Can Christians Believe That God Is Immanant In The Natural World?

Very interesting take. Keep in mind one of the main tenets of Christian Theology is only God can create life. So if life is a result of divine intervention and man is not divine how could he have the power to create life where it does not exist? By definition Christian theology limits life-generation to a supernatural God. In Christian theology we are mere mortal creatures embedded in nature.

Amen . That's the whole point here.The game we play as scientists is ultimately to decide what is fundamental to a system and then use that as our mode of explanation for the casualty we see. We can continue to unravel deeper levels of causation but eventually the buck has to stop somewhere. From there, looking for a deeper level of causation is as meaningless as asking what is North of the North pole.It is just that our mind and experience has deluded us into reaching the false conclusion that every 'thing' must be an effect of something causally prior. That every 'thing' must have a cause cannot be demonstrated as we only see effects - not causes. You cannot view a cause - you can only view what a cause produces.So the theist would say God MUST be the cause of Nature simply because they fell into the trap of assuming all things must have causes. They look at nature and say 'Who ordered that?'Granted, a Theist could employ this argument to explain 'God' as fundamental but as you stated why should we? If Natural law can explain everything we see why resort to a deeper level of causation?The theist's only recourse is to find something within the realm of existence and experience that cannot be explained by natural law. Then and only then will we have reason to suspect a deeper level of causation is required.I do not state a God cannot or does not exist. I simply state we see nothing that would currently lead us to believe Nature is not fundamental. If it's not broke, why fix it.

I don't know about this train of thought. You guys think you are on to something. I think you are onto the same old same old.Long ago, many humans decided there must be an uncaused first cause. They named this unknown 'God'. Some believed 'God' was energy, some believed 'God' was a sentient being. Some worshipped the mysterious 'God' Nature Itself.You may choose to leave yours unnamed. You may hesitate to ascribe additional properties to the Uncaused First Cause. Yet, you still believe in It, and that is, essentially, just what I am expressing when I say the word 'God'. I am not 'invoking' something extreneous, I am just naming the Uncaused.

Don't you see that is the point of the topic?If nature and God are both fundamental, how do we know they are not one and the same?I would not deify nature, but I might conclude that God is more natural than we believe. Hypothetically of course.

What's the point of equating God with Nature? You can assign any proper name you wish to Nature, just like you would a dog or a cat. You can call it Snowball, or Fluffy, or God. It doesn't change anything, and it won't add to or detract from the nature of existence. Nature cannot be deified, for the reason I noted above.As far as God being 'natural', If God is part of Nature then God could not have created nature as he is just a part of the whole, and contingent upon the whole. By defintion of Christian Theology God cannot be contingent on anything else for his existence.Also, the God described by Christian Theology cannot have 'natural' properties as it cannot be part of the thing which was created - Nature.

What are we on to? Nothing more than what Christian theologians have reasoned - there must be an uncaused fundamental agent. They too have rightly argued that not all causes must be effects. They simply push back causality one extra step when it is simply not needed.

If we don't know WHAT was the first cause, how can we possibly decide whether we are pushing it backward or forward a step? It is only upon deciding that nature was the first cause, that you can say the supernatural is 'extra'. How can the 'natural' be the cause of anything if nothing natural existed? It's pretty simple. If nature is THE cause, then nature is God. You just don't mention it. I am declaring that WHATEVER is the uncaused cause is not known, and until it is known, God is not an extra step. He is the same step.Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

For arguments sake consider the following - I propose that you are right. Your god did create the universe. BUT your God is not the initial uncaused cause for which we are looking. Instead what you call God was in fact created by an even more powerful supernatural being. This more powerful being is the initial uncaused cause and is in fact the cause of the God that in turn created our universe. We should in fact be worshipping the creator of the creator.There is no evidence against this view. There is no reason to think it any more or less true than your creator as the initial uncaused cause.Yet I suspect that your reaction to this is that it sounds unnecessarily convuluted and unlikely. That I am falsely applying additional layers of causality to make things fit my own arguments and beliefs.That is exactly how your god hypothesis sounds to me.Nature is unconscious, uncaring and indifferent. Quantum fluctuations (or whetever other initial natural uncaused cause is under consideration) do not have a plan or a purpose.Does that really fit your definition of God?
If so we have no real disagreement and you can call nature 'God' and 'God' nature if you want to.However I suspect that this is not the case.

Is it appropriate to question the purpose or the plan of the Uncaused Cause?What is known of God is that His ways are unknowable. If we don't know what the first cause is, we don't know if it had plan or purpose.What we know:Natural events have causes, something without a cause may be considered higher, or 'super' natural. It does not need to be more complex than nature to be 'different' from what is observed so far.Any Uncaused was the 'creator' of all subsequent effects and causes.If God is the Uncaused, God occupies the first position in activity within the universe.If something else is thought to be a better description of the Uncaused, aka God, it still occupies the first position within causality.Of course I understand what you are saying, but I feel that we are simply using different adjectives for our 'Gods'.Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

Why can we not ask that question? If there is a plan why cannot I question it? I do question the very existence of such a plan? That presupposes a God. And why are his ways unknowable? This sounds like a convenient way for theists to avoid difficult questions.All the evidence suggests that nature is unconscious, indifferent and unplanned.
Nature is brutal by any human moral standard. Death, pain, suffering and destruction are not just prevalent they are absolutely intrinsic to the workings of nature. This makes absolute sense if you view nature as unconscious, dispassionate, indifferent and unplanned as it would be if purely mechanistic.The theistis response to this fact of brutality and 'immorality' is effectively "God's ways are unknowable" which is no real answer at all. Do we know that? Does quantum mechanics not teach us that nature is inherently random in some ways? Does it not show that our very linear cause and effect thinking is more a product of our macroscopic environment and subsequent 'design' rather than something fundamental to the universe as a whole?
What causes quantum fluctuations of the sort that are hypothetically the cause of the Big Bang? Do they need a cause? Why? Only if you are trying to justify the existence of the supernatural do you need to go beyond the natural. There is no need and no evidence for it. It is an unneceesary regressive step. Creator is an emotive term that suggests consciousness at the very least. A natural beginning to the universe, such as a quantum fluctuation for example, is no more a creator than a cloud is the 'creator' of rain or an electron is the 'creator' of electricity. If a random quantum effect is the uncaused then there is no need for any gods. We have observable evidence of random quantum effects (evidently not of the literally universal scale). We have no reliable evidence of any gods, let alone the particular Christian God creator you refer to. There is a huge difference between a conscious complex supernatural being which we cannot by definition study by any physical methods and random physical processes that we can seek to study, compute and potentially even observe in some way.Your whole position relies completely on the assumption that there has to be an uncaused cause in the shape of a supernatural conscious being because of your assertion that nature itself cannot have uncaused causes.There is no reason to believe that nature of the unconscious, indifferent, dispassionate and unplanned variety cannot be the initial uncaused cause.Adding God as the initial uncaused cause is an unnecessary regressive step when purely, logically and objectively considering uncaused causes.That much is indisputable.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

I am not, first off, talking about the Christian Creator God. In the OP, yes, but in these recent posts on causal agent/s I have said that 'God' is one name of many for the Uncaused. We've embellished, sure, but at the core of the belief in God is the belief that there must have been something uncaused to avoid the infinite regression Grizz spoke of. Again, I am not speaking pure Christian rhetoric here. I am simply asking: if we don't know what was the first cause, how can we discuss whether it had plans or not? In that sense, the ways of anything unknown are unknowable. And I don't use that phrase to fill gaps or skirt issues. If you caught the beginning of the conversation, Grizz and I had said that the idea of something having no cause is 'unnatural' or foreign to us. Neither of us said it was impossible. No, to repeat we did not say that causes must exist. Well, in that regard I should have said 'initiator' but I was using terms as loose parallels. I don't understand how you say a random quantum EFFECT when we are debating about the initial CAUSE. Perhaps you mean event? Anyway, if that is true, then then God must either be nature itself, or we must regress. Unless, of course, when all religions came to be they used the word 'God' to symbolize the initial uncaused. We would then be debating what God was, and not where s/he/it appears chronologically.

Seen that one before: Cosmological argument - WikipediaIt would be interesting if the uncaused cause became the equivalent of Zeno's argument that motion can't exist (see: http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s3-07/3-07.htm.) If ol' Zeno had examined his argument in a less dogmatic manner and discovered calculus as a result , I'd be orbiting Altair right now telling people astrology charts concerning the position of Mars or Saturn simply lack relevance.Edited by anglagard, : No reason given.Edited by anglagard, : accuracy

Cause, effect, event - Whatever. If it is the first "event" then what difference does it make what we call it? Our language is so ingrained with the (mis?)conception of cause and effect that it is not perticularly well equipped to discuss the initial "uncaused cause" (or "uncaused event" or "initial effect" - all of which are quite clumsy phrases) I have never seen a definition of God that is comparable to a random unthinking, unconscious, indifferent, unplanned quantum effect. In my limited experience those who worship Gods would object to such a comparison.
Your insistence that they are one and the same ignores nearly all of the generally accepted properties of both natural events and Gods.Lets sum this up1) We both agree that unless there is infinite regress there must be a cause/event/effect that itself was not caused by something preceding it
2) We both agree that the universe existsI am claiming that the obvious conclusion is that the universe/nature itself is the uncaused phenomenon.You seem intent on insisting that there had to be an uncaused being/god of some sort which then causes the universe to exist.You regress one step further than I do in terms of causes and effects
You do not do this based on any evidence
You then claim that they are the same thing anywayYour view only makes sense ifA) We know nature cannot have uncaused events
B) We know that there is a creator of some sortTo my knowledge we do not know either A or B so your position seems fairly weak. Have I misunderstood?

Well, please know that I am not trying to prove or disprove anything.I do feel that people over-look some areas in the evo-creo debates. It is always 'science versus God' or 'God is extra'. Somebody is wrong, crazy, deluded, etc.In reality, this is just the modern version of the same old stuff. The only important change is that we may now have evidence that the ancients did not. We have a pretty good idea that life was once simple cells. We can study atoms. We may conclude that the universe had a beginning.The basic dilemmas of Aristotle and Plato are still relevent and unanswered, and we have a common bond as humans trying to answer these questions. Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

Maybe that's why I prefer the term 'God'? Far as I know, pantheism does not worship a sentient or thinking God. In patheism, God is energy or force. There are many philosophies which are based on a connection to the universe and nature. Yes, although we could question either. Ok. I don't know too much about quantum physics or mechanics at the 'initial' level. If they are effects which occur with in the universe, would they be able to occur before the universe formed? A better description would be that I believe the finite can not exist without the infinite. The universe is known to have a beginning, so it makes sense to me to say it must have been caused by something greater than that. At this level of thought, there is no evidence for either scenerio. Actually, in my personal beliefs I don't. I can talk about 'what ifs' in a thread, though, can't I? Because we don't know either, my view can still make sense. Even if I do regress further than you do. So what? In my view, a universe composed of 'stuff' could not have appeared from nothing unless somehow 'nothing' is an irreducible complexity. The universe could simply be the reduction of the whole into parts. That may not make sense, but any explanation would be mind boggling. It is not necessary to feel there is a creator Being, and in a sense, God is not a Being as we conceive of ourselves as beings. He simply IS being. The summation of all that was or will be. I have no problem saying that this Force can be greater than us and still communicate with us as one of its reductions.