Perhaps a petty question....God's Active control in Nat

[smhbbag]

so, being the math and physics nerd that I am, this is something that I dwelled upon in class today:

Does God actively and continually control the physical systems that keep our world in order? As a specific example, does the hand of Christ actively spin the electrons in their orbits? Does He personally secure, maintain, or break atomic bonds as need be?

For most, I would imagine the immediate answer is "yes." But here is the alternative....that God, in creation, displayed such perfect order in establishing the laws of physics, that these events would take place by His decree, but then in a sense, operate naturally according to the qualities he has given them.

What are the theological implications of saying one over the other? Is there a practical difference? Relevant scriptures to this topic? I'm interested in any imput.

Only passage coming to my mind is from that glorious description of Christ in Colossians 1, "in whom all things hold together."

Of course, we would all agree that everything that happens in the physical world happens because God has decreed and ordained it so....but this question, I believe, reaches to the method of enacting that decree/plan.

 

[Ranger]

I've always heard the option you suggested as the way things are. God created the order of things, and passively controls them since he ordained their existence to begin with.

This discussion would always leads my profs (especially when I got my undergrad) to say that since God set these rules that there are certain things that God cannot do. They always play off of Descartes and say that God cannot make a four sided triangle. Of course, I argued that the whole argument was nonsense and nothing but semantics since God can create a four sided triangle, it's just called a square, rhombus, etc.

There are biblical references that could go both ways such as Psalm 75:3 where it says that the Lord firmly established the pillars of the earth. Now does this mean that he just set the earth in place and let's it go about the order that He has convened, or that he is actively holding it up. It seems to suggest the prior, but it is also clearly figurative.

I can't think of any negative implications that your thesis would bring about unless it binds God to his created order. This is one that definitely will take some time to think about.

 

[Dan....]

http://apuritansmind.com/ChristianWalk/McMahonDoctrineContinuousCreation.htm


http://www.puritanboard.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=1741

 

[Ianterrell]

I'm reminded of God's example for us in the seventh day. He continued to do sustaining work with all of his creation. God not only decrees things to come to pass. He ordains the means to those ends. So yes every particular choice, every trail of a rain drop on a pane of glass, and every hair on our head are governed by God.

 

[JohnV]

Proverbs 3 and 8 are also relevant to this discussion. Wisdom is personified as the active participant in the creation and its order. Augustine takes that personification a bit farther, as if the "master workman" is almost literal. The idea of order itself is sufficient to suggest that a law upholds all things; that "natural law" is itself upheld by principles that are active, suggesting personal oversight.

In Eccl. we read that "time and chance happen to all things", Eccl. 9:11. This neither undermines God's providence and ordination nor disturbs the order of the creation. It may seem like things happen that go against God's will, but that cannot be. The changeable vicissitudes of life are rooted in God's unchangeable will.

It seems to me that we have two concepts to deal with: nothing can happen outside God's will; and the creation is a real entity that has an operation. Both are true, and at times they seem irreconcilable to us. If both are true, then a true understanding of them is not seeing them played against each other, but both fully true.

 

[SoldierOfTheRock]

All Things.

I have often wondered the same question. I know what the scripture says, im talking about Romans 8:28 and Eph. 1:11 - which both make it pretty clear that all things are controlled by God.

I find that once I try to think about any middle knowledge that God has and try to leave blurred areas to make room for man's so called free-will or for just natural laws I find myself at a barrier. - For to me I can not see how God can control anything without controlling everything. Since we do not take a Diest view or a Panthiest view we understand that God created all things and upholds all things, yet all things are not God.

Ok, I think I may have gotten off subject. I agree that there seems to be a type of natural law set down, because there are certain laws we can almost always count on while observing in a lab or just outside. I guess maybe God left those laws and the way things work to show us His awesome wisdom and knowledge. Now we are able to look at all of these laws and equations and think "What has taken man thousands of years to figure out God did in less than a week!"

I agree, it didn't take God any time to do, I meant it only as a comparison.

Ok, well there is my view, I probly said something wrong, so if someone would like to correct me that is fine, I am open to learn.

Joshua

 

[Contra_Mundum]

God has not gone anywhere

The doctrine of Providence is fatally undermined by a cosmology that sees everything operating without his active hand. The outworking of the natural law concept is Deism, the clockwork worldview that teaches God wound up the universe and left it to run itself. J Edwards, of course, had Deism to combat contemporarily. I think he tried to be too philosophical in advocating the Continuous Creation concept, even if he intended it to be a method of describing Providence.

Confessionally, I think the concepts of Creation and Providence stand together, the one upon the other, but are distinct. To my mind, the idea of Continuous Creation actually merges two doctrines that are properly distinguished.

What do you think?

 

[crhoades]

I praise God for not creating "laws" and then taking a vacation...The Creator of the universe created *ME*

Psalm 139
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

The language of knitting together could be a hebraic way of saying joining atoms, etc.

There is something to be said for the concept of Transcendance/Immanence here. God is wholly other He is the Creator not the creation. He is also omnipresent and omnipotent and controls in His providence whatsoever comes to pass (including forming babies in the womb!)

(Paul this is your cue to insert a favorite Van Til/Bahnsen quote here!)

My :wr50:

Chris