So there is a fine line between where God comes in and its easy to argue that God may not be needed at all.
The aim is to take God out of the equation altogether and by using a mechanism that can produce all the life we see starting from such a small point seems to just about do the job of taking God out of the picture. In other words in all that we see the only part God played was to produce some chemicals that led to simple life and some quantum fluctuations that led to all existence. Then its only a small step to take God out of the picture altogether. So I think theistic evolution is and should be more than that. It should also be about an ongoing direction that God may have built into life. In this sense there is a important difference between what a world view of evolution is and what theistic evolution is.
Do you deny the well known process of a baby's development during pregnancy? After all, we all agree that God made each of us, and the scripture even says so. Do you say that all the findings of ontology and are wrong, and that God magically poofs the baby into existence at 9 months? Of course you don't.
Yet, the exact same argument you just gave can also be said about pregnancy.
Those atheistic doctors have tried to describe the pregnancy process with biochemistry and DNA, so there is a fine line between where God comes in and its easy to argue that God may not be needed at all.
The aim is to take God out of the equation altogether and by using a mechanism that can produce the baby we see starting from such a small point seems to just about do the job of taking God out of the picture. In other words God played no part and it's all chemicals and natural processes that make a baby. Then its only a small step to take God out of the picture altogether. So I think theistic pregnancy is and should be more than that. It should also be about an ongoing direction that God may have built into life. In this sense there is a important difference between what a world view of pregnancy is and what theistic pregnancy is.
It feels kinda silly, doesn't it? It does to me. Accepting the scientific process of
how God is doing something in no way "removes Him altogether", at least not to me. If it does to you, then may I suggest that you have a very small picture of God, and that you have to decide how you see pregnancy as well.
Any question about how life comes from non life is then fobbed off a a minor issue that no one knows about yet.
It's true that we don't know if it was a chemical route or a miracle that gave the first life. I think a reasonable Christian position is that it was a miracle, with regular evolution after that. However, look at the progression here:
our understanding in the Year 1500:
Lightining - divine intervention?
disease - evil spirits? divine intervention?
origin of animals (say, dogs from wolves) - divine intervention?
Age of the earth - ~6,000 years
origin of languages - divine intervention?
Origin of life - divine intervention?
our understanding in the Year 1800:
Lightining - Static electricity.
disease - evil spirits? divine intervention?
origin of animals (say, dogs from wolves) - divine intervention? Lamarckian evolution?
Age of the earth - ~6,000 years? starting to look like at least millions of years.
origin of languages - divine intervention?
Origin of life - divine intervention?
etc.
our understanding in the Year 1900:
Lightining - Static electricity.
disease - Viruses and bacteria
origin of animals (say, dogs from wolves) - divine intervention? Lamarckian evolution? Evolution by natural selection?
Age of the earth - ~at least millions of years.
origin of languages - change over time from early proto-language.
Origin of life - divine intervention?
etc.
our understanding in the Year 2000:
Lightning - Static electricity.
disease - Viruses and bacteria.
origin of animals (say, dogs from wolves) - evolution by natural selection.
Age of the earth - 4.55 billion years.
origin of languages - change over time from early proto-language.
Origin of life - divine intervention? An RNA world? endosymbiosis? Micelles?
etc.
See how it goes? Hanging your faith on pockets of ignorance makes a continually shrinking "God of the Gaps". There is no need to do that - especially when realizing that God works through all things, all the time (see John 5:17) makes all these things the creative action of God anyway. To miss that is to fall for the atheist's line that God is banished from everything, when instead He is omnipresent.
The fact that there are multiple plausible routes to the first cell makes it pointless (and dangerous to one's faith) to require a miracle there. It's kind of like asking how I went from my house to the movie theater. There are several possible road routes I may have driven, or I may have rode my bike, or I may have been miraculously teleported there by God. With that question, don't we all guess the more normal routes before saying that God intervened by teleporting me to the movie theater - especially after seeing my warm car outside? Of course we do.
To be clear - I think the TE position that "
God intervened against his natural laws to make a miraculous first cell, which then evolved to give us the life we see today" is a plausible TE position. I just don't think it's the best way to go, both for your faith and for bringing others to the faith. I think it is better to allow for the possibility of God using his natural laws to build the first cell, just as he did to knit you in your mother's womb, or to bring life to the forms we see today. That avoids any evidence denial, giving you a robust faith in a constantly active God.
in Christ-
Papias