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

by dhw, Sunday, June 06, 2021, 09:28 (1265 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I don't consider my fixed view of God as having Him mimic a humanized form. Your so-called fluidity is exactly how you humanize Him as His desires wander all over the place.

dhw: You have it the wrong way round. It is we who would “mimic” God. Hence the biblical idea that God made man in his own image. It’s my views (not God) that are fluid, because I offer different theories. But each theory on its own offers a God with a definite “desire”. One possibility is the one you believe in, which is to create beings with rich minds (two of your “guesses” were that he might want us to admire his work and to form a relationship with him) – although you can’t believe that our rich minds could be in any way like his. But if this was his one and only goal, perhaps the reason for his designing all those unconnected life forms was that he was experimenting. Just one way of explaining what you can’t explain. “Fluid”? “Wandering all over the place”?

DAVID: Do you think God experimented to create a fine-tuned-for-life universe or experimented to find a way for life to appear? My God knows exactly how to create whatever He wishes.

I offer this as one way to explain the billions of galaxies extant and extinct, and the millions of life forms extant and extinct, IF your God’s only purpose – as you claim – was to design humans. Your personal image of an all-powerful, all-knowing, always-in-control God prevents you from finding any logical explanation for what you believe was his method of achieving his purpose. On the other hand, if he knows exactly how to create whatever he wishes, then quite clearly he wished to create billions of galaxies and millions of life forms etc. that had no connection with humans! If a purposeful God wished to create life that had no connection with humans, it is clearly illogical to claim that his only purpose was to create humans.

Other problems thrown up by your thinking – apart from the “continuity” problem covered under “Miscellany” - include a God, all of whose works are “for the good”, deliberately designing the bacteria and viruses that cause untold suffering; the bush of past life providing us with lunch, although past lunches were for the past and not for the present; and God as an experimental scientist, a creator who enjoys creating, or the inventor of a mechanism enabling his creations to make their own decisions, being described as “totally illogical”. Quite apart from the “totally”, why are these views of him less logical than a God who knows everything in advance, wants total control, is all that we consider “good” despite designing things that we consider “bad”, and has only one purpose which he pursues by designing things that have no connection with his one and only purpose?