To follow Greg's thread down to the sub-atomic level of the physical world, about which I have some latent fascination but not much hard knowledge of late, my understanding is that when you get down REALLY small then particles become very strange, and sometimes just appear out of nowhere, or disappear. Miraculous really, or supernatural. And the observer actually has some influence -- what they want to appear often does, giving the detached scientific observer concept no legs, and turning the observer role into creator. Physicists are probably reeling at my oversimplifications, but could help elucidate for us.
The trouble is not much physics gets into our churches, so our theology takes no account of our contemporary understandings of the world at the very small and very large ends of the scale. Ancient theology certainly did -- the three-level/layer world of the OT shaped the theology of the heavens and hell -- and we've yet to escape the echoes of that. We accept a distinction between science and theology, when they're just different ways of looking at the cosmos and finding meaning and hope. Regards, Rohan Rohan Pryor Manager, Information Technology Services Synod of Victoria and Tasmania Uniting Church in Australia Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ph: (03) 9251 5243 Fax: (03) 9654 4110 Website: http://vic.uca.org.au -----Original Message----- From: Greg Crawford [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 12:12 PM To: 'insights-l' Subject: RE: Praying for Rain >I would suggest that the questions you ask are all related to the death and >dying of "supernatural theism" (Marcos Borg's terminology) I also have problems with the supernatural/natural distinction. First, because we do not yet know the extent of the "natural". I have an interesting book by John Downer entitled, "Supernatural". However, it is not about the occult, but the amazing ability of animals and plants: such things as navigation of birds by the stars or magnetic fields, subsonic communication, chemical communication (by widely separated plants), etc. How do we know we can definitely designate something as supernatural when we don't know the extent of the natural. Second, as we learned in High School, everything, including the biological, ultimately breaks down to physics. (Or was my physics teacher just having us on?) Thus the natural is that which obeys the laws of physics. However, there are points even within our universe where the laws of physics break down, namely black holes. There are probably large black holes at the centre of many galaxies (including our own) and smaller black holes scattered throughout the universe. These points in space are actually outside of space, so where is the boundary with the natural? If God is outside time-space also we are going to have difficulty characterising the interaction. To put the issue another way, is the natural/supernatural distinction an obsolete way of looking at existence? - Greg ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
