Dr. Joshua Swamidass, a theistic evolutionist, joined us recently at TSZ. I think the following comment of his will lead to some interesting and contentious discussion and is worthy of its own thread:
Third, if we drop “Darwinian” to just refer to the current modern synthesis of evolutionary theory, you are right that the scientific account does not find any evidence of direction or planning. I agree with you here and do not dispute this.
So the question becomes, really, is it possible that God could have created a process (like evolution) with a purposeful intent that science could not detect? I think the answer here is obvious. Of course He could. In fact, I would say, unless He wanted us to discern His purpose, we could not.
In my view, then, evolution has a purpose in creating us. Science itself cannot uncover its purpose. I find that out by other means.
Indeed! You can’t know the history merely from a snapshot in time. Have you changed your position?
Alan Fox,
No Alan, you are introducing a new “unnamed” possibility, and claiming as long as you can suggest that there is an unknown possibility, then all comparisons of one or another become obsolete.
What is the limit in such logic? If we claim something is either correct or not, or exists or doesn’t or is up or down, or left or right, as long as you allow in another possibility to be named later, you rule out entirely the concept of logical premises. There can never be only two premises.
So, somehow his nature was defined for him in a way that he cannot change? Who did that all-powerful feat? In your worldview such specified information cannot happen by itself.
keiths:
Alan:
That accounts for your first word:
From the second word on, what you wrote has nothing to do with what swamidass said:
Apparently Alan hasn’t been through the “Can God make a rock too heavy for him to lift?” phase. Better late than never, I guess.
keiths:
Alan:
No, but you’re still confused by it.
Good points, all. Thanks.
keiths,
keiths,
You are awfully quiet, are you ever going to explain what’s allowed in your evil-less world plan?
Uncle Keith is busy right now, phoodoo. Can you play quietly until I’m done?
You can play with me phoodoo.
Has the omnipotence paradox been resolved or should we dismiss it as a semantic exercise?
Oh, I wasn’t referring to free will, should have clarified that. What I meant is that if this god either knows things timelessly or doesn’t know them at all, then it seems to follow that can’t know things or put himself within space-time, because of his timeless nature. Incarnation shouldn’t be possible for such an entity. A bit like the classical theistic god that is immaterial, timeless, imperceptible etc…
God is his nature. It was not defined for him it is him
peace
You do know that the Christian God is a Trinity and therefore can have a temporal as well as a timeless nature.
peace
What omnipotence paradox? Are you one of those people who think God can both exist and not exist because God is omnipotent?
dazz:
When you use the word ‘compatibilist’, people are going to infer that you’re talking about free will:
dazz:
If the world is deterministic, it isn’t a problem. Timeless knowledge isn’t any better than temporal knowledge in that case, so carrying it into the world doesn’t create any issues.
If there’s genuine randomness, then at the very least God would have to ‘forget’ the timeless knowledge before incarnating.
I know that William Lane Craig believes that God entered into time “when” he created the universe. If I get some time (heh), I’ll see if I can figure out how he deals with the foreknowledge issue. I’m pretty sure he’s not a compatibilist, so it ought to be an issue for him.
phoodoo:
You’ve raised this issue on the ‘Free Will Defense’ thread, so I’ll respond there.
Meanwhile, we’re all still left to ponder just what it is that theistic evolution has to offer.