PCA Says God Working Through Nature Is an Inadequate Account

I came across a shocking admission found in the "Report of the Creation Study Committee" (1999) commissioned by the Presbyterian Church in America. [1] Under the section on Brief Definitions (as well as Appendix A: Definitions), specifically Article 5 which looks at the term "Creationism," the reader will observe that the Committee included theistic evolution as a sub-category of old-earth creationism (which is debatable). And they defined theistic evolution as the belief that "natural processes sustained by God's ordinary providence," or second causes, "are God's means of bringing about life and humanity." [2] So this paints a picture of God (first cause) working through nature (second causes). I can accept that for the purposes of this blog post, but then comes the shocking admission. The Committee goes on to say that both young-earth and progressive creationists agree on one thing, "that natural processes and ordinary providence are not adequate to explain the world."

Did you catch that? Stunning. I would never have expected to hear Christians say that God's providential control is inadequate to explain the world, to account for what we observe. Usually what one hears is that "purely natural processes" are an inadequate account. There is, of course, no such thing as purely natural processes in a world created and sustained by the triune God of Scripture but, at least according to this Committee, certain creationists believe that even the powerful hand of God's providence is not sufficient to create (hence the need for "supernatural" creation, corresponding to the divine fiats of Genesis 1). That is a shocking theological admission and I hope creationists protest loudly against it.

I believe that it would have been more accurate if the Committee had claimed that, although God's ordinary providence would definitely be an adequate account of origins, some creationists reject that view of God's creative work—in other words, it could've happened that way but didn't. Young-earth creationists would say that, given the world being only a few thousand years old, a supernatural account is required. Progressive creationists might say that, even though a natural account (ordinary providence) is plausible in a world this old, the complexity of life and its genetic discontinuity point to the need for a supernatural account. I think that would have gotten the same message across but with a bit more accuracy.

On a somewhat related note, here in the twenty-first century I would now want to have evolutionary creationism included as a sub-category of old-earth creationism and define it follows: "the belief that natural processes, orchestrated by God's ordinary providence in accordance with his good pleasure and the purposes of his will, are the means by which God brings forth all things including life and mankind."

John M. Bauer

@JohnMBauer1

Approx. 450 words

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Footnotes:

[1] "Report of the Creation Study Committee," Studies and Actions of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, 27th General Assembly (PCA Historical Center – Archives and Manuscript Repository for the Continuing Presbyterian Church, 1999). 

[2] The Report says that theistic evolution, so-called, employs a "specialized definition" of evolution. Supposedly this model is typically scientific but, instead of framing things in terms of "purposeless natural processes" as does evolutionary naturalism, it speaks of "God's skill in designing and maintaining a world which has within itself the capacities to develop the diversity of life" (emphasis mine), a view rightly attributed to Howard Van Till. But I would warn Christians against accepting that model because it is neither scientific nor theistic. It is technically deistic in nature and it is easily falsified by science.