How to see the world with an open mind?

Look Up said:

I think we are already more or less on the same page wrt your first sentence, above (before the parenthetical aside) whatever clarification is needed on details--and also on the same page wrt your last above sentence.

What I am still curious about is how you relate Rom. 1:19-20 and my above remarks on the chapter to empirical and scientific evidence that suggests or demonstrates something about God in Rom. 1 terms. You say, "Creation itself is subjective evidence. Sure it points to a creator," but my understanding of "subjective" is that it is "based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions" (to cite Google), which is epistemologically insubstantial and could not be considered adequate to explain Rom. 1 "they know" and judgment language. Granted I am trying to clarify my own thought here, but would not "objective" better describe the knowledge people in Rom. 1 have of aspects of God's nature such as His power and--how does one put it?--transcendent stature (and apparently wrath)? Or should we abandon (as I currently favor) attaching "subjective" and "objective" language to the knowledge of God Paul describes in Rom. 1?

You mention "God has made it very clear in this world that he is revealed" (which I think adequately represents some of Paul's words in Rom. 1). Your post then seems to suggest you would affirm there is empirical evidence for intelligent design (which in any case I would affirm). And you seem uncertain that repeatable experiments could be imagined and executed which would suggest, instantiate, or demonstrate the existence of "a creator" (or God who could be known universally only in Rom. 1 terms)--we both would abandon the possibility of designing an experiment to substantiate the existence of the Trinity or God with post-Chalcedon attributes; knowledge of that God has been derived elsewhere, as you perhaps imply.

Of course the problem with executing experiments concerning the origin of matter or life is human and technological and energy limitations. Recreate the Big Bang (or fill-in view of the origins of mass/energy). Create a bacteria cell starting by using amino acid soup, temperature variations, a few assorted chemicals, and electricity. In this respect I mean, naturalistic atheists and theistic creationists are on equal epistemological footing (despite recent political success of anti-supernaturalism, e.g. at Dover). There are subjects for experimentation which we cannot experiment on, especially when it comes to origins and, in our case, regarding a Creator.

But apparently we both wonder if there are no experiments which can be done which in some way or to some degree suggests, instantiates, or demonstrates the existence of some attribute of God. Or perhaps many such experiments have already been done. One may consider double blind studies on prayer and healing, which suggest the presence of a power(s?) we may not fully understand (and which does not fit conventional western naturalistic models of the mass-energy universe), but I am thinking more in terms of implications, such as failures in mutation studies to encourage belief in such macroevolutionary leaps as the origins of mammal or bird eyes with visual cortexes to process the "pixels." I say leaps without substantial extra-probability nudges in design despite naturalist faith that becomes a kind of infinite regression into "we don't know mechanisms yet, but we believe we will."

And here I'm rapidly going too far afield, being too terse and incomplete, and running out of time. Nonetheless, I do hope our conversation benefits heartsrose74 per her OP, at least indirectly (not to mention the two of us). Belief in a Creator God is intellectually viable for those who care to look into it.

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Rom 1:19-20 is of course natural revelation--creation clearly reveals there is a God and many of his attributes: beauty, glory, nobility, wrath, peace, all-powerful. Now what may creep in here is that all such things can be seen as subjective. I personally can understand this as subjective for what is beautiful to one person may not be to another. My fiance states that (and I may have the wording wrong on this, but I think I got the basic point--in case he corrects me) a significant accomplishment of Satan is to get people to understand glory and such things as subjective, that these things are in fact objective. This can be if we take our definition on these adjectives from the Bible. I haven't thought about this much before though so am still trying to place my thoughts on it.

What natural revelation can't provide however is salvific revelation. So, while we are without excuse for knowledge of God, that there is a God and we should seek him, however because of our sinful nature no one does--because we want to be God. We want to be in control of our lives and the idea of submitting to an all-powerful God is foreign and quite frankly repulsive to the natural man (after the entrance of sin into the world); after all, if he doesn't comport with our own mindset and idea of what a God should be then he is not worth our worship (thus we become the judge of God and not he of us).

Everyone knows there is a God even though they may not want to admit it. Here's one evidence: Does any one person know everything? If so, they're God. It should be obvious to everyone in existence that they don't know everything and therefore based on that alone should acknowledge that a God exists; yet we, some of us at least, still persist in the foolish idea that there isn't a God (and those of us who do admit it, specifically the existence of the true living God, are able to do so only by his mercy else we still will be baring the sword against our Creator).

Here's something that the OP may want to say to her friend, though I think she may be agnostic so it may not apply. Still, I think it's something to think about (especially for the atheists out there): What do you have to do to prove there is no gold in Alaska? Well, you'd have to turn up every inch of ground, uncover every possible place in the entirety of that state. You probably can spend several life-times trying to accomplish that; and, it probably may not even be possible since some of that land is under the ownership of private property--not likely the owners thereof are going to co-operate with you on your mission. Still--even if you could have access to every square inch of it, probably going to be pretty tough to prove that. On the other hand, what do you have to do to prove there is gold in Alaska? Pretty simple--just turn up with a particle of it.

Another commentary is that actually, it is quite impossible to prove there is no God. Since you'd have to know everything to prove there isn't. Then, as soon as you accomplish this then you become God so you've just disproved what you set out to prove.

I was an atheist for many years and I can't believe how stupid I was to have this mindset; yet, I was only taken from it by the mercy of our Heavenly Father, else I still would be stumbling around in the dark not really thinking through what I actually believed (most likely many atheists would admit they're actually agnostic than atheistic, yet many of them seem so strong in their denunciation of the existence of any God; they really should back off on their virulence and show some humility as to the actual state of their situation. I guess I should say "good luck" to myself on that).

Sorry if I didn't cover everything in your post too (and probably wasn't especially thorough in what I did write--for instance, the discussion really needs to begin with, "how is it that we're defining God"). However I don't have a whole lot of time (definitely not enough to go into the definition, we're probably on the same page on that) and it takes me a lot of time to write these posts (why I don't come back to them many times). I actually only had time to get back to this since I didn't have to go into work today because of the snowstorm.

heartsrose74 said:

Okay, I'm a Christian who is- having doubts. A lot of them I'm just trying to poke into how to be a woman of God and still- have an open mind. My friend is recently- removed from religion. And, I've never been the strongest Christian. But, today, she challenged my beliefs, and I clenched onto them tightly. However, she became frustrated, because I was being so stubborn and not even- willing to think. I wouldn't even provide her an answer for why- why I believe in this God, and why I'm not agnostic, or why I don't believe in the watchsetter God, who set the world to motion and walked away. I know- what I think. I believe in God. But- is it possible to have an open mind, but still believe. Do you have any advice for how I can work on my- why? Understand why I do?

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Not easy. What is helping me is to remind myself that, even as a Christian, I don't have all the answers. And we can be 10 Christians in a same room and not everyone will have the same convictions and opinions on everything. A great verse and chapter to read is Romans 14:1

dhh712 said:

Rom 1:19-20 is of course natural revelation--creation clearly reveals there is a God and many of his attributes: beauty, glory, nobility, wrath, peace, all-powerful. Now what may creep in here is that all such things can be seen as subjective. I personally can understand this as subjective for what is beautiful to one person may not be to another. My fiance states that (and I may have the wording wrong on this, but I think I got the basic point--in case he corrects me) a significant accomplishment of Satan is to get people to understand glory and such things as subjective, that these things are in fact objective. This can be if we take our definition on these adjectives from the Bible. I haven't thought about this much before though so am still trying to place my thoughts on it. ...

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Thank you for clarifying. You of course make many points on which we have agreed, and in this case which may help heartsrose74. I think seeing "beauty" as a divine attribute in Rom. 1:19-20 misreads Paul's argument and vocabulary there, but if you do read "beauty" there it would address my question wrt "subjective revelation of God." Whether the beauty of the divine is in some sense revealed in natural beauty may be another question. I have wondered for example if the ubiquity of pleasant sensation among humans at the smell of a rose (across cultures and generations) does not suggest aesthetics can at times rise to the level of objective truth. But such a conclusion must, I fear (and I think "we fear"), remain tentative (and whimsical) barring some other way of knowing than empirically based science.

I would recommend you read C.S. Lewis's "The Abolition of Man." He writes about "ordinate responses" which I think speaks very directly to your idea of the aesthetics of nature being suggestive of an objective - even divine - reality or truth.

Selah.

heartsrose74 said:

... she challenged my beliefs ... why I don't believe in the watchsetter God, who set the world to motion and walked away.

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After dhh712 has given some reasonable answers to atheism above, it may be worth considering an 18th century Deism view of God as Watchmaker who set up the world and then walked away.

One might view evidence for such a Deism in apparent widespread absence of miracles, in longstanding patterns of natural laws exhibited in seasons and tides, gravity, the contiguous passing of generations (of plants, animals, humans) and so on.

The question has to do with how active the Creator God is in managing (shall we use the word "managing"?) daily affairs in the world. Curiously even 18th century American Deist Benjamin Franklin (remember him?) believed God answers prayer and holds people to account for their actions.

One's answers to "how active" God is seems bound up with how one views miracles that do crop up, whether one sees God as inactive in the present in consistent patterns like weather (why is God inactive in gravity and natural laws?), one's reading of the New Testament, one's answers to the problem of evil and suffering in the world, and one's view of a final Judgment. In the last case, God could be relatively inactive now (hence the presence of injustice among people now), but still hold people to account in the afterlife.

One cannot address a slew of major questions here. For the present it may suffice to consider that such a Deism places an interpretation on normal daily life which may be explained in other possible ways. The Watchmaker may be intimately involved in each tick of the world Clock--His Clock--and be present in each pendulum, gear, spring, frame, and bearing of the Watch. A Watchmaker with enough wisdom and power to make the Watch is surely capable of detailed control.

It is one thing to refute a Deist, another to convince a Deist (or oneself that) one's alternative view is at least equally viable.

aiki said:

I would recommend you read C.S. Lewis's "The Abolition of Man." He writes about "ordinate responses" which I think speaks very directly to your idea of the aesthetics of nature being suggestive of an objective - even divine - reality or truth.

Selah.

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Looks like a good read. I never read any stuff from Lewis beside watching Narnia

GuyNad said:

Looks like a good read. I never read any stuff from Lewis beside watching Narnia

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It'll give your brain a bit of a stretch. A lot of what C.S. Lewis wrote does this. Most of his writing is quite unlike the Narnia series. It is very philosophical, and complex, but also very insightful. His stuff is good brain food (though it is not always very theologically or biblically sound)!

Selah.