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

by dhw, Tuesday, June 01, 2021, 13:27 (1269 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I have to remind you, I started as an agnostic and developed belief from the evidence in my two books and presented here. Evidence beyond a reasonable doubt for me.

dhw: That is evidence for the existence of your God - not for your theories concerning his possible purpose, method and nature. In any case, why are you telling me this? I started as a practising Jew and became an agnostic. Darwin started as a practising Christian and became an agnostic. Why do you think your history gives your beliefs concerning your God’s purpose and nature more authenticity than any other version, especially when you can’t even find any logic behind some of them but reject other possible explanations which even you agree are logical?

DAVID: We've covered the issue that your concept of God is not my concept and I accept your theories as representative logically of your form of God. You won't accept mine, I assume as too God-like.

What do you mean by “too God-like”? You have no more idea than I have of what God is like. I offer alternative views, but you simply assume that because you started as an agnostic and ended up as a panentheist, your subjective view of your God’s purpose and nature must be true, and other views are to be dismissed, even if they are logical.

dhw: I am merely asking you what you think might be the purpose of billions of barren galaxies, and galaxies with nothing but primitive life. And if there are human-type beings elsewhere, what do you think is your purposeful God’s purpose in designing them? We’ll leave out theodicy for now.

DAVID: And I've told you I do not know why the universe is so huge. It allows life to appear. Explanation requires more human research. What we can say it was God's [OBVIOUS] purpose to create life.

dhw: If God exists, then of course he would have created life on purpose. But you insist on going far, far beyond that obvious statement, and you “guess” the purpose (to create humans), the method (to design millions of life forms de novo that had nothing to do with humans), that your God is always in control, would not have wanted a free-for-all, must have had a “good” or “beneficial” reason for designing murderous bacteria and viruses, and would have designed all the billions of galaxies extant and extinct, lifeless or otherwise, in order to design humans or their like, but we mustn’t ask why because that involves guesswork!

DAVID: You are simply, unreasonably, questioning why reality exists as it is. My view is God created all of it reasonably for His purposes.

If God exists, then of course he created all of it reasonably for his purposes. And now we are trying to work out what those purposes and his nature might be in the light of what he created. Above I have listed some of your guesses, and I am simply, reasonably, questioning the logic of those guesses.

dhw: You did offer an answer to all these questions earlier: “I simply accept what we see as God’s wish to create”. You then denied that God wished for anything, and so perhaps we can clear up some of the confusion if you explain what you meant by “God’s wish to create”.

DAVID: God is the Creator. Of course He wishes to create. And He doesn't just create anything, but results that achieve His purposes defined as the bush of life and finally humans by the process of a designed evolutionary process.

dhw: And you guess that the purpose of your purposeful God’s wish to create the whole bush of life (99% of which had no connection with humans), and to finally design humans was….???

DAVID: So you and I could be here to do battle. If we only could ask God for direct answers. I've offered reasonable answers to your questions which your rigidly closed mind won't accept.

God created billions of galaxies, and millions of life forms that had no connection with humans, so that you and I could do battle. Of course I see the twinkle in your eye, but alas it only masks your customary avoidance of my questions. No, you have not offered reasonable answers. You can’t explain why, if your God’s purpose was to design you and me and our lunch, he would have created millions of life forms and lunches that had no connection with you and me; and you won’t even tell us why he wanted you and me to be here to do battle. I have listed some of your guesses about his purpose, methods and nature, and your “reasonable answer” to my challenges is that God did it your way “reasonably for his purposes”. Maybe he did it another way for different purposes “which your rigidly closed mind won’t accept”.