Q&A: Another Question About the Physico-Theological Proof
Another Question About the Physico-Theological Proof
Question
With God’s help,
Hello Rabbi, and happy festival days,
Another question regarding reading the third booklet (I know this has already been discussed a lot, but still…)
The question that kept occurring to me throughout reading the booklet is that after all the strong arguments you brought showing that evolution does not contradict the existence of God, in the end one still gets a picture of God as supposedly “not smart,” God as not omnipotent, who has to play dice and make an enormous number of throws in order to reach the desired result and then freeze it, and continue on throwing…
I have a feeling that because of this, believers from religious homes are not eager to accept this explanation of the creation of the world, because it supposedly diminishes God in their eyes. They will prefer explanations that undermine evolution from the ground up, such as that we have not found transitional links, that there should have been a world with lots of all kinds of strange and distorted creatures (as remnants), and the like…
On the other hand, those who did not grow up with faith from home base their worldview on this and are not at all willing to accept that there is such a God who is not especially wise—meaning that perhaps at the root of the outlook of some atheists there stands an implicit assumption that God is so great and omnipotent that if He did not create the world in “one blow,” then apparently, in their view, He did not create it at all.
How can those who accept your approach deal with this faith-based / philosophical problem?
Answer
First, this is not a matter of preferences. The question whether evolution is correct or not is a scientific question. It has nothing whatsoever to do with preferences.
Second, perhaps it is impossible to create a world that operates according to fixed laws and in which living creatures would come into being in any other way.
Third, this connects to the question of the flawed watch. If one finds on the sand a very sophisticated but imperfect watch, does that not prove the existence of a watchmaker? Certainly it does, except that it remains unclear why he did not make a more perfect watch. The conclusion is that there is a watchmaker, but we do not understand how his mind works. But the proof that there is a watchmaker still stands.
In other words: I explained that the physico-theological argument does not offer an explanation for the world but rather derives a conclusion from its existence. Its flawed existence still requires the conclusion that there is a God. True, God is not an explanation for the world, because the question still remains why it is flawed.
Discussion on Answer
Joseph, did my articles help you?
Hello,
1. It is a scientific question, but the answer to it is based on many theoretical completions that are not empirical. No researcher has yet seen a fish develop and turn into a bird. Even in cases where something did evolve, it is not clear that this indeed happened as a result of an infinite number of attempts and mutations that went extinct along the way; it could be that this was directed and direct development. These are theoretical hypotheses only, relying on foundational assumptions (such as that there is no God) that are not necessarily agreed upon, and there are many empirical holes in them. (You yourself pointed this out in the booklet.)
2. To say “impossible” is not something associated with the God I believe in. And that is exactly the question I asked.
3. I agree regarding the watch parable and the proof.
4. This is perhaps a question more suited to people who deal with “thought”…
Thanks anyway!