Comments on: History, evolution, and divine guidance (Miller)

By: Eric Brown

Eric Brown — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:21:57 +0000

I agree that we don’t need to find a way God “rigged” the Civil War or *how* he did it. I’m not sure that’s relevant to this discussion, though. Whether we know the way (the how) or not, the point is that God *did* ordain the War for Southern Independence along with all things. You agree with that, don’t you?

Do people make choices and are they held responsible for their actions? Sure, that’s why the confession says, “nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away…” (In other words, we fully deserve God’s wrath, unless that is, our guilt is covered by the blood of the Lamb.) As Joseph said to his brothers, “…God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God.”

By: Josh Sowin

Josh Sowin — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:14:26 +0000

Miller is an open theist, so he doesn’t believe God rigs human history. However, I still think his point applies to Calvinists. We don’t need to find a way “God rigged the Civil War.” We don’t have any idea how he did it, or if he even had any direct hand in it. (It may have been Satan, after all, right? How could we possibly know?)

When we think of the Holocaust, we don’t say, “this event happened because God set everything up down to the Nazis brutally raping and killing Jews. Etc.” We just don’t — shouldn’t — think of history like that. Because whatever our philosophical understanding is, it’s still people making choices and they are held responsible for their actions.

So also with natural history. Whether or not God was guiding the creation and evolution of the earth in every detail, we shouldn’t think of it like that, especially if we are studying it. We don’t study human history that way — it would be absurd. So I agree with Miller’s final point.

By: Eric Brown

Eric Brown — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:10:50 +0000

Is Miller trying to use bad theology to lead us into bad natural history? God most certainly did “rig human events” in order to “cause” the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, the Holocaust, etc. As Jesus said, “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.” (Mt 10:29) The Westminster Confession puts it this way: “God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.” As it says in Lamentations 3:38, “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?” And in Isaiah 45:6b-7, “I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.”