The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Does Greg Boyd's Logic Prove that there's No God?

Theology Philosophical
#1

Continued from another thread.

The talk by Greg Boyd was interesting, and he seemed to prove that there’s no pattern to tornadoes downing Church steeples, but (in the process) did he also prove that God doesn’t exist?

And what about the woman who was told she’d never have children, and became pregnant with what she and her husband considered “a miracle baby,” only to lose it at the time of delivery?

It would have been nice if Greg had gone on to explain why he believes such meaningless coincidences exist in a universe governed by a Supreme Being.
**
I would add that neither of these “coincidences” can be easily explained by freewill.**
**
The Lutherans didn’t will a tornado to strike the steeple when they were deliberating their denomination’s position on the ordination of gay clergy, and I’m sure that neither the woman, her husband, nor her doctor willed that she be told she’d became pregnant after being told she’d never have children, only to lose the child on the day she gave birth.**

So did Greg actually end up proving that God doesn’t exist here?

Apophenia is the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.

The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad,[1] who defined it as the “unmotivated seeing of connections” accompanied by a “specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness”, but it has come to represent the human tendency to seek patterns in random nature in general, as with gambling, paranormal phenomena, religion, and even attempts at scientific observation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

But if there is a Supreme Being, why would such a thing as apophenia exist?

Why wouldn’t there be a message for someone in every circumstance?

That’s my question here, it’s been my question in every thread related to the subject of “coincidences,” and if anyone’s answered it, I still can’t see the answer.

Can anyone help me?

It’s easy for an atheist to believe in “random” occurrences and “meaningless data.” but what do you, as a Theist, mean by words like “random,” “meaningless,” and “coincidence”?

#2

I mean that Nature isn’t God, and so isn’t deterministically driven by God either.

I don’t appeal to free will per se to explain such coincidences, except insofar as a neutrally reactive field of reality would have to be set up and (for the most part) maintained in order for multiple derivative free-willed creations to also exist.

This doesn’t prevent God from introducing occasional effects into the system, but the system has to be largely free from overarching determinate cause and effect for us to exist as derivative yet truly active persons under God. (God’s active upkeep and grounding of the system and its properties at every moment of space-time is a far more pervasively self-sacrificial action, so can be widespread in a way determinism cannot be, while still avoiding problems of Nature’s ontological status compared to God: Nature cannot start to independently self-exist after God creates it, for example.)

#3

Thank you Jason.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by “a neutrally reactive field of reality,” and why it would have to be set up and maintained in order for “multiple derivative free-willed creations to also exist”?

#4

Hi Jason,

I’m still not sure I understand what you mean by “a neutrally reactive field of reality,” or “why it would have to be set up and maintained in order for multiple derivative free-willed creations to also exist,” but I asked a Theologian I know what he thought of your reply here, and it does seem to make some sense to him.

He wrote:

Very true…While, as Primary Cause, he has created and preserved the secondary causes, and their natures, and thus knows how they operate, this causation with “foreknowledge” is not the same as direct “micro-managing” of all parts of the system. Nor does it prevent, but rather enables, the statistical distributions that naturally flow both from “deterministic” laws operating on complex heterogenous systems (e.g., poker machines or weather) and QM laws also operating on such systems (e.g., radioactive decay and variations in the cosmic microwave background).

One of the basic insights of “information theory” is that it is precisely in departing from natural, random statistical distributions that information is encoded. What makes a sign communicative is the fact that it stands out from background “noise” (using the latter word in the mathematical sense). This is so even if the “noise” is quite beautiful and orderly. So, for example, if one imprinted an image or text by laser into a piece of quartz, it is not the repetitive, elegant triclinic molecular structure of silicon dioxide that has the message, nor even its occasional random flaws, but the imposed form that departs from this structure. In other words, signs are signs because they are the exception, not the rule…It’s really not reasonable to say God could allow free will, but make sure nothing else in Creation was affected by derived free choices except the chooser. It makes free will a mockery. Then, once you have allowed both angelic and human free will, you have also allowed Creation’s complexity (and the number of indirect consequences of these choices) to become enormous.

Did he understand what you meant Jason?

Is there anything you can add?

BTW: I’m wondering if this might be at all relevant here?

In his time of trouble King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the Lord. He offered sacrifices to the gods of Damascus, who had defeated him; for he thought, “Since the gods of the kings of Aram have helped them, I will sacrifice to them so they will help me.” But they were his downfall and the downfall of all Israel. (2 Chron. 28:22-23.)

#5

Hi, Michael

I just wanted to let you know that Jason is planning to be away from the forum for the rest of the month of June – so he’s not ignoring you – he probably hasn’t read your response. I post things all the time and then forget I posted them, though I suspect Jason is at least a few years younger than me. :laughing: I suspect this conversation has just slipped his mind and he’ll get back to you when he returns.

If it helps, your theologian friend does seem to me to be saying similar things to Jason. But I’d hate to say definitively, as obviously I’m not deputized to speak for Jason. IMO, they agree.

Blessings, Cindy :slight_smile:

#6

It seems to me that suffering is not logically incompatible with the existence of the good God. If I pull a thorn from my dog’s paw, I am inflicting necessary pain in order to achieve a higher good. Of course, my dog may well turn and bite me. In the same way, to make suffering into an honest argument against God (and not merely emotive propaganda dished out to the masses), we must demonstrate that pain (in any degree) is unnecessary for the achievement of every possible higher good. Good luck with that, because the contrary is easily demonstrated: heroic people who suffer courageously and without complaint achieve the great good of fortitude, something that cannot be achieved in a world free of suffering.

The best of all possible worlds must contain the best of all possible people, and (in my view) those who triumph gloriously over adversity are far better than those who have never suffered at all. To achieve the best of all possible worlds, pain will be necessary at some point or points. It is no accident we find suffering in the best stories, and the best music often falls into the minor key. Again, Christ is true myth. Suffering is necessary (“if it be possible, let this cup pass from me”). God suffers with us and for us (“I thirst”) and promises to transform our suffering into glory (“and on the third day…”)

#7

AllanS, I may be misreading you here, but there is a big difference between pulling out a thorn, and creating thorns in the first place. Sanctification-theodicies only make sense in the context of self-determinism.

Michael, I think this whole thread is quite telling on how you view God. Greg Boyd’s logic (that creation is, to varying degrees, self-determined) only refutes the understanding of God as foremost an inexhaustibly “supreme” being. Perhaps God isn’t so preoccupied with tyrannical supremacy as we are? Perhaps God is love, can humble himself amongst sinners and call creation to make meaningful decisions about how they live? Yahweh is not a King over Servants. He is the King of Servants. The pagan tyrant-God of inexhaustible sovereignty has been turned completely upside down. This is the perfect witness of Yeshua and also the Christian prophets (and we can see it quite clearly in the Tanakh if we’re attentive enough). Yahweh reigns through humility and love — not determinism. I propose that this might be why you can’t see the answers that have already been provided on these threads.

#8

Did you watch the same video I did?

Greg wasn’t talking about wars, or man’s inhumanity to man, he was talking about acts of God (like tornadoes), and tragic circumstances beyond human control (like the woman who was told she’d never have a baby, became pregnant, and lost the baby.)

Now what are you talking about here?

He can humble Himself among human sinners, or are you speaking of the forces of nature as sinners here?

He can call the winds of a tornado to make meaningful decisions on how they live their lives?

Do you deny that God is the Supreme Being?

Do you conceive of Him only as a big man in the sky, or as the only non-contingent Being, the Independent Fact and ontological First Cause of all existence?

Is anything that isn’t blamable on freewill random?

If a derivatively rational entity wants to make a random choice, he might be able to toss coins, throw dice, or close his eyes, open a menu and point, but how can the Independent Fact play dice when He creates the dice, sets them in motion, stops their motion, and knows how they will land?

Suppose you have three sixes in your social security number, and you’ve had it since you were born, and it bothers you.

Wouldn’t God have known that you’d have that social security number, and it would bother you, from before the foundation of the world?

Since you didn’t choose that number, and no one else really did, wouldn’t God have had to will that you have that number?

That’s just an example, and probably a bad one, but how can anything be random if there’s a God?

I think some here are saying that He creates some kind of subsystem that’s capable of generating random effects?

But how could He create a craps table (subsystem), and roll the dice (generate random outcomes), when nothing but His will could cause motion, or stop the dice once they were in motion?

How can God not be the cause of anything not blamable on freewill?

So does Greg Boyd’s logic prove that there is no God?

Why do hurricanes down Church Steeples, and “miracle babies” (conceived by women who were told they couldn’t become pregnant) die at birth?

Thank you Allan.

You seem to be saying that everything does have a purpose.

But does that mean that everything means something?

After the East Coast Earth Quake, Pat Robinson suggested that the crack it caused in the Washington Monument was symbolic, and he compared it to the curtain of the Temple being torn by another earthquake.

youtube.com/watch?v=x6Iq0PNyvyQ

Must he be right?

Is the logic inescapable, that if there is a God, all such things must mean something?

#9

Michael,

I didn’t watch the video, but I’ve been reading and suppose I understand that you’re talking about natural disasters, unfortunate twists of “fate,” etc.

So I guess the question is whether anything CAN be random if God is running the show. I think that depends on your view of God’s omnipotence. Some people don’t believe that God knows the future because, as they say, the future doesn’t exist. But even if this is the case, God knows the differential pressures on the earth’s crust and that a tsunami is going to occur in Japan and wreck a bunch of nuclear reactors, and when it would happen.

I do think that God knows, but that these natural occurrences were pretty much set into the world as God created it. Sometimes He intervenes – sometimes He does so in a large way. But usually if He does intervene, He does it only in individual circumstances. I guess I’d see this as a bit of fine tuning.

I think He uses all these things which occur as natural results of the way the earth/stars were set up to begin with and also the effects of the fall (whatever those may be on natural phenomena – after all, the whole of creation fell with mankind) to accomplish His ultimate goals. We think He should prevent them – all of them – because in themselves they’re unquestionably evil. But God sees the whole and He leaves them, mostly, in place. Not because they’re good, but because they can be worked into good.

The things I struggle with (in art) often turn out to be my best pieces. They’ve gone through layers and layers and become much deeper than they otherwise could have done if I’d just painted a straight painting and had no problems with it. The underlayers barely show (if at all), but they inform the overall painting in a way that couldn’t be achieved in any other way. Personally, I think that’s what God is doing.

Love in Jesus, Cindy

#10

Thank you Cindy.

I’ve got to think about that.

I kinda wish you’d said more (and if you have anything to add, please do.)

#11

I’m glad it gave you something to ponder, Michael. I also will ponder, and if something else comes to me, I’ll post it. :wink:

#12

I believe by faith that all things have meaning to God, but I know for a fact that many things have no meaning (or misunderstood meaning) to me.

#13

Sure, he was talking about “acts of God” (which aren’t really acts of God’s in Boyd’s theology. They are non-personal phenomena). But I think Boyd is saying that God is not causally responsible for “acts of God”, because creation has been initially subjected to meaningless and instability (mataiotés3153) through a personal, self-determined and meaningful decision (i.e. through Satan if you’re a Boydian evolutionist). It may also be said that creation has been given inherent freedom to act independently of its first cause: that it possesses a random potentiality for darkness and death, insofar as it possesses a potentiality for an equal measure of beauty and life (corruptio optimi pessima; I can’t remember what Boyd labels this principle). I suggest you check out the current Theistic Evolution thread, as Johnny might be able to help you better on the degree of freedom inherent within impersonal creation. He writes his thoughts on it here, and in the post that follows. I’ve been loosely following that thread, but I haven’t participated because I’m not particularly concerned about origins (or the eschaton for that matter) and threads are always moving faster than I can keep up!

I’m not sure what you mean by “Supreme Being”. Is he infinitely better than anything else that exists? I certainly hope so. I don’t believe God is a big man in the sky though. I believe God rejects vain-glory, humbles himself on earth, weeps with us and fights for us. I also believe that God is the first cause of non-personal and self-determined creation.

I don’t quite understand why you are presuming this (other than your commitment to determinism). Why can’t God permit creation to act in chaotic independence of himself?

I’m not an expert on anything here, but I don’t find it illogical to believe that God can create personal and non-personal entities to act independently of himself (even though they are ultimately sustained by him). God is that powerful, that loving and that humble. You seem to struggle with this idea, but I feel we’re at a bit of an impasse because of it.

#14

Here is the way I see it:

“Natural” disasters are not really natural. When unnatural events happen with sufficient frequency, we begin to call them “natural” because we become accustomed to their occurrence.

When our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, fell, nature fell with them. Some animals began to devour others, and even developed the kind of teeth which are suited for tearing flesh. Mosquitoes turned from using plant juice to produce their young, to sucking the blood of mammals to produce their young. I once read in a science book that when mosquitoes were isolated in an enclosure which contained only living plants and no animals, they sucked the juice of plants and produced their young.

Natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, and tsunamis may also be the result of the fall.

Still-born children such as in the case of Melanie’s “miracle baby” in Greg Boyd’s account, may also be the result of the fall — body functions failing to work as they were designed, some twins born joined together, etc.

If God were to intervene frequently in disasters, calming storms (as Christ did on one occasion), making Melanie’s pregnancy normal, stopping natural disasters such as earthquakes, preventing people who slipped and fell over a cliff from being killed, etc., we would never know when natural processes such as gravity would operate and when they wouldn’t. We would never know when processes resulting from the fall would operate and when they wouldn’t. How could we live normal lives if we did not have consistent expectations as to what would happen? How could we even invent new devices? They might work, or they might not (if their operation were a danger to anyone)?

#15

I mean the ground of all being, the ontological Cause of all existence, the one necessary and non-contingent Being.

I don’t know why you went off on “vain glory” here, but what if we just leave out the word “big”?

Do you believe God is a man in the sky (or more precisely, do you believe He’s a temporal being within space/time)?

If your talking about inanimate creation, with no will of it’s own, what exactly could cause it to act?

Are you saying that if God does nothing, something will happen sooner or latter?

How is something inanimate and lifeless capable of independent action?

If God tosses a coin, how could it decide when to stop and land without the will of God, some other will, or gravity (a force God wills to exist) causing it to stop and land?

I’ll grant you that creaturely freewill can create effects that He doesn’t will as ends in themselves, but they’re not random.

He wills creatures with wills of their own to exist, and they sometimes (in their ignorance) will things that are not as He (or they, if they knew better) would have them.

But how does anything not caused by God’s will, or the will of some creature, just happen?

How can anything be random?

How could God play dice with the universe (even if He wanted to–especially if He’s timeless, and sees everything that happens in one panoramic view)?

I can see that.

But what would cause the timing and effects of the east coast earthquake (which caused the crack in the Washington Monument), if not God’s will?

That the earth has tectonic plates, and pressure builds up under it’s surface, is a given–but what causes it if not God’s will?

What caused the built up pressure to be released at that particular time and place if not God’s will?

And if it was God’s will that the earthquake strike on the east coast, and crack the Washington Monument, when it did, how do we escape the logic that there’s some kind of message in it?

If every such “coincidence” (and there’s a Rabbi, who wrote a book on Purim, who says there is no such thing) is the will of God, how can we escape the logic that they must have meaning?

And if meaningless coincidences can be demonstrated to exist, would that be evidence that there is no God?

#16

Perhaps it’s possible that God’s purposes can be somewhat convoluted?

studylight.org/com/guz/view. … =1#2Sa24_1