An Analogy for God's Providence

[dga471 (Daniel)]

@Faizal_Ali

And that just loops back to the main question. If our very existence has a “goal” that is grounded in this supposedly perfect, fully realized and timeless god, then that god would seem to have some goals or desires of its own whose realization is dependent on our own actions.

I don’t see how that follows. To take some other imperfect but possibly helpful human analogies:

1. A young aspiring basketball player decides to make Lebron James his role model and shapes his life to revolve around imitating his style of play, practicing habits, even personality quirks. While this man becomes dependent on Lebron to achieve his goals, Lebron himself is not affected by him.
2. When we perceive a tree, our mind can become dependent on that knowledge, but the tree remains a tree, unaffected by persons perceiving it.

In conclusion: we are dependent on God to realize our goals, but God is not dependent on ours.

@Faizal_Ali

Not possible for a being for whom all things are possible? Again, incoherent.

@Faizal_Ali

Or this omnipotent being could simply have created natural being capable of doing so without his having to jump in and interfere. Why didn’t he? I guess that’s another imponderable mystery or, alternatively, another part of the whole model that just doesn’t add up.

When we say that God is omnipotent, it does not mean that God can literally do “everything”. God cannot do things which violate who he is, which is the ultimate Good. Neither can God create a square circle or an unmarried bachelor, for example. These are things which are logically incoherent.

I think it is likely that the concept of a “material creature with genuine free will who instantly submits to God without fail” is also a concept which is not actually realizable, and thus God cannot achieve it without first going through an intermediate stage of formation, as we find ourselves in now. We do not know for sure, but it is a plausible explanation.

@Faizal_Ali

So just another thing that this being, who supposedly can do anything, cannot do.

Here you are trying to ask God to achieve something actually supernatural (infinite) by means of the natural (finite). To me, that also seems very much like a logically incoherent thing, like trying to achieve infinity by adding finite numbers.