Purpose and design (Evolution)

by Balance_Maintained @, U.S.A., Wednesday, April 26, 2017, 01:25 (2519 days ago) @ dhw

DHW:[...] I’m interested in your reference to God “maturing as an entity”. This would seem to fit in with the idea that God did not start out as the eternal know-all but, like ourselves, keeps learning from experience. This implies limitations, but is it what you mean?

TONY: I am not sure 'limitations' is the right word any more than 'entertainment' was. Using power for the sake of using power is not wise, and one of God's four cardinal qualities is Wisdom. (Wisdom, Justice, Power and Love). So while I do not believe he is limited in terms of power, I believe that, in his wisdom, he saw that doing things another way would have been detrimental in the long term, possibly in ways we do not even have the capacity (mentally or technologically) to comprehend currently.

I would still like to know what you meant by God “maturing”. Limitations do not have to refer to power. My specific interest is in the question of whether you think that prior to creating the universe and life, your God already knew everything that could possibly be known, or he learned and maybe still learns from experience.

By definition, God would have to be outside of time, without beginning. However, the is no insight anywhere about what he was like stretching billions and billions of eons before T0. It is difficult for me to even speculate on that. However, 'all knowing' is relative when nothing else exist. Essentially, if you are the only thing in existence and you are self aware, then you know everything...at least at that point. When I spoke of him maturing as an entity, I was thinking that as a power he always existed, but that his intellect, insight, wisdom, and all of that developed over an unfathomable time frame.

God, as all knowing, is all knowing because he designed and created all. However, the bible clearly speaks of 'time and unforeseen occurrences' which implies that there is some randomness and that he either can not or does not predict every random occurrence. My take on it is that he could if he bent is will to the task, but that there is no real reason for him to do so.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.


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