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}Jon Alan, list:
If one is, unlike you, not a theist, then, your answers don't
provide any rationale for 'the nature of existence'. Your assertion
that one simply has to accept the 'reality of god' is a Fixation of
Belief by..what, authority, tenacity? But it isn't based on reason or
empiricism - and as far as I am concerned, the famous Five Ways
[Anselm, Aquinas] are semantic expressions - that's all.
That is, for example, to declare that we as finite, cannot 'know'
the infinite...and that we can yet declare that the infinite IS REAL
- is, in my mind, not a valid argument--- for its validity rests
solely on semantics and the necessity-to-believe.
To declare that there must be either a First Cause or a Supreme
Cause - is yet again, an exercise in semantics.
Peirce's outline "there are three elements ...active in the world:
first, chance; second, law; and third, habit-taking" 1.409. And his
outline of the emergence of finite matter from "a state of mere
indeterminacy, in which nothing existed or really happened"....Out of
the womb of indeterminacy we must say that there would have come
something, by the principle of Firstness, which we may call a flash.
Then by the principle of habit there would have been a second flash"
1.411-12. Thus, both Secondness or finite matter and Thirdness or
habits, emerge.
I note that in this outline of the emergence of matter, there is no
mention of any hierarchical or first or final cause [god]; supreme
agenda or 'unmoved Mover [of god]; contingency [god] etc.
And Peirce's equally famous 4.551 comment of 'Thought is not
necessarily connected with a brain" has no reference to god.
Now, if one wants to argue, against the Five Reasons, for the
reality of Mind within Matter - that is another argument and one that
I would consider to have validity. Peirce's outline [6.490] of this
'disembodied spirit or pure mind'' which has a "character related to
the habit-taking capacity".
But - in contrast to the axioms of Anselm/Aquinas, to Peirce "the
Unknowable is a nominalistic heresy" 6.492..and Peirce's view of god,
as I read him, is that it is a force akin to Mind - the
introduction/generation of [old and new] habits of formation within
matter. Period.
Edwina
On Fri 11/05/18 1:39 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt [email protected]
sent:
Stephen J., List:
I have no desire (and no time these days) to engage in a debate
here, but ...
SJ: I don’t understand what insights a creator/designer provides
as to the nature of existence.
Why is there existence at all? Why is there something, rather than
nothing? Peirce's answer was the Reality of God as Ens necessarium.
SJ: What phenomenology explains His motivation to be? Why should He
care to create life? Where is His workshop? What tools does He use?
Does He have hands with which to wield a hammer or use a soldering
iron? Does he have eyes with which to read a blueprint? ... I’m not
big fan of Richard Dawkins, but he does have a point when he asks,
sarcastically, who created god? A god-god? Then who created god-god?
A god-god-god? God as a creator makes no sense and explains nothing.
These kinds of questions reveal a profound misunderstanding, or
perhaps willful ignorance, of what classical theists actually believe
about the nature of God.
SJ: Here’s my prediction… whatever the right theory is, it MUST
make sense… and we will know it when we see it. A godly designer
does not make sense.
Your faith in human reason is impressive, but sadly misplaced. Why
would anyone expect an infinite God, if Real, to be entirely
comprehensible to finite beings like us?
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur
Philosopher, Lutheran Laymanwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [1] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [2]
On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 7:15 AM, Stephen Jarosek wrote:
Hi Colin,
I don’t understand what insights a creator/designer provides as to
the nature of existence. What phenomenology explains His motivation to
be? Why should He care to create life? Where is His workshop? What
tools does He use? Does He have hands with which to wield a hammer or
use a soldering iron? Does he have eyes with which to read a
blueprint?
Many of us might be receptive to a God as a unity, as Kashyap
suggests, in the laws of nature around us. It would make more sense
for God’s emergence to be bootstrapped with the emergence of the
universe as a unity, not as a meddler in a workshop working to a
blueprint. God and the universe as one. Or maybe a systems-theory
view of nested hierarchies, where autopoiesis (self-organisation) can
be considered a form of creation/design. But not god as a visitor in
some kind of workspace.
I’m not big fan of Richard Dawkins, but he does have a point when
he asks, sarcastically, who created god? A god-god? Then who created
god-god? A god-god-god? God as a creator makes no sense and explains
nothing.
Isaac Newton provided the axiomatic framework for a physics that did
not make sense at the time. Now it makes perfect sense, and we bear
witness to its relevance in our engineering and technological
achievements. We need a similar awakening with the life sciences.
What axiomatic framework does God the Creator/Designer relate to?
Here’s my prediction… whatever the right theory is, it MUST make
sense… and we will know it when we see it. A godly designer does
not make sense. There is no phenomenology that explains his
motivations or existence.
And you raise the topic of mutations again. Natural selection based
on mutations violates the principles of entropy, as the tendency to
disorder. Nobody’s proven the relevance of mutations to evolution.
Pure, unsubstantiated conjecture. Calvin Beisner, with reference to
the work of RH Byles, dispenses tidily with the mutation mumbo jumbo:
https://www.icr.org/article/270 [4]
Regards
Links:
------
[1] http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
[2] http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
[3]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'[email protected]\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
[4] https://www.icr.org/article/270
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