I wrote:
>>Brain functions are so complex we have only
the dimmest notion of what various parts of the brain are used for and that
from brains that are traumatically impaired. <<
Dave Probert replied:
>>Yes. Exactly. But this is an argument as to why intellectual frameworks
should not be used to motivate faith. Our frameworks are unreliable.<<
I think it is an argument that we should be less attached to our theories and
not so unwilling to change our minds in light of new data. Lots of 1st
century Jews refused to change their minds when the new data came in. But I
fail to see how I could possibly believe in a religion which required me to
believe that the sky was pink with purple polkadots. My reason and
observation would make me wonder if that really was the true religion. Faith
in a wrong object does not do us any good. The question is how does one
determine what the correct object to have faith in is?
Dave wrote:
>>He surely hasn't said `BELIEVE everything you see!' What He has said
is to believe in His Son. Anything we think we know or see to the contrary
is suspect. This is important to understand, as there will be a test. Our
faith will be refined.<<
Evolution is not contrary to His son, although lots of believers believe it
to be. The issue of creation / evolution does have less to do with what we
believe about the son. It does have a lot to do with what we think of God's
character, the Bible itself and how God deals with the world.
Dave wrote:
>>I think you are picking at the fact that we so often are stiff necked,
hardened old wineskins of well-worn cloth (to combine all the metaphors).
But to be clear, I am not suggesting that everything *we* believe is true,
but that our belief in *His Son* is true. Anything which denies the Son
is illusion, for He is the solid reality.<<
No, while all that is true, what bothers me is that we christians who worship
the Creator of the Universe, greet each new scientific discovery about that
universe as if it had the power to disprove the existence of the Creator
Himself!!! This strikes me as very odd; that we are afraid that the data from
the creation will disprove the Creator
Dave wrote:
>>I don't see anything wrong in doing so. You have read some of my attempts.
However these should be exercises for the sake of curiosity, not efforts to
validate Christianity.<<
Yes and I found your view fascinating and internally consistent. I have
since found one other problem with your view. About a month ago you wrote:
>>I believe that the power to do evil is from God, but the evil itself
is carried out by us. Free will is the freedom to will, not the freedom
to act. When God grants us the freedom to act, we carry out that which
is in our hearts to do (Matt 15:19). This is why I have suggested that
there is no difference in culpability between anger and murder, lust
and adultery. There is only a difference in consequence. The power to
*will* evil is ours. The authority to carry it out is granted by God.
And so we are instructed to pray:
And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
This indeed means that God *is* responsible for evil. However He is
not responsible for sin. He does not tempt anyone towards evil
Himself, though clearly He engineers circumstances where the temptation
is present (Gen 2:17). Sin is rebellion of the will, and is
independent of any actual deed. Sin exists apart from law. But sin is
not imputed without law. God has chosen to allow us to carry out our
sin that we might repent of the resulting evil and death (Rom 1:28-32).
Perhaps it is possible that the universe is only non-mechanistic
as it applies to living beings, but is completely mechanistic as
it applies to inanimate matter and energy. <<
As I understand your view, we can will but God accomplishes what we willed.
If I will to kill another person, God twiddles with the universe to make
that happen. I am responsible for the action because God granted me the
authority and he confirms or upholds that authority by making what I will
happen.
Here is the problem I found and I am curious what you would do with this
fact. Tipler writes:
"Libet et al. have demonstrated that a 'persons' brain makes a decision to
act before the 'person' is aware of having decided to act; that is, the
brain makes the decision and then informs the person of the decision, who
(mistakenly) believes he or she actually 'made' the decision. In the
experiment to show this, a spot rotating on a TV screen at a rate of 2.5
cycles per second is watched by an experimental subject. The subject is
asked to decide of his or her own free will to bend a finger, and not the
position of the spot when the decision is made. An electrode attached to the
head shwos that, on average, a potential change in the brain occurred 0.35
seconds *before* the person said he or she 'intended' to act." Frank J.
Tipler, _The Physics of Immortality_, Doubleday, 1994, p. 201
This would seem to contradict our free will and make someone else the moral
agent. I must confess that I don't quite know what to do with this factoid
inside of my views either. Any ideas?
Merry Christmas to everyone.
glenn