From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!CAD:tektronix!tekmdp!dadla!dadla-b!hutch
Newsgroups: net.misc
Title: Re: Religous Matters
Article-I.D.: dadla-b.314
Posted: Mon Jan 24 11:45:42 1983
Received: Thu Jan 27 19:53:48 1983

(I ought to know better than to try to say anything on the net, but . . .)

Graeme Hirst at Brown University posted a possible refutation to L Welsch's
argument.  M. Welsch claims that it is easier to prove existence and quite
hard to prove non-exitstence.  M. Hurst did not actually answer the argument,
but instead advanced the notion that, by applying the argument, God has been
proven not to exist.  I will now proceed to pick at this assertion.

First, I agree (as should we all, Pangloss aside) that the world is indeed in
quite a mess.  People have been praying for help in resolving this mess for
much longer than "recently" and have indeed been unsuccessful in completely
repairing the mess.  Since God answers prayer, by the assertion that He is
ubiquitous, we must then deduce something from this lack of success.

(By the way, I say He out of tradition, and I have no gripes with anyone who
says that God has nurturing qualities, but I deny that such qualities are
the exclusive province of females of any kind.)

The most obvious deduction is that God does not exist.  This is too simple.
God has other qualities than ubiquitousness.  He is also wise in a way that
confounds the more limited human wisdom.  I believe that He created us in
His image, that is, that we have many of the qualities that He has.  We have
at least the illusion of free will, although circumstances may limit our
choices at all times.  We can choose whether or not we want to add to or
correct the "mess".  Most of us choose to add to it.  Another of the qualities
of God is mercy.  If God were to simply fix things up for us, He would have
done so by directly eliminating that free will, and destroyed or purified the
things that make us create this mess.  This would NOT be merciful.  It would
be an elimination of the aspect of Himself which can choose.  Therefore He
answered the prayers that the world be fixed up, by giving us a way to choose
to be purified and to stop being part of the mess.  (watch out, here comes
the pitch)  This was done by first giving us His guidance and a Law to live by
that would get us out of the mess-engendering and into the mess-fixing
ways of life.  However, we managed to make a mess of His Law by adding to it
and ignoring the essential Spirit of it.  He then provided a way for us
to have that Law become a part of our inner selves, by coming among us,
as one of us, and taking on Himself the suffering that the purification and
destruction (required to "fix the mess") that we deserved.  He still did not
eliminate our capacity to choose, but gave us a valid choice that would
have an effect, rather than a set of moot choices that could not help us.

The world is still here, still largely in a mess, but it is possible for
individuals to stop being part of the problem.  There is no reason to
assume that this will go on forever.  After everyone has had the chance to
make their choice, it is likely that the world will then be "fixed" as
drastically and dramatically as M. Graeme Hirst would like to see.

Stephen Hutchison
Tektronix, Beaverton, Or

My opinions are my own and in no way reflect the official policy of Tektronix.