| | Gottfried: It is fitting for those who believe in God to believe God also has purposes for them.
Me: Doesn't that smack of a tautological proposition then? I believe that God has a purpose for me because I believe in God? Not at all. A tautological proposition would be something akin to: It is fitting for those who believe in batchelors to believe that batchelors are unmarried. In the latter proposition, there is a necessary connection between being a batchelor and being unmarried, whereas, in my proposition (which you cite), there is merely a contingent connection between there being a God and God having purposes for his creation. (For instance, deists believe in a God indifferent to human affairs.)
Gottfried: Faith can denote either a belief without proof or a belief without evidence. Believing without evidence is foolish, but believing without proof is rationally acceptable, and is something we humans do 99.9% of the time.
Me: No, faith is not rational. One doesn't have faith that airplanes fly, people tested them. People don't have faith a surgical procedure will work, they either know it will work or they know the probability of it working, but at no time does a surgeon do such things on faith. And so on. Basically, faith is the antithesis of the rational since it gives no meaning and no proof to any given conclusion. The examples you give are examples of rational faith-- faith based on reason/evidence/+.5 probability-- a sort of faith that is obviously rationally permissible. Thus, while faith can certainly be the "antithesis of the rational" (e.g. in cases where the object of faith is patently irrational), most instances of faith involve belief in something rational/probable/evidenced, but not certain. That is, most instances of faith (instances found in the pragmatic affairs of everyday life) are rational. For instance, I recently took a plane flight and had faith (based on mandatory governmental design and safety regulations for airplanes) that the plane would not crash-- that's rational faith.
Gottfried: An Almighty God would presumably choose not to create at all if it did not care about its creation. Following Aquinas, I maintain that God was not obligated to create, rather "He wills that the good of the universe be because it befits His goodness." (Summa Contra Gentiles)
Me: So God is an egoist as Max Stirner believed? Okay, I'm down with that, but it doesn't prove we were created by it.
I know.
In fact, all it does is assume something to be true without proof or a reason to assume as such.
But I just gave you one possible reason, viz. that it is unlikely a God would create at all if it were entirely indifferent to its creation.
More of "I think, therefore I am", than "I am, therefore I think" kind, huh........ Perhaps I was unclear, but my position is similar to Swinburne's (from his article I posted earlier):
Why believe that there is a God at all? My answer is that to suppose that there is a God explains why there is a world at all; why there are the scientific laws there are; why animals and then human beings have evolved; why humans have the opportunity to mould their characters and those of their fellow humans for good or ill and to change the environment in which we live; why we have the well-authenticated account of Christ's life, death and resurrection; why throughout the centuries men have had the apparent experience of being in touch with and guided by God; and so much else. In fact, the hypothesis of the existence of God makes sense of the whole of our experience, and it does so better than any other explanation which can be put forward, and that is the grounds for believing it to be true. (emphasis mine)
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