BothAndBlog Forum

Arguing for a past, no longer existing God as a precondition for the existence of the universe
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/792159

D Therefore, God has completely transformed Himself into the universe. — spirit-salamander

I can understand & agree with that argument --- and the perceived need for it --- except for the "completely" specification. There have been several proposals, as a substitute for ex nihilo creation, that a pre-existing god, in order to create our physical world, converted all or some portion of his own eternal divine substance into the mundane matter of our temporal universe*1. Spinoza, by contrast, postulated that the substance of our world is, and always has been, the substance of god*2. In the 17th century though, he was not aware of the unprecedented-sudden-emergence (Big Bang) theory, so did not have to explain how the transformation ex nihilo or ex deus could occur.

However, my own alternative explanation for the Big Bang creatio ex info is based on 21st century Information theory*3. Some physicists & information theorists have concluded that Generic Information is equivalent to Energy + Laws. Since causal Energy is inherently eternal --- cannot be created or destroyed (2nd Law of Thermodynamics) --- it is a suitable candidate for the divine Substance. But the Big Bang theory assumes as an axiom, that both Energy and Natural Law, existed prior to the creation event. Therefore, since the postulated Generic Information (EnFormAction)*4 combines the creative Power-to-Enform with the Design Parameters of Intention, the complexifying evolution of our vast universe from a dimensionless point in pre-space-time, would no longer be a mystery. It would simply function like a computer program, with an intrinsic operating system.

Unlike your Total Transformation Theory, and the tit-for-tat God's Debris notion, the EnFormAction Thesis leaves the Eternal Enformer (Programmer) intact. That's because the causal power of Nature is merely a temporary Space-Time implementation of the Infinite-Eternal potential of the unlimited power-to-create-worlds-from-scratch. Does any of that techno-theorizing make sense to you? Its primary weakness is that a Reason For Creation (Programmer motivation) is not apparent from inside the not-yet-complete evolution-of-creation (the program) itself.


*1. God's Debris : A Thought Experiment
It proposes a form of pandeism and monism, postulating that an omnipotent god annihilated himself in the Big Bang, because an omniscient entity would already know everything possible except his own lack of existence, and exists now as the smallest units of matter and the law of probability, or "God's debris". a 2001 novella by Dilbert creator Scott Adams.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God%27s_Debris

*2. Spinoza's Substance :
As understood by Spinoza, God is the one infinite substance who possesses an infinite number of attributes each expressing an eternal aspect of his/her nature. He believes this is so due to the definition of God being equivalent to that of substance, or that which causes itself.
https://cah.ucf.edu/fpr/article/spinoza ... of-sorrow/

*3. Essential Information :
The basis of the universe may not be energy or matter but information
https://bigthink.com/surprising-science ... formation/

*4. EnFormAction :
Ententional Causation. A proposed metaphysical law of the universe that causes random interactions between forces and particles to produce novel & stable arrangements of matter & energy. It’s the creative force (aka : Divine Will) of the axiomatic eternal deity that, for unknown reasons, programmed a Singularity to suddenly burst into our reality from an infinite source of possibility. AKA : The creative program of Evolution; the power to enform; Logos; Prime Mover.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

(Aside from the fact that it is probably philosophically and empirically impossible to prove an absolute temporal beginning of the world.) — spirit-salamander

That goes without saying. Philosophers & Cosmologists don't "prove" anything, they merely argue for for their own mental model. In the book I'm currently reading --- Fire in the Mind, by George Johnson (1995) --- a cautionary insight may be relevant here : "When we look upon the grand architectures of cosmology and particle physics with the advantage of hindsight, developments take on an illusory sense of inevitability". So, we need to be aware of our own "filters" that channel everything we see. Despite the pitfalls, we are motivated by the implicit god gap in our scientific models, to speculate for provenance beyond the reach of empirical proving. " the cosmological model we have constructed has become so firmly lodged in the brain that mere humans can be heard to speculate confidently about the very origin of the universe. What caused the big bang? That is where science once left off and religion began".

But were energy as well as natural laws not rather completely distorted before the creation event? — spirit-salamander

I'm not sure what you are suggesting. Is that a Katie Mack notion? Are the Laws themselves "distorted" (quantum fluctuations?) or is our view of them warped by preconceptions? Some Cosmologists seem to assume that natural laws were "engraved in stone", so to speak, prior to the Big Bang. Others guess that physical laws develop along with physical evolution. If Natural Laws are inconstant though, then our scientific speculations are shooting at a moving target.

To some extent, I can understand that. In the philosophy of religion, it is often discussed whether God, as the source of all being, has parts or not. Your remarks seem to imply that there are parts. — spirit-salamander

No, I did not intend to imply that the Ground of Being is a composite entity. Instead, the Source of our space-time world is assumed to be a non-physical infinite Whole, which is not diminished by spawning space-time parts. A Whole, by definition, can have parts (holons), which may have subordinate parts of their own. But the First Cause of our own ever-changing part is pictured as the ultimate Whole : the infinite power to create finite things. Not a thing among things, but the essence of beingness; a Qualia, not a Quanta. {see Gestalt God below}

So at creation, parts would have to be converted, which could cause the injury problem mentioned in my original post. God would somehow suffer an injury. What is your assessment of this? — spirit-salamander

A god injured by exercising his own creative power reminds me of the old riddle : "could God create a rock to big for God to pick-up?"; thereby suffering a divine hernia. That notion is skeptical of the possibility of Omnipotence. The implication is that God is a physical being with physical limitations. To me, that sounds like a mythical humanoid god (e.g Thor), which is not what I have in mind as the Prime Mover of the Big Bang. {see Creation vs Conversion below}

PS__Creation vs Conversion : My information-based Big Bang scenario includes a sort of "Conversion", which I prefer to call a Transformation. The power-to-enform does not involve a physical transmutation of one material thing into another physical thing (e.g. lead into gold). Instead, EnFormAction transforms inexhaustible Potential (cosmic energy) into Actual physical things (matter) that are subject to dis-integrating Entropy. One Whole, many Forms.

PPS__Gestalt God : I just stumbled on this webpage while Googling gestalt (holistic) notions of God. Since I am mostly ignorant of Gestalt theory, this not my personal perspective, but, as a thought experiment, it seems to be relevant to the question of a world-creating Deity's relationship to its Creation (internal parts).
"You are God, nothing exists outside of you, you are everything. You are pure energy, completely formless and unlimited. You are infinite. Something very difficult to comprehend. Now, you wish to learn about yourself, and who you are and what you can do. So you begin to create, but since you are everything and are infinite you can’t create outside of yourself you must create within yourself. It is impossible for something to exist outside of infinity. So you begin to create dimensions like up and a down, and left and right, you begin to create little objects within your self. These objects are not separate from you, they are you, they are within you.
Now you have established internal reference points and objects and are learning about yourself, and what you are capable of. Yet you are not finished. You begin to create little entities within yourself and give them consciousness, so they can look up at you and say: “Ah that’s God, this is me, and this is what we can do.” The singularity has become a plurality but at the fundamental level it is still a singularity."
https://www.gestaltreality.com/articles ... se-as-god/

Every theory that has even a single contradiction in it would be disproved, and the contradiction-free and most all-encompassing one would be the proven one.. . . . a proof is not theoretically impossible — spirit-salamander

Hypothetically, that might be possible. But I'm not aware of any human enterprise that is "contradiction-free" or "all-encompassing". That would seem to require Omniscience.

I just read about the scientific search for order within randomness, which involved attempts to beat the odds in gambling, and to find predictable patterns in the chaos of the stock market. Obviously, the mathematicians believed that beating the house in Las Vegas was "not theoretically impossible". But so far it has been impractical.

They were using early computers in the 1980s, but 40 years later, with much faster calculators, they have been unable to overcome the essential randomness in reality. Yet the author concluded, "Something about the mind, wired to find patterns both real and imaginary, rebels at this notion of fundamental disorder". Ironically, in my information-based thesis, the underlying randomness of the world, provides options for human free-will, including the freedom to make wrong choices, and to bet against the house.

I had understood you to mean that energy and law of nature before creation were identical to energy and law of nature after creation. In other words, that the pre-existent energy and natural law remains unchanged in the post-existence. — spirit-salamander

That was not what I meant. Instead, the Energy & Laws of our world are defined by the limitations of Space-Time. But the eternal Potential for those specific causes & rules could be adapted to the design requirements of any of a zillion worlds*1. Some scientists have postulated that the laws of physics have evolved along with the matter it governs. I find that hard to believe, but I suppose it's possible.

Anyway, I'm guessing that the Big Bang Singularity was like a computer program containing an operating system of Energy & Laws to govern the evolution of the world it created. A corollary to that creation myth is that the pre-existing Programmer had an infinite array of settings from which to create a world. Don't take this too seriously though. It's just speculation into the unknown from the axiom of an information-processing world.

*1. This is only about abstract Potential. I make no conjectures about any Actual Worlds other than the one instance we can experience.

What I wanted to say is that I thought that everything that pre-exists is infinitely warped and thus has no identity with what is understood to be energy and natural law after creation. Does what I'm saying make sense? It could be that I have simply misunderstood you. — spirit-salamander

I have no reliable information about pre-existence. So anything I might imagine could be "warped" by my own pre-conceptions. But I still don't grasp what you are trying to imply about an imaginary deity that existed eternally, and that, for no apparent reason, decided to create a world-simulation to play around with. Are you saying that the creator of an imperfect word, must be insane? So his idea of energy & laws would be warped like a fun-house mirror? :joke:

The ground of all being would thus be completely rounded, so to speak. This ground would be absolutely homogeneous as if flawlessly and seamlessly made from one piece. Why should the spawning of space-time parts not diminish it? “Diminish” would actually be an understatement in this case. It would have to be “destroy”, considering that to create would be to use God's “material”, as quoted in the original post. If you take a little of this “material”, you ultimately take all of it. — spirit-salamander

That may be the key difference between our god-models. In my view, the physical world is indeed made of malleable Matter, but the meta-physical world-maker consists only of immaterial Information (power to enform, to create). So, my personal creation myth says that the Programmer converted some of Her ideas (mental essence) into a real world (material stuff). Hence, Mind was transformed into Matter*2. In other words, Aristotelian universal Substance (abstract form ; essence) was converted into particular Substance (matter). You can measure a "little" piece of Matter (Quanta), but Abstract Form is an integrated holistic mental concept, of which you can't measure just one part. That's the idea behind Giulio Tononi's Integrated Information Theory.

*2. Matter vs Form :
Aristotle’s hylomorphism is, roughly speaking, the idea that objects are compounds consisting of matter and form.
https://metaphysicsjournal.com/articles/10.5334/met.2
Note -- I interpret "hyle" in terms of modern Matter, and "form" as the modern notion of mental Information (meaning & intention). Another term for "form" is Design. The physical stuff our senses observe is a "compound" of Matter (mass) & Mind (design). We interpret the signals of our senses as meaningful patterns of Information.

The only solution I can see would be to say that the ground of all being has an infinite number of parts (the parts don't have to be on a par, they could be in a hierarchical order). . . . . In fact, those who assume God without parts say that God with parts could be something like Thor. — spirit-salamander

Obviously, we are thinking of "wholes" & "parts" in a different sense : Quantitative vs Qualitative. A physical Whole System does indeed contain many parts*3. But my meta-physical (conceptual) Wholeness is an indivisible Singularity*4.

*3. Holism :
the theory that parts of a whole are in intimate interconnection, such that they cannot exist independently of the whole, or cannot be understood without reference to the whole, which is thus regarded as greater than the sum of its parts.

*4. Singularity :
The point at which a function takes an infinite, uncountable & indivisible, value
Note -- Unlike physical collections of things in space-time, the presumptive Deity is singular, unique, and is of undefinable number. Hence, no parts.

Would it be fair to describe your construction or model as panentheism? If so, I would get the point. For my argument is in principle directed only against ordinary (pure) theism (proper), which is put to a severe test. — spirit-salamander

Yes. Here's an excerpt from my thesis glossary :

PanEnDeism :
Panendeism is an ontological position that explores the interrelationship between God (The Cosmic Mind) and the known attributes of the universe. Combining aspects of Panentheism and Deism, Panendeism proposes an idea of God that both embodies the universe and is transcendent of its observable physical properties.
https://panendeism.org/faq-and-questions/
1. Note : PED is distinguished from general Deism, by its more specific notion of the G*D/Creation relationship; and from PanDeism by its understanding of G*D as supernatural creator rather than the emergent soul of Nature. Enformationism is a Panendeistic worldview.

PS__This information-based god-model omits some of the deficiencies of traditional definitions, that have been deconstructed by Atheists. I'll have more to say in another post.

my argument is in principle directed only against ordinary (pure) theism (proper), which is put to a severe test. — spirit-salamander

Coincidentally, I just read an article in the Feb/Mar 2023 issue of Philosophy Now magazine. It is addressed to "fundamentalist Atheists" who argue against fundamentalist Monotheism. It, somewhat satirically, presents alternatives to the Good God model of the Bible. My own god-posit is mostly an explanation for the god-gap in the Big Bang creation story. BB does not begin at the beginning, but assumes the prior existence of Creative Power and Directional Rules for evolution. So, like a Cosmologist, I reasoned backward from current conditions to see if there were any clues to the how & why of sudden emergence from Erewhon (nowhere).

The magazine article is entitled Evil From Outside, and subtitled : alternative explanations of suffering, somewhere between traditional monotheism and new atheism. Again, coincidentally, that could describe my own alt-Deity thesis. I come from a fundamentalist Christian background, but long-ago rejected the authority of the Bible. However, I still saw a philosophical necessity for a Creation Myth to explain why there is something instead of nothing. And the only pertinent revelation is the Creation itself -- as known by inquiring human minds.

The PN article excludes the notion of a Good God, with its intrinsic Problem of Evil (theodicy). So, the author concludes that "The theodicy atheists paint a picture of an imperfect god and then argue that an imperfect God cannot exist". By that, the author assumes that the atheists are saying that "if I was god, the world would not involve suffering". Yet, my own theory accepts the imperfect world as it is, warts and all --- including my own aches & pains & disappointments. And asks "why & how would a supposedly omnipotent world-creator design an imperfect system such as our own beloved habitat?"

I won't go into the details of my own thesis here. So I'll just run through the historical alternatives presented in the article. Perhaps you can add your own Extinct Deity to the list.

1a. Mad or Bad : "that last amorphous blight of nether-most confusion where bubbles and blasphemes at infinity's center the mindless daemon-sultan Azathoth". ___H.P, Lovecraft
1b. "if there is a universal mind, must it be sane?". ___Charles Fort
1c. "Whatever brute or blackguard made the world . . . ?" ___A. E. Housman

2. Cosmic Trickster : Marvel comic poly-deity Loki, or "Satan as seen in the book of Job"

3. Incompetent but loving God : "hopelessly inefficient". A bungler.

4. Quarreling gods : "several gods with divergent opinions" --- as in Homer's stories.

5. Competing Deities : "good and evil beings who are equally powerful" (Zoroastrian, Gnostic)

The author chastises both Theists and Atheists, "Any attempt of create such a path implies that a human being can imagine what it would be like to be God". In my own musings, I try to avoid such hubris. But, as an amateur Philosopher & Cosmologist, I have modeled my own Creator in the image of a human Computer Programmer, in order to draw whatever conclusions that analogy might point toward. But I don't claim to actually "know the mind of God"*1, as both Einstein and Hawking claimed as their goal.

So, the Enformationism thesis was the beginning of my own humble attempt to understand why the First Cause of our world, that Atheists dismiss as a Big Mistake, and that both Einstein & Hawking called "The Grand Design"*2 is the way it is : amazing but not yet perfect.


*1. In 1925, Einstein went on a walk with a young student named Esther Salaman. As they wandered, he shared his core guiding intellectual principle: "I want to know how God created this world. I'm not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are just details."
https://www.livescience.com/65628-theor ... -away.html

*2. The Grand Design is a popular-science book written by physicists Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Design_(book)
"What I see in Nature is a grand design that we can understand only imperfectly, one with which a responsible person must look at with humility".
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/616922

↪180 Proof


↪Agent Smith

I am glad to see evidence that his reason does compel him to label his enformer, as a god of the gaps posit, and I also applaud him for that with NO MALICE AFORETHOUGHT. I am sure you mean your in the same way. — universeness

To the contrary, I explicitly stated that my non-theist god-quest was provoked by the god-gap problem in Big Bang cosmology*1. My Enformer or Programmer is indeed a gap-filler or law-giver. It's similar to Plato's "Logos", except that his was based on the notion of Logical Necessity, not an origin-theory gap. It also plays the role of Aristotle's "Prime Mover", as an alternative to eternal regression of causation. The ancient Greek origin story was rather abstract, suggesting that our orderly world emerged from an eternal state of Chaos. Basically, I was philosophically motivated by the realization that the Big Bang theory --- and it's subsequent gap-fillers --- did not explain the existence/origin of our evolving world*2.

As usual, 180's ad hominem homily -- with sarcastic malice intended -- casts shade, but no light. Although he severely criticizes my personal Information-theoretical god-model, I've never been able to parse-out his own belief on the god-gap question. Does he simply assume that the universe is self-existent? Which could imply that, due to intrinsic Entropy, it is also suicidal. He often quotes Spinoza about his Pantheistic nature-god-model, as do I. But his Angry Atheist act suggests that he is not indifferent to the world-origin god-gap question, which Spinoza did not address -- simply assuming without evidence that Nature/God is eternal. In that case, 180 may pin-up some kind of god-image to throw spleen-darts at. What do you think, is it on the alt-god list, or none of the above, or all of the above?


*1. Stephen Hawking's big bang gaps :
The laws that explain the universe's birth are less comprehensive than Stephen Hawking suggests. . . . there is no compelling need for a supernatural being or prime mover to start the universe off. But when it comes to the laws that explain the big bang, we are in murkier waters.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... g-bang-gap

*2. The Big Bang says nothing about the creation of the cosmos :
cosmology says nothing about how the cosmos came to be
https://bigthink.com/13-8/big-bang-does ... -creation/


↪180 Proof

A challenge to rational theism. Only a defunct God is possible, not a presently existing one.


[Title of the OP was changed because it was misleading. It suggested that I was making a positive argument for a God who no longer exists.]
I present a challenge to theism (It is only for dialectical reasons that the challenging argument clings to some basic assumptions of theism): — spirit-salamander

I appreciate the clarification. It allows for philosophical dialog, without getting into political posturing. I too have constructed an alternative god-model for my own worldview, and I enjoy sharing views without getting into condemnations. However, some materialist posters see no need for a god-posit at all. As Feynman advised, in order to avoid feckless hypothetical speculations, "just shut-up and calculate". They accept reality as it appears on the surface, and don't try to look for underlying principles that are not empirically verifiable. But this is a philosophical forum, so we don't calculate, we speculate.

I agree that traditional Theism is inappropriate for our modern world. Therefore, it is indeed due for a philosophical & scientific update. For example, my god-model terminology derives mostly from 21st century Quantum and Information Theories. Moreover, as an alternative to traditional religious Theism, my Deistic god-model is a non-intervening abstract philosophical principle. That's not a concept to inspire hope in the down-trodden masses. Just a way to make sense of some paradoxes & contradictions of our amazing, but imperfect world. Here, I take your list of postulates as an outline for presenting some of my own ideas. As you will see, my theory departs from yours mainly in the last item.


A 1. The universe began to exist a finite time ago.
*** Since the physical world is limited by Entropy, its time to exist must also be limited.

A 2. Only an act originating from God could have caused the universe to begin.
*** The Act of Creation is confirmed by BB theory. Only the nature of the Actor remains to be updated. The Genesis myth was based on experience with ruling tyrants in ancient Mesopotamia. Surely, we can come up with a more modern notion of creation and causation.

B 1. Creation from nothing is impossible.
*** Yes, but creation from infinite Potential is not only possible but scientifically credible, since materialistic classical Physics was undermined by statistical Quantum Physics. Mathematics is no-thing, yet it includes all possible values. And the basic elements of physical reality (particles) seem to exist in a never-land state of suspended existence, until realized by an observation. Quantum Fields, Virtual Particles, and Superposition are about as close to nothingness as you can get within Space-time. But they are full of possibilities.

B 2. However, the transformation of a transcendent substance into mundane things is possible.
*** Yes, transformation is what energy does. And Energy could be construed as "transcendent substance" prior to its transformation into mundane Matter. In its Potential states of position, charge, "zero point", etc. Energy is invisible & intangible. For example, a Virtual particle has no charge, but after transformation into a Real particle, it may possess the causal property of charge. We only know that ghostly Energy has passed through, like a tornado in the night, by observing the after-effects.

C 1. God is absolutely simple. Otherwise, He would not be the first and most original principle.
*** Simple = unified or integrated as in a holistic Singularity. I interpret the Big Bang evidence as implying that the Energy Source of Creation was/is a complete infinite Whole, within which at least one Holon (our world) exists. In that case the Source is also the Origin, and being transcendent, a universal Principle instead of a space-time Thing. Note, if necessary, I'll address the definitions of Potential & Holons in another post.

C 2. Accordingly, He has no parts to offer for transformation. Rather, He would have to give Himself completely for this purpose. In fact, in His simplicity, He is so much of one piece that He would be entirely the power that would serve to transform.
*** This supposes a physically limited God. If the whole from which our world emerged was physical/material, it would have a limited supply of substance from which to construct a world. But, if the Whole consists of infinite metaphysical Potential, it would not be diminished by the transformation of infinite Possibility into finite Actualities. That's what happens when a quantum system in statistical superposition transforms into the specific state we know as a Particle. But the infinite Potential (Energy) remains at 100% (second law of thermodynamics).

D Therefore, God has completely transformed Himself into the universe.
*** I prefer to think of the Creator as a non-physical Principle, similar to abstract Logos. and an infinite Potential, like Chaos (infinite being without finite order).
The math of Statistics assumes a range from 0% to 100%. But, since the math is Ideal, it is not subject to physical laws. You can subtract 10% from 100% over & over without making the whole any less complete.
Quantum Physics uses the concept of an Infinite Potential Well to describe the unlimited mathematical range within physical particles could possibly exist.


PS__I suspect that your demoted deity theory is similar in motivation to my own Whole/Holon theory : to fill the god-gap in Big Bang theory. However, I label my god-model as PanEnDeism, instead of Pantheism or Pandeism.

Non-supernatural Theism :
The belief that God became the Universe is a theological doctrine that has been developed several times historically, and holds that the creator of the universe actually became the universe. Historically, for versions of this theory where God has ceased to exist or to act as a separate and conscious entity, some have used the term pandeism, which combines aspects of pantheism and deism, to refer to such a theology. A similar concept is panentheism, which has the creator become the universe only in part, but remain in some other part transcendent to it, as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_becomes_the_Univers