Since that sentence begins with IF I am not assuming anything. However since everyday is a test of the rationality of the universe. There is no need to assume it since it is being proven on a minute by minute as we use the computer and internet, because this is the basis of all science. and rtechnology We will all know if the universe becomes irrational.
I did not say that no one has disproven the claim the God is the Rational Designer, but that you have the option to try to disprove that logical assertion.
There are many kinds of evidence. You choose not to believe that which contradicts your beliefs.
Do you think that there is any evidence that the universe was created by an Intelligence that is beyond human?
Is there any evidence that humans have needs beyond the physical, that is spiritual and psychological needs?
I was not asking about independent and verifiable evidence. I was asking about your experience.
My experience is that the natural world is rational. Is it your experience that the natural world is irrational? Do you live in a world which is very different from that in which I live, where everything is not rational, does not operate as to natural law?
From what you are saying it appears that the answer is Yes. If so, that is too bad.
“Rational means the product of thought, not the ability to think. The process of evolution demonstrates that it is rationally structured, as opposed to random, which indicates that it is the product of thought.”
The problem is that you slide from one definition to the other as if you haven’t done so. For example, if I say that nature is rational then you will suddenly shift your definition and say, “AHA!!! You agree with me that nature is a product of thought”. Sorry, but I am not playing the shifting definitions game.
Look, if you think that the universe is rational, but not the product of thought, then all you have to do is say so.
There is no shifting definitions game. The word rational is based on the Latin verb to think. It indicates qualities that are based on rational thinking.
To be sure I believe with good reason I think that the universe and humanity are designed rationally by the rational God/YHWH found in the Bible in some good part because science has revealed that the universe is rationally structured and governed by rational natural and moral laws.
I make that connection, but just because I do does not mean that you must or must not make that connection. I am not telling you what to do. All I am asking is if you find on the basis of you experience and the experience of others that you know from science, that nature is rational and orderly?
I will say that we can understand how the universe works by applying human reason, and that the universe appears to operate consistently through space and time. Attach whatever word you would like to that definition.
I fully accept that you are being sincere in what you express, so there isn’t a problem. What I was focusing on was just the construction of the arguments and how they compare to the rules of logic. Also, I am not going down the road of saying that theists and/or Christians are illogical. I am only looking at the arguments presented and no farther.
It’s funny that you claim theists don’t employ skepticism (or logic) in coming to faith while you yourself don’t seem to be overly skeptical of a universe coming from ontological nothingness, which you have to have faith in if not attributing it to God. Here is what serious skeptic David Hume said about such prospects: “I have never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without cause.” You seem to have faith in the anti-theistic physicists who make those claims, while the majority of big-name physicists like George F.R. Ellis have said similar things to his response to Kraus’ book A universe from Nothing - Why there is something.
"...presenting untested speculative theories of how things came into existence...". Referring to the entities Krauss assumes to exist, Ellis says "He does not explain in what way these entities could have pre-existed the coming into being of the universe, why they should have existed at all, or why they should have had the form they did. And he gives no experimental or observational process whereby we could test these vivid speculations of the supposed universe-generation mechanism. How indeed can you test what existed before the universe existed? You can’t. Thus what he is presenting is not tested science."
So if we have to assume things that don’t exist, how is that any more logical than assuming God? At least God has an explanation for His existence, which makes Him a more, or at least, “as logical” an explanation than something that we know doesn’t exist and would somehow have to exist pre-spacetime, And if we can’t put to test the question of what existed before the universe, the 2 logical alternatives are God and nothing. But everything in this universe, from experience and science, tells us that something can’t come from nothing. It’s not logical. So it is logical to conclude the universe was created by something, and most people instinctively understand this to be God (or the divine).
I didn’t claim that everyone felt the divine, but that almost everyone either has in some fashion or acknowledges it’s existence and/or the necessity of it’s existence. That’s factual.
Human desires, specifically for here the desires to know where we came from, why we are here and where we will end up are real, and it is a fact that these desires encompass the vast majority across generations and cultures. Whether they reflect, “reality” or not is another debate.
The very same thing can be said of the atheist position, that is that it is logical to attribute this universe of consciousness, intelligence, order, beauty, complexity, etc. to literally, “nothing”. In the end, the debate of whether the universe is from God or nothing isn’t one of a strictly, “logical” analysis. You say that there is no proof that the universe is from God and claiming that it is isn’t logically based on the evidence, but the alternatives are no more, “logical” (much less IMO, obviously).
Notice I never said the above points, “prove” God. The god of the bible is outside the universe and can’t be proven that way. However, for most of humanity, the universe, the sense of the spiritual, the sense of purpose and of eternity, the longing for real answers all point to God. And this question simply can’t be digitally qualified as, “logical” or, “not logical”.
I have said over and over that I don’t know where the universe came from. How does “I don’t know” require faith?
You are claiming that something can not emerge from nothing. I am curious to see if you can demonstrate that this is true.
That would be the fallacy of the false dichotomy. There is a third option: the universe came from something.
Examples?
I say that leprechauns create rainbows. It is now a fact that I said that. Does it mean that leprechauns creating rainbows is now a fact, or that it is logical?
I know you asked this question of Roger, but it seemed to be directed to Christians more broadly, so I thought I’d jump in with a couple of thoughts.
First off, Roger had a good answer, I think.
I would add to this that while the Bible certainly has a high anthropology, or a high view of humanity, that is not to say that God devalues his other creatures. I think God has some kind of relationship to all of his creatures. He creates them, delights in them, provides for them, they worship him, etc.
So I imagine that God reveled in every moment of that 13.5BY, not constantly checking his watch, as it were, just biding the time till humanity could come and make things interesting, but rather, lovingly tending to every creature along the way, never hurried.
I sometimes (not in this conversation) hear skeptics talk about the massive and seemingly pointless animal suffering that evolution requires… but I never hear about the even more massive amount of joyful animal life entailed by it. It seems to me that if all you look at in natural history is natural selection by death and predation, then of course you’ll think negatively of evolutionary creation’s track record. But this is a drastically reductionist view of the lived reality of zillions of living things over billions of years. Those of us who trust in a good God even in the face of the death and darkness of this life can surely see that same good God at work through billions of years of evolutionary history despite the death and darkness there.
Here’s the thing–no they’re not. They’re “something that pre-existed the universe” and “nothing”. If you want to tell me you believe God created the universe, that’s one thing, and you won’t likely get an argument from me. But if you want to tell me God (or any god for that matter) is one of the only two logical choices here, I am wont to point out that you have some more work to do.
I think it’s worth noting that when I say logical here, I mean a logical necessity that binds everyone equally. If you mean something else by it, such as you or many people find it convincing, you won’t get an argument from me either!
I didn’t answer Roger because I didn’t know how to respond to such a wild assertion. 13.5BY seems like a rational amount of time for a universe? Based on what? There is a 9BY gap between the Big Bang and the start of our Solar System. Was God creating somewhere else? Was he was reveling in black holes and stars being born and exploding?
You do realize that his other creatures didn’t appear on earth until a couple of billion years after it was formed. Unless God was simply delighting in single-cell and multi-celled organisms.
And in that time there were at least 5 extinction level events that lovingly wiped out entire species along with at least 5 major ice ages, Pangaea breaking apart, super volcanoes and on and on. And before you scream original sin; most of this happened before man was ever on the scene
It continues to amaze me how Christians try to shoehorn God into everything and amazingly it is all perfect. The universe is 13.5BY old? That’s exactly how long it takes to ‘bake’ a universe, it’s God’s perfect plan. Wait 9BY to create our solar system? Perfect! Create single-cell life and then wait a billion years? God wanted to delight in his creation. Extinction events? It’s God’s perfect plan to make way for new species.
My thoughts?
Are you familiar with Karl Popper’s axiom? A theory that explains everything, explains nothing.
Great point. And I try to point out that evolution works on a population level, not individual, so that any individual animal lives its life pretty much independent of wherever the tide of evolution is taking the population as a whole.
In other words, you intend your use of the term “logical” to mean “logical entailment”? … where “entailment” means there is no other logical alternative?
I imagine so, actually! Aren’t they beautiful? (I am aware that you will likely find my responses here hopelessly naive, but I can only give you my honest answers.)
And who am I to say what he was doing all this time? It would be the height of hubris for me to pretend that I have any kind of grasp on what he was doing over the BILLIONS of years before I showed up, across the breadth of the universe. For all I know, there is intelligent life in many pockets of our universe and he was lovingly overseeing all of them during that time. My point is not that this is the case but rather that it is prideful for me to pretend I have exhaustive knowledge of the universe such as would allow me to judge God for his timing.
Well, that’s exactly what I assume he was doing.
If we as scientifically minded humans can find awe and inspiration in such things, why should God not similarly delight in his own handiwork?
From Psalm 104:
24 O Lord, how many are Your works!
In wisdom You have made them all;
The earth is full of Your possessions.
25 There is the sea, great and broad,
In which are swarms without number,
Animals both small and great.
26 There the ships move along,
And Leviathan, which You have formed to sport in it.
27 They all wait for You
To give them their food in due season. 28 You give to them, they gather it up; You open Your hand, they are satisfied with good. 29 You hide Your face, they are dismayed; You take away their spirit, they expire And return to their dust.
30 You send forth Your Spirit, they are created;
And You renew the face of the ground.
31 Let the glory of the Lord endure forever;
Let the Lord be glad in His works;
I’m not one to facilely brush away suffering. It is real, and most admit it is one of the main challenges to faith in a good God. In my own life, I am grateful for the brief moment I have on this earth, and when my life expires, I figure I don’t really have the right to complain because I am grateful for the years I have been granted and none of us has the expectation of living a full life. Of course this is actually easier for me to say when I talk about me myself dying, and infinitely harder to say if, say, my child were dying.
Not sure I see your point in these items, honestly.
I don’t use original sin to explain this. I used to, when I was in college, but my views have evolved since then. (heh heh)
I didn’t suppose it would convince you. But you seemed to think that Christians had no answers for these questions, and that’s not true. At least, not for this Christian. Perhaps they’re not answers that satisfy you. Fine, I can appreciate that. But we Christians (some of us) are thinking about these issues, and we do not suppose that these billions of years are somehow a challenge to our faith.
Right. Otherwise why use the word? There’s a host of other language that could be used such as “reasonable” “believable” etc. etc. “Logical” does have more informal connotations, but the specific senses are common and important. If Richard does mean it in the stricter sense here, then I believe I have some useful points to make. If not, probably not–but it sounds like he does mean it strictly. He’s been using the word repeatedly and specifically. What’s logical impacts on every one by definition so it makes sense to avoid the equivocation if that’s not what’s intended.
I think that this can only be a “great point” if our skeptic was discussing something related to a median level of suffering or something like that. And maybe s/he was. But this is not the central reason why animal suffering is relevant in a serious discussion of “theology” and evolution/natural history. It is relevant because it was present and intense for the whole of animal history and therefore cannot be linked causally to a human-caused fall.
I think it is really weird to assert that “animal joy” can justify “animal suffering” given the ubiquity and immensity of the latter. But even if the ratio were somehow morally relevant or convincing, the challenge of natural evil would remain for accounts of the fall.
I do not think it is really the ratio, but rather the fact that they are intertwined and inseparable, such that you cannot have one without the other. I really have a difficult time understanding the YEC position of equating animal death to human spiritual and/or physical death, and equating animal death with evil, so scratch my head there also. I also am not sure about joy as an animal attribute is a thing, though I see my daughters dog chase a ball with what looks very close to joy.
I see a lot of elderly patients near the end of life, and there is a point where the pain of existence exceeds the pleasure of life, and death is welcomed rather than pushed away, so there is that.
Not real sure I know what natural evil is, other than what is within the hearts of man. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tidal waves and the sort are certainly tragic, but in my view are not evil, they just are.
The skeptic would wonder about this, I think. Biologically speaking, the two are probably “intertwined” to a large extent, but the skeptic’s point was probably about why an omnipotent god who brags about being good would be bound by such things. My point is that answering the skeptic as you have answered is probably missing her/his point about natural evil and conceptions of god. Your conceptions are different, great, but that probably wasn’t the context.
Natural evil is pretty well defined as a “theological” problem, and it is most definitely not within the hearts of man or woman. Wikipedia is a fine intro, as are articles right here at BL.