What is the Most Convincing Argument for God?

[HelenRose]

The problem for Catholics in allowing for evolution, is that it pretty much eviscerates all of Aquinas’ Five Ways. It does this by rendering the Fourth and Fifth Ways invalid. If attributes can emerge through a simple process of evolution, then it’s not necessary that attributes find their maximum expression in the source of that evolution, nor that there be need of a designer. And if you remove the Fourth and Fifth Ways from Aquinas’ proofs, then even if you allow for the first three, the conclusion at the end of each one, that "this everyone understands to be God", becomes invalid. Because what’s left after removing the last two Ways, isn’t what Catholics understand to be God. The Five Ways as proof of God, basically stand or fall as one.

So the problem becomes as I laid it out, where do new attributes like life and intelligence come from, if not by a process that we would recognize as evolution?

I don’t see the problem at all. “SIMPLE PROCESS”? The amount of research, money, intelligence and talent that has gone into learning the tiny little amount that scientists have already learned indicates to me that it is not a simple process. God doesn’t become invalid to me if this is how He chose to create and develop life. The intelligence it takes to begin to understand God’s creation tells me that it took a great deal of intelligence to create it in the first place.

I have no idea what you mean by “what Catholics understand to be God.”

I have come to the conclusion that atheists have tried to take the intelligence of more than a billion Catholics and 2,000 years of Catholic thought and distil into their own tiny little false god. They then try to show forth the tiny little false god as something that I, as a Catholic, believe in.

No atheists is going to define God for me. I am very tired of the tiny little false god that they are marketing.

 

[IWantGod]

The problem for Catholics in allowing for evolution, is that it pretty much eviscerates all of Aquinas’ Five Ways. It does this by rendering the Fourth and Fifth Ways invalid. If attributes can emerge through a simple process of evolution, then it’s not necessary that attributes find their maximum expression in the source of that evolution, nor that there be need of a designer.

You fail to understand that “power” comes from God. A thing that is actualised potency does not have its power by its own power and neither does any actualised potency. A thing acts according to its nature, this is its power, but its nature is actualised potency and therefore its nature requires an existential-cause that is not itself actualised-potency or in other-words a nature that does not begin to exist or change. This is to say that while a thing moves according to its nature, potency cannot move to actuality unless it is given being by something else, and if that being is too a conjunction of potency and act then it to requires a being that is “pure-actuality” in order to exist at all.

The 5 ways is not arguing for a designer in the watchmaker sense of the word. You misunderstand. God actualises potency, but God does not control how natures move. God allows secondary causes to exist, the kind of causes that are studied by empirical science.

 

[Partinobodycula]

I don’t see the problem at all. “SIMPLE PROCESS”? The amount of research, money, intelligence and talent that has gone into learning the tiny little amount that scientists have already learned indicates to me that it is not a simple process. God doesn’t become invalid to me if this is how He chose to create and develop life. The intelligence it takes to begin to understand God’s creation tells me that it took a great deal of intelligence to create it in the first place.

You are of course free to believe whatever you choose to believe. I sincerely doubt that anything I say here will convince you otherwise. But very simple processes can produce extremely complex results. What IWantGod described in his post was a process that was essentially evolution. Attributes can give rise to attributes, which can give rise to attributes, which can give rise to attributes…ad infinitum. And it’s all these multitudes of attributes that define everything that you see around you. Every nuance of reality is simply one small attribute built upon another. The complexity is overwhelming, but the process is simple. You may see the hand of a designer, but none is necessary.

You speak of the human intelligence and talent spent learning what little we know, but we’re not that far removed from our primate ancestors. Even our most sophisticated machine the LHC simply smashes things together to see what flies out. We stll burn our fellow man in cages, and rape our women on buses, and you think we’re intelligent. And where has all our intellectual effort led us? Not to a world that’s complex, but to one that’s very, very simple. Our greatest minds now hope to have a theory of everything, written in an equation less than one inch long.

So yes, I do believe that it’s a very simple process, and it’s just understanding it that’s hard.

I have no idea what you mean by “what Catholics understand to be God.”

Catholics understand God to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Aquinas’ Fourth Way speaks directly to these attributes. But if these attributes can evolve as IWantGod suggested, then there’s no need for them to be an attribute of the unmoved mover, or the uncaused cause, or the necessary being, as described in Aquinas’ first three ways. There may still be an uncaused cause, but it wouldn’t of necessity be the omnibenevolent being that Catholics think it is. It may simply be a mindless force or field. Argue for evolution, and you lose the Fourth Way, and you lose the argument for God as Catholics believe Him to be. I’m sorry if that disturbs you.

I have come to the conclusion that atheists have tried to take the intelligence of more than a billion Catholics and 2,000 years of Catholic thought and distil into their own tiny little false god. They then try to show forth the tiny little false god as something that I, as a Catholic, believe in.

No atheists is going to define God for me. I am very tired of the tiny little false god that they are marketing.

I’m not an atheist. And I’m not trying to define God for you. That’s a choice that you’re going to have to make on your own, neither I, nor God, can make it for you.

 

[IWantGod]

Catholics understand God to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Aquinas’ Fourth Way speaks directly to these attributes. But if these attributes can evolve as IWantGod suggested, then there’s no need for them to be an attribute of the unmoved mover, or the uncaused cause, or the necessary being, as described in Aquinas’ first three ways.

When did I say that the attributes of God evolve?

There may still be an un-caused cause, but it wouldn’t of necessity be the omnibenevolent being that Catholics think it is. It may simply be a mindless force or field. Argue for evolution, and you lose the Fourth Way, and you lose the argument for God as Catholics believe Him to be. I’m sorry if that disturbs you.

A mindless forcefield? The first cause cannot be an actualised-potency, a Forcefield is made up of moving objects. Pure-actuality is not a limited being. It does not have dimensions.

 

[Partinobodycula]

.
I’m feeling a bit snippy at the moment so beware.

You fail to understand that “power” comes from God.

As a rule your arguments are well formed, but on this particular statement you’ve stretched a little bit. Unless of course you’re willing to concede that the designation “God” is at this point undefined. If you’re going to define it, then we have a problem. But as it is I’ll let it pass.

A thing that is actualised potency does not have its power by its own power and neither does any actualised potency. A thing acts according to its nature, this is its power, but its nature is actualised potency and therefore its nature requires an existential-cause that is not itself actualised-potency or in other-words a nature that does not begin to exist or change. This is to say that while a thing moves according to its nature, potency cannot move to actuality unless it is given being by something else, and if that being is too a conjunction of potency and act then it to requires a being that is “pure-actuality” in order to exist at all.

You were doing pretty good here, logic wise, until you got down to the last line. (I’ve bolded it for you) This assertion doesn’t follow from the previous ones. So let’s go through it a line at a time.

A thing that is actualised potency does not have its power by its own power and neither does any actualised potency.

This is true. Since you’ve defined it as actualized potency, it couldn’t have actualized itself.

A thing that is actualised potency does not have its power by its own power and neither does any actualised potency.

Again, this is true, because you’ve defined it as actualized potency.

A thing acts according to its nature, this is its power, but its nature is actualised potency and therefore its nature requires an existential-cause that is not itself actualised-potency or in other-words a nature that does not begin to exist or change.

Again, so long as you define it as actualized potency you’re fine.

This is to say that while a thing moves according to its nature, potency cannot move to actuality unless it is given being by something else,

Still good, something can’t actualize itself.

and if that being is too a conjunction of potency and act then it to requires a being that is “pure-actuality” in order to exist at all.

This one doesn’t follow from the previous ones, because you haven’t defined it as actualized potency. You’ve merely defined it as a conjunction of potency and act. There’s no logical reason given as to why something which is a combination of potency and act can’t be the first cause. Obviously its potency can never be actualized, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t have any.

The 5 ways is not arguing for a designer in the watchmaker sense of the word. You misunderstand. God actualises potency, but God does not control how natures move. God allows secondary causes to exist, the kind of causes that are studied by empirical science.

In Aquinas’ Fifth Way he specifically infers a designer:

Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

This doesn’t negate the existence of free will, or secondary causes, but it does argue for a designer with intent. Evolution doesn’t require a designer with intent.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Aquinas’ argument from design is still the best argument for God.

Set evolution a side. Abiogenesis is not evolution, because it is not life changing itself into other life. Abiogenesis is the first appearance of life from inorganic matter. This was the start of the chain of life.

When Francis Crick and his partner discovered the DNA sequence in a single cell creature, Crick was astounded at what must have been the hitherto unknown complexity of the first living organism. As an atheist, he would not attribute the design to God. He had to go elsewhere to explain abiogenesis. Guess where he went. To extra -terrestrials who, billions of years ago, planted the first seeds of life on Earth. It has to be an intelligent designer, Crick reasoned, but never God. This was, of course, a logically flawed argument that went nowhere, since you are then stuck explaining who designed the extra-terrestrials.

 

[Partinobodycula]

When did I say that the attributes of God evolve?

The referenced statement wasn’t referring to God’s attributes specifically, but to the attributes of knowledge, power, and compassion in general. You implied that they could evolve.

A mindless forcefield? The first cause cannot be an actualised-potency, a Forcefield is made up of moving objects.

You perceive a force-field as being made up of moving objects. That doesn’t mean that it is. People perceive of God as changing as well, that doesn’t mean that He does.

Pure-actuality is not a limited being. It does not have dimensions.

There are two points that you haven’t established, that the first cause must be pure actuality, and that a force-field has dimensions.

 

[Wesrock]

In Aquinas’ Fifth Way he specifically infers a designer:

This doesn’t negate the existence of free will, or secondary causes, but it does argue for a designer with intent. Evolution doesn’t require a designer with intent.

The Fifth Way is frequently misconstrued as being the Intelligent Design argument of Paley. It’s not. It’s not about the universe being “so complex it’s impossible/unlikely to exist by chance.” What it is about is teleology and final causes, and an argument could be made for such in DNA and other biological processes, but that’s a side argument. If the only thing in existence ever was a hydrogen atom with one electron in “orbit” around a proton, that alone would be sufficient for the teleological argument. Likewise, the same would apply to anything or any process, including evolution. The fact that certain things produce certain outcomes and not others is sufficient.

 

[Partinobodycula]

and if that being is too a conjunction of potency and act then it to requires a being that is “pure-actuality” in order to exist at all.

I’m actually going to jump in here to help you out. (Not that you need it)

It could be argued that potency can’t exist absent a being capable of actualizing that potency?

In other words, something can’t be said to have the potency to move, unless a being exists capable of moving it. In which case the first cause could be said to be pure act, no matter what attributes it possessed. So long as there’s nothing capable of changing it, it can’t change.

This is really a tricky question. Just thought that you might like to consider it.

 

[Partinobodycula]

The Fifth Way is frequently misconstrued as being the Intelligent Design argument of Paley. It’s not. It’s not about the universe being “so complex it’s impossible/unlikely to exist by chance.” What it is about is teleology and final causes, and an argument could be made for such in DNA and other biological processes, but that’s a side argument. If the only thing in existence ever was a hydrogen atom with one electron in “orbit” around a proton, that alone would be sufficient for the teleological argument. Likewise, the same would apply to anything or any process, including evolution. The fact that certain things produce certain outcomes and not others is sufficient.

You know, I would totally buy this argument if it wasn’t for Aquinas’ last line:

“Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.”

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[Aloysium]

. . . “Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.”.

Powerful words that make one swoon.

 

[Wesrock]

You know, I would totally buy this argument if it wasn’t for Aquinas’ last line:

“Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.”

.

I wish I had more time to devote to these arguments. Not that I’m some expert, but it would be interesting and help me develop a deeper understanding and learn how best to express it.

I found reading this post by Feser to be useful in better understanding the differences between Paley’s Intelligent Design and the Fifth Way (there are more and better ones, but this one offers more insight into the Fifth Way itself): edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/09/teleology-revisited.html?m=1

By way of clarifying final causality, I will quote this part of it:

The argument isn’t “A tends to cause B; therefore there must be some purpose outside of both A and B the realization of which this causal relationship exists in order to further.” It’s rather “A tends to cause B; therefore, causing B must be inherent or natural to A.”

If that claim sounds obvious and trivial, then terrific: You’re starting to understand Aristotle and Aquinas, because it’s supposed to be obvious and trivial.

Feser and Aquinas both readily admit that while the explanation of final causality is allegedly trivial, moving from there to God is the more difficult step. I’ll try a brief and poor summary. But, just for the sake of argument, try to see this through the lens of there being formal and final causality,because that’s the only way it’ll make sense. It is not compatible with a mechanistic, materialist worldview in which everything is explained in efficient causes. I’m not saying you have to agree with me, but it won’t even begin to click if you don’t understand final causality.

An acorn has the oak as its final cause. But there is no oak tree in the acorn itself. However, if the acorn is directed to this end even prior to the oak tree, then the oak tree must exist somewhere (take a few minutes on that one before immediately replying. I’m not saying you’ll end up agreeing, but it’s a point that does require a little stewing). As stated, it doesn’t exist in the acorn. And Aquinas rejects the idea of some realm of Platonic forms. The third option, then, is that the end exists in the divine intellect. This is true for all ends in which the object is not its own end (important point, for this requires a necessary being which is its own final cause (the proof), and that being is what we’d call God). They are directed towards an end, so the end must exist in some way in order for any type of ordering towards it to make sense. If an object is pointed towards something, you can’t then say it isn’t pointed towards anything.

And it should be clear that God isn’t assumed in this argument in a circular way. We start with only the existence of final causality. But once we work out that any type of ordering towards certain outcomes can’t exist in any contingent being, then, by necessity, for objects to be directed towards something, there must be a being with an intellect for it to reside in, and if that being were not its own final cause but directed towards something else, then that being’s end must exist in an intellect, so such logic continues until we reach a necessary being who is its own end. And as Aquinas says, “and this being we call God.”

This is my first time attempting to explain this. There are further arguments as to why it must be one being and some other criteria, but I hope that can make sense as some type of starting point about what Aquinas meant, even if you don’t buy it.

And by end, I don’t mean to imply everything has some divine purpose. It just meams it’s ordered to produce a certain effect under certain conditions. An acorn grows into an oak, not a bunny. Am electron orbits a proton, not poofs into a bouquet of flowers. A brick pushes against/through glass, not melt upon contact (barring secondary causes). I think teleology develops to higher tiers in systems, especially biology. DNA is highly teleological. It’s a string of molecules that points towards certain a certain creature with certain traits and certain processes, and is often likened to “blue prints” (though it’s more nuanced, I know). But even inorganic materials are directed towards certain outcomes/ends, etc… as explained.

 

[HelenRose]

You are of course free to believe whatever you choose to believe. I sincerely doubt that anything I say here will convince you otherwise. But very simple processes can produce extremely complex results. What IWantGod described in his post was a process that was essentially evolution. Attributes can give rise to attributes, which can give rise to attributes, which can give rise to attributes…ad infinitum. And it’s all these multitudes of attributes that define everything that you see around you. Every nuance of reality is simply one small attribute built upon another. The complexity is overwhelming, but the process is simple. You may see the hand of a designer, but none is necessary.

You speak of the human intelligence and talent spent learning what little we know, but we’re not that far removed from our primate ancestors. Even our most sophisticated machine the LHC simply smashes things together to see what flies out. We stll burn our fellow man in cages, and rape our women on buses, and you think we’re intelligent. And where has all our intellectual effort led us? Not to a world that’s complex, but to one that’s very, very simple. Our greatest minds now hope to have a theory of everything, written in an equation less than one inch long.

So yes, I do believe that it’s a very simple process, and it’s just understanding it that’s hard.

Catholics understand God to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Aquinas’ Fourth Way speaks directly to these attributes. But if these attributes can evolve as IWantGod suggested, then there’s no need for them to be an attribute of the unmoved mover, or the uncaused cause, or the necessary being, as described in Aquinas’ first three ways. There may still be an uncaused cause, but it wouldn’t of necessity be the omnibenevolent being that Catholics think it is. It may simply be a mindless force or field. Argue for evolution, and you lose the Fourth Way, and you lose the argument for God as Catholics believe Him to be. I’m sorry if that disturbs you.

I’m not an atheist. And I’m not trying to define God for you. That’s a choice that you’re going to have to make on your own, neither I, nor God, can make it for you.

I am glad you are not an atheist. I don’t presume to define God. He defines me.

 

[Partinobodycula]

This is my first time attempting to explain this. There are further arguments as to why it must be one being and some other criteria, but I hope that can make sense as some type of starting point about what Aquinas meant, even if you don’t buy it.

I think that you did an excellent job. I semi-kinda, maybe-almost understand it, which is pretty good for me. When it comes to “philosophy speak” things usually go right over my head. But before I get too far ahead of myself, let’s see if I understand what you’re saying.

When Aquinas uses the lines:

“Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end.”

and

“Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end”

He’s not talking about a designer, but rather that everything has a final cause to which it points, and this final cause must of necessity exist somewhere, otherwise things wouldn’t tend toward an ordered end. If in the case of things lacking intelligence, that final cause can’t exist with the thing itself, then it must exist in an intelligence outside of itself. This intelligence is what we call God. Not in the sense that God is the designer of the final cause, but simply that the final cause resides within His intelligence.

Hopefully I’ve gotten some of this right. Please clarify where you think necessary.

And no, I don’t buy it. But it’s always best to understand something, before you decide not to buy it.

 

[Wesrock]

He’s not talking about a designer, but rather that everything has a final cause to which it points, and this final cause must of necessity exist somewhere, otherwise things wouldn’t tend toward an ordered end. If in the case of things lacking intelligence, that final cause can’t exist with the thing itself, then it must exist in an intelligence outside of itself. This intelligence is what we call God. Not in the sense that God is the designer of the final cause, but simply that the final cause resides within His intelligence.

Yes, that’s essentially it. If it’s pointed towards an end, that end being pointed to must exist somewhere. We know where it doesn’t exist (the large oak tree is not already literally inside the acorn), but we know an intellect can mentally hold the concept . . . Yadda yadda . . .

I would not say we can’t use the word designer. If God ultimately holds the ends of all things in his intellect, then I think we must use the word design.

Still, this is NOT the same as the common run of the mill ID argument it is frequently associated with and rebutted as. Paley’s argument takes all of creation as a very intricate clock and says “This clock obviously has a designer. What are the chances of all these pieces coming together on their own in this fashion? This is best explained by God!” God becomes the clockmaker of the deist, and the universe as something that only needed God at some point in the distant past but, admittedly, if it did come together by chance (which he cannot rule out as a possibility) then it would be running exactly as it is now anyway, God or no. He cedes to a mechanical conception of the world for the sake of argument, but ultimately I think this can be appropriately called a God of the gaps argument.

It should be apparent that the Fifth Way, on the other hand, does not buy into the idea of the clockmaker God. For if God ever stopped actively holding these ends in his intellect, if he stopped sustaining creation, then creation would stop working. Aquinas’ God is more like a musician than a clockmaker. Once he stops playing the music stops. Aquinas’ God is actively involved in sustaining creation for the here and now to be necessary – he’s still at work. He did not just set the universe in motion/to its ends, he keeps it that way. All of the Five Ways actually come to this same conclusion, when properly framed. And Aquinas’ argument is not about trying to shove God into a place where chances are low simply because of probability, but about constructing a logical argument that necessitates God. One that can’t be disproved by empirical evidence any more than a mathematical formula, but one that requires refuting the actual logic of it and saying “you went wrong at this point in the argument.”

 

[Partinobodycula]

Yes, that’s essentially it. If it’s pointed towards an end, that end being pointed to must exist somewhere. We know where it doesn’t exist (the large oak tree is not already literally inside the acorn), but we know an intellect can mentally hold the concept . . . Yadda yadda . . .

I would not say we can’t use the word designer. If God ultimately holds the ends of all things in his intellect, then I think we must use the word design.

Still, this is NOT the same as the common run of the mill ID argument it is frequently associated with and rebutted as. Paley’s argument takes all of creation as a very intricate clock and says “This clock obviously has a designer. What are the chances of all these pieces coming together on their own in this fashion? This is best explained by God!” God becomes the clockmaker of the deist, and the universe as something that only needed God at some point in the distant past but, admittedly, if it did come together by chance (which he cannot rule out as a possibility) then it would be running exactly as it is now anyway, God or no. He cedes to a mechanical conception of the world for the sake of argument, but ultimately I think this can be appropriately called a God of the gaps argument.

It should be apparent that the Fifth Way, on the other hand, does not buy into the idea of the clockmaker God. For if God ever stopped actively holding these ends in his intellect, if he stopped sustaining creation, then creation would stop working. Aquinas’ God is more like a musician than a clockmaker. Once he stops playing the music stops. Aquinas’ God is actively involved in sustaining creation for the here and now to be necessary – he’s still at work. He did not just set the universe in motion/to its ends, he keeps it that way. All of the Five Ways actually come to this same conclusion, when properly framed. And Aquinas’ argument is not about trying to shove God into a place where chances are low simply because of probability, but about constructing a logical argument that necessitates God. One that can’t be disproved by empirical evidence any more than a mathematical formula, but one that requires refuting the actual logic of it and saying “you went wrong at this point in the argument.”

Thank you, that certainly makes the Fifth Way much clearer.

This does however lead to some obvious questions For starters, if God isn’t the designer, then who is the designer? Or does Aquinas simply leave this question unanswered? Or if you’re analogy of God as the musician is correct, than it is in essence an argument for God as the designer, for surely the musician chooses what to play.

But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, especially from my perspective as a solipsist, how do I differentiate between myself and God? Which seems on its face to be a silly question. For obviously I have no part in the act of creation. I am simply the product of what is, not the creator of what is. But if God isn’t the designer, but merely the repository of the design, how is He unlike me? He can’t reasonably be said to be the creator of Himself, and yet He contains within Himself the sum total of all that is. For a solipsist, that’s exactly how I would describe myself.

But perhaps most disturbing of all, couldn’t this lead God to ask, where did I come from? Just as I am asking now. Which would lead right back to looking at the design to understand the designer. Which leads to a circular argument, the design constantly looking at itself, for evidence of the designer.

Yes I know, I over think things sometimes. But, the question still remains, what’s the difference between myself and God?

Now, for much needed clarification, I DON’T think that I’m God. I’m just some guy looking at the creation in an attempt to understand the creator. So any help would be appreciated.

 

[Wesrock]

I hope I have time later to give a fuller response, I will (famous last words). However, I just need to offer a correction. God *is *the designer. I apologize if I went too far in my explanation to have made it sound otherwise. He’s the designer in the analogous sense that he is the musician who is also at the same time the composer of the music, who’s actively involved in keeping it all in existence.

He is not like a clockmaker who created his masterpiece it can continue to run without his involvement.

Now, these are only analogies, as there is room for free will. God doesn’t move everything about as if it’s a robot and he has the controls, but sustains existent beings in such a way that they continue to exist, change, and be directed towards certain ends. But he’s not moving all the pieces on the chessboard. Beings such as ourselves are enabled by God to have our own intentionality and choices. And a Thomist would deny that God knows what will happen without it actually happening first (though that creates another mind bender in that to God there is no before or after, everything that ever is is just before him eternally. All these different temporal moments for us feed in real time into God’s one present that never starts or ends.

Okay, I’m going on to a different topic now. It would be better to stop there, revisit teleology and the fifth way later if I have time, and save God’s eternity for another thread.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . what’s the difference between myself and God?. . .

Some people believe there is no difference between who you really are and the Centre of creation.
He who is thinking/dreaming/creating the image of yourself, which you believe to be yourself would be the same Person who brings everything into existence.
That universal Supreme Identity is Divine and transcendent to the person, with his four-score years of life, that you identify with.
Atman is Brahman, would be the Hindu way to express this.

In contrast, there is a view that sees Love as an eternal divine act of being, comprised of three transcendent Persons.
Reality is relational in nature and being is ultimately self-other-in-communion.
As a part of creation, we are other to God.
We have damaged our original loving connection to Him but as a result of the incarnation of the Word of God, by which all things come into being, it has been repaired.
We are able to regain the wholeness that is our true self, which is Christ-like.
We are granted the capacity to commune with God, to enter into the eternal loving union of the Godhead.
We do so by becoming love.
The difference between yourself and God in this respect, would boil down your not being a completely loving person.
You have not given yourself totally over to Him.
This is very difficult to achieve and can only be done so through God’s grace.
Most of us struggle our whole lives, hoping to attain that goal at life’s end.

If this doesn’t make sense, hopefully it will at least pique your curiosity to follow up with better sources.

 

[IWantGod]

I hope I have time later to give a fuller response, I will (famous last words). However, I just need to offer a correction. God *is *the designer. I apologize if I went too far in my explanation to have made it sound otherwise. He’s the designer in the analogous sense that he is the musician who is also at the same time the composer of the music, who’s actively involved in keeping it all in existence.

He is not like a clockmaker who created his masterpiece it can continue to run without his involvement.

“musician who is also at the same time the composer of the music, who’s actively involved in keeping it all in existence.”

Yes:thumbsup. But bare in mind that while God is actualising and sustaining the music that’s being played in existence, the music is in a sense making its own melody.

God is giving being to the universe, but the universe is moving according to its own nature, as opposed to a pagan sense of creation where god is throwing lightning bolts.

 

[Partinobodycula]

Some people believe there is no difference between who you really are and the Centre of creation.
He who is thinking/dreaming/creating the image of yourself, which you believe to be yourself would be the same Person who brings everything into existence.
That universal Supreme Identity is Divine and transcendent to the person, with his four-score years of life, that you identify with.
Atman is Brahman, would be the Hindu way to express this.

In contrast, there is a view that sees Love as an eternal divine act of being, comprised of three transcendent Persons.
Reality is relational in nature and being is ultimately self-other-in-communion.
As a part of creation, we are other to God.
We have damaged our original loving connection to Him but as a result of the incarnation of the Word of God, by which all things come into being, it has been repaired.
We are able to regain the wholeness that is our true self, which is Christ-like.
We are granted the capacity to commune with God, to enter into the eternal loving union of the Godhead.
We do so by becoming love.
The difference between yourself and God in this respect, would boil down your not being a completely loving person.
You have not given yourself totally over to Him.
This is very difficult to achieve and can only be done so through God’s grace.
Most of us struggle our whole lives, hoping to attain that goal at life’s end.

If this doesn’t make sense, hopefully it will at least pique your curiosity to follow up with better sources.

Yes Aloysium, I can appreciate the perspective. I really can. And I’m trying.