How would you have created the world?

Oh, I agree that these matters are much more complicated than 2+2.

As for threat, I think that many *do* base their beliefs not on the evidence before them, but on the perceived threat that a contrary belief may pose to their preconceptions. A lot of people believe in a young earth primarily because an old earth would threaten other beliefs they hold. Same with evolution.

Karaite said:

But "YEC or not; evolution or not" is not as simple, easy, and quick as 2+2 is.

Click to expand...

That is as simple. There is evidence in God's Creation that simply can't be there if YEC is true. The problem, Karaite, is that YEC is a scientific theory. In fact, it was the accepted theory from about 1700-1800. By 1800 an old earth had been decisively falsified. By 1831 the last vestige of Flood Geology (necessary for YEC to be viable) had been falsified.

There is far more involved in this, not only in the answer, but in the "threat" that it one set of doctrines poses to the other set.

There is nothing simple about that.

Click to expand...

Evolution is perceived as a threat to Christianity by YECs. But that is due to faulty logic, not the reality of whether evolution really is a threat to Christianity. It's not.

Karaite said:

Oh, I certainly believe that you do form an alliance, as long as it is to "defeat" the "greater evil". It is only human nature, you can't deny such thing. But I certainly don't believe that you will share the same beliefs.

Click to expand...

Just because the different forms of creationism want to form an alliance to defeat the "greater danger" of "Darwinism" doesn't mean others follow the same example. They don't. Phillip Johnson has been calling for the "big tent" to defeat "Darwinism" (his strawman version of it) for 12 years now. He hasn't gotten the cooperation he wants. Creationists still continue to bicker among themselves just as fiercely, or even more fiercely, than they feud with evolution. Look at the tone of the attacks by AiG on Hugh Ross.

I don't agree with the limitations that lucaspa has given his god,

Click to expand...

I'm not giving God limitations. I'm simply looking at the universe God created and the Bible and deducing "limitations" God placed on Himself.

You see, I'm still searching and trying to understand. You have stopped searching in the mistaken idea you know it all and Vance has stopped in the belief that it is impossible to know.

Ah, I have not stopped searching at all. I just realize there are things we can know with absolute confidence, some with a modicum of certainty, etc, all the way down the spectrum to "we can't know that at all". And yes, the areas in which we can make statements with greater certainty is growing as our knowledge base grows. Some areas, however, that you believe (I think) can be analyzed with certainty, I believe can be analyzed, but without certainty. I see the vast gap between the natures of God and Man as a constant factor which prevents us from speaking dogmatically about a wide variety of issues.

So, we still seek, we strive to understand, that is human nature. But in the end, some areas will necessarily remain uncertain and unknowable. This is not medieval "knowledge is bad" thinking, only a recognition of our human limitations.

Vance said:

Lucaspa said:

I know its difficult, but you can't shy away from data simply because the implications are difficult.

It is not a matter of "shying away" from anything. It is a matter of whether you approach God from a perspective that He is able to be analyzed as a whole. I say no, this is utterly and completely impossible. We can only analyze that minuscule portion of His nature that we have been allowed to glimpse which, without the perspective of the whole, can create very distorted views if you attempt to analyze it *as if* you were viewing the whole.

Click to expand...

Vance, the Bible gives us only glimpses of God. Glimpses limited by human limitations. Yet it is from those glimpses that you have the idea of the omnis. What I am saying is not that God can be analyzed as a whole, but rather that the glimpses we see can tell us about the whole. Just like having some bones of a fossil can tell us characteristics of the whole. Having just the dentition of an extinct animal tells us whether the animal was herbivorous, carnivorous, insectivorous, or omnivorous. Glimpses of God gave us the ideas that God is eternal, loving, merciful, etc. You don't have any problem with these universal characteristics of analysis of a part.

But this really is just semantics to avoid omnipotence.

Click to expand...

I think it's a thought experiment. Not semantics, but a puzzle. The "God can't make a square circle" is semantics.

The evidence of my experience and the power of my Faith informs me that God is the eternal and all-encompassing, infinite power of the universe. For you, God is something different entirely. Something more finite, graspable and understandable. My Faith means that, while I am very interested in how God did things, there is a point at which I may very well simply not be able to know it. And I am fine with this.

Click to expand...

You don't think God is understandable in terms of love and mercy? You don't think God is understandable in terms of what He wants in terms of behavior thru the 10 Commandments, the Beatitudes, and the Golden Rule? Aren't all these "graspable and understandable"?

I agree that there may well be a point where I simply do not know. But I'm not going to stop looking because that point is there. You have. Faced with evidence that contradict what some of your human ideas about God are, you retreat to "God is not understandable". I see this as a variant on the Appearance of Age argument. After all, a cornerstone of that argument is that we can't know why God chose to make everything look old when it isn't, but that God had a very good reason for doing so.

2. The data on indeterminancy is overwhelming. Whether God in some existential sense is omniscient can't be known. What is known is that in regards to the universe we inhabit, God is not omniscient. Indeterminancy applies to all beings, including God.

But see, that is the point. God is above ANY and all concepts that humans can conjecture.

Click to expand...

Then why bother stating the earth is old? That too is a concept "that humans conjecture". The falsification of the earth is young and the idea the earth is old are based upon the same God's Creation that gives us the data on QM that shows nothing can know the exact position and momentum of an electron.

You are not consistent with your position. You can use a human "conjecture" to say God did not create 6,000 years in the past. You can use the text of Genesis 4 to say that the conjecture of a literal and plain reading of the Bible has problems (and thus also state how God created), but you can't accept the data of QM that God made a universe in which He is not omniscient. Why? Explain the inconsistency, please.

He is *outside* of all of that (while still being *inside* everything we see). He simply is not subject to any restrictions or limitations we want to impose upon Him.

Click to expand...

Where am I "imposing" limitations? I'm simply stating the data in God's Creation shows He has these limitations. I'm certainly not imposing them in any way. Are you "imposing" the limitation that God took a long time to create when you state the earth is old?

Let me go back to Ross' list of parameters that have to be the way they are for humans to exist. Don't they impose limitations on God? After all, God can't create just any type of universe. He has to create one with those parameters or we don't exist. Again, I see a lack of consistency in your position. It appears to arise from the fact that you don't want to face that God is not the omnis. That is a problem with you, not a problem of me or God.

We simply have radically different views of what God is. I think that He approaches us, for the most part, in ways that generally conform to what we can grasp and understand simply to facilitate the relationship. But he is not limited to that conformation.

Click to expand...

I agree that He can be more than what He shows thru revelation. But He must also be what He shows thru revelation. He can't not be that conformation. To do so means God is a liar. So God also has limitations imposed by the truth.

"Speak the universe into existence"? Hmmm. And here I thought God created the universe by the Big Bang.

Did He not speak the Big Bang? Regardless, the point is that He was here before all and all that is here, from time to matter to anti-matter, it is all His initiation and production.

Click to expand...

Backed off here. Did God speak the Big Bang? How do you know? We don't disagree that God created. I was only pointing out that you were slipping into human ideas and conjectures on how God created.

However, I notice that you also say "as close to all those omni's as makes no difference". Which means that God does not have to absolutely fulfill the omni's to be God. So, the answer to my question is "No, God does not have to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent to be God. He has to be close to those." Which puts us on the slippery slope of "how close". Got your cleats on?

What I meant by that was that any "limitation" God may inherently have due to some odd set of circumstances I can not grasp is irrelevant since for every definition that could have any meaning to humans, the omni’s still apply.

Click to expand...

So you are not going to explore the slope. You insist that the truth is at the top of the slope and won't investigate. Notice that "since for any definition that could have meaning to humans". Once again, human conjecture.

As I think about this, I would say you are imposing limits to God. You are imposing the limits of the omnis and won't even investigate whether those limits are valid.

But this gets back to absolutism. I don’t think it is an all or nothing proposition. You are using your own form of "slippery slope": If we recognize the possibility that God could have done something that we don’t understand in one place, we will have then come to accept this occurrence in every case.

Click to expand...

I'm saying that if the argument is a cop-out in one place, and you agree it is, then it is just as much a cop-out in the other. If we can use data from the universe to counter the argument in one place, then we can use data from the universe to counter the argument in another. You are denying that we can use data from the universe to decide that God is not omniscient or omnipresent. Yet you allow us to use data from the universe to decide that God did not directly manufacture the panda's thumb. Again, you are inconsistent in applying your criteria. If you can't use the "We can't understand God" argument to save the idea that God directly manufactured the panda's thumb, you can't use it to save the idea that God is omniscient.

I think that it is very possible that God, in some cases, *did* "just do it". Of course, all such instances would always be believed tentatively, since we are constantly learning more about God’s Creative process.

Click to expand...

But not in this instance. We can't learn any more about God's Creative process because in doing so we find that God isn't omniscient. You don't seem to have a tentative belief about this, but an absolute one. Consistency again.

I seem to have stepped on an issue of ultimate meaning to you just as much as I have for Karaite. You take the same path as Karaite: denial.

As for my statement regarding the nature of the gap between God and Man, it is not a cop-out in the least. It is not a position taken in order to avoid problems or dealing with issues. It is either a fact or not. If it is a fact that this gap exists, then what I am saying about or inability to grasp God’s nature is true.

Click to expand...

And yes, despite this gap you believe we can find out enough about God's nature to deduce His creative process. How can that be? If there is such a gap, then the creationist position "We do not know how the Creator created, what processes He used, *for He used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe* (emphasis in the original). That is why we refer to creation as special creation. We cannot discover by scientific investigation anything about the creative processes used by the Creator."

Why can't we substitute your position in Gish's argument? "Because there is a huge gap between man and God, we can't know anything about how God created. We can never understand God's creative process or anything about God's nature."

But this entire theory is, once again, based on a view of God that has been anthropomorphized. Believe me, I do understand it, and if I viewed God as only slightly more than an Olympian god, it might make some sense. But I don’t.

Click to expand...

The argument was not formed from a anthropomorphized position. It was formed from 4 threads:

1. Darwinian selection is the only way to get design.
2. God used Darwinian selection to design biological organisms.
3. The analogy that humans using natural selection get designs they don't understand.
4. The general theme in the Bible that God is often incompetent and doesn't understand and is unable to predict what humans will do in particular circumstances.

This leads to a hypothesis about God's nature. The result is what you call only slightly more than an Olympian god (altho I think that is a biased way of putting it). It wasn't the starting point, but the result.

You have done what creationists usually do: say evolution is a presupposition rather than the conclusion it is. You have taken my conclusion and claimed it was a presupposition. It is not.

Oh, I am not opposed to speculative thinking whatsoever. I have followed lots of theories to their logical conclusions just for fun. But if the original premise is not supportable to me, then everything dependant upon that premise will ultimately be unpersuasive.

Click to expand...

I submit that the original presmise is only unsupportable because you don't like the conclusion. That gets us back to the inconsistency that using revelation, either special or general, to determine the nature of God is perfectly acceptable in other contexts. That procedure is not acceptable here because it ends up in conclusions that violate your own presuppositions about the nature of God.

Vance said:

Ah, I have not stopped searching at all. I just realize there are things we can know with absolute confidence, some with a modicum of certainty, etc, all the way down the spectrum to "we can't know that at all". And yes, the areas in which we can make statements with greater certainty is growing as our knowledge base grows. Some areas, however, that you believe (I think) can be analyzed with certainty, I believe can be analyzed, but without certainty. I see the vast gap between the natures of God and Man as a constant factor which prevents us from speaking dogmatically about a wide variety of issues.

Click to expand...

The same procedure and database that allows us with certainty to say the earth is not young allows us to say with certainty that strict determinism is not the nature of the universe. It is not possible to know both the exact position and momentum of an electron. It is not possible to know which atom of C-14 will decay next. No being is constantly observing every part of the universe (because the wave function does not collapse).

So, in the end you are like every other creationist. When push comes to shove and science shows you something you don't like, you discard science. You will place your beliefs about God higher than what God shows us about Himself in His Creation. Too bad.

So, we still seek, we strive to understand, that is human nature. But in the end, some areas will necessarily remain uncertain and unknowable. This is not medieval "knowledge is bad" thinking, only a recognition of our human limitations.[/QUOTE]

Lucaspa said:

"The same procedure and database that allows us with certainty to say the earth is not young allows us to say with certainty that strict determinism is not the nature of the universe."

But the problem is that the earth, being a physical creation, is subject to human analysis and the rules which we can determine exist in the natural world apply fully to that physical creation.

But God is not necessarily subject to ANY rules which our human understanding can determine, no matter how logically they apply to everything else. Again, God is simply above and beyond any such deduced concepts.

And yes, in the end, this does mean that I believe there are limits to what we can ever know and understand. But this is NOT, very definitely not, a matter of resorting to this "approach" when science concludes something I don't like. I accept lots of things that science tells me which I don't like at all!

Yes, I do indeed *start* with the knowledge, based on my personal experiences and Faith, that God is all the omni's. It is not a matter of denying ANYTHING science says, only a recognition that science can be entirely correct in its analysis of all things natural, but entirely incorrect if it attempts to apply that analysis to the nature of God. Luckily, the scientific community as a whole does not attempt to do this. It recognizes that everything it can possibly discern will be useless in describing anything that is divine or supernatural.

I know that, as a scientist, it must be very difficult to accept that there is anything which, ultimately, can not be analyzed by the human mind.

But, see, here is how this usually plays out. There is a Scripture which indicates God did something.

The YEC, or literalist, says God did just that and exactly as it is described, and we must accept it because the Scripture says it. This means that this action is, necessarily, part of God's nature and we simply must accept that since God is God.

You say, God could not have done that since it does not fit with the nature of a God you would worship or is not consistent with the evidence of God's Creation. So, the Scripture can not be read in a way which requires God behave that way or did that thing. So, it must be either allegorical, a later addition, or some other form of non-literal reading which conforms to your understanding of God's nature.

I say that we can not say with absolute certainty how and why God did anything, all we can know with absolute certainty is what God's ultimate message to us is. While this message only requires a few absolute literal readings in the Scripture, it is almost certain that much, much more of the Scripture can be read literally. It is also almost certain that much of the Scripture is not meant to be read literally. The Scripture is there and it is there for a reason, either for instruction or inspiration or guidance. In some cases, the extra-Biblical evidence is dramatically strong that God acted in a certain way. But, since God and His nature are, ultimately, beyond our comprehension, we still can not be 100% certain about even those areas.

I believe with 99% certainty that the earth is young because of the following:

1. The natural evidence for an old earth is overwhelmingly dramatic;
2. There is nothing about an old earth which conflicts with those things which I believe are absolute truths.
3. I *do* believe that the part of God's nature which interacts with humans is not likely to include something which is deceptive. I do not rule out the possibility that God may act in a way which, to our limited understanding, may be described as deceptive, but I think that this is such a small possibility that it allows for 99% certainty regarding the age of the earth.

Lucaspa:

Vance, the Bible gives us only glimpses of God. Glimpses limited by human limitations. Yet it is from those glimpses that you have the idea of the omnis. What I am saying is not that God can be analyzed as a whole, but rather that the glimpses we see can tell us about the whole. Just like having some bones of a fossil can tell us characteristics of the whole. Having just the dentition of an extinct animal tells us whether the animal was herbivorous, carnivorous, insectivorous, or omnivorous. Glimpses of God gave us the ideas that God is eternal, loving, merciful, etc. You don't have any problem with these universal characteristics of analysis of a part.

But, I do have a problem with these being universal characteristics of God. I think that the glimpses we get are only glimpses of that fraction that we could possibly grasp and understand. His whole nature is so dramatically beyond that understanding that is like seeing one facet of a diamond. His overall plan is derived from His whole nature, while our relationship with Him can only involve that small fragment.

I think it's a thought experiment. Not semantics, but a puzzle. The "God can't make a square circle" is semantics.

Oh, I agree any attempt to analyze God’s whole nature can only be thought experiment, or even a puzzle if you like. The problem is that there is not way that we could ever put it together. The problem lies in our difference over the nature of the "gap" between God and Man. I think it is infinite, you think it is finite.

You don't think God is understandable in terms of love and mercy? You don't think God is understandable in terms of what He wants in terms of behavior thru the 10 Commandments, the Beatitudes, and the Golden Rule? Aren't all these "graspable and understandable"?

Oh, yes, the message God is giving to us is very understandable. He has made it so. And God’s mercy and love is felt, but it is very arguable whether humans can truly understand the immensity of God’s love or mercy. But again, I believe these are aspects of only a small fragment of God’s nature.

I agree that there may well be a point where I simply do not know. But I'm not going to stop looking because that point is there. You have. Faced with evidence that contradict what some of your human ideas about God are, you retreat to "God is not understandable". I see this as a variant on the Appearance of Age argument. After all, a cornerstone of that argument is that we can't know why God chose to make everything look old when it isn't, but that God had a very good reason for doing so.

Well, no, you have this completely wrong, as I have explained before. I have not stopped looking, I just know that the conclusions I may reach can never be absolute due to the huge gap between God and Man. You think the conclusions you reach are all able to be held absolutely, going beyond what I believe can be held absolutely. It is not a "retreat" into anything. It is moving forward, seeking out, searching deeply, but doing so with the humble realization that I am a human and God is God and His Ways are not our Ways. So, while I may reach conclusions based on the evidence I have before me, I will do so tentatively (even if that "tentativeness" is only that I state a 99% certainty rather than 100%). You, instead, move right on into absolutism, which is the same dogmatism of fundamentalists.

Then why bother stating the earth is old? That too is a concept "that humans conjecture". The falsification of the earth is young and the idea the earth is old are based upon the same God's Creation that gives us the data on QM that shows nothing can know the exact position and momentum of an electron.

There is a major difference between the nature of the Earth God created and His nature itself. I believe that the Earth God created will, unless He chooses otherwise, follow the rules He established for it. Thus, the vast evidence that the Earth is old leads me to a 99.9% certainty that it is, indeed, old. You are going a step further, and attempting to analyze *not* God’s physical creation, but God Himself! God, who created QM, is *outside* of it (while being fully a part of it). He is infinite and boundless. I see no reason at all why He would be bound by even the rules of the universe He created.

You are not consistent with your position. You can use a human "conjecture" to say God did not create 6,000 years in the past. You can use the text of Genesis 4 to say that the conjecture of a literal and plain reading of the Bible has problems (and thus also state how God created), but you can't accept the data of QM that God made a universe in which He is not omniscient. Why? Explain the inconsistency, please.

See above. God’s physical creation can be analyzed by the rules of God’s physical Creation. God, Himself, is not subject to any set of concepts or rules.

Where am I "imposing" limitations? I'm simply stating the data in God's Creation shows He has these limitations. I'm certainly not imposing them in any way. Are you "imposing" the limitation that God took a long time to create when you state the earth is old?

You are insisting that God is bound by concepts which apply to the universe God created. I say He is not so bound.

Let me go back to Ross' list of parameters that have to be the way they are for humans to exist. Don't they impose limitations on God? After all, God can't create just any type of universe. He has to create one with those parameters or we don't exist.

The type of universe which has to exist for HUMANS to exist tells us nothing whatsoever about God, other than that He chose, for some reason, to create a universe in which humans can live.

Again, I see a lack of consistency in your position. It appears to arise from the fact that you don't want to face that God is not the omnis. That is a problem with you, not a problem of me or God.

Ah, but your approach is based on the idea that God is somehow bound by the concepts of the universe that He created. From applying these concepts to God, you conclude that He is not omnipotent, etc. We are simply starting from different positions, with our conclusions being the proper ending place based on that starting point.

I agree that He can be more than what He shows thru revelation. But He must also be what He shows thru revelation. He can't not be that conformation. To do so means God is a liar. So God also has limitations imposed by the truth.

No, again, that is applying human concepts to God. What He has shown through revelation is sufficient for Faith and belief in the message. But part of that revelation is that God is, indeed, beyond your comprehension and that His ways are not our ways. Thus, He tells us right in His message that we can not attempt (presume?) to second-guess God’s actions or motives. He is God, we are His creations. If he tells us right in His message that He is ultimately not subject to human analysis, then we have to accept that for what it is, simple truth, in faith. That is why Christianity is a Faith and not a science.

Backed off here. Did God speak the Big Bang? How do you know? We don't disagree that God created. I was only pointing out that you were slipping into human ideas and conjectures on how God created.

Again, no, I was simply using the common parlance, not making a dogmatic statement.

So you are not going to explore the slope. You insist that the truth is at the top of the slope and won't investigate. Notice that "since for any definition that could have meaning to humans". Once again, human conjecture.

Of course, I explore the slope of God’s nature. That is merely human nature. I do not believe at all that I understand the truth about God’s nature, since my entire point is that humans *can not* understand the truth about God’s nature. I will, and do, search the slope for the nature of God. I just know that it can never fully be found. And I am fine with that.

As I think about this, I would say you are imposing limits to God. You are imposing the limits of the omnis and won't even investigate whether those limits are valid.

Well, now *that* is semantics. I am imposing the limits of limitlessness. Yes, you are right, though, that this is, indeed, my starting point. It is one based on a combination of faith, experience and the truths in His word. You are equally adamant in your starting position that God is NOT limitless. You are NOT saying, "God may be limitless, but if He is not, then He may be subject to the rules of the universe, and if so, then based on this scientific analysis, He would not be omnipotent". You are starting with the presumption that God *is* subject to the concepts and rules of the universe and then going from there.


I'm saying that if the argument is a cop-out in one place, and you agree it is, then it is just as much a cop-out in the other. If we can use data from the universe to counter the argument in one place, then we can use data from the universe to counter the argument in another. You are denying that we can use data from the universe to decide that God is not omniscient or omnipresent. Yet you allow us to use data from the universe to decide that God did not directly manufacture the panda's thumb. Again, you are inconsistent in applying your criteria. If you can't use the "We can't understand God" argument to save the idea that God directly manufactured the panda's thumb, you can't use it to save the idea that God is omniscient.

Once again, the difference is in understanding God’s Creation and understanding God Himself, which are VERY different things.


But not in this instance. We can't learn any more about God's Creative process because in doing so we find that God isn't omniscient. You don't seem to have a tentative belief about this, but an absolute one. Consistency again.

No, all we learn from God’s Creation is that *if God was subject to the rules and concepts of the universe, He would not be omniscient." But this is begging the question from the beginning. There is no inconsistency in my position because I distinguish between understanding God and understanding God’s Creation. I do believe, though, that our understanding even of God’s Creation can not be absolute *because of* our inability to fully understand God, and why and how He may do things. Yes, this leaves doors open which you would like closed, but I am not uncomfortable at all with open doors. I think the likelihoods and possibilities are what they are, but always with the proviso "unless God chose to do it differently than we can perceive".

Which is why I do not rule out a young earth in absolute terms, only in near absolute terms.

I seem to have stepped on an issue of ultimate meaning to you just as much as I have for Karaite. You take the same path as Karaite: denial.

No, it is not denial, but acceptance of my limitations.

And yes, despite this gap you believe we can find out enough about God's nature to deduce His creative process. How can that be? If there is such a gap, then the creationist position "We do not know how the Creator created, what processes He used, *for He used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe* (emphasis in the original). That is why we refer to creation as special creation. We cannot discover by scientific investigation anything about the creative processes used by the Creator."

Well, that is just silly. Of course we can discover a great deal about the creative process He used because we have His creation to analyze and study, which provides a vast amount of clues not only of what He created but *how* He created. And QM is part of what He created. But understanding God Himself is a very different proposition.

Why can't we substitute your position in Gish's argument? "Because there is a huge gap between man and God, we can't know anything about how God created. We can never understand God's creative process or anything about God's nature."

He is right about God’s nature and wrong about God’s creation. The physical creation is finite and able to analyzed. Now, exactly HOW God initiated that creative process is, indeed, beyond our comprehension, and to the extent that there were supernatural interventions, this is also something that we would never be able to comprehend, since the nature of God’s supernatural power is also something not subject to human analysis.

The argument was not formed from a anthropomorphized position. It was formed from 3 threads:

1. Darwinian selection is the only way to get design.
2. God used Darwinian selection to design biological organisms.
3. The analogy that humans using natural selection get designs they don't understand.
4. The general theme in the Bible that God is often incompetent and doesn't understand and is unable to predict what humans will do in particular circumstances.

Ah, but here you are taking those descriptions in Scripture of God’s "incompetence" literally, then. You can not have this both ways. I would tend to agree with your positions stated elsewhere that much of Scripture contains Man’s understanding of the God’s presentation, seeing God "through a glass darkly". You can not use such Scripture as literally describing God’s lack on knowledge on the one hand and then deny their literalness on the other.

This leads to a hypothesis about God's nature. The result is what you call only slightly more than an Olympian god (altho I think that is a biased way of putting it). It wasn't the starting point, but the result.

But based on a starting point of God being subject to the rules of His own creation.

You have done what creationists usually do: say evolution is a presupposition rather than the conclusion it is. You have taken my conclusion and claimed it was a presupposition. It is not.

I submit that the original premise is only unsupportable because you don't like the conclusion. That gets us back to the inconsistency that using revelation, either special or general, to determine the nature of God is perfectly acceptable in other contexts. That procedure is not acceptable here because it ends up in conclusions that violate your own presuppositions about the nature of God.

See my position on this above.

I would make the world like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.

the trees and bushes would have candy growing on them

the water would be milk chocolate and strawberry during the winter....

the Umpa Lumpas would take care of everything for us and every person would use everylasting gob stoppers as currency.....

IF YOU WANNA VIEW PARADISE.......SIMPLY LOOK AROUND AND VIEW.......