Does a Good God Exist?

[doubting_tommy]

The five questions used for examination of the contents of the books preclude circular reasoning.

Most of the questions seem open to a regress as follows:

1. Was it written by a prophet of God?

What sources are used to determine who is a ‘prophet of God’? And what sources confirm the validity of these sources? Etc. etc.

2. Was the author divinely confirmed by God?

What sources confirm whether the author was divinely confirmed?

3. Does the text tell the truth about God?

I’ve addressed this above.

4. Does it come with the power of God?

I don’t know what this means, or how it would be objectively ascertained.

5. Was the text accepted by the People of God?

This seems pretty shaky- why would a text’s acceptance by a large number of people indicate its validity?

It is not circular at all. This is really a test of inauthenticity than of canonicity. It is a negative test that could exclude books from the canon. The Bereans used this kind of test when they searched the Scriptures to see if what Paul said was true (Acts 17:11). Truth in and of itself does not make a book look canonical.

Right, but what is the source of truth which such texts are measured against? Antecedent texts? What is the source of truth which these are measured against?

Reall??? Imagine astronomers trying to predict the movement of stars without a universe of order and uniformity. If the universe works one way tomorrow and another way next week, if chemical properties never stay quite the same, if the number of elements is in constant state of flux, "science" would be paralyzed. Science REQUIRES a universe of order.

As I said, the current scientific consensus is that indeterminism is more or less true on the quantum level. Scientists are able to make accurate predictions about things like the movement of planets or the interactions between different chemicals because these things behave in an entirely predictable way. Once you get down to the quantum level, however, this is not the case.

It demonstrates a Wise creator and it demonstrates that He is more than just a Creator. It demonstrates that He also sustains and maintains the order He created.

Why? If we make the minimum number of assumptions necessary we can assume that the Creator is powerful and intelligent enough to have created a Universe which is self-sustaining and little more than that. Wisdom is not implied, since wisdom suggests something beyond intelligence and one would only need to be extraordinarily powerful and intelligent to create something which is extraordinarily complex. Nor is it implied that the Creator directly sustains the Creation – the Creator may have created a Universe which ‘takes care of itself’ just as an artist’s work is finished once the painting is complete.

That may or may not be true, but that is beside the point. The point is that this creator created with purpose. He created a planet like ours to be able to sustain life and all of the necessary conditions are there including the ability of the planet to reproduce food and fossil fuels.

I don’t think it’s beside the point at all. Your claim is that we live on a planet which has been created with the purpose of allowing human life to flourish. Yet our planet has between 4.5 and 5 billion years before it is destroyed (according to our understanding of the universe). This is evidence against a designer who has human interests at heart. Further evidence against this idea is the fact that the Universe contains so much ‘useless space’- trillions of planets which do not affect us in any way and will never harbour life. This is not consistent with a model of the Universe which has been created by a supremely intelligent being for the purpose suggested since 99.9999% of it is inhospitable to human life.

If the ability of the planet to produce food and fossil fuels is to be taken as evidence in favour of your position, then the fact that the planet is being powered by a dying Sun which will one day destroy all life on the Earth must be taken as evidence of mine.

No, this is not natural selection. God created animals and humans to care and protect their young and while it is impossible to go into here, there are many animals that have rather ingenious means of warding off predators that defy simple natural selection. I have seen documentaries of animals we consider docile and incapable of vilolence become as brave as lions when their offspring were attacked. That is not the product of natural selection.

This is simply an assertion on your part. It could be the case that God created animals and humans to care and protect their young (though this raises the question as to why some humans and animals do nothing of the sort, on occasion). But I contend that the theory of evolution via the process of natural selection is perfectly capable of explaining any example you would care to give.

Again, so what??? So God created the universe within a temporal context. if time existed prior to creation, how is that an argument against God's existence?

Given that we are looking at the observable Universe for evidence of a Creator, scientists believe that time is a property of the Universe itself. So, as far as we can discern, in order for time to exist, the universe must exist. This is intended as a counterargument against the question ‘what caused the universe to come into being?’ since it suggests that the question itself is incoherent, given our current understanding of physics.

That is interesting. In order to get around the notion that God as an eternal being created the universe, you would prefer to use Ockham's razor to simply make and end run around God and simply declare the universe is eternal. Okham's razor is not exactly reliable. It's an interesting desparate attempt at trying to get around God, but its really not a very good argument.

As far as I can see, there are three broad options here:

One is that everything requires an antecedent cause which must be more complex than its consequent. If we accept this, then we end up in the strange position of having to declare that there are an infinite number of Gods, each more complex than the last.

Two is that there is only one God, but then you would have to justify why the above principle applies to everything except this God (since this God is the only entity which is complex but does not require a more complex antecedent – the uncaused cause). I cannot see a way to do this in a way which is not arbitrary.

Three is that you apply Ockham’s Razor and do not multiply entities beyond necessity. If there can be an uncaused, eternal cause, then there seems little reason why this could not be the universe itself, rather than having to move ‘beyond’ the universe and stipulating the existence of a creator.

(There are other options, but these involve odd notions of causality which we don’t need to get into here and wouldn’t really help your position in any case.)

In order to create everything, and in order to sustain it presupposes the knowledge and power requried to accomplish such a feat. In order for God create the universe He must have all of the knowledge of the unverse required to make it. He must know all that is or can be.

You’re half-right. In order to create the Universe, the Creator must have all the knowledge required to create the Universe we now find ourselves in. It doesn’t follow from this, however, that God needs to know absolutely everything about the universe. Consider some analogies:

I have the knowledge required to play a game of chess, but not the knowledge to determine what move my opponent will make.

A scientist has the knowledge necessary to set up and maintain an experiment, but not the knowledge to know what the result will be.

A painter has the power to throw paint on a canvas, but not the knowledge as to what the painting will look like, until it is done.

Again I must be clear: what I am disputing is the *necessity* of the connection. It is not necessary in any of the above examples, for the creator to have full and complete knowledge of his creation- while the Creator may indeed know what the end result will look like, all He *needs* is the knowledge and the power necessary to ‘throw the cosmic paint’ and see what happens.

Edited December 19, 2010 by doubting_tommy

[doubting_tommy]

The Bible teaches that the God of creation did not just create the world, but that He is essentially the architect of the ages. He demonstrates all three qualities in relation to the world/universe He created. I realize you feel the need to oversiimplify the needs of the universe to exist and thus it helps to downplay the need for God to be all knowing, all powerful and all present, but in order to sustain every star, ever planetary and lunar body to keep them all on course to keep everything in order in this universe AND to able to sustain life on this planet, to govern everything that happens and still seek to relate to each person on earth individually and to do all of this at the same time requires a God a to be everywhere at once. It requires Him to know the entirety of the universe down to the last molecule, and to govern each moleculre. It is far, far more complex than you are willing to admit. And it requires someone like the God of the Bible to pull it off.

The Biblical description of God may well require that he is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, but if we are just looking at the world around us, there is no need to make such assumptions. The architect of a computer program requires only those powers necessary to create the program- he does not require the ability to build a computer, for example. Similarly, the Creator of the Universe needs the power to establish a set of physical laws- he does not necessarily need the power to hear the thoughts of the people who inhabit his universe. The architect of a computer program does not have to sit at the keyboard, constantly writing and rewriting code- when he has created the program, he can let it run without any further input (sure, sometimes things break down, but The Creator of our Universe doesn

[Guest]

.... The Biblical description of God may well require that he is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, but if we are just looking at the world around us, there is no need to make such assumptions....

He Is Both Man And God

And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Isaiah 7:13-14

See Him Now

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:14-15

Or Not

The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. John 3:35-36

Love, Joe

[Guest shiloh357]

shiloh357, on 18 December 2010 - 03:42 PM, said:

The five questions used for examination of the contents of the books preclude circular reasoning.

Most of the questions seem open to a regress as follows:

1. Was it written by a prophet of God?

What sources are used to determine who is a

[Guest shiloh357]

You

[enoob57]

You're half-right. In order to create the Universe, the Creator must have all the knowledge required to create the Universe we now find ourselves in. It doesn't follow from this, however, that God needs to know absolutely everything about the universe. Consider some analogies:

Therefore when you say consider the analogies we smile to ourselves for we are a simple children... We know in fact that we have become and we are not the cause but the result... we also know that our knowledge has increased and by that increase we know the infinite is a reality outside of our experience... in all areas of studies the summation of total knowledge in any particular area has not been achieved but has increased the need to divide further that particular of said discipline... because there is a greater gaining of unknown as we achieve known we have found pride in what we have accomplished as foolishness for we are humbled by the realities of what lies before us... all this said we have merely spoken of the physical or corporeal aspects of our realities and the smaller we go into the quantum physics aspects that pride of some drives into the belief of randomness, which I noticed you have mentioned somewhere in reading your comments, and that sir is merely a comfortable place in which those who find that which exceeds their abilities is satisfied by definition of guess as to random... by this above truth that resides in the children we are not pressed nor frightened by that which exceeds us either by physical or spiritual for we are kept, watched after and maintained by Him who is without limitation The Infinite our Father, the Son, and The Holy Spirit that dwells within us... Love Steven

[doubting_tommy]

I'm going to split my replies into two posts, the first dealing with the Biblical discussion and the second dealing with the non-Biblical discussion:

It appears that you are still operating from the incorrect view that they these questions were meant to determine canonicity. Rather these questions were meant to examine what had already been accepted long before Constantine.

You claimed originally that

[doubting_tommy]

Yes, but we don't live and work on the quantum level. The fact remains that an ordered and uniform universe that obeys consistently the natural laws that God has put in place is absolutely crucial to being able to do science.

An ordered universe is necessary in order to do science, yes. However don

[doubting_tommy]

None of those are analagous to the complexity of universe. God in sustastaining the universe must do so right down to the the Atomic level and even further than that. It requires a level of complex understanding of each molecule in each star, planet, and any other objects in the universe. It requires God to know and be able to govern all of the countless trillions of stars and planets at the same time while still being able to micro-manage life here on earth.

The purpose of the analogies is to compare the relationship between the creator and the created, and to uncover principles which can then be scaled according to the complexity of the particular context.

Assuming that it is indeed the case that the rules of chess are less complex than the rules of interaction between subatomic particles, for example, it is also the case that the chess grandmaster is far less complex than the Creator of the Universe.

But we know that the Grandmaster, in order to perform his role, only needs to be able to have the knowledge of the rules of chess, and the power to carry out the moves. He does not need to know what decisions his opponent will make.

By analogy, the Creator of the Universe only needs to know the information necessary to create the universe- He needs to know how to

[doubting_tommy]

If it’s possible to bracket off the above discussion for a moment, I’ve found something you might find interesting with regard to the question of complexity:

Would you describe the above patterns as complex?

It's interesting because we've both been assuming that the universe is extremely complex. The above program may provide evidence that complexity can result from remarkably simple initial rules.

Edited December 20, 2010 by traveller
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