I Don't Believe in an Interventionist God

The first part of Larry Chapp’s interview is up right here on Ethika Politika. May I tempt you with a brief excerpt?

“Thus, in classical Catholic thinking, it is stated that God is the ‘primary cause’ (he is the source of being as such) and he has gifted creation with its own causative powers which we call ‘secondary causes.’ God is active in all secondary causes as their ground, but God is not some Divine tinker-toy maker in the sky constantly fiddling with things in an ‘intrusive’ way—intrusive here defined as, once again, intervening with nature in a competitive manner. Of course there has also been a false friction created by the inanities of biblical literalism and young earth creationism and all such pseudo-theological problems.”

By the way, this has everything to do with how we imagine God in both the Catholic and Protestant traditions. It cuts across quite a few boundaries between those two, but also cuts up new boundaries within the traditions between fundamentalists and classical theists.

Click away to read the rest, but not before you listen to this Nick Cave song that gives today’s post its heading.