If God Ever Stopped Intervening In Nature....

I was intrigued by this idea: Message 922I have come across the idea that some god set things in motion and then left the universe entirely to it's own devices. I have come across the idea that some god set things in motion and then watched the universe unfold but gave the odd helping hand or caused the odd miracle here and there. I have seen numerous variations of these sorts of 'walkaway' or 'tweaker' gods.I don't think I have previously been confronted with the idea that every breath we take requires god's involvement and that an absence of intervention at any moment in time would equate to the end of existence.Is this sort of ultra-intervention idea common amongst theists?
How much intervening does god do?
Is any intervening necessary at all?
How would we define or determine God "doing nothing" as opposed to God doing something?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Thread copied here from the If God Ever Stopped Intervening In Nature.... thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

I'm inclined to see it as pantheism, except that it is being described in a way that allows one to delude oneself into believing that it is not pantheism.

From your link:

quote:

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Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal or anthropomorphic god.

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I'm guessing that DB believes in some sort of God that is recognisably Christian in nature. Personal and, as described in the bible at least, anthropomorphic in a way that is very at odds with Spinozan ideas of "god".Maybe a bit of a mish mash going on....

So every time I hold my breath I'm successfully opposing god's actions? Behold my awesome power!

If God is resposnible for absolutely everything, even individual breaths, then I am not sure where that leaves any notion iof freewill....

I think the whole idea is silly.
I would guess that when Dawn Bertot says "everything" he isn't really thinking of everything.For example...I could be responsible for an AI by using my genius level intelligence to create it in a computer at home. Then I use my omni-benevolence to give my AI a connection to the internet.
The AI would still have freewill in what it scanned or interacted with from the internet... but if I unplugged my PC or stopped paying the electric bill... then the AI would cease to exist.I'm responsible for it, but it still has free-will.Then again... this scenario would include me not-being-responsible for the internet. Therefore... I'm not responsible for everything, only everything-that-the-AI-requires-to-exist.So we could tweak the example and also say that because of my coolness, unmatchable biceps and trillionaire monetary status... I am also responsible for powering the entire internet and without my input it would also shutdown.I'm responsible for everything in a way... but not affecting freewill.However, if we take "responsible for everything" to it's extreme end... I would have to be responsible for all the things that are posted on the internet... responsible for all the choices everyone makes.
If there's freewill... then there's something someone else decided and then I wouldn't be responsible for everything.In that extreme sense... freewill and someone-responsible-for-everything is simply an oxymoron and the two cannot co-exist.So, yeah, I think Dawn Bertot just didn't really think about the extreme end-of-the-line when he said that.
But, of course, I wonder where his line is drawn? Or perhaps he really doesn't believe in freewill?*flexes biceps* (How many pecs do you have? I have 13!!)
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The doctors had my mother on a respirator for a while so I guess they were helping her assert her free will - or maybe they were just satanic bastards.

I know I'll regret this but we should ask Dawn to clarify what he/she meant. I agree with Stile that it may not be as literal as you and I are thinking it to be.- Oni

It's hardly a new idea. For example, the catechism of the Catholic Church has this to say about it: Similarly Calvin in his commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews: "All things would instantly come to nothing, were they not sustained by his power."

So a lapse in divine concentration and we are all obliterated.Yipes.

God is made of Ritalin.

Yes, a lot of people do believe that this is how God operates, but my question would be whether such doctrine can be reasonably extracted from the Bible. Certainly the Bible contains passages easily interpreted to be contrary.For example, the Bible states the following in Isaiah 55:11, which I take as in direct contradiction to the 'God must constantly pay attention doctrine':"So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."It appears to me that if God ordained that hemoglobin would bind to oxygen and release carbon dioxide in the lungs under certain conditions, that such a thing would continue to happen until God said otherwise. For such a transfer not to happen in the right conditions would be to have God's word return void.Somehow people who believe this doctrine must be believe that rather than saying, "let energy distort space-time and allow said distorted space time to affect motion of matter and energy through space", God must dictate, instant by instant, the motion of bodies and energy in order to keep the Earth in its orbit. I find the latter position unfathomable and unnecessary theologically. No matter how much or little God intervene's in man's daily life, it is unnecessary to believe God's word requires constant reinforcement of the type Bertot insists on.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Which observable phenomena is God presently actively responsible for and which are happily occurring without any active divine participation at all?If God just decided to extract himself from any participation in our universe, our lives, our deaths and anything else one might consider godly intervention to be present in - Would we notice?What would the difference be betwen a world in whcih God is present and one in which God is now absent?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Australia would beat us at cricket.