, and sometimes I refer to them by name and other times I just say God.
Anyways, I look forward to seeing what you think.
I intentionally outlined what I see as the differences in the first post to get things started. I intend to get into more detail and also note agreements in future posts.
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I said this above, but do not like how it sounds. Upon further reflection, I do not see how you can’t be right on that point. In fact, it may be compatible with what I already believe. I would need to reflect on it more.
I think I read that more or less as you intended it the first time, i.e. that you would agree that if God is not there, there are not laws, but that you might see that as insufficient. You can correct me if I’m wrong here.
Argh. The quote that was supposed to show up in the pointy brackets is, “If therefore it turns out you are correct (remove God and the laws stop working), then I would have no problem with that. At this point however, I am not convinced.” Next time, I’ll just use italics.
I do not believe that the literature involved was written with the intent to provide a narrative history of anything, but rather to express Gods relationship to creation using the cosmology and symbolic language of the time.
One comment about this. I believe it is both. In other words, in order to understand the history, you have to understand the what the cosmology of the time was. From there, you can back out what an observer (Jesus, Holy Spirit) would have seen, and from there deduct the actual physical conditions that must have existed. I was not sure it would work when I started out. It was actually an experiment at first. But then I found that it worked, and have mapped all six days to actual scientifically verifiable events.
One other note. I have found that people tend to see Evolution as the corner stone of Geocreationism. Perhaps it will be eventually, but I didn’t even start investigating evolution itself until I had mapped all 6 days to actual recorded events. But then, I needed to investigate Evolution more thoruoghly before writing about 6. My own first step (which is in my Study Outline page (http://www.geocreationism.com/study-outline/) ) was to establish that Jesus was in fact present at Creation, and gave Moses an account of what happened. The next step was to combine the 4 accounts of creation that I found in scripture. The 3rd step was to establish scientifically the conditions that are very well described by Genesis 1.