God and Evolution of the universe (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, September 22, 2019, 10:56 (1676 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I agree that something or someone pre-existed this universe, but how did a 'mass of materials' create the complex rules of the universe by itself?

dhw: How can an inventively conscious mind, with the power to create a universe and all its laws, simply have existed for ever? If this astonishing, all-knowing and inexplicable mind can be your first cause, then so can the astonishing, ever changing and inexplicable mass of materials. The first offers top down evolution, and the second offers bottom up.

DAVID: The mass of materials did not exist before the Big Bang. So how is there bottom up?

Even if the BB theory is true, how can you possibly know it was not caused by a mass of materials? It is absurd to assume that nothing preceded and caused the BB. You assume that it was preceded and caused by an immaterial, eternal, all-knowing mind. The alternative is that eternal materials caused the BB.

dhw: So apparently your God designed all the billions of heavenly bodies extant and extinct because every one of them was and is necessary to create and support life on Planet Earth. I don’t buy it.

DAVID: The elements necessary for life were born in the stars ( your countryman Fred Hoyle did buy it). I still believe God creates by evolving what He wants: universe, Earth, life. All are known patterns of logical development by God, the Creator.

dhw: Of course the elements were born in the stars, and that would be true of bottom up evolution through an eternally changing mass of materials. If your God exists, though, and if one believes in evolution, as we do, then he clearly chose evolution as his method! But you persist in leaving out the theory which is not logical: namely, that he specially designed every single non-Earth-related star and every single non-human related life form, lifestyle and natural wonder for the sole purpose of specially designing H. sapiens, and you have no idea why.

DAVID: Same old mantra. Remember, I don't question God's decisions. History tells us what He created, not why He did it that way. It is your concept of a humanized God that raises questions.

You don’t question your INTERPRETATION of his decisions, which is that everything he created was geared to the single purpose of designing H. sapiens. I offer several different interpretations, all of which you agree fit in perfectly with the history. Your only objection is that although they are comprehensible in terms of human logic, your interpretation is right, and so God cannot possibly think in what we humans regard as a logical way. How do you know that?