I don't believe in a meddling God

Peregrinus

Seems to me that your beliefs here are a bit pick-and-mix.

On the one hand, you don't believe in an interventionist (or "meddling') God. On the other hand, you do believe that God judges us. And you do believe that God communicates with us, revealing himself or his will through e.g. prophet figures. But both judgment and revelation seem like pretty significant interventions by God into the world he has created.

So this begins to look like - no offence - "I don't believe in an interventionist God, except for the interventions that I do believe in".

Your defence of this position is that "I base my views largely on what I think a reasonable God would do" Fair enough as far as it goes, but doesn't that get us right back to the problem of theodicy? Wouldn't a reasonable God, e.g., intervene so as to relieve the suffering of the innocent? If you don't believe in that kind of intervention, that's not a position which you can easily defend with an appeal to a reasonable God.

This isn't a novel objection, of course. A possible answer - not one that you've offered - is "what seems reasonable to us may not seem reasonable to an all-knowing God, who necessarily has better information about the bigger picture than we do". But that's an answer which most people find pretty unsatisfactory. Do you have a better one?

Theduke1960

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120378170#Comment_120378170

Very good post. You are right I'm full of contradictory opinions

A lot of catholics pick and mix and this could be accused of being protestant in a lot of their thinking.

Not that there is anything wrong in being protestant.

Ultimately I find the plethora of faiths confusing and contradictory.

I find it hard to find any plan in what happens to so many people.

Yes God might be beyond our understanding.

Theduke1960

It is of course possible that God created life or the conditions for intelligent life to develop and leaves it at that. No judgement.

No afterlife

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120379152#Comment_120379152

Accepting that you've stated you've no interest in discussions with atheists, the assertion that initial conditions for life to develop demand that God created the universe is commonly referred to as the Fine Tuning Argument. There was a decent discussion on it here https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058269275/naturally-fine-tuned-for-life-a-defence-of-metaphysical-naturalism/p1 with plenty of input from numerous points of view.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120378170#Comment_120378170

A truly non-interventionist God that is outside of this universe is something of a non-entity from any perspective within this universe. The only non-interventionist Gods that come to mind would be from pantheistic tradition, e.g. philosophical Daoism. Christianity, as you say, demands an interventionist God on very many levels, not least the in the relation to the life of Christ on Earth.

Theduke1960

Could a non interventionist God be within a universe?

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120379713#Comment_120379713

From a pantheistic perspective, which considers God and the universe to essentially be the same thing, one might think of God as non-interventionist. You could also take the view of seeing God in everything and hence considering God to be entirely interventionist. If you plump for the latter than a non-interventionist god is something of a paradox. My take on it as an atheist is that religious belief demands faith and best avoids attempting to qualify that belief in terms of scientific proof. If you have faith you shouldn't need proof. If you don't have faith, critical scientific discourse is probably not the best path on which to find it.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120379713#Comment_120379713

As smacl points out, the pantheistic concept of God is pretty close to this. But your account of why you believe that God exists is that you find a creator necessary to explain creation. A creator God must logically precede creation so, at least initially, God is outside the universe. But the Christian concept of the creator God asserts that God has inserted Himself into the universe, through the Incarnation. Thus for Christians a truly non-interventionist God is ruled out; the debate has not been whether God intervenes, but when and in what ways God intervenes.

Theduke1960

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120381805#Comment_120381805

I find some of this hard to follow.

And perhaps not necessary to my point. Inside or outside etc

Put simply I believe God was involved in the creation of the universe obviously he'd have to be there first and I'm not getting into Tommy Aquinas.

After that I part company with mainstream religions because there are so many of them. Why would a meddling God allow this?

Based on my logic I don't have much or any justification for a judgement but I will reflect on it.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120382085#Comment_120382085

Worth reiterating that this creator god of yours has little to do with Christianity, as the birth of Christ was a divine intervention. Given this, you need to ask yourself is or was your god omniscient? If so, than the mere fact of creating a universe is divine intervention as the deity in question knew the outcome of every possible event in the universe prior to creating it. An omniscient, omnipotent god has no need to 'meddle', meddling is something for humanity, and lesser deities in polytheistic religions. This is also where we see the debate between determinism and free will in Abrahamic belief systems. Logically, I don't think a non-interventionist omniscient deity works.

Peregrinus

Oh. it's easy to think of reasons why God might allow people to hold different religious opinions or follow different practices. God might think that freedom has an inherent value, and that a human being who makes his own choices in matter of faith is more fully human than one in whom beliefs or practices are hardwired and immutable. If your objection to meddling is based on what is reasonable, it's perfectly reasonable for God to choose not to meddle in that particular matter.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120382230#Comment_120382230

I think we're getting into mysterious ways territory there. To fully comprehend an omniscient god's intentions we too would need to be omniscient which we most clearly are not.

Theduke1960

Could God be a powerful intelligence that does not know the outcome?

SouthWesterly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120384611#Comment_120384611

No. The bible speaks of the lamb being killed before the foundation of the world. Shows he had it all planned out and knew the course Adam and eve would take.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120384611#Comment_120384611

The Christian concept of God is that he is omniscient; also, he exists outside of time. So, yeah, he knows the outcome of all things; he can see it.

But if you don't confine yourself to Christian concepts of God, can we image a being that is powerfully intelligent, but does not necessarily know the outcome of future events? Yes, we can.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120382346#Comment_120382346

True. But my point is that, even without being omniscient, we can see that it might not be unreasonable for God to create humans capable of forming their own religious beliefs, making their own moral choices, etc.

Theduke1960

Thanks to you all. I was raised Catholic. My wife insists on my daughter going to church.

I have no quibble with that. I think a religious presence in a life is no harm.

Even if some church beliefs are nuts such as that on homosexuality and divorce

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120386103#Comment_120386103

Agreed. I'm of the opinion that there is a significant likelihood of humankind creating sentient AI at some point in the future and it being in a similar situation. If we consider this plausible, creation of life does not demand omniscience.

iamunashamed

Not one reply post so far would I consider of a Christian nature to answer the OPs question.Are you all so high and mighty to make a mockery of ones to ask or seek answers?This isn't a Christian thread at all.

wotzgoingon

I always wondered if there was a god and now I know there is and it's me. You're not a god homer.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120764622#Comment_120764622

The OP didn't ask a question. But lots of contributors to the thread have explicitly pointed to Christian takes on the issues raised.