Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, February 12, 2017, 15:55 (2620 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: If we cannot approach God as a person, we cannot know His personal motives for Himself. Again you are humanizing Him.

dhw: Yet again “we cannot know”. Of course we can’t. You have actually agreed that we only theorize about things we don’t know and, in this case, cannot know. Hence the history of philosophy. At one moment you exhort me to look for purpose, and the next you exhort me to stop looking for purpose. It is impossible to look for purpose without “humanizing”, and as I have said before, it is just as presumptuous to assume that he has no human attributes as to assume that he has none.

You have had Him looking for entertainment or enjoyment. That is what I object to. I see humans here when there are no good reason for it, except God's desire to produce them. For me it is easy to accept that as a primary fact. How that creates emotions in Him is an area that need not be considered. Figuring out how to relate to His personage is a more difficult issue. I approach Him hoping He is interested, nothing more. Bleak? Yes. But anything more is a human invention based on how we are.

dhw: Even insisting that he has a purpose is “humanizing” him, and guessing that his purpose was to produce us so that we could solve problems and have a tough-love relationship with him is also “human”. So why shouldn’t we ask why he wants us to solve the problems? If he took all the trouble to create life, do you not think it feasible that he might also watch the life he had created and watch us trying to solve the problems? Why are you so afraid of following up the implications of your own humanizing speculations?

I stick by my approach that He has objectives (purposes) without experiencing self-satisfaction, as we do. I do not think He could avoid the problems that come as part of the creation of a living planet, but with our brains we have solved many so far. He didn't ask us to solve the problems created, He gave us the brains so we could, because we are forced to. And I'm sure He is watching. My humanizing approach is quite opposite yours.