Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, February 10, 2017, 13:29 (2625 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I will be vehement if you try to humanize His thought patterns.
dhw: Then although you never cease to emphasize that your God is all-purposeful, we shall have to stop asking about his purposes - and hence his nature, because you can’t gauge purposes without analysing thought patterns. In our joint quest to solve the great mysteries of life and the universe, you are allowed to guess that he might have specially created humans in order to have a relationship with us, that we matter to him, that he is "NOT" human in thought, that he is a tough-love God who expects us to solve problems and who never looks for entertainment, and he does not have a smidgen of evil in him. But if I guess that all your guesses may be wrong and there may be an alternative way of interpreting his purposes, and hence his nature, your guesses will turn into authoritative statements. I dunno about tough love, but they sure do teach 'em tough talk in Texas!

DAVID: We cannot know his thought patterns, since He is not human, and we are. We have to work backwards from what is created, where we might then see something that looks like purpose. We need to avoid describing what God may see as a personal purpose for Himself.

Why? The fact that we cannot know his purpose or his nature does not mean we mustn’t speculate. In fact, it’s only natural that we should. You have asked yourself why humans are here, and you guess that God specially produced us. You have asked yourself why he specially produced us, and you guess that he wants a relationship with us. You have convinced yourself that there is not a smidgen of evil in your God, and you have asked yourself why in that case there is evil in the world, and you guess that he is a God of tough love who expects us to solve the problems he sets us. If you can guess at God’s personal purposes, why shouldn’t I?

DAVID: That is what has no evidence to support it. What is produced in creation does allow a proposal of purpose as theory. Note the differentiation.

The history of evolution allows a proposal of purpose and of non-purpose as theory, just as the existence of life and the universe allows a proposal of God and non-God as theory, just as the hypothetical existence of God allows a proposal of different divine purposes as theories. There is evidence to support all theories (otherwise they would be sheer nonsense), but there is no evidence to provide conclusive proof (otherwise the theories would become facts). The history of philosophy would have been pretty bare if humans were only allowed to speculate on matters they can actually “know”.