Concepts of God: proof of God by St. Thomas' Fifth Way (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Thursday, November 21, 2019, 10:37 (1618 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Purposeful Activity is caused by a mind as you admit. There is no evidence that the first material (non-living) substances had any indication or ability of combining together to each other by their own selves.

dhw: But they did combine. There is no evidence that they did so “by their own selves”, and there is no evidence that an unknown mind converted its own pure energy into material cells and either supplied them with computer programmes for every subsequent combination for the rest of time, or kept on psychokinetically moving them around for the next 3.8 billion years. I don’t know why you can’t accept that nobody knows how life started or through what mechanisms the first cells acquired the ability to evolve. That is why there are different theories.

DAVID: Yes life exists, and our knowledge of how cells operate is that it is so complex no one has any concept of how it originated as you clearly state. Why do you turn to psychokinetics? Tour's article is exactly on point, and I have exhibited here the foolishness of most of the studies.

Psychokinesis is the ability of the mind to move or change objects without physical means. How else could “pure energy” dabble with existing materials?

DAVID: Psychism has one meaning that fits:
https://www.wordnik.com/words/psychism
"The character of being psychic or mental." This means it is a bastardized version of recognizing the presence of mind or consciousness within the universe, without recognizing the possible source in/from God.”

dhw: I don’t know why you’ve fastened on psychism, when we are discussing panpsychism, defined as: “The theory that all nature is psychical or has a psychical aspect; the theory that every particle of matter has a psychical character or aspect.” This can be interpreted both theistically and atheistically. What is your point?

DAVID: Panpsychism is just spreading psychism [...] around the world and universe. And in every case it invokes the concept of mental activity behind our reality, which is my point about a designing God's mind. You did not comment on my characterization of panpsychism as a bastardized version of mental activity obviously necessary for the exquisite design in nature we easily see. Panpsychism is a neat way to get rid of the need for God.

Your comment referred to psychism, but I have no idea why you consider it to be a way to get rid of God. I specified that it can be interpreted both theistically and atheistically! If, as you believe, your God’s consciousness is everywhere, you are a panpsychist, whether you like it or not.