Reading God's divine nature Part II (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Friday, August 09, 2019, 12:39 (1716 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: What??? A pre-programmed genome is set up from the beginning to run itself.

dhw: So back you go to your God providing the very first cells with programmes for every single multicellular life form, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of life. “Running itself” in your theory means the old organism has already been programmed to pick the right programme at the right time in order to become the new organism, and so on for 3.8 billion years so far. What??? How about your God providing the first cells with the intelligence to work out new ways of coping with or exploiting different environments?

DAVID: Back you go to an inventive mechanism, which I accept with guidelines.

Your “guidelines” are the billions of programmes for billions of life forms, lifestyles and natural wonders which your God apparently installed in the very first cells to be passed on through millions and millions of years and generations of life forms. My inventive mechanism is autonomous, whereas yours contains no inventiveness – there is nothing but your God’s instructions.

dhw: There has to be an uncaused first cause that results in the complexities of the universe and life. It can be argued that a first-cause, infinite and eternal universe in which energy and matter are for ever producing new combinations of matter will inevitably one day produce a combination of matter that will give rise to conditions suitable for life and to life itself. Infinity and eternity make for pretty favourable odds. No, I don’t believe it, but it is no more and no less feasible than a first-cause, infinite and eternal, unknown and unknowable mind with the power and intelligence to create a universe and conditions suitable for life, plus life itself. Hence “negative atheism” and “negative theism” = agnosticism.

DAVID: Which doesn't answer the prime question: why is there anything? The answer is an uncaused first cause.

Of course that is the answer, and I have given you two possible uncaused first causes, each of which in my view is equally unbelievable. Hence my agnosticism – or what we might call “negative theism” and “negative atheism”.