An Evolving God

[Lestat]

One of the most popular assertions that theists make about why there *must* be a Creator, is that the universe is too beautifully complex to have happened by accident or on it's own. Therefore, a creator is not only perfectly reasonable, but it is indeed mandatory.

Of course, they go on to shoot themselves in the foot when trying to account for the very straight forward and reasonable question: "If God created the universe, then what created an even more complicated God?". Unfortunately for theists, this isn't a small proplem. And it is one that just cannot be answered without resorting to the type of circular logic that most non-believers abhor. But they needn't have this problem, because there's actually a very easy out...

All they have to do is claim that God evolved like everything else. Non-believers would have a much harder time responding to that. If the universe (or life on earth), could pop into existence from nothing, then it can't be entirely ununreasonable that God could have done so as well. The real problem lies with the claim that God has always existed in His present form. This of course, isn't reasonable by any logical means. But if God were to have somehow continually evolved and conquered His way to becoming the omnipotent, omniscient being He is today, it at least follows logically.

Of course, there are still many unanswered problems that non-believers will be sure to point out, but at least you have the beginnings of a more reasonable hypothisis. On the other hand, claiming that God always existed in His present form, requires a suspension of logic that no rationalist is willing to make. Nor should it be made.

[chezlaw]

but that concedes the argument that a designer being necessary isn't a solution to the problem of complex things.

You're right its harder to argue against but that's because its correct.

chez

[jogsxyz]

God evolves, hah.
That explains how Jesus who was born Middle-Eastern
became white. Jesus must have evolved also.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
God evolves, hah.
That explains how Jesus who was born Middle-Eastern
became white. Jesus must have evolved also.

[/ QUOTE ]
Not 'god evolves' is correct

its the conceding of the argument that is correct.

chez

[Lestat]

[ QUOTE ]
but that concedes the argument that a designer being necessary isn't a solution to the problem of complex things.



[/ QUOTE ]

For some reason, I'm having a hard time understanding the above. All complex things have simple beginnings and emanate from design, no?

[Taraz]

[ QUOTE ]
One of the most popular assertions that theists make about why there *must* be a Creator, is that the universe is too beautifully complex to have happened by accident or on it's own. Therefore, a creator is not only perfectly reasonable, but it is indeed mandatory.

Of course, they go on to shoot themselves in the foot when trying to account for the very straight forward and reasonable question: "If God created the universe, then what created an even more complicated God?". Unfortunately for theists, this isn't a small proplem. And it is one that just cannot be answered without resorting to the type of circular logic that most non-believers abhor.


[/ QUOTE ]

I really don't this is a big problem for believers at all. They constantly assert that God is not a physical being within our Universe, so it doesn't really make sense to claim that he must have evolved like everything else. How can we put constraints on something in an entirely different realm of existence?

The bigger problem is that they claim to know about his true nature. Instead of claiming that He "always was" they should just say that there is no way to know. If you claim that his essence is unknowable or something like that then you don't run into these problems. As soon as you claim some sort of certainty you open yourself up to lots of criticism.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
All they have to do is claim that God evolved like everything else. Non-believers would have a much harder time responding to that. If the universe (or life on earth), could pop into existence from nothing, then it can't be entirely ununreasonable that God could have done so as well. The real problem lies with the claim that God has always existed in His present form. This of course, isn't reasonable by any logical means. But if God were to have somehow continually evolved and conquered His way to becoming the omnipotent, omniscient being He is today, it at least follows logically.

[/ QUOTE ]

This isn't how evolution works. The idea behind evolution is that you have a bunch of "things" with variable heritable traits, and those things have differential reproductive success based on the heritable traits. Even if this could somehow be applied to God, omnipotence would have to be one of the heritable traits - that's nonsensical. You can't get infinity out of a finite system, ever.

In terms of "popping into existence from nothing," the point of the theist argument is that this can't happen. If God could just "pop in" from nowhere, then so could the universe - and therefore the complexity of the universe doesn't imply the existence of God.

Now, the idea of God as an extremely powerful but limited being makes more sense if God came from "somewhere" (perhaps from an iterative development process like evolution). But the idea of God as an absolute being makes less sense that way.

If God did evolve, that implies a number of things. There must be (or have been) other gods. God has no ultimate justification or mandate. Human beings may come to rival God in power. And God is probably not "complete" yet. Most theists have no desire to accept these consequences of such a belief.

[RJT]

Stat,

Your PM in-box is full.

RJT

[Lestat]

<font color="blue"> Most theists have no desire to accept these consequences of such a belief.
</font>

Maybe I fail to see any real negative of such consequences.

Your point that if God could just pop into existence, so could the unviverse, thereby rendering God unnecessary, makes less sense the way it stands now as a theistic argument. That is to say, if God could always have been, so too could the universe. This is by far, the weaker of the two arguments, and the more easily batted down by non-believers. -IMO

Again, I'm not sure why it's necessary for God to have reached completeness. As far as we're concerned, He may still possess omnipotence and omniscience, since we our ourselves are not (yet?) Gods. There may very well have been other gods or entities that our current God kept conquering and evolving from. If true, this if anything, would only add to His greatness.

I'm not sure about the heritable traits which you speak of. The only thing we know is that evolution is true. But do we know for sure that evolution might not take on different or stange and unkown forms? Must there be reproduction in the way we think of it? Might there not be some other form or way to take on heritable traits that we have not yet been exposed to or seen?

Of course, I'm making this all up as I go. But an evolving supreme being is much more believable to me. There are less logical problems to be worked out. There are still problems to be sure. But you're eliminate the one major flaw in an all powerful God who has always existed. Mainly, you avoid creating an even bigger more perplexing problem in the process of answering a preceding one. The way I see it, that's the first problem most theists have.

[RJT]

I don’t think your alternate argument for the theist does much.

1) If God exists, I doubt he has any physical nature. Evolution is all about matter, isn’t it? Unless of course, for example, our minds can evolving independent of our physical make-up?
2) I don’t think anyone who believes in evolution thinks that life evolved from nothing. Life evolved from matter. (Now the Universe itself is a different story.)


It seems to me all that you are doing here is coming up with (another?) myth. Coating it with evolution speak, is not going to make it more palpable to the atheist.