If God was omnipotent, he would be able to create life in absolutely any universe.
That’s like saying God can create square circles or married bachelors.
By definition, there has to be universes where life cannot exist.
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And I see Ashwin has successfully hijacked a thread (his own thread!) about evolution and changed it into a thread about fine-tuning.
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I was just responding to your objection to God meticulously guiding evolution.
You can go back to the subject.
I’m afraid the logical contradiction is on your part.
To say that God is omnipotent but cannot create life in a universe that has x properties, or which does not have y properties is like saying God is a bachelor but is married.
Sure: “Ack!”
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No it’s not.
Do you understand why God cannot create square circles?
It’s a brute fact that something that is a square is not a circle.
It’s a brute fact that some universes can sustain life and others cannot.
No, that is merely an unfounded assumption on your part.
It’s a brute fact some universes cannot sustain life as it functions in our universe but that says nothing about other possible variations of life.
In other words you are claiming all universes can sustain life.
That’s an interesting claim.
If your God can’t create life in all universes then He isn’t omnipotent.
That’s an interesting claim.
Whether life can exist in a particular kind of universe is a brute fact…
You are basically asking whether God can create a square circle. Something that is impossible by definition. Another popular question whether God can create an immovable object.
God could create every possible universe. If your claim that every possible universe could sustain life was true, then of course, each one of these universes would have life.
Where are universes defines as “impossible to sustain life”? That seems to be your opinion, not anyone’s definition.
That’s a bad logic fail Ashwin. Just because a universe can sustain life doesn’t mean it has to.
Incorrect. It is not a brute fact, but a logical necessity. They are not the same thing at all.
Again, not a brute fact because we know of no universes that cannot sustain life.
But I do accept that it is a reasonable expectation that there are possible universes in which life could not arise thru naturalistic means.
Does that mean that God could not cause life to exist in those universes?
Well, it is a fact that, in our universe, people cannot walk on water and when they are dead they do not come back to life.
So is it your belief that those things cannot happen, and never have happened, in our universe?
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I’m sorry but you give the impression of not knowing what a brute fact is. A brute fact is something for which no other explanation exists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute_fact
“In contemporary philosophy, a brute fact is a fact that has no explanation. More narrowly, brute facts may instead be defined as those facts which cannot be explained (as opposed to simply having no explanation).”
A square not being a circle is not a brute fact, because there is actually an explanation for why a square is not a circle. That explanation is that they have contradictory attributes, and hence their identity would violate the law of non contradiction.
If it was a brute fact that some universes can sustain life and others cannot, then you’re basically saying that the properties of the universe are without explanation. That those universes can sustain life for no reason. That there is no reason why one universe has the properties it does, and why another doesn’t.
But you don’t even believe that. You believe that the explanation for why a given universe can sustain life is that God made it to do so. Hence the attributes of a universe that could sustain life would not be a brute fact on theism(God’s attributes are, however).
But all this is besides the point @Faizal_Ali Faizal is making, which is that God can, by definition, violate his own laws of physics. He can create a universe with physical laws, and then create a being that obeys none of them. He can even create a physical being that if left to itself, would act according to those laws, for example by requiring food to survive. But then God can choose to sustain that being. To keep it alive simply by His will. Like He can choose to make himself able to walk on water, violating the physics of gravity.
So Faizal is absolutely correct, there is no requirement for God to make the laws of physics that govern his created physical universe “life-permitting”, as God can simply decide to keep his physical beings alive in that universe, in effect protecting them from how those laws normally operate.
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Sigh. You really have a problem with either fundamental logical principles, or there is some language issue at work here.
I never mentioned life arising through “naturalistic” means. I mentioned universes that can sustain life.
Your claim is that God is not omnipotent if he cannot create life in all possible universes.
I am assuming you are referring to life that is sustained in the universe.whats the point of God creating life in a universe that cannot sustain it? He could create life ex nihilo… he could also sustain it. But then what’s the purpose of such a universe?
It would be like creating a pocket dimension within the universe.
No, my belief is that those things can happen in our universe if God intervenes and makes it happen.
That’s why they are called miracles.
You are raising strawmen arguments here.
Wouldn’t this be the same as creating a pocket dimension with a different physics from the rest of the universe.
I would assume the pocket dimension would have physical constants and such. You can think of it as an universe within a universe.
How is this an objection. It’s just shifting the issue elsewhere.
I didn’t understand @Faizal_Ali argument you are right there. I expected he would ask something a little more substantial.
Yes, and that is trivially true.
I actually don’t see what purpose there would be in God creating life anywhere, under any circumstances, period. I mean, he could do literally anything that is logically possible. Why that?
So you’re asking the wrong person.
Exactly. So God has no reason to create a life sustaining universe if he want to create life. He could just cut to the chase and create life.
I’m glad you could come to an agreement with me on this.
Do you expect life to exist in some kind of three dimensional space?
What exactly do you mean by a life without an universe?
Edit: your objection doesnt make any sense.
How can you possibly know this? Why would God not create a universe with more lax parameters?
Theists: I know what kind of universe God would make.
Also Theists: we aren’t in a position to know if God has morally sufficient reasons or not for allowing that evil act.
The fine-tuning argument begs the question. Why does a universe suited for life need any more of an explanation than a particular universe filled with nothing but gas clouds? They are both just as improbable. Fine-tuning proponents are assuming life has some
Cosmic significance and therefore needs explaining. But it only has cosmic significance of theism is true. So it’s just question begging. No multiverse response needed.
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