Questioning Deism

[Kurieuo]

Started in thread: http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... 2&start=75

God should have just created everything necessary in an instant and then walked away.
Where's HappyFlappyDiest? Oh, serenading Jac.

"God should have just created everything necessary in an instant and then walked away."

I don't necessarily believe this; all I believe is that 'some thing' programmed the laws of physics. Everything else is chance.

Not just "some thing" but "some intelligence" obviously, right?

At what point would such has stopped. For example, is some some compelling in such laws to eventually have conscious sapient life? (i.e., the anthropic principle)?

----I wrote a response only to be deleted again, something doesn't want me talking to you Kurieuo-----------
I'm over my loss and I'll write again.

I'll concede on the first point; it is "some intelligence" not "some thing."

To address #2, I don't know. I have no idea why this being did what it did, I have no idea why it stopped ( if it did); I have no theology, I have no holy book.
It is remarkable that we fall within this narrow range that allows life, but (big but) with the possible unfathomable amount of universes that exist, one was bound to have the correct compatibility for life.

I personally believe if a god made this universe with the sole purpose of life evolving on this earth, theism is the more logical conclusion.
I don't believe my deist god planned life at a specific place at all, I believe it is a byproduct of the natural laws it set in motion; It probably knew life would evolve somewhere, and we just happen to be one of those somewheres.

Ahh, I was looking forward to your reply.
Figures it was while replying to me -- Satan's always trying to put people off talking to me.
You just think me crazy, but I did see him plotting over my keyboard until I prayed and commanded him to flee in Jesus' name.
Then wind blew past me and the electricity turned off, but thankfully I was on a laptop powered by a battery so WINNER! That's me 1 and Satan nil.
As your a deist though, you don't have that luxury of being able to pray to God. So I'm not sure what to advise.


Seriously, you're the first real Deist I've actually come across.
Your such a rare species that I find it fascinating having one here who I can ask questions of.
It makes me go a bit silly I suppose. Something new to discuss.

Your apparent attraction to multiverse I suppose is to be expected.
Your probably more honest, or perhaps less naive, than many atheists who would believe such.
I have in mind the agnostic Paul Davies who said, "The general multiverse explanation is simply naive deism dressed up in scientific language. Both appear to be an infinite unknown, invisible and unknowable system. Both require an infinite amount of information to be discarded just to explain the (finite) universe we live in."

However, you concede intelligence which means no matter how "infinitely regressive" the multiverse might be (if that be possible), your deistic god at some point created the laws. You know, Paul Davies leaves a question on the physical laws too. Why they exist at all. People might explain a beginning through multiverse because they wish to remove the anomaly of a beginning (if atheist), but it doesn't get you away from the laws which seem quite variable which begs the question of their own existence. (i.e., contingent things can not be the foundation of existence)

Anyway, what are your thoughts on why a deist god would go to the hassle of creating create the universe, if such was ultimately uninterested?
That to me seems strange. Like did some fairy dust, err god dust accidentally drop or?

And if this god planned to create, then that has to make creation personal to God (Theism) -- however minimal such might be.
It's not my intention to dictate what is/isn't deism... But, the only way I can think of a deistic god truly exist is if such created the world by accident.
However, I can't picture such a powerful being being so clumsy.

Thoughts?

[HappyFlappyTheist]

Anyway, what are your thoughts on why a deist god would go to the hassle of creating create the universe, if such was ultimately uninterested?
That to me seems strange. Like did some fairy dust, err god dust accidentally drop or?

And if this god planned to create, then that has to make creation personal to God (Theism) -- however minimal such might be.
It's not my intention to dictate what is/isn't deism... But, the only way I can think of a deistic god truly exist is if such created the world by accident.
However, I can't picture such a powerful being being so clumsy.

Thoughts?

Questioning why the deist god did what it did is indeed a tricky one. I could steal from the Judeo-Christian theist position and state this "being" did it to marvel at it's creation. However the creation in question here is not one of life existing, rather it's of the expanse that is the universe (or multitude of) and it's laws existing.

Perhaps this deist being knew life would be created somewhere, this would seem to indicate this being wanted it to and thus lead to theism. Obviously I disagree.

I believe that this god of mine did allow for life through the laws it established, but is not interested in us (thus the deism). Under my view and understanding of this universal expanse we are one of many, we are not unique. Perhaps this "being" (who will now be referred to as Fred because "being" might confuse in a sentence, and god might indicate YHWH) wanted something to marvel at his creation (Fred is very egotistical) thus why he allowed through the laws he created for life to evolve somewhere. We are certainly capable of admiring creation, we all look up to the stars are marvel at the majestic expanse around us; we're also at a point now where we can even understand the laws that Fred created! I don't think that, if we really are what I just theorized above, this means we're significant or Fred cares at all about us.

As theist state, we cannot understand the mind of God or his reasons. Trying to understand Fred through our logic is impossible, he's above our way of reasoning; Otherwise our reason would lead us to "if he created something to admire him, why wouldn't he care about us." I've tried to come up with a analogy but I can't ( I was going to use "do you care about a scribble on paper you created", but a scribble cannot appreciate you or it's own creation). To understand my view of Fred you must ignore your concept and understanding of God. Fred is not YHWH, he's not a loving, forgiving God, he's not an evil God, he might not even be a egotistical god as I stated above. I don't know his reasons, I don't know his thoughts, but I know he must exist through the complexity of what exists (meaning Laws of Physics).

I know my view sounds childish to most as it's impossible to defeat. If you state something I'll just state "you can't understand Fred."(I'll try my best not to , please state things and pick apart what I believe. I can think rationally). Childish right? Not so to me, to understand what I believe and why I believe you must try to adapt my lens. It may still seem childish and ignorant, and it may be, please state why it is, I have thick skin. All I ask is you attempt to look through my view of Fred first absent ( as impossible as it may seem) your view of God.

I do ask, for the sake of rational conversation, we don't turn this into a furious debate. Let's not do the dissection (quoting small little portions and picking it apart) method of conversing with each other, it makes it difficult to have fluent reading, will normally just instigate somebody's defense mechanism, and it takes things out of context that, in some cases, are clarified later in the post. Please though state why I'm wrong, what's wrong with my view, why you're right, et cetera... ( I know I'm so difficult to understand - I don't want a debate but debate!-, please try to bear with me , I can try to clarify if need be.)

Note that we're still an accident, that is life on this planet. Assuming Fred did want life to appreciate him, he again only set the laws of physics in motion that allowed for the possibility of life evolving to do so.

[Jac3510]

Is Fred pure actuality or is he an admixture of actuality and potentiality?

[HappyFlappyTheist]

Is Fred pure actuality or is he an admixture of actuality and potentiality?

Have I not already backed myself into the corner of him being an admixture of both? I thought I had.

[abelcainsbrother]

HFD I actually think it is good that you somehow know based on the laws of physics,science,etc it it logical to come to the conclusion a god exists however it seems strange to believe in a god "Fred" that you don't seem to get much out of believing he exists.Or do you get anything out of it? Because I'm going to have an awesome future in heaven because of what my God did for me,not what I did,other than put my faith in his truth and recieve it.

[HappyFlappyTheist]

The anticipation of your response is making me check my computer every 2 minutes jac, you're killing me.

[HappyFlappyTheist]

HFD I actually think it is good that you somehow know based on the laws of physics,science,etc it it logical to come to the conclusion a god exists however it seems strange to believe in a god "Fred" that you don't seem to get much out of believing he exists.Or do you get anything out of it? Because I'm going to have an awesome future in heaven because of what my God did for me,not what I did,other than put my faith in his truth and recieve it.

Sadly I don't . This HappyFlappyDeist gets nothing.

Maybe some life-force exists, maybe a soul exists, maybe a spirit exists ( but I'll be damned if I ever call my self "spiritual"), but a heaven for me does, sadly, not.
I assume when I die my body will rot and decay, I'll be remembered for a generation or 2 to come and I'll be nothing but a forgotten memory perhaps captured on some old photograph. I will not go to heaven, I hope to Fred I won't go to hell, I will ( I'm not stating a fact, just my opinion) just become nothing. I'll just die.

It's depressing when you think about the grand scheme. Fred gives me no purpose.
My own purpose, that I've established myself, is to grow in understanding and appreciate this expanse we call the universe.
My dreams and aspirations in this life serve no purpose to Fred; if Fred is egotysical and wanting me to appreciate his work I might be accomplishing something , but either way Fred's not motivating me.
The only thing keeping me from depression and loss of motivation ( I.E if all means nothing, alas, life is pointless) are my dreams and aspirations.

Maybe I answered too much, but I think I touched on your question

[HappyFlappyTheist]

Jac, if your plan is to cause so much anguish from anticipation that you want me to start praying....... well, it might just work.

[Jac3510]

Haha, you're too interested in my thoughts, HFD. I accept the compliment, though.

Anyway, yes, I think you have backed yourself into a corner. I have no problem, in principle, in affirming that Fred has potentiality. But by definition this Fred cannot be a god. I won't lay the argument in detail out here, but the bottom line is that such a being necessarily depends on something else for its existence. In popular vernacular, your "god" was created by something. And that means that your deity falls to the old question, "oh yeah, but who made God?" You end up with an infinite regression of gods creating gods, and that is obviously absurd.

So I have no problem with your affirmation that Fred created our world and doesn't care about it, at least as far as it goes. But since Fred itself needs creation, you still have to deal with the need for Pure Actuality. And THAT--Pure Actuality--THAT really is God.

The bottom line for me is that your "deism" is just a taxi-cab fallacy. You affirm a creator, but just choose to stop where the same logic demands the existence of a Creator.

[HappyFlappyTheist]

Let's address how Fred has potentiality. I believe I claimed to know nothing, all I can to is hypothesize attributions.

Also, walk me through how my logic dictates a theistic God if "I continued and didn't stop."

You can't Understand Fred!

[Jac3510]

Yes, you said we can't understand Fred. If "understand" means "know anything about" then your statement is self-refuting and necessarily false. After all, do we know that we can't know anything about it? And besides, I can't interpret "understand" that way if for no other reason than the fact that you at least understand two things about Fred: 1) it exists, and 2) it created the world.

So I have to think that "understand" means something more like "cannot grasp the way it thinks or why it does what it does" or even "cannot grasp the full extent of its nature." And that's all fine. You may or may not be surprised to know that Christians have always said that about God. By way of proof, let me quote Thomas Aquinas, arguably the greatest and most influential theologian in Church history:

• When the existence of a thing has been ascertained there remains the further question of the manner of its existence, in order that we may know its essence. Now, because we cannot know what God is, but rather what He is not, we have no means for considering how God is, but rather how He is not. (ST Ia.3)

Now, perhaps you meant the self-refuting thing, but I'm trying to be more charitable than that, and more importantly, I'm trying to offer you some affirmation of the intuition I think you are rightly getting at.

Now, if we take "understand" in this second sense, we may still know whether or not He is pure act or an admixture of potentiality and actuality. In light of that, the following are ALL logical possibilities:

1. Something is pure act;
2. Something is an admixture of act and potency

We cannot say that something is neither act nor potency, because those two are the only ways in which something can be (because "act" means the way something actually is and "potency" means the way something could be -- to say something is neither actually something nor that it could be something is just to say that it is not). Nor can we say that anything is pure potency, because such a thing would not actually be anything.

Of course, some want to go back to an idea around the first thing I addressed and suggest that we can't use any kind of logical statements when thinking about things like Fred. But then I would just accuse you of self-contradictory drivel, because 1) such a statement itself a logical statement about Fred (and you would have to defend it using logical arguments) and 2) the statement "Fred exists" is a logical statement about it insofar as it means, "Fred exists, which is to say, it is true to say that Fred is and it is false to say the Fred is not."

So I think it's pretty well established that Fred is either Pure Act or an admixture of act and potency. It either is what it is necessarily or else it is what it is but has the potential to be something other than what it is, to do other than what it does. Now, I'm not going to try to offer an argument as to which Fred is. Fred, after all, is your entity, not mine. So I'm asking you, on your doctrine, on our idea, which is Fred?

[HappyFlappyTheist]

No need to be generous, that is what I meant. I didn't exactly put much thought into conveying that statement clearly as I was't expecting that to be a serious contention.
In "understanding" I hoped to convey the following: As mortals we cannot recognize, nor decfier definitively the characteristics of Fred. Fred is not made known to us, his only remanent left for us to ponder is the evidence of his creation. We are only left to marvel and ponder the question of why.

The thought that we can't use logical statements in the sense that I'm accused of using it, applies to the reasons for Fred's creation. You have the benefit of an "inspired book" laying out clearly why God created, I do not. What possible logical reason am I drawn to then? What logical statement could be supported?
Everything I say attributing characteristics to Fred is purely hypothetic and exploring his reasons using human logic. Human logic, as I think we've both addressed, does not transcend that of a deity, this meaning roughly "I have absolutely no idea why Fred created."
You can make the logical statement "Fred created" without making the illogical statement of "Fred created because he wanted to be admired." The latter statement is clearly illogical because it lacks any underlying reason for the claim; it's an unreasonable claim.

As to the last question, you've already answered it and it's clear which answer you expect me to adopt.
I'll play along though; Fred does not have potentiality as that would mean Fred's capable of development into actuality, which logically negates his eternal God status.

[Starhunter]

I believe in Deists but they have no interest in talking to me, they just let their computer run on automatic and are busy doing something else detached from their communication device. It works for them, I guess, and for me as well, because that way I can never be blamed for not trying to contact them.

[Jac3510]

No need to be generous, that is what I meant. I didn't exactly put much thought into conveying that statement clearly as I was't expecting that to be a serious contention.
In "understanding" I hoped to convey the following: As mortals we cannot recognize, nor decfier definitively the characteristics of Fred. Fred is not made known to us, his only remanent left for us to ponder is the evidence of his creation. We are only left to marvel and ponder the question of why.

And I hope you see that statement isn't necessarily contradictory to what Christians have classically said about God.

The thought that we can't use logical statements in the sense that I'm accused of using it, applies to the reasons for Fred's creation. You have the benefit of an "inspired book" laying out clearly why God created, I do not. What possible logical reason am I drawn to then? What logical statement could be supported?

Two things:

1. Whatever some Christians say about why God created, the classical theism that I adhere to, that the Church has historically held (and by historically I mean the theology taught literally since the second century), and the still dominant theology today is that we cannot and do not know why God created (the Bible does not say why God created). In fact, I can go further. To suggest that there is "reason" is to suggest that God was compelled to create on the force of that reason. But in that case, God is not free, for He is under the sovereignty of something else, even if it is just the nature of impersonal reality. And that, in turn, would imply that something other than God exists, and that creates all sorts of crazy problems. So, again, so far, there is no contradiction between Fred and God, classically understood. But
2. If you are only limiting our ignorance of Fred to its internal reasoning, then there is no reason, in principle, to suggest that we cannot speak to its other attributes. In fact, again, you have already suggested several things about its attributes: 1. that its internal reasoning is unavailable to us, but 2. that it must have created us (which we know by logical deduction from looking at its effects), 3, which means that it must have power to create. Moreover, you conceded to K earlier that Fred also has intelligence, even if we don't know the content of its thoughts.

So I hope this is enough to put to rest the claim that we can't reason about Fred. So long as we talk about what attributes it must have based on our analysis of its effects and what is necessary based on that, then we can do plenty of work from there.

Everything I say attributing characteristics to Fred is purely hypothetic and exploring his reasons using human logic. Human logic, as I think we've both addressed, does not transcend that of a deity, this meaning roughly "I have absolutely no idea why Fred created."
You can make the logical statement "Fred created" without making the illogical statement of "Fred created because he wanted to be admired." The latter statement is clearly illogical because it lacks any underlying reason for the claim; it's an unreasonable claim.

Just to be pedantic, the latter statement is not illogical. It's just unsupported. As it happens, I don't think God created in order to be admired, and I think I can definitively prove that to be the case. But we aren't talking about God. We are talking about Fred.

As to the last question, you've already answered it and it's clear which answer you expect me to adopt.
I'll play along though; Fred does not have potentiality as that would mean Fred's capable of development into actuality, which logically negates his eternal God status.

Good!

Then I'll just say you've proven Fred as you've defined it does not exist. Look at what you said earlier:

I know my view sounds childish to most as it's impossible to defeat.

But it is not impossible to defeat. All we have to show is EITHER 1) that your view of Fred entails potentiality or 2) you are attributing to Fred what MUST be attributed to Pure Act. And I think it is evident that you do both. Taking the second first, your central premise is that Fred does not care why we behave as we do, that it is uninvolved. At root, you are suggesting that Fred is not loving, which you said pretty much verbatim. The problem is that if Fred does not love us, then being Pure Act, we cannot say that it EVER loved us (because that would mean that it changed from loving to not loving, which means it has the potential to be this and later be that). But if Fred NEVER loved us, then it is necessary to say that an act of creation was for its own benefit. The reason for this is that love is, at its core, the willing of the other's good, and if Fred did not love us, then our creation was not for our good. Therefore it follows that it must have been for Fred's own good (again, in your first attempt, perhaps its own admiration). Yet a being that does something for its benefit is a being that has the potential to gain from what it has done. And to be able to gain is to have the potentiality to gain and thus to not to be Pure Act. So there is a reason that Christian theologians have historically affirmed the doctrine of Divine Impassibility, which is the idea that God is not affected one way or another by anything that happens to us. He neither gains nor loses when we do anything.

So the choice is either that Fred does not love us and is therefore not Pure Act and therefore not the Eternal God and therefore itself must be created by that Eternal God that is Pure Act, or else Fred is Pure Act and loved us in creating us. This, by the way, does not mean that we can understand Fred's reason for creating. Why would it love us? Who knows? I would submit, again, that we cannot give an answer, because to give a WHY would be to put it under the governance of that reason (and, again, thus not be Pure Act). If Fred loves us, it is only because it chooses to for absolutely no reason whatsoever other than its own free choice. How is THAT, by the way, or the doctrine of sovereignty? Only Fred is TRULY free!

But you see where that goes. If Fred is Pure Act and loved us at creation, it still does. It still wills our good. Which means it "cares" for us. Thus, an unloving, uncaring Fred that is Pure Act cannot exist, because such a being is self-contradictory. You may as well say Fred is a four sided triangle. That which contradicts itself is not a thing. It is nothing, and so you may as well say that Fred does not exist.

[HappyFlappyTheist]

Fred is a four sided Triangle.

Honestly though Jac, there's nothing I can respond further with.
Anything I could type at this point has been pretty well addressed and I'm not well versed enough in philosophy to respond to your last response. It's not a cop-out it's sheer honesty.
I'm sure they're are deist philosophers who could disagree/ debate with you (did I just commit the authoritative fallacy ) , but it's not me. What you said makes sense for the most part and if your point was to get me thinking, well it got me thinking.

If you have questions for me I'll gladly answer them Jac, but I've pretty well conceded that my previous post was deeply philosophically flawed and I can offer no viable defense further for those positions.

Call me a quitter