By Henry quirk:
“Owl,
The problem with deism is that it does not pass the test of logic. If there is one God; one substance, then creation must be made of that substance, as there is no other.
I can't speak as to what God is made of, or what Reality, and what's in Reality, is -- at rock bottom -- made of.
Seems to me, though: the novel is not the novelist, the photograph is not the photographer, the sculpture is not the sculptor (hey you! I'll burst your bubble in a bit), the meal is not the cook, and the Creation is not the Creator.
So the belief that the Creator is not involved in creation which is viewed as something other than the substance of the Creator, requires an explanation of what the created substance is and how it maintains its life, being autonomous.
I don't see why. We accept, know, Sol exists without fully understanding it. We guess at its interior workings and structure, and we're probably pretty close in those guessings, but ultimately it's just guesswork. And Sol's substance? Primarily hydrogen: one electron, one proton. Simple, yeah? What are these two particles made of? Again, we guess at it: superstrings (silly strings?)? Up, down, strange, quark, leptons? And what are these more basic particles made up? Is it turtles all the way down? Probably not. But we don't know. Supposedly the quark is rock bottom: a quark is made of quark. Is quark God's substance, His rock bottom? Let's say it is. In Quills, De Sade, after being denied his writing materials, used his own bodily fluids, his own substance, to make a kind of paint which he used to write his plays on the walls of his cell. If a man can use his own blood and other things to create sumthin' independent of himself, why can't God?
It does not appear that any life is independent of the whole or capable of surviving without being connected to or enlivened by its source. In the quantum world everything is entangled.
The clockmaker designs, constructs, winds up the clock, then goes off for a nice evening with his missus. God designs, constructs, winds up the universe, then does
. Two creators, mostly different becuz of scale, creating. Two mechanisms, finite in longevity, tickin' away on their own. Same difference.
Pantheism would appear to be the most logical perspective or theism. Although theism appears to see creation as something other than the original substance, the Creator perceived as connected only through oversight.
Theists are accused of wanting a big Sky Daddy to be responsible for them, to take care of them. Pantheism, it seems to me, goes one step further, sayin' we're all part of God (as bits of his liver or pancreas). Seems to me the pantheist wants to be absorbed by God (a notion I find horrific).
As I reckon it: God didn't build a universe to eat it, or to endlessly fiddle with it. He built it, and us, for the thrill of Creation. He built Reality, and us, to stand alone, just as the novelist, the photographer, the sculptor creates his works to stand alone.”
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By owl of Minerva:
The novelist is not the novel, the photo is not the photographer and the sculpture is not the sculptor because the novelist, the photographer and the sculptor are not omnipresent, one of the attributes ascribed to divinity, along with omniscience and omnipotence. People create from something. They are not the originator of the something they create, so even if they put their perspective into their creation as ideation, the raw materials are derived and their ideas are as well to some extent.
De Sade’s bodily fluids is an interesting example of something someone has by proxy. The clock is a mechanism it is not life. That is the way the universe was seen by Descartes and Newton; a machine; no inner dynamism. A clock made by a master clockmaker. This to some extent has been attributed to their religious views. Its imperfections were also in play as being unworthy of a perfect Being who has to be kept at a distance from his creation so as not to be tainted by it. A creation without duality is difficult to imagine; all light or all dark; no choices to be made; that would be mechanical or robotic.
Standing alone is a different issue, scientists do not know what life is or what its origin is, other than something from nothing. Things can be spun off, companies do it all the time, a sort of offspring of the original. All that is spun off is derived. Having life is not life itself. Being is a tricky subject, in human terms there can be a whole lot of beings and they can create novels and clocks but they themselves are still derivative.
If creation is derivative, to exist it still requires life. In its aspects of finite and infinite life is either one, or there are two forms of life disassociated from each other. The finite one, if mechanical, will cease to function if it is no longer wound or charged unless it can sustain life on its own, and if mechanical it cannot return to its source. Descartes and Newton did not see themselves in that scenario. It was alright for the universe but not for them.
. Two creators, mostly different becuz of scale, creating. Two mechanisms, finite in longevity, tickin' away on their own. Same difference.
That also makes no sense whatsoever.