{"id":16013,"date":"2013-07-22T13:25:54","date_gmt":"2013-07-22T17:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=16013"},"modified":"2013-07-22T13:25:54","modified_gmt":"2013-07-22T17:25:54","slug":"god-is-not-an-explanation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/07\/god-is-not-an-explanation.html","title":{"rendered":"God is Not an Explanation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Ian recently wrote a post on his blog, \u201cWhy God Doesn\u2019t Explain Anything.\u201d<\/a> It reminded me of a post I wrote quite a number of years ago, and reposted a couple of years ago<\/a>, with the title \u201cGod is a Mystery, Not an Explanation.\u201d It starts off like this:<\/p>\n

\"\"The world we live in is full of mysteries. When we envisage the self-replicating molecules that drive life on this planet, we wonder how they could have arisen, and we seek explanations. Likewise with the very fact than anything exists at all, we wonder why there is something rather than nothing.<\/p>\n

To say \u201cGod did it\u201d is not an explanation. To suggest that an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient being is somehow self explanatory and a way to eliminate mystery is misguided. This doesn\u2019t mean that it is inappropriate to talk about God when talking about these mysteries. But God is part of the mystery, and to speak of God is to affirm that beyond these tangible mysteries we perceive there are even greater mysteries regarding which we may not even yet be asking the right questions yet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click through<\/a> to read the rest.<\/p>\n

I think a distinction that it is important to make is between (1) whether it is reasonable to conclude that our universe points beyond itself to something else, and (2) whether, by positing that something else (be it \u201cGod\u201d or \u201ca multiverse\u201d) we have thereby wrapped things up and provided an explanation that brings an end to mystery.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ian recently wrote a post on his blog, \u201cWhy God Doesn\u2019t Explain Anything.\u201d It reminded me of a post I wrote quite a number of years ago, and reposted a couple of years ago, with the title \u201cGod is a Mystery, Not an Explanation.\u201d It starts off like this: The world we live in is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":16026,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,101],"tags":[2219,3253,3274,4005,7833,10886,13172],"class_list":["post-16013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philosophy","category-theology","tag-cosmos","tag-existence","tag-explanation","tag-god","tag-mystery","tag-science","tag-universe"],"yoast_head":"\nGod is Not an Explanation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ian recently wrote a post on his blog, "Why God Doesn't Explain Anything." 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