The distance between Christianity and the 4 Gospels

[huckelberry]

I do not separate the more traditional view from naturalism. Naturalism would be understood as a result of and expression of God. In that view I find evolution to be a reflection of God.

My comment about communication from God was meant to suggest both a range of possibilities and my strong belief that people have overestimated communication and downplayed the role of our own thought and growth in experience. I believe God values that growth more than pure doctrine (which I do not think people have) In that view I see God as caring about all peoples not just those with correct doctrine or ritual.

I guess fitting my position as within a dialogue my view of Gods communication is middling. I believe God communicates just not lots of stuff

I'm stuck on the idea that god works through evolution, recognizing the results of evolution do not have the characteristics of craftsmanship in design. There is extreme elegance in creation, evolved solutions that are astounding in their simplicity and organizational properties. Bioengineering exists to capture some of that elegance for good reason. But behind it all is evidence that each emergent trait of creation derives from the conditions that immediately preceded it and not from a master plan for creation that includes such ideas as divine intervention, atonement that affects the fate of an individual, or otherwise a being who intercedes in meaningful ways.

So here is a different way to ask the questions I skimmed over: In your opinion, how would a universe that emergently arose from prior conditions as described with naturalism differ from the universe we observe ourselves to be part of and have evolved within?

Honorentheos, I found myself a bit puzzled by your question. I am unsure if I am catching what you are asking. Some of it may be just difficult to answer. I think there may be miracles but I do not think they are demonstrable. If I think of myself I know of a few events which strongly suggest miracle but there is no way to be sure . The moment is gone and cannot be tested.

Of course the traits in evolution arise from previous conditions. That is much the beauty of it. It also operates in a wide interconnected system ,environment,of many kinds of creatures, which is much the beauty of it. I respect beauty in this context more than I respect fundamentalist dogmatic simplicity.

Atonement is about health and survivability of community. It is part of the long line of community development in the animal kingdoms which with expansion in humans created new problems to deal with.

Yes atonement can be understood as a start to community in an eternal realm with God. That of course would be an extension of the principals of life and community we start here.(firmly a part of our evolutionary development)

[honorentheos]

Honorentheos, I found myself a bit puzzled by your question. I am unsure if I am catching what you are asking.

Hi huckelberry,

The intent is to isolate out what theism adds to the universe that wouldn't be there without it.

What aspects of the universe or existence are not due to emergent properties arising from prior conditions? But are instead what we should expect only if theism accounts for the existence of the universe as we experience it?

[huckelberry]

Honorentheos, I found myself a bit puzzled by your question. I am unsure if I am catching what you are asking.

Hi huckelberry,

The intent is to isolate out what theism adds to the universe that wouldn't be there without it.

What aspects of the universe or existence are not due to emergent properties arising from prior conditions? But are instead what we should expect only if theism accounts for the existence of the universe as we experience it?

Honorentheos, you have noted that in naturalism what is is a result of prior conditions. Theism does not change that basic relationship. In theism God is the ultimate prior condition . Subtract God and there is absolutely nothing at all.

[honorentheos]

Hi huckelberry,

The intent is to isolate out what theism adds to the universe that wouldn't be there without it.

What aspects of the universe or existence are not due to emergent properties arising from prior conditions? But are instead what we should expect only if theism accounts for the existence of the universe as we experience it?

Honorentheos, you have noted that in naturalism what is is a result of prior conditions. Theism does not change that basic relationship. In theism God is the ultimate prior condition . Subtract God and there is absolutely nothing at all.

If we only describe God as the first condition and from that point forward the universe progresses according to the laws of nature, we are agreed that theism adds nothing. The best explanation for the universe as we observe it to be is that it is emergent from prior conditions as described by naturalism.

For theism to be a viable explanation for the universe, it MUST describe a universe that is better explained by its own hypothetical conditions that differ from one that is simply emergent from prior conditions. God as first cause of an otherwise naturally evolving universe is no theism at all. Maybe humanism.

[huckelberry]

Honorentheos, you have noted that in naturalism what is is a result of prior conditions. Theism does not change that basic relationship. In theism God is the ultimate prior condition . Subtract God and there is absolutely nothing at all.

If we only describe God as the first condition and from that point forward the universe progresses according to the laws of nature, we are agreed that theism adds nothing. The best explanation for the universe as we observe it to be is that it is emergent from prior conditions as described by naturalism.

For theism to be a viable explanation for the universe, it MUST describe a universe that is better explained by its own hypothetical conditions that differ from one that is simply emergent from prior conditions. God as first cause of an otherwise naturally evolving universe is no theism at all. Maybe humanism.

Honorentheos, I think you are saying that if I cannot demonstrate miracles then the world is naturalism. You may be relying to an extent on the fact that naturalism is much by definition the realm of what we observe. What we observe marks out the extent and content of naturalism.

Yet I believe in miracles, that life arises with the care of God. I believe that people live in the light of the presence of God and receive inspiration guidance and strength from that community. That in Jesus God came to live with us and make atonement as a basis for increasing peace in our community so that there can be life eternal. None of these things can be proven. I have made no claim to prove them and have no intention to try. I do think each is in principal an extension of natural process as all things proceed from God.

If you wish to consider me a humanist I have no objection . I consider myself a humanist.

[Morley]

Nice post, Huck.

[honorentheos]

Honorentheos, I think you are saying that if I cannot demonstrate miracles then the world is naturalism. You may be relying to an extent on the fact that naturalism is much by definition the realm of what we observe. What we observe marks out the extent and content of naturalism.

Yet I believe in miracles, that life arises with the care of God. I believe that people live in the light of the presence of God and receive inspiration guidance and strength from that community. That in Jesus God came to live with us and make atonement as a basis for increasing peace in our community so that there can be life eternal. None of these things can be proven. I have made no claim to prove them and have no intention to try. I do think each is in principal an extension of natural process as all things proceed from God.

We seem to be at an impasse. I'd like to think what I am saying is pretty straightforward. That being, we ought to be able to discuss how a universe that arose according to naturalism would differ from one where theism better explains it. Yet it seems that for purposes of this thought experiment that isn't possible if one simply says God is the first cause without which nothing would exist, and naturalism explains everything observable but not miracles which apparently can't be observed.

But at the same time the universe is directly influence by God's love, but we can't contrast this with a universe without God's love and how it would differ from the one we occupy because...well that just isn't possible according to...oh. Theism.

[honorentheos]

I think the risk some find in advocating for naturalism as the best explanation for the universe is the concern it reduces life and meaning to something so minimal it leaves no room for humanity, aesthetics, love, or the poetic.

I suggest picking up Sean Carroll's 2016 book, The Big Picture if that is the case.

[Morley]

Yet I believe in miracles, that life arises with the care of God. I believe that people live in the light of the presence of God and receive inspiration guidance and strength from that community. That in Jesus God came to live with us and make atonement as a basis for increasing peace in our community so that there can be life eternal. None of these things can be proven. I have made no claim to prove them and have no intention to try. I do think each is in principal an extension of natural process as all things proceed from God.

If you wish to consider me a humanist I have no objection . I consider myself a humanist.

How so you view the afterlife? And are we saved by works or by grace?

[Physics Guy]

For theism to be a viable explanation for the universe, it MUST describe a universe that is better explained by its own hypothetical conditions that differ from one that is simply emergent from prior conditions. God as first cause of an otherwise naturally evolving universe is no theism at all.

What does “simply emergent from prior conditions” mean?

As far as I know, “emergent” in this kind of context is a vague term. In expressions like, “consciousness emerges from neurology” or “thermodynamics emerges from mechanics,” I construe “emerges from” as “somehow comes out of”. Emergence in this sense isn’t any particular thing that anyone understands. When we say, “Humans evolved from small mammals,” we mean by “evolved” a certain class of processes of differential gene proliferation. When we say, “Consciousness emerges from brain chemistry,” in contrast, we don’t mean anything comparably specific by “emerges”. There probably is something comparably specific that we could mean, but we don’t currently know what it is. So “emergent” is just a vague placeholder term.

(Speaking of evolution: to clarify a possible misunderstanding, when honorentheos speaks of a “naturally evolving universe” he is not referring to Darwinian evolution in particular. Physicists say “evolving” to mean nothing but changing over time under the laws of nature, in whatever way that happens in the context being discussed. The Earth flying through space around the Sun is an example of time evolution; so is the absorption of light by a molecule in your retina. I’m not disagreeing with honorentheos here, just defining a jargon term that other readers might not know.)

Anyway, what about initial conditions? If a few photons had been tweaked a bit at the Big Bang, our entire solar system would never have existed. Sure, most likely some other form or sense of intelligent life would have existed instead, not here but somewhere. It remains true that the laws of nature as we know them literally cannot explain at all why our solar system exists instead of a different one, because that issue is decided by initial conditions, about which the laws say nothing at all. The laws of nature we know are all differential equations, and it is the basic nature of differential equations that they do not specify the starting point. They only tell us what will happen next, given the initial input data.

Something determined the actual initial conditions of everything in the universe. Whatever that is or was, its power to choose those initial conditions was in fact tantamount to a power to intervene in the universe in an ongoing way.

Lots of remarkable events are perfectly possible in principle, if only a lot of tiny particles were to come together just right at a certain place and time. The differential equations apply backwards in time as well as forward. So for any such a miraculous conspiracy of particles one can run the film backwards to the beginning of time and find an initial condition of the universe that would, billions of years later, produce that miraculous conspiracy—with the perfectly unerring certainty of a differential equation.

Furthermore, there would in most cases be no obvious sign, before that remarkable but predestined event finally occurred, that anything like it was going to occur. The series of perturbations in the Oort cloud that would eventually send a comet to hit the Earth would be undetectably remote and unremarkable in their implications until the event was underway. The twitch of a proton in one of my zillions of DNA strands would be completely unremarkable until after it had led to a tumor—or prevented one from forming. Yet that proton twitch would have been predestined, either way and with inevitable certainty, by the initial conditions of the universe all those billions of years ago.

Whatever it is or was that set the initial conditions of the universe, our lives are in its hands in every moment even now. Naturalism under the currently understood laws of nature is not an alternative to this feature of theism. It shares the same feature.