IS THERE A PLACE FOR GOD IN A

CHANCE-GOVERNED

WORLD?

Wishful thinking?

“Evolution is a random, unguided process… and Mr. Plantinga’s effort to leave room for divine intervention is simply wishful thinking.”

What randomness doesn’t mean

A popular definition of randomness:

Not having a governing design, method, or purpose; without order; without cause.

What is randomness?There isn’t a consensus among experts! It’s a family of related ideas. Two main features.

Unpredictability

Absence of patternHTHTHTHTHTHTH ...THTHHTTTTTHTH …

A key question

Is unpredictability due to the limits of our understanding? Is the absence of pattern due to our inability to perceive it? Or is the randomness a deeper property of the nature of things?

Boy or girl?

Particle spin

Gregor Mendel

A complex ecosystem

Osmosis

Are these examples really random?

What would it mean to say ‘no’?

With more knowledge we could predict outcomes, or

with more knowledge we could find patterns, or

there is a hidden causal agent producing the outcomes.

However, the question cannot be answered scientifically.

My opinionMost likely, the situations I just described are

exactly what they appear to be – random.

Why this conclusion?

Long experience.

I’m a realist. Generally things are the way they appear to be.

God isn’t trying to fool us – “The creator is subtle but not malicious.”

Doesn’t randomness conflict with God’s purposefulness?

Examples of purposeful randomness

Coin flips Human births Osmosis Biodiversity The beauty of nature

Randomness and beauty

Does randomness conflict with Calvinism?

Two Reformed answers

TAC (Traditional Augustinian-Calvinist)Yes, God causally determines everything that happens.

RFW (Randomness Free Will)No, God created randomness (including free will) and uses them to accomplish his purposes.

Luther

I proposed to bring forward my forces against Free-will. But I shall not produce them all for who could do that within the limits of this small book, when the whole of Scripture, in every letter and iota, stands on my side? Nor is there any necessity for so doing; seeing that Free-will already lies vanquished and prostrate…

Response Calvin and Luther’s principal insight is the

idea that we cannot save ourselves. They were speaking against a particular abuse at their time.

The fields of probability and statistics trace their origin to roughly 1640 – well after the deaths of both Luther and Calvin.

We can affirm their fundamental insight without affirming universal divine causal determinism.

Doesn’t randomness conflict with God’s providential care

for the world?

God’s decrees

TAC

RFW

Possibilities

Examples Human births Osmosis Biodiversity Diffusion (air pressure)

Key points – God can have it both ways – randomness

& order – the subtlety of God’s control

What God’s providence means

God empowers and sustains nature rather than controlling it; God gives each of his creatures the capacity to be a causative agent in and of itself.

Nevertheless, paradoxical as it may seem, God accomplishes his purposes.

What’s the role of randomness in evolution?

Randomness and the gene pool Each seed is the result of a random

selection from many possible genetic patterns.

Occasional mutations allow for creativity – changes that are outside the scope of the genome’s capacity.

Some seeds succeed in passing on their genetic material and some do not.The cumulative effect of these changes is that the gene pool is never static. My favorite definition of evolution is any change in the gene pool of a species.

A metaphor: Riding a bicycle down hill – I don’t need to

peddle. I just need to steer. Randomness is analogous to gravity – it keeps the evolutionary process moving.

I doubt that we will find evidence of God’s direct action along the way other than the big picture of creation. (Perhaps in the origin of life and the origin of human consciousness.)

Guided evolution?

Why has God used evolution to make

creatures?

An answer?

Genesis 2:15 “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”

God intends for us to be stewards of creation. To be good stewards we need to understand how nature works. Evolution is a process we can understand.

Evolution provides raw materials that we can use to exercise that stewardship - we can steer evolution.

How randomness enhances my worship

Most numbers have no pattern – they cannot be generated by any computer.

Dynamically stable systems that depend on randomness for their stability.

God’s providence expressed in dramatically different ways at different levels.

The incredible stewardship that God plans to entrust to us.

Romans 11:33-36Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom

and knowledge of God!How unsearchable his judgments, and his

paths beyond tracing out!Who has known the mind of the Lord?Or who has been his counselor?Who has ever given to God that God should

repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Doesn’t randomness conflict with God’s foreknowledge?

Three plausible answers Open future (God knows all that might

be.)

Simple foreknowledge (Knowing the future doesn’t determine it.)

Molinism (God knows future random events and has organized the world taking all of them into account.)

Calvin

I will freely admit that foreknowledge alone imposes no necessity upon creatures, yet not all assent to this.

Objections to universal divine causal determinism

It: cannot offer a coherent interpretation

of scripture. cannot be rationally affirmed. makes God the author of sin & denies

human responsibility. nullifies human agency. makes reality into a farce.

William Lane Craig