A possible God's possible purpose and nature (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Saturday, May 29, 2021, 12:23 (1272 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Why ask? I simply accept what we see as God's wish to create.
DAVID: In my view God doesn’t wish.
DAVID: God does not wish.

dhw: He wished to create billions of galaxies, I ask why, and you tell me he doesn’t wish to create but he has a designer’s purpose. So...if there is no life or only primitive life elsewhere, why do you think he would have designed billions of galaxies?

DAVID: We don't know the answer, but I accept them as part of God's purpose in design.

We all “accept” their existence. You believe he designed them with a purpose, but without humans you can’t think what that purpose might be.

DAVID: To know requires more research, not guesses.

Of course we don’t “know” the answers. That’s what this website is all about – the questions to which we do not have answers! But you’re happy enough to “guess” that your God’s purpose was to produce humans, as in our third scenario:

DAVID: We Earthlings are special focal point here. We can accept other Earths might be special and support life and might evolve specialized life forms comparable to humans. Why not? Why can't God have several focal points in the universe? It answers you unreasonable weird worry God made the universe unnecessarily too big.

dhw: […] But if you have millions of Earths with millions of human-like life forms, your God will have millions of focal points, and so the claim that we are a “special focal point here” – which has always been your contention – becomes a little unconvincing.

DAVID: Why can't God have multiple focal points? Not unconvincing at all. All we can know is this Earth.

dhw: True. But it was you who brought our attention to the possibility of life among the other billions of galaxies, and so I thought it might be worth discussing the possible implications. This one seems to be that unless there are more humans out there, even you can't think why he would have designed the billions of galaxies. I thought your explanation that it was simply due to “God’s wish to create” might be well worth developing, but presumably you’ve now decided you’d rather not go down that road! I wonder why.

DAVID: You are implying, without any reason, that God just creates for the sake of creating, when I have clearly proposed God is very purposeful in creating what He wishes to create, as in a goal of humans.

It was you who told us that “I simply accept what we see as God's wish to create.” I agree that if he exists, he must have a purpose! And I see no reason why a God who “wishes to create” should not create for the purpose of fulfilling his wish to create. But your guess is that he created the universe in order to create humans, and so I ask why you think your purposeful God would have wanted to create galaxies (a) without life or with only with primitive life, or (b) with humans or their like. Then all of a sudden, your rigid belief in your guess that humans were the purpose turns into a refusal to guess at his purpose for any of these, because that would only be a guess and not knowledge! (“To know requires more research, not guesses.”)

DAVID: It is amazing both you and I are here to debate.

dhw: ...there’s not much point in our being here to debate if you simply say we must accept your belief that God exists, designed every species de novo, his sole intention was to design humans, he must have had a “good” reason for designing all the “bad” bacteria and viruses, and we are going to live on after death but we shouldn’t ask why.

DAVID: […] That is the point of Dayenu. You are agnostic, I'm a believer. Why? You want some logical answers to some unanswerable questions. I am willing to accept the unexplained facts and assume our future human research will elucidate God's reasons.

My agnosticism has nothing to do with it. You believe your own guesses, as listed above – none of which have been confirmed by human research – and you refuse to answer questions about their logicality and to consider alternatives which even you acknowledge as being logical.

DAVID: But we are way off the main point. Does the possibility or probability of humans elsewhere cause theological disturbance. It makes Earth humans less special, or does it. I don't think so.

Yes, the point of this thread is to discuss possible purposes and what they might tell us about your God’s nature. I have listed three options: no life, primitive life, sophisticated life. No life and primitive life leave us with the problem of why God would bother. Sophisticated life knocks on the head the theory that we humans are his only purpose – but that is not a “theological disturbance”. It is a disturbance to your theory that God created the universe just for us humans. And you are still left with the question of what your purposeful God’s purpose might be in creating all these galaxies with no life, primitive life, or human-like life, which somewhat confusingly he wished to create but did not wish to create.