Board index ‹ Creation and Evolution

[Martha]

Is the story literal then? If it is to you, then this conversation is going nowhere. If it's not, then we can infer meanings from it, because its just a piece of art, not a literal account. You can get out of art whatever it is you see. And the beauty is different people will see different things. Unless it's not art, and it's all a historical account, to which I then question the validity of your thought process and ability to reason.

You said, "The character of God is not subject to popular vote or anyone's opinion."

Many people like to say he is not this or that because they realize the inherent contradictions of having a such traits.

You said, "Your first three paragraphs under the "omnipotent" section I agree with wholeheartedly, until you get to the sentence "If he lacks no thing, he would not create the universe, because that would be admitting the he lacked some thing... The universe." That goes back to your previous premise that any desire betrays a deficit, but that's what you haven't proved."

You haven't given me one counter example. And you can't, because when you desire something, by definition you don't have it.
For example, you have money, but you desire more. Therefore you desire the money you don't have. You have your wife's love, but you desire more. Therefore you desire more of the love she is giving to you, love that you previously didn't have, if you're telling me love is quantifiable (you can have more or less love, in other words). The problem is that you're being purposely ambiguous with what love is down below, but we'll get to that.

"Being a creator is an expression of his character, not an acknowledgement of a deficiency."

Not quite. That's what you want God to be, the creator, but he would have no desire like you to do something, because he does not lack anything, if he is omnipotent.

"I'm a musician; I do music; I like to do music. It doesn't logically stem from a deficiency in me, but is an outworking of a love that I have."

Right, but you have a desire to create music. This desire to make music stems from some lacking within you, the same lacking that drives the whole material world. If we felt our needs were sufficiently and perfectly met, we would have no desire and thus not do anything. But the material world bustles, filling in the void, because nature abhors a vacuum. We continuously choose to act and do things like create music, because we desire it, we desire a feeling that we don't currently have, like pride, or serenity or whatever. Sometimes we have a certain feeling or thing, but an insufficiency of it, and we want more, the "more" being the poverty I am referring to.

God is infinitely powerful and lacks nothing. He would never want something, like your wanting to create music, or create anything for that matter, because being perfect means your needs are perfectly and sufficiently met. No insufficiency = no desire = no creation.

"God is a creator; he creates; he likes to create. But his attributes, despite your false accusation, are not based around creation. His attributes have nothing to do with it, except that creation reveals his attributes, as my music reveals something about my personality."

You're anthropomorphizing God just a bit there, don't you think?

"We see God in creation, but he doesn't need us to be fulfilled. Ah, but I can already see your mind spinning: "How could God fulfill his attribute of 'Creator' without creation?", hence he lacked something without it."

Lol. My mind isn't really spinning. He doesn't need to be a creator to exist. He could exist, he just didn't create the universe, and there is really no need for a God who didn't create the universe. You keep starting from the point that he must have created the universe, and I'm starting from the null hypothesis that reviews the different models of the universe and saying that it's highly unlikely God created the universe, considering that sentence is an erroneous anthropomorphization in itself.

"First, I would comment that it's a diminution of God to assert that his creative energy can only find a legitimate outlet in material things. The Bible says he created time, and he created spirit beings, for example. It's reductionistic to claim that without the material world God is deficient."

Again, you're starting from the point that God must exist. I'm looking at your argument from a blank slate and saying: "Uh, you can't claim he's perfectly complete ("all-good"), and then say oh but wait, he also created the universe too... For us... Because he loves us." Really? He was obviously not all-good and therefore not omnipotent (because remember, a trait is negated only if it goes against his existence, logic, or nature, and it wouldn't be his nature to be lacking anything in the first place, so it's certainly not that).

"Secondly, some attributes of God are expressed in different measures, and can even be withheld, even though they are attributes of his being. Power is one of them. Despite that God is omnipotent, his power can be issued in certain directions, certain places, and in varying amounts. (That's different from his holiness, for instance, that is constant.) This is not something I'm making up, but is clearly taught in the Bible. God's attributes are not based around creation, and Christians don't have to contort God to make him fit the evidence, as you have claimed."

Well they don't have to if they assume from the start that he exists, which is as bad as sentencing a man as guilty without anything but circumstantial evidence. You realize there is zero objective evidence for God? Could you imagine if you just went with your intuition on when to sentence somebody because you felt it to be true?

Of course you could, you do it with God, so it wouldn't be hard to imagine doing that either.

[jimwalton]

Wow. Long post. The longer we converse, the longer the posts get. I'll try to stay brief so this doesn't get simply out of control.

> Is it literal then?

That's an inadequate choice of term. "Literal" can mean "taking words in their normal and basic sense without metaphor or allegory," but I have just told you that the point of the text is archetypal. The meaning we can infer is not up to us to intuit, but to understand the verses contextually and how they are interpreted by the rest of the Bible. Thus we know that the setting is historical narrative, but the meaning is archetypal. For instance, when it says Adam was formed from "dust", it is not speaking of material origins but of the nature of humanity. The significance is not material, but mortality. The word "literal" doesn't have a place in the conversation. It certainly isn't subject to the subjective relativity of "I get out of it what I see in it," but the legitimate interpretation by linguistic, contextual, and cultural analysis.

> the inherent contradictions of having a such traits.

It doesn't matter what people say. If 50 million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. Just as the scarecrow said in "The Wizard of Oz," when Dorothy asked him how he could talk with a brain: "Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking." There is no inherent contradiction in the attributes of God.

> You haven't given me one counter example.

I have, but you don't accept them. I gave you the example of God's love as that of perpetuity, not of deficiency. I gave you the example of a friend of mine who is adopting out of the generosity of her heart, not because of any lack. I gave you the example of musical expression as pure joy. Now, it's undeniably true that one can only desire something that one does not have, but that doesn't necessitate that the expression of that desire comes from a deficit. I'll hold to what I have already said. Sometimes desire can flow out of abundance.

> If we felt our needs were sufficiently and perfectly met, we would have no desire and thus not do anything.

You're suggesting that in a perfect world we would become, basically, non-entities. I would suggest, in contrast, that in a perfect world desires would coexist symbiotically with our completeness, for we can desire what is as easily as we can desire what is not, yet without envy, agony, or deficit.

> That's what you want God to be

In contrast, that's what God has revealed himself to be. I don't manufacture God; I read his revelation of himself and contemplate it. The difference is whether I start from myself and create a god of my own making, or start from God and comprehend him as he has revealed himself to be.

> You're anthropomorphizing God just a bit there, don't you think?

Not really. God is anthropomorphized in the Bible to aid us in our knowledge of him. I'm just relating to you what the Bible says clearly (Ps. 19.1, for example).

> I'm starting from The null hypothesis that reviews the different models of the universe and saying that it's highly unlikely God created the universe

Actually, the work of Michael Behe in "Darwin's Black Box" presents a strong argument of the likelihood of a rational intelligence behind our natural world. Other arguments from the standpoint of fine tuning and even philosophical reasoning show that it's actually more reasonable to believe in a rational intelligence behind nature than it is to believe in non-rational, purposeless chance.

> you're starting from the point that God must exist.

Of course I am. If you're starting from a blank slate, you're making the same kind of presuppositional statement of faith that I am, just from a contrastive starting point. The discussion about the existence of God, though pertinent to our discussion, is a different one than the one on the table, which is the nature and basis of creation.

> and therefore not omnipotent ...

I guess you need to define omnipotence. To my knowledge, no one (neither philosopher nor theologian) has yet defined it suitably, but you want to take your strong stand on some definition of it. The Bible, which never tries to define it but merely describes it, only goes so far as to contend that what God chooses to do, he accomplishes, for he has the ability to do it. There is certainly no inherent contradiction in God's omnipotence and his competency and love to create.

> they don't have to if they assume from the start that he exists

I think your analogy is far off the mark and doesn't speak to your point. Assuming the existence of God (a theological, philosophical, and metaphysical assumption and conclusion based on evidence) has nothing to with judiciary proceedings. It's such a lousy analogy, I hate to even acknowledge it with a comment.

> You realize there is zero objective evidence for God?

I consider the world around us to be objective evidence for God. I think the presence of personality in us, reason, meaning, purpose, beauty, conscience, and morality are all objective evidences for God.