Can you know God without understanding or recognizing his perfect works?

[Greatest I am]

Can you know God without understanding or recognizing his perfect works?

The whole notion of knowing and following God, is to know how he works and thinks, tied to a belief that he is perfect in all things and has the miracle at hand to create things the way he wants.

Scripture tells us to look to the universe around us for proof of his reality. Logic and reason tell us the same thing. This indicates that we should see the perfection of his works all around us.

Deut 32;4
He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

Mat 7;18
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

The logic trail of these two verses says that God’s works all begin as perfect and that that perfection is maintain and passed up through history.

I like to think I know a bit about God because, as I look about, I see that ever lasting perfection as it moves to a more perfect state over time. Evolving perfection.
Consider a baby, all babies including you and I.
We all begin life as perfect as nature, or God, can produce with our DNA and all other conditions at hand. This is a truth even if we are born with flaws and is irrefutable in terms of both nature, logic, reason and the Bible.

This truth led to my apotheosis and knowledge of God and nature.
I offer it here for your contemplation and comments.

I cannot see anything that would my view but am willing to listen. If you cannot see the perfection that I do, then I will try to persuade you.

Perhaps the best way to begin would be in you opining on the following and telling me whether you think it is a cynical view of life or if it is a real and true view of life.

Candide
"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPClzIsYxvA

Regards
DL

 

[Panacea]

I don't personally believe the world as we know it is perfect, nor getting more perfect. Thinking about the world in terms of how vast time has spanned, and looking into what we can predict/guess from the future, it appears we have been privy to the best part of the world's history thus far, but it is soon to degrade, likely culminating in human extinction. I find a lot of people argue that the world is perfect because it exists (I find it nonsensical), and proclaim it's perfection is an obvious result of a perfect influence, but I doubt many of those people actually think every single thing about the world is perfect. They shouldn't, at least.

I am also not prone to believing there is a "him" doing any "work" or having done it in the past, so I suppose I do not fit the themes of this argument at all.

 

[Maldoror]

loling at the candide quote. Voltaire was ridiculing Dr. Pangloss' leibnizian rhetoric, not embracing it.

 

[Greatest I am]

I don't personally believe the world as we know it is perfect, nor getting more perfect. Thinking about the world in terms of how vast time has spanned, and looking into what we can predict/guess from the future, it appears we have been privy to the best part of the world's history thus far, but it is soon to degrade, likely culminating in human extinction. I find a lot of people argue that the world is perfect because it exists (I find it nonsensical), and proclaim it's perfection is an obvious result of a perfect influence, but I doubt many of those people actually think every single thing about the world is perfect. They shouldn't, at least.

I am also not prone to believing there is a "him" doing any "work" or having done it in the past, so I suppose I do not fit the themes of this argument at all.

I do not recognize the him either but I do believe my eyes.

You did not wish to opine on Candide.

Would you like to try Darwin.
When he found the Galapagos Islands, do you think that in hind sight, he thought that he had found a perfectly evolving system at the best it could be at that point in time, or do you think he would have thought he found a screwed up system?

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

loling at the candide quote. Voltaire was ridiculing Dr. Pangloss' leibnizian rhetoric, not embracing it.

Perhaps. I do know that that is the common assumption.
Can you refute that quote though somehow?

Regards
DL

 

[Panacea]

When he found the Galapagos Islands, do you think that in hind sight, he thought that he had found a perfectly evolving system at the best it could be at that point in time, or do you think he would have thought he found a screwed up system?

Regards
DL

I believe Darwin likely found a working system; but nowhere near perfect. I suppose the term could be functioning.

 

[Greatest I am]

I believe Darwin likely found a working system; but nowhere near perfect. I suppose the term could be functioning.

What do you see wrong with what he found?

Regards
DL

 

[Panacea]

What do you see wrong with what he found?

Regards
DL

From my view, the many currently endangered species on the island signify problems existed even then, which I think is consistent with life itself. Flawed, imperfect, chaotic.

 

[BornReady]

Consider a baby, all babies including you and I. We all begin life as perfect as nature, or God, can produce with our DNA and all other conditions at hand.

Some babies are born severely deformed. It is true the baby was formed as well as can be expected considering her DNA and environment. But if you define that as perfection then imperfection is impossible and the word loses all meaning.

[FONT=inherit !important][FONT=inherit ! important]Candide[/FONT][/FONT]
"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”

I don't really understand this quote. Are you saying if something achieves the purpose for which it was created then it was created perfect? The problem with that is we don't know for what purpose natural things were created. They may not have been created for any purpose. Without that knowledge we cannot judge how well they achieve their intended purpose. We do know human creations often do not achieve their intended purpose with perfection.

 

[Greatest I am]

From my view, the many currently endangered species on the island signify problems existed even then, which I think is consistent with life itself. Flawed, imperfect, chaotic.

There may be endangered species but you have to remember that they are endangered by other species that are better adapted to take over their territory or niche.

That is how evolution works. End that and we all go extinct.

What you see as a flaw, evolution sees as necessary and healthy.
Do you see it differently now?
Remember that if the dinosaur was still here, we would not be.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

Some babies are born severely deformed. It is true the baby was formed as well as can be expected considering her DNA and environment. But if you define that as perfection then imperfection is impossible and the word loses all meaning.

I guess the way I see it is from natures POV. To it what is created is as perfect as it can be regardless of our opinion. Imperfection always has a place in our vocabulary though. It just becomes more of an opinion from the outside looking in.

I don't really understand this quote. Are you saying if something achieves the purpose for which it was created then it was created perfect? The problem with that is we don't know for what purpose natural things were created. They may not have been created for any purpose. Without that knowledge we cannot judge how well they achieve their intended purpose. We do know human creations often do not achieve their intended purpose with perfection.

Nature is a non thinking process. It does not have a purpose. It just does what it does mindlessly. Only man has the brain power to wonder what purpose it has.

In evolution, it is a defect, or to us an imperfection as compared to the original, in the new organism, that will make it the fittest for it's ever changing environment.

Regards
DL

 

[Panacea]

There may be endangered species but you have to remember that they are endangered by other species that are better adapted to take over their territory or niche.

That is how evolution works. End that and we all go extinct.

What you see as a flaw, evolution sees as necessary and healthy.
Do you see it differently now?
Remember that if the dinosaur was still here, we would not be.

Regards
DL

Evolution is not perfection. Coyne eludes to this in the beginning pages of How Evolution Works.

To me, imperfection is not a bad thing at all, as you seem to define it, as evidenced by you claiming I see the failures of species in evolution as unnecessary and unhealthy . Healthy and necessary, yes, but not for perfection, just for function.

Perfection is not a concept of nature, but a fantasy of the supernatural. Adaptation is the closest the world can get to perfection, but it falls short repeatedly, as evidenced by extinctions and disasters and suffering.

We will all likely go extinct in due time (when the sun's heat overpowers our planet, as scientists predict), so the following point is moot.

Remember that if the dinosaur was still here, we would not be.

I am of the belief we are here because the dinosaurs were not, and you've framed it (I may be incorrect in this assumption) as though perfection (god) itself removed the dinosaurs so we could be here. I do not share that belief.

So overall, no, I do not see it differently now. I do not feel perfection occurs in nature.
I think if one chooses to think of a god that is not perfect, then one could "know" god without recognizing perfection, but if one's god is perfect, then I assume it could go either way, but most likely the person would think everything is perfect because their perfect god created it.

 

[Greatest I am]

Oh well.

As my quotes in the O P show, believers should be forced to think that God is perfect and does create all things perfect.

Let me leave you with this reply that says my thoughts better than I could do myself.

"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”

I am, of course, not convinced that "all things have been created for some end"...operative word being "created", operative assumption being "intentional". But, if they were created, assuming the "creator" had enough foresight / insight that he wasn't just guessing, then it would have to represent the best possible solution, even if it appears to be imperfect from our viewpoint. So, having stated my disclaimer, I would tend to agree with that quote.

I submit that God had no other choice but to create a universe exactly like this one...one that looks curiously like a universe with no God in it...and that God has a very good reason for doing so...and that that reason is not very difficult to understand...but it requires thinking outside the human box to get there.

Regards
DL

 

[Panacea]

I will give your quote attention, since you've asked thrice and no one is feeding it hehe: I have read Candide coincidentally, and it sits on my bookshelf proudly, but I didn't agree with the common theme then either. It didn't much appeal to me.

Can things be otherwise than as they are? Things can only be as we think they are. Individual differences and unreliable memory makes things otherwise than as they were.

Are things have been created for some end? As you said, I don't see the world's origin was intentional or "created" as in designed, so no.

Are said ends necessarily the best. No. I do not feel whatever happens is the best, and I don't mean emotionally, or from the perspective of what humans want (which would just be a negative statement), but in terms of sustainability and harmony.

Your last paragraph plays to the necessary default of Calvinball regarding belief in gods and their intentions. We simply do not know if a god exists, and if so, what intentions it held. To think supernaturally is not necessarily to be privy to correct information others do not have, it is just to make the personal choice to attribute the universe and/or it's meaning to something we do not have knowledge of.

 

[Greatest I am]

I will give your quote attention, since you've asked thrice and no one is feeding it hehe: I have read Candide coincidentally, and it sits on my bookshelf proudly, but I didn't agree with the common theme then either. It didn't much appeal to me.

Can things be otherwise than as they are? Things can only be as we think they are. Individual differences and unreliable memory makes things otherwise than as they were.

Are things have been created for some end? As you said, I don't see the world's origin was intentional or "created" as in designed, so no.

Are said ends necessarily the best. No. I do not feel whatever happens is the best, and I don't mean emotionally, or from the perspective of what humans want (which would just be a negative statement), but in terms of sustainability and harmony.

Your last paragraph plays to the necessary default of Calvinball regarding belief in gods and their intentions. We simply do not know if a god exists, and if so, what intentions it held. To think supernaturally is not necessarily to be privy to correct information others do not have, it is just to make the personal choice to attribute the universe and/or it's meaning to something we do not have knowledge of.

Thanks for this.
I too am not particularly pleased whith all of Candide, possibly because the author took his cyinicism to far. that is why I just use the more pertinent quote and vid to express what I see out here. Evolving perfection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O9cYTZXekA&feature=related

What these gentlemen seem to recognize is that if even the position of a few molecules or anything that happened prior to man, including the asteroid that killed of the dinosaurs, then we would not be here to discuss anything.

Regards
DL

 

[BornReady]

Nature is a non thinking process. It does not have a purpose. It just does what it does mindlessly. Only man has the brain power to wonder what purpose it has.

It doesn't sound like you agree with the Candide quote either.

 

[Maldoror]

Perhaps. I do know that that is the common assumption.
Can you refute that quote though somehow?

Regards
DL

perhaps? it's a fact, Dr. Pangloss is a caricature.

there's nothing to refute, the quote presupposes a God, so it's based on an assumption, it's inherently flawed.

 

[Greatest I am]

It doesn't sound like you agree with the Candide quote either.

I do.

For us to thing the opposite, that life would begin with an unthinking purpose of being less than it can be, is silly to me.

We are a good example to contemplate. Do we all want the best for ourselves?
Of course. It should follow then that non thinking live would, if it could desire, would want the same.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

perhaps? it's a fact, Dr. Pangloss is a caricature.

there's nothing to refute, the quote presupposes a God, so it's based on an assumption, it's inherently flawed.

I did not interpret it's logic based on a God but simply on nature.

Instead of my repeating myself here, please see the post above.

Let me add what another poster said.

"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”

I am, of course, not convinced that "all things have been created for some end"...operative word being "created", operative assumption being "intentional". But, if they were created, assuming the "creator" had enough foresight / insight that he wasn't just guessing, then it would have to represent the best possible solution, even if it appears to be imperfect from our viewpoint. So, having stated my disclaimer, I would tend to agree with that quote.

I submit that God had no other choice but to create a universe exactly like this one...one that looks curiously like a universe with no God in it...and that God has a very good reason for doing so...and that that reason is not very difficult to understand...but it requires thinking outside the human box to get there.

Regards
DL

 

[Panacea]

Humans may want the best for ourselves, but we don't always find it...the analogy falls flat for that reason.
I also think that something can be infinitely better and worse than it is, no matter what it is, and perfection could never be achieved.