The talks from the BioLogos 2022 Conference are now available on YouTube
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Thanks
Pity I missed that in case it was interactive. would have been interesting to challenge some of the folks about how to understand miracles and what the difference is between the supernatural and the unnatural.
I’ll bite. What do you see as the difference between the super- and un- natural? I’ve often felt that Christianity underestimates the potency of the purely natural, though that is not so uniformly or strongly true here.
thanks, The problem is the conflation of natural with normal and supernatural with abnormal or paranormal. If one stays with the terms physical and metaphysical it is easier to understand that for example the realm of mathematics or logic is not physical but metaphysical as it transcends the physical realm. So is information as for example the information content of a word can not be derived from its physical properties as John Lennox so eloquently describes it.
So basically natural in the way symbolic language is natural, though seemingly only natural to us on this planet. Language doesn’t depend on atoms for its existence though it does depend on living beings with certain capabilities who do require those atoms.
But in what then do you think God has His existence? I assume you, unlike me, believe God comes first and is responsible for the existence of everything else. I think God only comes first in importance but requires ourselves as a substrate.
do you think chickens would exist if we were not there, or that a tree falling makes a sound even if there is no one there to hear it? If so, why would you think an ultimate cause could only exist if we think about it?
As God is to me the source of reality he transcends it in all directions
Whereas I think God is only necessary for our capacity to know and represent the world and even ourselves in our experience. Of course I don’t begin with the assumption that God is the source of the empirical world, only its reality in our experience. I just start with the fact that God belief exists and has for as long as we’ve been recognizably human. I don’t think that is a mistake I just think our capacity to conceptualize consciousness has been limited for a long time and really is still. Mythos and metaphors require real (empirical) world referents and so it is problematic.
Our worldview since the beginning of our existence is based on the concept of causality by being able to formulate the question why. however, the conept of causality is older than humanity as if we look back in time it precedes us. Even animals can understand causality by their experience, albeit to a more limited extend, but those limits are also visible in the young members of our species. The question is if we credit the cause with a higher intelligence than us. This is clearly where some fail and is the classical concept of the fall as in assuming our own judgement about what’s good and bad, clearly the source of all suffering, as it creates the conflict between “self” centred expectations and experiences of reality.
Granted but the sphere of influence is possibly narrower than traditionally conceived in a literal sense even while making possible a much wider perspective for us than we can achieve otherwise. Possibly not but I’m not jumping to that conclusion. Just conversing here. Not selling anything.
@Dale i don’t recall what you wrote just that it was rude and pompous. Bye.
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