Does God's Will For Our Existence Rule Out The Idea That Our Physical Being Came About By Chance?

[IWantGod]

I think there are two positions concerning the chance of something coming to exist.

1. Things do occur naturally by chance, but the outcome is inevitable in the great chain of being.
2. Things occur naturally by chance, and might never of happened at all.

Concerning the existence of our biological nature, does position 2, as i suspect, present a problem for catholic theology.

 

[midori]

What about a third way, that’s kind of in-between, where God wills someone’s existence, but allows our choices to influence how that existence comes about?

ie, suppose God wills for “me” to exist. But there are a number of possible existences my existence can take, depending on the choices of my potential parents. Eventually, “I” will have the opportunity to exist upon the planet-- but my future existence depends upon the actions of others. God might have a preference, but if my preferred parents don’t cooperate with God’s will— I may go on to have my life in some other time, some other place, with some other family.

 

[IWantGod]

ie, suppose God wills for “me” to exist. But there are a number of possible existences my existence can take, depending on the choices of my potential parents. Eventually, “I” will have the opportunity to exist upon the planet-- but my future existence depends upon the actions of others. God might have a preference, but if my preferred parents don’t cooperate with God’s will— I may go on to have my life in some other time, some other place, with some other family.

This is true, and that is why i made a distinction between our physical being and what we believe as Catholics to be the soul.

But i’m thinking in a more absolute sense, as in, the entire possibility of a human race coming to exist and even life itself. There are other questions one might ask. For example, is it even necessary that we would be a “human-race”, since it could be the case that our souls could of taken on the physical form of another species had the chance arised.

In a more absolute sense, if you are not going for divine intervention, then position number 1 (the inevitability of an occurrence) would be the one i would choose, since i think that position number 2 implies that God was willing to allow for the possibility that we would never come to exist (physically speaking)

In other-words, without an intervention, i think our existence was simply a question of how many universes it would take for us to get there, since the outcome is inevitable anyway.

 

[tafan2]

Most certainly. God willed exact outcome of His creation throughout all eternity. His plan is not dependent on chance (or our free will). From God’s perspective, there is no such think as chance, or randomness.

 

[tafan2]

preface: Please don’t see this as a continuation of our discussion yesterday when I described souls of plants and animals.

You guys are a little off base on the idea of our soul, IMO. We are not a human being who “has” a soul. Of a human who “has” a body. We are a body and soul. That is a man. God does not will a soul into existence and then wait around to find it a suitable body.

 

[midori]

God does not will a soul into existence and then wait around to find it a suitable body.

No one’s arguing for preexistence, but anyone who’s ever created anything will tell you that if the idea happens before it ever is physically manifested on a human level-- sometimes days, or months, or years, or decades before— how much more so would that be for God, who exists outside of time?

I can choose today to dye my hair purple. Now I’m a purple-haired American woman living in the 21st century— but being purple-haired isn’t an intrinsic part of my existence. It’s an attribute, but it doesn’t make me “me”. I’d take it a step further and say that I could have just as easily been “myself” if I hadn’t been born an American, or lived in this time and place, but this time and place were prepared for me to fit into it, like a puzzle piece. If I wasn’t here, there would be a gap in so many things.

My parents thought I might have had an elder sibling, but weren’t sure. It might have been a missed period, or it might have been a miscarriage— I never asked, and they never went into details. But if that person had existed, I would never have existed as “myself”— purple hair or not, American or not, 21st century or not.

If God had allowed that person to exist-- he wouldn’t have said, “Well, I guess there’s no need for Midori.” Instead, I would have existed… in another time or another place, with another family. And I still would have been “me”, but all the variables associated with my existence would have been different.

 

[tafan2]

Two problems with your post:. Only God can create things, we cannot. We might design, build, envision, but we do not creat. Second problem:there is no “before” for God. He exists in eternity, He never waits or experiences a before or after. He does not just sit outside of our universe and able to see any specific time He desires to see, all time is ever present to Him.

 

[midori]

Perhaps philosophers don’t create things-- they only rehash and rearrange old ideas and pretend they’re new-- but don’t pooh-pooh on the artists by telling Michelangelo he didn’t create the Sistine Chapel ceiling-- all he did was take minerals and rearrange them. Or by telling Beethoven he didn’t create the Ode to Joy-- all he did was take sounds and write down instructions for others to play them back in a certain pattern. Or by telling CS Lewis he didn’t actually create the Narnia books; he merely rearranged a lot of words that already existed.

Just as people are made in the image and likeness of God, one of the ways we reflect him is in our desire to create, even though we do it in a limited, imperfect, clumsy way.

And I agree, God has no “before.” He’s an eternal Now.

 

[tafan2]

Perhaps philosophers don’t create things-- they only rehash and rearrange old ideas and pretend they’re new-- but don’t pooh-pooh on the artists by telling Michelangelo he didn’t create the Sistine Chapel ceiling-- all he did was take minerals and rearrange them. Or by telling Beethoven he didn’t create the Ode to Joy-- all he did was take sounds and write down instructions for others to play them back in a certain pattern. Or by telling CS Lewis he didn’t actually create the Narnia books; he merely rearranged a lot of words that already existed.

While I can’t speak for Beethoven, I would certainly hazard a guess that both Michelangelo and CS Lewis would be appalled at the idea that their works were creations in the same sense as God’s creations. Two different meansings of the word, and we are talking about how God creates, so I will stick to my statement: only God creates things.

And I agree, God has no “before.” He’s an eternal Now.

Good, but that is the problem with your speculation about God willing us into existence and then waits for the right time for to actually create us. That is not how eternity or God works. It is the same problem with @IWantGod 's statement:

In other-words, without an intervention, i think our existence was simply a question of how many universes it would take for us to get there, since the outcome is inevitable anyway.

God’s whole plan for our creation came to being in eternity, it included every choice we made, every mutation that occurs in nature. He does not wait and see how things develop and then say “hey this species would work great to be the rational beings made in my image”, or he does not wait to say “hey this couple would make a great parents for Tom”.

So if we look at the two options in the OP

1. Yes, the outcome of it all is inevitable.
2. Nothing that God ever willed, due to the chance of nature “might never have happened at all”

And as to your third option
3) God does not will our exististence, but allows our choices to influses how that comes about

 

[tafan2]

@IWantGod,
The following website might answer some of your questions and address some of your ideas:

http://www.thomisticevolution.org/