ok ,Theists you have all your factulties, given the evidence, what's more plausable?

Question

a clockwork god , who starts things off? or one who intervenes in human affairs? I mean, which is it? So let me know ok.

I think there is none at all frankly.

I am not sharing anything,--this is not an aa meeting-----

Answer 1

It depends what you mean by "intervenes." You have this idea that all theists think of God as a puppet-master in the sky. Not the case. There are naturalistic theists who conceive of God as part of the process, so to speak, not an externality to the process, sitting on a cloud. From my point of view, the supernaturalist conception of God is incoherent for many, many reasons. The naturalist conception is not. So working from that conception, I'd say the idea of a God who "starts things off" and then has no constitutive relationship with finite actualities thereafter is an incoherent idea. First of all, what makes you think there is any "starting off"? God and the universe of finite actualities could well be co-eternal. This seems the most likely situation to me. And second, if God had no constitutive relationship with finite actualities, it would beg the most difficult question: the origin of creative novelty in the cosmogonic process.

God can have a constitutive relationship with finite acualities without that relationship being a "miraculous," occasional, supernaturalistic one. I take it that's the sort of relationship you find objectionable, and I do as well. So I conceive of a constant relationship between God and finite actualities which does not violate the natural order (because it is part of the natural order). The central focus of this relationship is the perception by finite acualities of God's appetition for the actualization of certain possibilities. From this flow the cosmogonic advance from elementary particles to sentient life... from this also flows human moral intuition.

This form of theism allows me to make a great deal more sense of the data of my experience than either atheism or supernaturalist theism.

See "Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism" by David Ray Griffin.

Answer 2

God intervenes in human affairs all the time.

In the Bible God took Adam and Eve from the Garden.
He flooded the world.
He confounded our language at the tower of Babel.
He did many wonders by the Hand of Moses.
Jesus healed, raised the dead, died and resurrected and accented into Heaven.
Even today many people get healed or receive other miracles.

Answer 3

Well, I believe that as much as we wish we knew for sure, we really are not given the evidence to know for sure about these matters.

But my personal belief is that God is always present and imminent, pervading all space and time in the universe. Therefore, it's not so much that He intervenes, as He is just always there. I think of God as a sort of super-consciousness who is always all-aware of what is going on. I think that God is formless, and yet can take various forms as the need arises.

Answer 4

I think that God always has existed and always will exist...and that He created time for man...but He is eternal. He started things for us by creating the world and all that is in it...and He intervenes in human affairs by invitation only....since He gave us free will.

Answer 5

With your two choices, I choose the clockwork God. Thanks for sharing what you believe.

Answer 6

What the heck is the question here?? Do you mean "atheists"??