Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, February 09, 2017, 18:48 (2625 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I will be vehement if you try to humanize His thought patterns.

dhw: Then although you never cease to emphasize that your God is all-purposeful, we shall have to stop asking about his purposes - and hence his nature, because you can’t gauge purposes without analysing thought patterns. In our joint quest to solve the great mysteries of life and the universe, you are allowed to guess that he might have specially created humans in order to have a relationship with us, that we matter to him, that he is "NOT" human in thought, that he is a tough-love God who expects us to solve problems and who never looks for entertainment, and he does not have a smidgen of evil in him. But if I guess that all your guesses may be wrong and there may be an alternative way of interpreting his purposes, and hence his nature, your guesses will turn into authoritative statements. I dunno about tough love, but they sure do teach 'em tough talk in Texas!

We cannot know his thought patterns, since He is not human, and we are. We have to work backwards from what is created, where we might then see something that looks like purpose. We need to avoid describing what God may see as a personal purpose for Himself. That is what has no evidence to support it. What is produced in creation does allow a proposal of purpose as theory. Note the differentiation.