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

by dhw, Monday, June 07, 2021, 08:50 (1264 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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: It is your illogical response to my theory that is wrong. My all powerful, all purposeful God knew exactly what He was doing. The history of evolution as a process invented and designed by God is perfectly reasonable to believers.

Your usual rush into generalizations that fail to tackle the issue raised by your particular theory. Of course evolution as a process invented and designed by your God is perfectly reasonable – even to agnostics like myself. And an all-powerful, all–purposeful God is equally reasonable. But, for the thousandth time, what is not reasonable is to claim that your all-powerful, all-purposeful God had only one purpose – to design humans – and therefore designed billions of galaxies and millions of life forms etc. which had no connection with humans.

dhw: 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!

DAVID: You forgotten how elements were made in the stars and spread by exploding stars. Proven by Fred Hoyle, your countryman. Please remember the universe had to evolve also from the Big Bang. Swiss cheese history doesn't work in honest discussions.

That does not explain why your God, whose one purpose was to design humans, had to design billions of galaxies extant and extinct and millions of life forms extant and extinct which had/have no connection with humans. Please stop dodging.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: Way off base considering a universe fine-tuned-for-life.

We have discussed the possibility of life in other galaxies, and there were three options: no life, primitive life (nothing but microbes), or sophisticated life. We then went through the implications of all three. Do you really want me to repeat them?

dhw: 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?

DAVID: Your usual problem of imagining a part human form of God and total confusion about His purposes.

Your usual escape from the problems themselves to vague generalizations: you cannot avoid a “part human” God yourself – I’ve listed some of his characteristics above – and in each of my alternatives there is a clear purpose. The only confusion concerning purpose is your insistence on a single purpose (humans) which your God apparently achieves by designing life forms that have no connection with his purpose.