An Evolving God

[Lestat]

<font color="blue"> 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?
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This addresses a whole set of subset questions I have about after life. For instance, exactly what is it that theists imagine will survive their own deaths? If not physical, then what? Personality? What about a 6 month old infant? What about those who's personality has changed within their lives or with personality disorders, etc.?

But back to this thread, answering the question where did everything come from with a God who has always existed in His present form, creates a very significant issue for the logically minded. It creates a bigger problem than you started with. Having a God evolve eliminates at least this one very big problem. That's all I'm saying.

[RJT]

What I am saying is that, it seems to me, it only makes the concept of a God more relevant to your mindset. It doesn’t seem to have any more logic than “my God”. Evolved from what and how are at least 2 questions that are no more answerable than the standard God idea?

Also, I don’t really understand your problem with the concept of a God always existing.

Do you think the Universe always existed?

If yes, then why can you not apply the same thinking to a God always existing?

If no, then we start to think how it started. If it evolved, then we have to find a concept of how matter/energy can evolve from nothing.

If it didn't evolve then the Universe had a beginning. How then and/or by what or what means did it begin?

[Lestat]

<font color="blue">What I am saying is that, it seems to me, it only makes the concept of a God more relevant to your mindset. It doesn’t seem to have any more logic than “my God”. Evolved from what and how are at least 2 questions that are no more answerable than the standard God idea?
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The "from what and how?", are the only reasonable unanswerable questions a theist has going for him. Why? Because we cannot yet answer these very same question about the universe or the origin of life. So not being able to answer the what or how, is not a big deal. Certainly an atheist would have a hard time pressing this point when he can't hold himself to the same rigor when it comes to what or how the universe came about. Yet, he easily destroys your concept of God, because....

<font color="blue"> If yes, then why can you not apply the same thinking to a God always existing? </font>

This gets at the heart of where theistic logic goes sour, and if I might say, where theists seem to stop thinking period.

If you accept evolution (and I hope you do), then you understand that complicated things need simple beginnings. They don't just appear or arrive on the scene. So yes... It's quite a different thing to say, a god who is complicated enough to be all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-intelligent enough to design the universe and it's rules, is also the first, last, and only being of His kind. That's a HUGE problem and its logic is easily shot down by any rational thinking non-believer.

<font color="blue"> Do you think the Universe always existed? </font>

Being the agnostic that I am, of course I'm going to say I don't know. If forced to guess, I'd say no. But it doesn't matter.

<font color="blue"> If yes, then why can you not apply the same thinking to a God always existing?
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Again, because the universe didn't start out complicated, whereas the God you imagine did.

<font color="blue">If no, then we start to think how it started. If it evolved, then we have to find a concept of how matter/energy can evolve from nothing.
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This does not need to be answered for God, because we cannot yet answer it for the universe or origin of life.

<font color="blue">If it didn't evolve then the Universe had a beginning. How then and/or by what or what means did it begin? </font>

We don't know, but we can be almost positive that whatever beginning it had, it started off simple and became more complex only as time passed. You don't have to answer for how it began. We may never know. And you don't have to answer for how God began. That too (if He exists), may never be known. But if you're going to say that God started off as this complicated entity, you've got a problem. Whether you see it or not.

[RJT]

You seem to be arguing against something I am not arguing for in this particular thread.

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Do you think the Universe always existed?

Being the agnostic that I am, of course I'm going to say I don't know. If forced to guess, I'd say no. But it doesn't matter.

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Right, but you aren’t arguing against its possibility. Therefore you are not saying it is illogical to have always existed.

[Lestat]

Well, define universe. The universe we know today certainly didn't always exist. We know for a fact that it used to be much smaller and simpler. So I'm not sure what point you're trying to make RJT.

Is it that if the universe always existed, then so could've God? I agree, but NOT in their current form!

Is it that they both could've inexplicably popped into existence by some means we do not know about? Yes, but again, not in their current form.

I don't mean to be redundant, but I want to make sure you get my point. I am arguing that you must hold the same standard of logic when making claims about the existence of God as you do with anything else. Even if you want to give Him all the omnipotence and glory possible, the logic must stay the same.

[BTirish]

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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?".

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One needs to distinguish between "ontological" complexity (that is, being composed of parts) and the "complexity" by which it is hard for the human mind to understand a thing. Complexity is a matter of composition, of being made out of parts. Everything complex--composed of parts--requires some explanation for its existence. If God is complex in this sense, then of course there would need to be some explanation for His existence. But it's something else to say that God is "complex" in that He is hard for the human mind to understand. Just from normal experience, it's often the things that are simpler in themselves that are harder for the human mind to understand. Many of the most important equations in physics and theorems in mathematics are in themselves very simple. But understanding them and how they are related to the world is much more difficult than understanding how a car works.

The traditional philosophical answer to your question, if you're interested, is that God isn't complex at all. He is absolutely and perfectly simple, such that there is no composition whatsoever in Him. In this, God is completely unlike everything that He creates. Everything created is complex in some way.

In other words, the traditional conclusion isn't that the complex world requires, in order to explain it, an even more complicated Creator. It's that the complex universe can only be explained by a being that is uncreated and absolutely simple.

[Alex-db]

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The traditional philosophical answer to your question, if you're interested, is that God isn't complex at all. He is absolutely and perfectly simple, such that there is no composition whatsoever in Him.

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Surely nobody 'in philosophy' ever accepted this as an answer to anything? It doesn't say anything useful or meaningful, its just semantic misdirection.

[BTirish]

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The traditional philosophical answer to your question, if you're interested, is that God isn't complex at all. He is absolutely and perfectly simple, such that there is no composition whatsoever in Him.

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Surely nobody 'in philosophy' ever accepted this as an answer to anything? It doesn't say anything useful or meaningful, its just semantic misdirection.

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The only thing that's sure is that you haven't studied anything of the history of philosophy. The view that God is simple goes back at least to the neo-Platonists, and that God is pure act goes back to Aristotle.

Of course this doesn't prove that the view is true. But it's just ignorance to suggest that no philosopher could have thought that God is absolutely simple.

Anyway, what do you mean by saying that it's meaningless? Subfallen and I had a conversation some time ago in which it became clear that all he meant by the term was "verifiable by observation." Do you mean that, or something else?

And what the heck does it mean for a philosophical claim like this to be "useful"? It's either true or false.

[RJT]

But you aren’t suggesting the Universe evolves are you? Certainly it is/has changed. But, evolution relates to life form, not inanimate matter/energy.

[Alex-db]

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The traditional philosophical answer to your question, if you're interested, is that God isn't complex at all. He is absolutely and perfectly simple, such that there is no composition whatsoever in Him.

[/ QUOTE ]

Surely nobody 'in philosophy' ever accepted this as an answer to anything? It doesn't say anything useful or meaningful, its just semantic misdirection.

[/ QUOTE ]

The only thing that's sure is that you haven't studied anything of the history of philosophy. The view that God is simple goes back at least to the neo-Platonists, and that God is pure act goes back to Aristotle.

Of course this doesn't prove that the view is true. But it's just ignorance to suggest that no philosopher could have thought that God is absolutely simple.

Anyway, what do you mean by saying that it's meaningless? Subfallen and I had a conversation some time ago in which it became clear that all he meant by the term was "verifiable by observation." Do you mean that, or something else?

And what the heck does it mean for a philosophical claim like this to be "useful"? It's either true or false.

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As in, we don't know of anything that exists that fits this description, and we can't use that description to infer any other properties; so at the same time we are defining and using a label which has no meaning beforehand, and no meaning afterwards.

You're right my history of philosophy is weak, but I think that philosophy as bad as the above is easy to spot.

We could consider taking something (finitely) simple in the real world, then discussing how we could make it 'perfectly simple' then consider what properties it would have, and we wouldn't get anywhere. Chalking that failure up to limits in our own understanding, when its a term we made up, is semantic misdirection.