Is Darwin's Theory of Evolution True? Part 4.0

[rossum]

Creationism doesn’t. It assumes that living things were created from nothing at all, or as we have recently read, clay, or clouds of atoms. If living things were created out of other living things, well bless me, that’s not creation, that’s evolution!

I disagree. Is the Christian Creator a living creator or a dead/non-living creator? If God is a “living God” then the origin of life is the same as the origin of God: is is assumed.

A living God cannot create the first living thing. At most He/She/It can create the second living thing.

rossum

 

[rossum]

God is not viewed as a biological creature, but a transcendent being who upholds existence.

Is God alive? Or is God non-living/dead/whatever.

Would you consider an immaterial alien entity a suitable explanation for the origin of life?

rossum

 

[Aloysium]

Is the Christian Creator a living creator or a dead/non-living creator? If God is a “living God” then the origin of life is the same as the origin of God: is is assumed.
A living God cannot create the first living thing. At most He/She/It can create the second living thing.

I have been under the impression that such considerations were thought silly by Buddhists. I guess I hang out with the wrong people. They do seem rather pointless. Obviously it hasn’t helped you know Him.

 

[IWantGod]

I’m doubtful modern humans share a common ancestor. Adam and Eve were special creations. Hominids were animals.

You Jest.
…

 

[Kei]

No, an immaterial alien would not be sufficient as explanation for life (well, (s)he could be a sufficient explanation for life on earth, but it raises the question of where the immaterial alien came from).

But God is not a mere immaterial alien. You’re viewing God in a small way. Existence passes away. He does not. We begin, but He has no beginning. All that is is from Him. God is not a mere creature that is on a higher level than us, but the author of life. In a sense, because He is, He is a living God. But He is totally different than life that is started and is dependent upon Him, that which is necessary.

He is not like us that He should start, that He should lie, or that He should die…except in His own choosing for our sake, the latter He has done.

God is the source of all, and not dependent upon any thing.

 

[Richca]

I’m sensing reluctance about the mechanism of creation here, if I may say so.

The mechanism of creation is God himself or his Word, God is the creator of his creation. Is this not what Genesis 1 is teaching us? The six days of creation is God’s work, his activity, upon which he rests on the seventh day. The active cause of the creation of the heavens and the earth, the work of distinction (1-3 days), and the work of adornment (4-6 days) or filling the heavens, the earth, and the seas with various kinds of beings or creatures is God. The work of creation ends on the sixth day with the creation of man. Subsequently, God sustains and guides his creation by his providence.

We find in each of the six days of creation that it is either prefaced by (days 2-6) or said ‘And God said’ let there be this or let there be that. It is through God’s command and his Word that the work of the six days takes place. So, we read in Psalm 33: 6-9:
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle;
he put the deeps in storehouses.
Let all the earth fear the Lord,
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!
For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood forth.

The word which God spoke in Genesis 1 is the Word of God through whom all things were made as St John tells us in the beginning of his gospel.
Christ is the Wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24). In Psalm 104:24, we read ‘O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.’ Christian tradition applies to Christ the personified wisdom of proverbs 8, the ‘master craftsman’ ( or workman v. 30) who was beside the Lord in the creation and formation of the world.

“And God said, 'Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds…” (Gen. 1:24). The earth did not produce the various land animals by itself but by God’s command and his Word. Here we can envisage, for example, the Word of God directly forming the various kinds or species of land animals from matter represented by the earth or soil that God had already created. Analogously, we can consider God as a potter as it were giving form to a lump of clay as we read in Isaias 64:8:
'Yet, O Lord, thou art our Father;
we are the clay, and thou art our potter;
we are all the work of thy hand.

In reference to this, we may also consider Wisdom 11:17 ‘For your all-powerful hand, which created the world out of formless matter…’ i.e., the world and everything in it.

 

[Richca]

(continued)

We can also envisage here in the production and creation of the land animals on the sixth day for example, not the creation of the earth or the matter out of which the animals are made for the earth already existed, but the creation of the substantial forms of the various species of the land animals as well as the organization by God of the already created matter of the various species.

In short, the ‘mechanism’ of creation as it were in the production or creation of the various kinds of plants and animals in my opinion and reading of Genesis and the rest of the Bible is God himself, his direct activity and work, analogous to the products or works of art produced by a human potter or craftsman except that in God’s case he not only created and fashioned the various forms of things but the matter as well out of which corporeal things are made. St Thomas Aquinas said that art imitates nature in that as the products of human art are the work of human intelligence so the whole of creation is the product of the Divine art and the Divine intelligence.

 

[edwest211]

Surely not, my good sir/person.

Ed

 

[edwest211]

Isaiah 28:16

New International Version
"You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “You did not make me”? Can the pot say to the potter, “You know nothing”?

New Living Translation
"How foolish can you be? He is the Potter, and he is certainly greater than you, the clay! Should the created thing say of the one who made it, “He didn’t make me”? Does a jar ever say, “The potter who made me is stupid”?

English Standard Version
"You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?

 

[Techno2000]

Hugh_Farey:

I’m sensing reluctance about the mechanism of creation here, if I may say so.

The mechanism of creation is God himself or his Word, God is the creator of his creation. Is this not what Genesis 1 is teaching us? The six days of creation is God’s work, his activity, upon which he rests on the seventh day. The active cause of the creation of the heavens and the earth, the work of distinction (1-3 days), and the work of adornment (4-6 days) or filling the heavens, the earth, and the seas with various kinds of beings or creatures is God. The work of creation ends on the sixth day with the creation of man. Subsequently, God sustains and guides his creation by his providence.

We find in each of the six days of creation that it is either prefaced by (days 2-6) or said ‘And God said’ let there be this or let there be that. It is through God’s command and his Word that the work of the six days takes place. So, we read in Psalm 33: 6-9:
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle;
he put the deeps in storehouses.
Let all the earth fear the Lord,
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!
For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood forth.

The word which God spoke in Genesis 1 is the Word of God through whom all things were made as St John tells us in the beginning of his gospel.
Christ is the Wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24). In Psalm 104:24, we read ‘O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.’ Christian tradition applies to Christ the personified wisdom of proverbs 8, the ‘master craftsman’ ( or workman v. 30) who was beside the Lord in the creation and formation of the world.

“Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds…” (Gen. 1:24). The earth did not produce the various land animals by itself but by God’s command and his Word. Here we can envisage, for example, the Word of God directly forming the various kinds or species of land animals from matter represented by the earth or soil that God had already created. Analogously, we can consider God as a potter as it were giving form to a lump of clay as we read in Isaias 64:8:
'Yet, O Lord, thou art our Father;
we are the clay, and thou art our potter;
we are all the work of thy hand.

In reference to this, we may also consider Wisdom 11:17 ‘For your all-powerful hand, which created the world out of formless matter…’ i.e., the world and everything in it.

…

 

[Techno2000]

(continued)

We can also envisage here in the production and creation of the land animals on the sixth day for example, not the creation of the earth or the matter out of which the animals are made for the earth already existed, but the creation of the substantial forms of the various species of the land animals as well as the organization by God of the already created matter of the various species.

In short, the ‘mechanism’ of creation as it were in the production or creation of the various kinds of plants and animals in my opinion and reading of Genesis and the rest of the Bible is God himself, his direct activity and work, analogous to the products or works of art produced by a human potter or craftsman except that in God’s case he not only created and fashioned the various forms of things but the matter as well out of which corporeal things are made. St Thomas Aquinas said that art imitates nature in that as the products of human art are the work of human intelligence so the whole of creation is the product of the Divine art and the Divine intelligence.

…

 

[benjamin1973]

Step 1) Call all behaviors or physical traits “programming”
Step 2) Demand that programming, by definition, refer only to the willful act of a sentient programmer
Step 3) Therefore conclude that all behaviors or physical traits are the willful act of a sentient programmer

Problem: begging the question is an instant and obvious logical failure. If you define everything in terms of a sentient creator, then your conclusion that a sentient creator did everything isn’t a discovery about reality-- it’s just a reformulation of your axioms.

 

[benjamin1973]

I +1 you for finding such a relevant quote. +1 more if you came up with it on your own.

 

[rossum]

But God is not a mere immaterial alien.

From my point of view He is roughly equivalent. God’s eternal existence is assumed, not proved or evidenced. In Buddhism all the gods have a beginning and an end, like everything else.

God is the source of all, and not dependent upon any thing.

I disagree. God as “source of all” is dependent on the existence of some “all”, otherwise He would be “source of nothing”. Similarly “God as creator” is dependent on the existence of creation. Twenty billion years ago, God was not “creator of the universe” because there was no universe. Many of God’s properties are dependent on external entities actually existing.

rossum

 

[Aloysium]

Because this exists now, within eternity, it always exists. Twenty billion years ago is an illusion, an idea having no substance. It is far better to sit in silence, awake and participating in the truth.

 

[Aloysium]

Step 1) Call all behaviors or physical traits “programming”
Step 2) Demand that programming, by definition, refer only to the willful act of a sentient programmer
Step 3) Therefore conclude that all behaviors or physical traits are the willful act of a sentient programmer

Problem: begging the question is an instant and obvious logical failure. If you define everything in terms of a sentient creator, then your conclusion that a sentient creator did everything isn’t a discovery about reality-- it’s just a reformulation of your axioms.

I’m no philosopher, having dropped a 101 course on logic about half a century ago, but I think you’ve got it wrong here. Petitio principii (I’m trying to sound learned here.) is a fallacy in logic involving the use of a premise to support itself. To disagree with the premises does not invalidate an argument.

The premises I would say are:

• all things that exist can be considered programming, or data, or information.
• all progamming requires a programmer, all data or information, a knower and speaker
• therefore, all that exists does so because of a programmer, knower or speaker

Since one does not exist through one’s own will, something other than oneself causes that existence. It either knows we exist or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, how is it that we can know? The premises may be wrong in that we may not exist, there may be no other to our individual existence or perhaps, we know nothing. There are likely others but latter possibilities would suggest mental illness.

 

[Kei]

From my point of view He is roughly equivalent. God’s eternal existence is assumed, not proved or evidenced. In Buddhism all the gods have a beginning and an end, like everything else.

Yet Christians are not Buddhists, and we have not many disinterested or limited gods, but the Lord, who is indeed revealed to be eternal.

I disagree. God as “source of all” is dependent on the existence of some “all”, otherwise He would be “source of nothing”. Similarly “God as creator” is dependent on the existence of creation. Twenty billion years ago, God was not “creator of the universe” because there was no universe. Many of God’s properties are dependent on external entities actually existing.

Well, rather than property, it is like a descriptor. But beyond that, your statement is only true if you view it from a linear standpoint; from the standpoint of all time, God has always been the Creator. Though one must wonder if there is a “before” time aside from the depths of eternity. The fact of the universe’s “young” age of some billions of years as opposed to an eternal one demonstrates the fact of God’s not being dependent upon creation.

 

[benjamin1973]

The danger here is in conflating different definitions of terms. You don’t want to go from “X can be considered Y” and “Y is defined as Z” to arrive at “X is Z.”

The debating trick there (and its counterpart fallacy) is a process like this.

1. Call something “programming” because it involves behaviors which an organism did not learn itself-- i.e. it comes from DNA or some other influence outside the organism’s conscious control;
2. Point out that in computer programming, there’s always a sentient (i.e. human) programmer.
3. Conclude, therefore, that all behaviors which an animal did not learn itself are the result of a sentient programmer.

The problem is that innate behaviors and computers programs are very different things indeed, so the analogy drawn by using the conflated term, “programming,” leads to a conclusion which has not actually been sufficiently supported.

Scientists do this as well:

1. Define “consciousness” as an ability to process and interact in an environment.
2. Demonstrate that robots can do this without a soul
3. Conclude that the soul is irrelevant to our conscious experience of the world.

The problem is that the scientist is defining the soul out of the concept of consciousness, but ignoring the important question: “Okay. . . but what about my experience of what it’s like to be in love or to enjoy a cup of coffee?”

 

[rossum]

But beyond that, your statement is only true if you view it from a linear standpoint;

Since time is part of reality, then if you need to ignore time, then you are ignoring part of reality. To me, that is not a sensible or wise attitude.

from the standpoint of all time, God has always been the Creator.

No. There cannot be a creator if there in no creation. At best God might have been a creator-to-be before creation. In a cause-effect relationship, there can be no cause without an effect, and conversely no effect without a cause. See Nagarjuna for a more detailed analysis.

rossum

 

[Kei]

Since time is part of reality, then if you need to ignore time, then you are ignoring part of reality. To me, that is not a sensible or wise attitude.

Calling Him the Creator is a descriptor, so what you’re trying to do here is a bit unclear. God is not dependent upon creation, so even if He would have never created anything He still would be, His Nature perhaps inclining to creation notwithstanding.

But, the “ignoring reality” part isn’t true. God is timeless. Our time started to exist at the moment of the big bang.
What you’re doing is trying to limit God by the qualities of the universe; it’s like saying a painter must be unmoving and static because his painting is so. The Universe indeed does offer an insight to God, but limiting Him on this concept is not defensible.

A being cannot be said to have created something if the being hasn’t created anything. That is true. But, you’re applying our time outside of its effect; God is not limited by our time.