God Without The Supernatural

[_Gadianton]

Don't many theologians already think God is "natural", as in "natural theology"? Having a coherent and rational explanation for something that the human brain can comprehend is one way something can be "natural". That's an epistemic definition. Another sense of "natural", an ontological one, might go for monism. That only "physical things" exist. The two might go together or might not. And either/or could be denied and atheism maintained.

As some Internet Mormons have it, Orson Pratt confirmed Mormonism as reductively physicalist. That means, apparently, there is a possibility for God as a man. Here, Shades brings up a good point. What if in a thousand years, scientists can implode vacuum in such a precise way as to completely determine a new universe the way they, or the company they work for, wish to create it? Would they be Gods? Chris Tolworthy, while he was an apologist, used Shades' example to argue for the Mormon God.

The objection might be raised that evolution can't account for objective morality, so even if the scientists created a universe, they can't create morals for it. The morals would either exist or not exist independently.

considering these elements not as discrete entities, but as a unified whole.

Are values holistic or atomistic? Those who put logic before the physical are going to be the most uncomfortable with holism and its natural implications of constructivism and relativism. Also, while the "white male" God seems tyrannical, organic views aren't necessarily better. Consider that the value of a part when considered against the whole, "in totality" is precisely where the word "totalitarianism" comes from.

We can slap the word "God" on anything. But the work of the arguments are being done by other concepts. So if someone wants to say that God is precisely what reality happens to be, and if that happens to be a metaphysics with a prime mover, some organic eastern thing, a mythical guy in the sky with a big hammer, or a four-barrel carburetor.

[Guest]

Obviously, definitions, here, are everything. If "God" is defined as an all-powerful, all-good, all-knowing non-material entity for which we have absolutely no parallel in the natural world, then God is necessarily supernatural.

The Universe itself can be defined as God, per Spinoza, TruthDancer, and Pirate. The question then arises why one should define it that way. If the Universe is defined as God, what does saying "God exists" add to saying "the Universe exists"? Is using the term "God" for the Universe a way of sacralizing the Universe and making it the object of a kind of naturalistic spiritual experience? Or is it a way of recognizing that what we call "the Universe" has special properties--less like those of a vast machine than like those of a being, or what we're used to thinking of as the supernatural? Or both? Or something else altogether...?

We could also define certain highly advanced organisms, or groups of organisms, as God, as suggested by the good Doctor and SomeSchmo. Perhaps our own evolution was set in motion by an extraterrestrial civilization (e.g., per Sir Francis Crick's "directed panspermia" theory), or our entire universe was created by such an advanced intelligence. And perhaps we, as a species, will someday rise to that same level of development, where we can seed the universe with life, or create the conditions needed for the birth of new universes capable of supporting intelligent life. We could have received the role of God from someone else, only to pass it on to still others. Such a God, though, is either in our remote past or our remote future (unless SomeSchmo were right that we're part of an ongoing experiment, such as a simulation), and would seem to be spiritually unavailable. How does one base a spirituality on a hypothetical long-lost alien civilization from the remotest past? It might be easier to base one on the idea that we might someday evolve into 'God' or 'gods' as a species. We could contribute to the development of this God by our own actions. This would surely be a spiritual endeavor, but seems to lack much of what people define as spirituality. A vital element of spirituality would seem to be the sense of larger connection, and if God has yet to be born, so to speak, to what would one connect right now?

Don

[_DonBradley]

My interest in this topic goes back several years, probably to well before my loss of belief in Mormonism and a supernatural God, to a time when I was wrestling with the problems of faith itself. I have long wondered if spirituality could be maintained without recourse to unjustified, and probably false, beliefs.

It would be quite accurate, I think, to say that I stopped believing in faith before I stopped believing in Mormonism. Religious faith, as I've understood it for some time, means believing beyond one's evidence. One may see some evidence for the existence of the gold plates, Jesus' resurrected body, or God, recognize that this evidence is not sufficient to compel belief in the same way that, say, the evidence compels us that, sadly, George W. Bush is still our president. So an additional act of belief is necessary, a leap, a decision to believe. Such decisions are not required in ordinary cases of belief. No one speaks of "choosing" to believe that Bush occupies the Oval Office, or that gravity operates, or that the earth goes around the sun. These beliefs, based on sufficient evidence, arise naturally in the mind as the force of this evidence is perceived--no additional act of will is required.

Religious belief is different. "Faith" just means believing a religious proposition beyond the evidence by an act of the will. Perception of the evidence is not sufficient to establish these propositions, or faith would be redundant--a choice to believe what is already and necessarily believed without choice.

But if we believe beyond our evidence, we run into the problem of arbitrariness. Evidence is the guide that tells us what warrants belief. Sufficient evidence tells us we have sufficient warrant for believing something. Insufficient evidence tells us we do not have good enough reason to hold the belief. So, if we believe something without good enough reason (sufficient evidence), we have no good reason to believe that thing in preference to something else. Our selection of beliefs would be merely arbitrary, at least relative to the probable truth of those beliefs. We might choose to make the "leap" of faith in Mormonism, but would have no more warrant for making that leap than for making the leap to believe in Protestantism, Islam, Hinduism, or Rastafarianism. To believe beyond one's evidence just is to believe arbitrarily. Belief then becomes a matter of circumstance (I was born into this faith or that, or encountered this one before I could encounter any of the others), or of whimsy (I prefer this belief to that). But what do such circumstances have to do with truth? Why would Mormonism, or Islam for that matter, be more likely true if I were born into it? Should each of believe we are the holy child, whose birth into a religious tradition certifies it as divine? If not, then birth has nothing to do with what one should believe to be true. And what about preference? Should we, in fact, as Alma 32 says, let our "desire to believe" work into actual belief? Sure--provided we're omnipotent gods whose desires have the power to determine reality. Short of being that, or pretending we are, we should bracket our preferences out of the question altogether. I very strongly prefer, and wish with all my heart, that the Holocaust had never happened. But this wish has absolutely nothing to do with what I should believe. The case is the same for the historical narrative of the Book of Mormon and the story of the Resurrection of Jesus. I would be thrilled beyond measure to learn that Jesus had risen from the dead and ensured the immortality of me, my loved ones, and all mankind. But my desire for this to be so is as irrelevant to its actuality as my desire for the Holocaust to have not happened is irrelevant to its actuality.

So, I stopped believing in faith. However, I continued, for some while, to believe in Mormonism, because I believed there was sufficient evidence to establish its most basic foundational claims. I later discovered that these supposedly solid evidences were defective, and woefully insufficient, and thus stopped believing in Mormonism, and later, for similar reasons, in a supernatural Deity.

But I am, at heart, a spiritually-minded person. I dug so deeply into Mormonism because of my innate concern with spiritual things, and then, as an ultimate result, lost Mormonism, and even the supernatural itself, as a workable basis for that spirituality. But I have not stopped thinking about issues of meaning, morality, and community. I want the day-to-day purposes for which I live to contribute to some larger purpose, and I want to be able to see that larger purpose, and tailor my actions to help, however minutely, to fulfill it. I want to connect with something larger, be it supernatural or no, and to connect with others of like values and spiritual concerns within the bonds of community.

For a time, I despaired of ever achieving these goals, and laid them aside. But now I find myself again groping toward an inchoate spirituality. A spirituality beyond faith. One established, not on what we don't know and hope against hope, and logic, to be true, but established on what we do know, on a God who is real, and perceptible within the natural order of things.

Don

[_Imwashingmypirate]

MEHEHEEEE..

I will read this another time. Writing moving all over the place is very difficult to understand and read.

Regards,


Pirate.

[_Ray A]

For a time, I despaired of ever achieving these goals, and laid them aside. But now I find myself again groping toward an inchoate spirituality. A spirituality beyond faith. One established, not on what we don't know and hope against hope, and logic, to be true, but established on what we do know, on a God who is real, and perceptible within the natural order of things.

Don, would I be correct in guessing you're considering panthiesm, or some form of pantheism, or even deism?

[_DonBradley]

Hey Gad!

The philosopher speaks! :)

Like you, I see problems with defining something else already known to exist, and known by another name, as "God." In calling that thing God, we may run into the problem that saying "God exists" doesn't add anything to saying of some X defined as God, "X exists." I'm not sure, however, that this means the application of the term God to some such thing would be useless. To frame the Universe, let's say, as God might serve to highlight what is remarkable, unexpected, and grand about the Universe, and contribute to experiencing a sense of the sacred via the Universe, and a sense of larger connection with it (of which we are undeniably part: as Carl Sagan used to say, we are the Universe become conscious of itself). This would be especially true if we understood the Universe to have some of the properties, and the sacralizing of it some of the functions, of what has traditionally been called "God."

Mind that I'm speaking hypothetically about what the benefits of this might be. I don't personally define the Universe as God, though I find this an interesting approach.

I recognize also, and considered when I posted the OP, that some believers in supernatural agencies define them as natural. I think I would have said, as a Mormon, that there was no supernatural--God himself was natural, because he was material, subject to natural law, and part of the Cosmos. I now understand the term "supernatural" differently. While one might claim one's extraordinary and scientifically unwarranted phenomenon to be purely natural (e.g., the priesthood acting by some as-yet-unknown natural law, ESP, reincarnation, morphic resonance, ghosts, etc.), such putative phenomena fall under the rubric of what I would call supernatural. While it might take some work to come up with a very precise definition of "supernatural," I think most of could agree on at least the broad outlines of such a definition. Phenomena that are alleged to exist but have neither been documented under controlled conditions nor fit into existing schemes of naturalistic explanation are best regarded, at least provisionally, as "supernatural."

In asking whether it might be meaningful to use the term "God" to refer to anything within the domain of the natural world, I'm not asking whether there might be some undocumented phenomenon that jars with our present naturalistic understanding, but might nonetheless attempt to slap the label "natural" on. Rather, I'm asking whether it makes sense to use the term "God" for anything we could all agree is part of the natural world.

Don

[_Abinadi's Fire]

Religious faith, as I've understood it for some time, means believing beyond one's evidence.

Don, I've been thinking about this for the past two days. To believe in something of which there is no evidence requires a suspension of the normal way of looking at things. I suppose it could be argued that the heavens are evidence of God, but that doesn't answer the claims of miraculous healings, resurrections, water into wine. I've never seen anything like those miraculous things.

I've been thinking about what Jason Bourne said on another thread - to paraphrase, he has posited that biblical evidence points to a literal, global flood.

The trouble is, the external evidence seems to be to the contrary. According to external evidence, or rather the lack thereof, there was no literal, global flood.

What is interesting to me is the question of where a person's demands for external evidence in support of their faith begins and ends.

People demand evidence of a physical Zarahemla, for example. There is no external evidence that such a city existed - the Mormon must take it on faith, just like the Christian takes a literal, global flood on faith, Jesus literally giving a blind man his sight back on faith, and many other supernatural claims.

For a time, I despaired of ever achieving these goals, and laid them aside. But now I find myself again groping toward an inchoate spirituality. A spirituality beyond faith. One established, not on what we don't know and hope against hope, and logic, to be true, but established on what we do know, on a God who is real, and perceptible within the natural order of things.

I think this would still take a leap of faith.

[_truth dancer]

Hi Don,

Ohhh I can relate to your quest, your seeking.

The Universe itself can be defined as God, per Spinoza, TruthDancer, and Pirate. The question then arises why one should define it that way. If the Universe is defined as God, what does saying "God exists" add to saying "the Universe exists"? Is using the term "God" for the Universe a way of sacralizing the Universe and making it the object of a kind of naturalistic spiritual experience? Or is it a way of recognizing that what we call "the Universe" has special properties--less like those of a vast machine than like those of a being, or what we're used to thinking of as the supernatural? Or both? Or something else altogether...?

For me, I would suggest that there is only one essence, and I call the essence Divine. But to me God is more than just the Universe. More like the mystery of which we are a part.

For me the idea of moving into the idea of God as universe does not degrade God but elevates our existence and that of which we are a part.

The idea that God is similar (or is), a man in my opinion, is so limiting... it is like trying to put the ocean into a eye dropper. It never really worked for me. But in my personal spiritual journey, the more I take into my mind and heart the mystery, the grandeur, the magnificence, the more I feel God.

I do not think of God/Universe/Essence/Source as supernatural, or a machine, or a being... nothing like this. The word I use, (limited as it is), is pure potentiality. As anything comes forth, (whether the big bang, a galaxy, life, or a symphony), it is "a" reflection, or a manifestation of what is possible; a facet of the divine; a sparkle of the brilliance of existence.

In terms of morality, and purpose, and meaning... I think the universe exemplifies its "aim." That is not really the right word because it implies some sort of purposeful intention, but I do think there is an unfolding. Nothing that is determined or planned, but more like a story developing. I think our purpose is to transform the energy and create something new. Meaning is whatever we give to this experience.

Fun to guess and speculate... :-)

~dancer~

[_DonBradley]

For a time, I despaired of ever achieving these goals, and laid them aside. But now I find myself again groping toward an inchoate spirituality. A spirituality beyond faith. One established, not on what we don't know and hope against hope, and logic, to be true, but established on what we do know, on a God who is real, and perceptible within the natural order of things.

Don, would I be correct in guessing you're considering panthiesm, or some form of pantheism, or even deism?

Hi Ray,

I'm interested in these possibilities. Deism seems to me to posit a supernatural entity. Unless or until the existence of such an entity could be accounted for in the equations of physics, it would not seem "natural" to me. Nonetheless, I don't rule out a deistic God. I don't believe in such a God, but don't rule it out. A deistic God seems to me the most likely form of supernatural God.

Pantheism also interests me. In its most basic and strict form, it would be naturalistic, since it would posit only the existence of the Universe, while also calling the Universe "God." Some other forms of pantheism seem to me supernatural, because they posit a sort of universal mind within the Cosmos. Again, I don't know this doesn't exist, but I don't believe in it. Still, some form of pantheism might, perhaps, answer to what I'm seeking.

The direction of my most recent thoughts, however, is something different from either deism or pantheism. These thoughts are yet inchoate, or at least not developed in such a way that I'd try to give them systematic public exposition. They are along the lines of viewing humankind, collectively and across all ages--past, present, and future--as a kind of evolving, imperfect, finite deity, but one that answers nonetheless to many of the traditional attributes and functions of God.

For instance, what prompted this idea was thinking about being grateful for the remarkable lives we've been given. To have been granted an existence is beautiful and improbable beyond all imagining. And look at this world we live in. Those of us in the developed world, at least, live with a degree of liberty, health, and material abundance that qualifies our present lives as the paradise, or utopia, dreamed of by many of past ages. We are guided by moral traditions that have evolved so far beyond the crude barbarism of slavery, tyranny, and out-group genocide. We attribute our existence, the blessed state of our lives, and the traditions we have received to God. We rightly feel grateful, and want to express that gratitude to the Giver of these gifts. So, we, many of us, thank God.

But if God is there, and has given us these things, this is hardly self-evident. As one noted skeptic has said, "The invisible and the nonexistent look the same." And the problem of evil and suffering seems to give the lie to the claim that the Cosmos is ruled by an all-good Almighty. So far as I can see, the supernatural theistic God of the faiths does not exist.

But when we look at the gifts, or blessings, if you will, of existence, plenitude, and moral guidance (among so many others), and ask who has given us these, it's easy to see a much more certain and immediate answer than "a supernatural deity." Our lives, our health, liberty, and plenty, and our moral traditions have been given to us--by other human beings. For these gifts, we are in debt to others, principally our forbears. So, when we thank God, who stands in the place of God if not collective humanity? And when we identify our moral and religious traditions as originating with God, who, again, stands in the place of God if not those who have gone before us?

Considerably tweaking Dr. Shades' thoughts, I am inclined to say, not just that God will one day emerge from humankind, but that God is already present with, and as, humankind of the present and past. Building on the contributions of our forbears, we now contribute to the growth (the progression, if you will) of God, to bless the lives of those who will come after us. God thus grows in knowledge, power, and goodness, as we contribute in these areas, until, at last, God will, or may perhaps, become in the distant future what human beings have always thought God should be (and mistakenly thought God already was): all-wise, almighty, and all-good.

I have further thoughts in this vein, including how such a natural God is spiritually available, answers to attributes and functions of the traditional God, and promotes the traditional religious virtues of purposefulness, generosity, and humility. But, as I said, I'm reluctant to try to lay this out yet, and have already said more than I expected. I'd like to further explore, and eventually write on this.

Don

[_truth dancer]

But when we look at the gifts, or blessings, if you will, of existence, plenitude, and moral guidance (among so many others), and ask who has given us these, it's easy to see a much more certain and immediate answer than "a supernatural deity." Our lives, our health, liberty, and plenty, and our moral traditions have been given to us--by other human beings. For these gifts, we are in debt to others, principally our forbears. So, when we thank God, who stands in the place of God if not collective humanity? And when we identify our moral and religious traditions as originating with God, who, again, stands in the place of God if not those who have gone before us?

I would expand this. ;-)

We did not get all we have primarily from human beings but from everything that has ever existed prior to us. If not for the trillions and trillions and trillions of events that took place prior to our emergence, we would not even be here.

We own our very earth to an exploding star. We own our life to our earth. We owe our very form to fish. From where did we get our lungs? Eyes? How about those little creatures who figured out how to capture light from the sun? Where would we be without mitrochondria? We get our energy to exist from the sun. We got our brains from the worms. I could go on and on...

My point is... we are just a recent expression from a collective gift of everything that has ever existed. And there is yet more to come much, much more.

It is not just humankind that stands in the place of God.. it is everything that has existed. IMHO... ;-)

~dancer~