Could God have used physical processes and other agencies in Creation?

I recently received this comment on a post in my blog:

Evolustion [sic] supports God created physic laws. Physic laws caused all the living things to come into existence. It turned up that physic laws were the creators since they were those that caused all living things to be created.

Evolution supports that God created physic laws to cause space and time to work together in order to create this universe. God only guided space and time to cause the universe to be in existence. Who were the creators? Space and time were the creators. But not God since He was just the helper to ensure the space and time to work towards the formation of this universe.

I have quoted the comment exactly, so as not to alter the thought of the commenter. Previous communication from the commenter indicates that English is not his first language. I've tried to understand what the commenter wants to know, and will respond accordingly.

What he seems to be disturbed about is the idea that God allowed the physical properties of the universe to carry out some creation processes. I hope I have that right.

I have several comments:

1) I believe that the commenter really means naturalism, not evolution. Evolution, properly, relates to changes in living things. There are no evolutionary explanations, in the sense of Darwinian natural selection, for the origin of the universe, or of the heavenly bodies as they now are, because natural selection is biological, and those phenomena are not. Naturalism, by definition, rejects the very existence of a supernatural God, in the origin of life, and the origin of the universe.

2) I suppose that the commenter didn't mean that first sentence, or didn't mean it as it reads. Naturalists don't believe that God created physical laws.

3) Even for a naturalist, there is no good explanation for the existence of space and time, or for the existence or properties of the four forces of nature, although explanations have been sought for a century or so. A supernaturalist, and I am one such, simply believes that God created space, time, and the four forces, and other properties and constants relating to the universe. A naturalist, of course, does not consider that to be a good explanation. Note Hebrews 11:3 "By faith, we understand that the universe has been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made out of things which are visible." (World English Bible, public domain. All scripture quotations are from that version.)

4) Just because a naturalist claims that space and time brought about the present universe naturally doesn't mean that they did. It also doesn't rule out the possibility that God could have used space and time.

5) We aren't capable of understanding how God created, except very superficially. If, for example, we believe that light came about instantaneously because God spoke, what words and language did He use? Did He speak aloud? Was "God" God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, or all of them? Was anyone listening? Was light created from something else, or did it just appear? Did it appear throughout the entire universe at the same time? We don't know the answer to these questions, and many others, and aren't going to. If we understood these things fully, we would, in effect, be gods, and we aren't.

6) I fail to see how a God who is capable of planning for "space and time" (and whatever else) so that they worked together to bring about the universe as it is now, if that is what happened, diminishes the divinity of God in any way. I don't see how such events would make God into "just a helper." If anything, such planning and creation shows the intelligence and wisdom of the Creator.

7) Consider the deliverance from Egypt. In Exodus 4, and elsewhere, a rod is mentioned as an agent used by Moses and Aaron in performing miracles. (Most or all scriptural references to this rod may be found here.) But was the rod the miracle worker, and God "just a helper?" Hardly. Psalm 78 recaps the story of the deliverance of the Israelites, in a fair amount of detail. The rod is not so much as mentioned. (Neither is Moses!) The rod was not the miracle worker. But God is mentioned, over and over, and He is the one who got the glory from the deliverance from Egypt. God prepared a rod which could be used by Moses and Aaron to carry out His will, but that only shows God's greatness, rather than diminishing it. If space and time worked to carry out God's will, that only shows God's creative ability.

Thanks for reading.

Predestination and Intelligent Design

The Free Dictionary begins its definition of predestination thus:

"The doctrine that God has foreordained all things, especially that God has elected certain souls to eternal salvation."

On April 19, 2009, the Wikipedia article on predestination says "Predestination: The Divine foreordaining of all that will happen; with regard to the salvation of some and not others. It has been particularly associated with the teachings of St. Augustine of Hippo and of John Calvin."

In Ephesians 1 and Romans 8, predestination is mentioned, in the above senses.

As I understand the doctrine, it holds that some individuals are fore-ordained to eternal salvation, and some are not. There are differences of opinion about the doctrine among theologians, which are not pertinent to this post.

I pose a question: If God is capable of planning and ordaining, in advance, that some persons will gain salvation, and some won't, wasn't God also capable of planning, and ordaining, in advance, that, say, the Big Bang would produce sub-atomic particles that He knew would spontaneously assemble themselves into atoms, then, molecules? Wasn't God also capable of making things such that natural selection, once living things appeared, would select for complex molecules, structures, and processes?

Sometimes, a belief in intelligent design seems to imply that somehow God didn't get things right in the first place.

God is able, of course, to use His own methods and timetable, but perhaps God's creative activity involved such planning and forethought that little or no further miraculous intervention would be necessary.

I am aware that suggesting such a creation, with extensive emergent properties, might involve considerable death and suffering. I refer to this web page, by Glenn R. Morton, where Morton argues, using scripture, that death and suffering might well have occurred before the Fall. David Snoke has also made such an argument, using scripture. See here and here.

Thanks for reading.

Darwin on God's revelation in nature

The works of Charles Darwin have been placed on-line. I decided that I wanted to see an on-line copy of his most famous work, The Origin of Species. The following met my eye, on page ii of the work:

"But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this—we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws."

WHEWELL: Bridgewater Treatise.

"The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is stated, fixed or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once."

BUTLER: Analogy of Revealed Religion.

"To conclude, therefore, let no man out of a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain, that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or in the book of God's works; divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both."

BACON: Advancement of Learning.

The above three quotes form almost all of the second page of the sixth edition of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. (1872)

I can only speculate as to why Darwin began this famous book in this way. I am not so thorough a scholar as to know the original source of any of these statements, or their contexts. But these quotations read as if Darwin:

1) Understood that a God who can establish general laws, which caused His creation to unfold in desired ways, is at least as wonderful as a God who intervenes in His creation over and over. (God could, of course, do both -- the quote doesn't say that, but I am.)

2) Believed that things we take for granted, like, say, photosynthesis or that three states of water can all exist at normal temperatures, are as wonderful as miracles, or more so.

3) Understood that learning about nature can be a way of learning about God.

No doubt I am reading a lot of myself into the above! I am not proposing that Darwin would have been comfortable with the Intelligent Design movement (much of which is not comfortable with Darwin) but that he seemed to understand that there might have been a Designer. I am uncomfortable with much of the Intelligent Design movement myself, but believe that there was and is an Intelligent Designer.

Thanks for reading.