Problems with this section (Agnosticism)

by dhw, Wednesday, November 04, 2009, 18:57 (5497 days ago) @ Frank Paris

Frank is explaining his process theology to me, and I'm in a quandary. Under no circumstances do I wish to challenge your faith, and I very much appreciate your willingness to share and discuss it with us. You're bringing us new ideas and some extremely interesting concepts and insights. On the other hand, the debater in me dislikes apparent contradictions, and the perfectionist in me wants to get things as clear as possible. So should I pursue the contradictions and risk offending you, or move on and offend my own desire for accuracy?-I'll take the risk, because I don't think you'd have entered into these discussions if it wasn't important for you to formulate your ideas coherently. I'll try to draw the threads together at the end, but will start with two of your responses that have bugged me. -1) To Dawkins' statement that an atheist is someone who "believes there is nothing beyond the natural physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe..." you responded on 24 October at 19.23: "The process theologian can accept everything in that statement, yet still find the divine in all of it." On 30 October at 21.30, you wrote: "No, I don't agree with this."
2) On 27 October at 00.52 you wrote: "I'm with Dawkins in claiming that science has utterly refuted the notion of some kind of being 'out there' or even 'within' that has a mind that can conceive complex forms and somehow 'force' them into existence according to his will." On 31 October at 19.12, I pointed out that according to your theology, God is both out there and within, does have a mind that can conceive complex forms etc. You have replied: "Absolutely. My theology depends on that." You have qualified this by attacking the "creation from nothing" notion, but that was never part of the discussion. Can we therefore now agree that both Dawkins' quotes are inapplicable to your theology?-Two unrelated points before we return to contradictions: You've finally explained why you've avoided saying whether the infinite consciousness arises solely from the physical. "That's because I'm not convinced that making that decision is necessary for my theology." That's up to you, of course, but if the question is left open, it also leaves open the possibility (nothing stronger) that there may be other non-physical forms of consciousness, e.g. human, the "paranormal".-You wrote: "I don't make the statement that God simply "sits back" and watches the proceedings dispassionately. That's Deism." You had stated that God loves us, and so I did not suggest that his watching was deistically "dispassionate". However, I'd like to know whether you think God ever interferes in human affairs, or is simply there for us to find. I'm really asking for a closer definition of God's "influence".-And now, ugh, back to another confusing set of arguments. On 27 October at 15.45, you wrote: "Personally [...] I have no trouble whatsoever believing that life and the codes for evolution could have come about by accident." You've stated that God created the "strings" so they could stick together, which is "all that's necessary to get things going", but "by accident" suggests that he didn't know what he was doing. You wrote on 30 October at 21.30: "You could say that the entire purpose of the universe (multiverse) is for God to see a reflection of himself in it." If the universe is God, and God's purpose is to see a reflection of himself, but he didn't know what he was doing when he created the strings, why did he create the strings? I don't see how this fits in with life coming about by accident.-And so to evolution. In your post to George you wrote that God created the adhesive "strings", and knew they would evolve. I wrote that if God knew they would evolve, he must have created the codes that enabled them to do so. You ask me to define codes, and write: "If you mean genetic codes, your statement is a non sequitur." And later you say genetic codes "are far beyond the conscious ability of God to create." You can't have evolution without heredity, and you can't have heredity without genes. If we put all this together, we get the following: In order consciously to fulfil his purpose, which he knew required evolution, God accidentally created adhesive strings which were incapable of evolution (because he didn't have the conscious ability, even over billions of years, to create the mechanisms of heredity and change), but somehow he knew the strings would eventually form the mechanisms by accident. -All these apparent anomalies disappear if one argues that God is the conscious universe, deliberately created the mechanisms for life and evolution out of his own materials, has no control over how evolution develops, but watches every event with passionate interest. Perhaps it might be better to use this as a basic starting point for clarification, and you can tell me which parts you disagree with. But let me finish with apologies for what must seem like a very aggressive critique. Some of the anomalies may be through my own obtuseness, and I'm really interested in your approach, but I do like arguments to be clear. I hope you'll understand.