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Is God Intelligent?

I tried cooking breakfast the other day. (Mind you, normally I'm a great cook.) After a few minutes over the electric Griddle and stove, I found that the bacon was almost done but the eggs were still raw. What happened? After some investigation, I discovered that I'd hit the switch on the power strip by accident; the griddle was no longer hot. With the griddle turned off, it cannot cook eggs.  Why?  It cannot cook eggs, because it doesn't have any heat to transfer into the eggs. It has no heat to give them.

My cold griddle has the potential for heat. I never just crack eggs on the countertop (at least not on purpose!) because it doesn't have the potential which the griddle has. It couldn't get up to cooking temperature, but the griddle could.  However, potential is not enough. Eggs in potential aren't cooked. A griddle in potential isn't hot. Without actual heat, I don't get breakfast.

Each of us had the potential to exist, and that potential was made actual. We received existence. However, there must be some actual existence from which existence can be received. In the Argument from Movement, we argue to this source that has existence rather than receiving it from elsewhere.

Now, what about intelligence?

We exhibit intelligence ourselves. We design things and impart that intelligence, in some way, onto them, like my griddle imparts heat to my breakfast. This is especially evident now, in the time of smart cars and smart phones and so forth. We put some measure of intelligence into the things we make, so they can act intelligently.

Not only that, but we exhibit intelligence that we trust. We trust it far more than any product of mere randomness. We treat our minds like a man-made bridge that will get safely somewhere, rather than like a fallen log which might collapse under our feet.

Where did that come from? Where did this intelligence come from? If we were made by some kind of God, and we were made with intelligence, then God must also possess intelligence. He must have it in order to give it.

The question of God's intelligence seems to hinge on whether or not you accept an idea: you cannot give what you do not have. (More formally, this is the principle of proportional causality: the effect you get cannot exceed the cause.)  Now, we're not talking, yet, about a personal God. This being could be an impersonal intelligence--some kind of logical machine.  So far, all we have is an intelligent creator, capable of giving that intelligence to some of it's creations, and giving intelligibility and order to the universe.



This post first appeared on Ho Kai Paulos, please read the originial post: here

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Is God Intelligent?

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