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Did God Create Chaos?
- Thread starter Ouroboros
- Start date
idea
Question Everything
Predictable is defined by unpredictable, formless - does this exist? Can you give an example of something that is formless? A form can be defined for anything. Complex w/high sensitivity to change - the butterfly effect... chaos theory isn't even random, it's just high sensitivity to change but there is cause and effect. For something to be actually random, you would have to remove all of the forces and laws of physics - no gravity, no interaction potentials, no laws at all ... was there a time when laws and forces did not exist?
Yes outside of infinity, there is a dimension that hasn't be formed yet.
Yes according to what i just posted in Greek ideology, before the beginning of the reality it was without order, and within many other religions the same.
Yet lets take it to another level, which is within the big bang theory....What was there before it was formed? When the big bang happened, were there multiple quantum dimensions and mathematical atomic structuring, formed at that moment? Seems a bit random to go from chaos, to a predictable order instantly.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
Well, that's one of putting it.Chaos exists without order.
A bit of double meaning there. Chaos exists. And it's without order. It would suggest that chaos is independent of order and existed before it. In a way, perhaps, chaos can't be created. Just by the action of creating chaos, you are unintentionally creating an order to it. So pure chaos, unadulterated and unaltered disorder, must exist without any conditions or relations to order. Any tainting of order to it would make it non-chaos.
---edit
I had a reflection of the trinity concept in Christianity, and was thinking (just going all off the charts here with crazy talk), the spirit as chaos, the son as logos/law/order, and the father then is... maybe time?
idea
Question Everything
I'm a fan of the conservation laws - conservation of mass, of energy etc. I honestly don't think it's possible for something to just appear out of nothingness. Things change form, but do not appear and disappear.
Yes according to what i just posted in Greek ideology, before the beginning of the reality it was without order, and within many other religions the same.
There was a time when we were without order, but order has always existed within God. ... but then perhaps the whole conversation is moot, perhaps time itself is an illusion in which case there is no before or after - just different sides of what eternally exists.
Yet lets take it to another level, which is within the big bang theory....What was there before it was formed? When the big bang happened, were there multiple quantum dimensions and mathematical atomic structuring, formed at that moment? Seems a bit random to go from chaos, to a predictable order instantly.
I'm a fan of panspermia
The Beginning. by Brig Klyce
The End. by Brig Klyce
I would have to say God allows Chaos. He did not create it per say Remember God can do anything that He wants but He gave us choices and out of our human choices chaos was formed because Adam and Eve thought they could become God if they ate the apple. The devil did a wonderful job of winning them over with trickery; our desires get us into trouble. so I guess if you are looking for a real source you can blame it on the devil. God has even given him free reign just like us and those who understand the Fall from the beginning know the devil made a really bad choice and wants all of us to join him in his folly. There is nothing beyond God; God doesn't create bad even though a lot of people blame Him when they make bad choices. As far as categories that you would like to place people in I don't claim to be a theist or Creationist specifically but I am definitely not a Atheist. I do believe. I chose not to be boxed in my the divisions that you have created. while I love to ponder how God does things; my curiosity is because I am in awe of what He can do not whether He is able to do it. I am anxious to get there and see if He'll show me then or maybe I'll be so happy to be there I won't care.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
That would still leave the question of where chaos came from unanswered. If chaos exists on its own, and God somehow has to allow it to exist, then God didn't create it and doesn't have its source in God, which means that God isn't the ultimate source of everything. That makes God just a sideshow.
Well, he can't if he has to "allow" something else to happen instead of directly creating it. If he could do it himself, then why didn't he?
The problem here is that I'm talking about chaos on a much larger scale than just human behavior. The thing that got me thinking about where chaos came from was the argument that the world is ordered, and that's an argument to why God exists, but the problem is, if God put things in order to create this world, it happened before humans existed and it must have been done from a pre-existing chaos. God couldn't put things in order in something that was already in order. So the argument that the universe is ordered has a very shaky ground. If chaos didn't exist before the universe was created, then there wasn't anything God had to put in order.
Not even chaos that exists outside of God? God didn't create chaos, yet it exists, and God somehow has to allow it to exist for things to work? Why? Why does he allow chaos? And where did chaos come from before humans and before the devil?
There wasn't any boxes or divisions.
If chaos exists, then it came from somewhere, and it must've been before humans and the world. If God created order, then there must've been something that God created order from. How can you sort socks without having socks that are unsorted? So where did the unsorted socks come from? Did God create them first before he sorted them? Then chaos must've had its origin in God, not humans.
I didn't say he wasn't able to do it. Actually, when you suggest that he didn't do it but humans and/or devil did it and God had to just sit there and allow it, then it suggests that God couldn't do it. Can God create chaos? Your answer suggests that he can't.
I'm actually happy to be happy here. I don't need to go to Heaven to find what I'm looking for.
This whole discussion is an exploration in the question where chaos came from. If God created order to create the universe, then disorder/non-order must've existed before he did. It's a semi-philosophical exploration, not the attempt to prove God or disprove God or convert anyone to any particular faith, so don't feel offended by it. No one is putting you in a box. The question and potential answers and what answers you pick will put you in the "box", but it's going to be your own answer that does it.
So I can see that you provided option #5 to the list. God created the devil, and then God created humans with free will, then the devil enticed the humans to use their free will to create chaos. And the universe wasn't ever really created ordered before that.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
Well, that's one of putting it.
A bit of double meaning there. Chaos exists. And it's without order. It would suggest that chaos is independent of order and existed before it. In a way, perhaps, chaos can't be created. Just by the action of creating chaos, you are unintentionally creating an order to it. So pure chaos, unadulterated and unaltered disorder, must exist without any conditions or relations to order. Any tainting of order to it would make it non-chaos.
---edit
I had a reflection of the trinity concept in Christianity, and was thinking (just going all off the charts here with crazy talk), the spirit as chaos, the son as logos/law/order, and the father then is... maybe time?
Chaos IS order.
No one plots the flight of a dandelion.
But the result is known......more dandelions.
Chaos is a science nowadays.
Saw the documentary.
The Trinity is a splice of other religions into Christian faith.
But it was expressed to me as God as Spirit and Creator...the primordial.....I AM!
God the Father......attempting to form spirit like unto Himself.
and the son of God .....which we all make declaration in the recital of the Lord's Prayer. (you)
The Greek logos has (or can have and does in this case) much the same connotation as the Latin ratio. It means an rational, order, reason, etc. It is opposed to Chaos. So in your depiction here you've basically got Plato's Chariot Allegory with God as the charioteer or even an id, ego, superego trinity going on.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
I haven't read about the chariot allegory before, but now I will.
Now I did, and yes, that's a pretty good analogy.
Blackmarch
W'rkncacntr
No idea. that's outside the bounds of my experience, as well as out of the bounds of various religious texts I use.
You know, had you just left the first part of the above your normal would-be arcane pop. esoteric prose could actually have meaning. Chaotic systems (or rather, complex dynamical systems for those who don't continue to rely on terminology spread by Gleick) are indeed only of interest because they are not chaotic in the common sense of the term. Rather, they can fluctuate wildly but exhibit strangely consistent, ordered patterns.
On the other hand, the fortune cookie "zen" about the flight of a dandelion is a perfect and not original example of epistemic indeterminacy necessitating a statistical mechanics approach. It's practically textbook for what lots of people do, not no one.
No it isn't. In fact, the reason nonlinear systems became interesting in such a way as to motivate popular science media on "chaos" was because of how old the study of "chaotic" systems is. It's why calculus was created. The study of "chaotic" systems pre-dates science.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
I'm going to try to remember that term.
I guess, what my discussion is relating to, is chaos in traditional sense and not in the sense of complex dynamic systems (just to use the right terminology, I hope).
When it comes to the double slit experiment (which was brought up earlier), if we don't observe or measure the slits, but let the light go through naturally. We get the interference pattern (I looked it up this time
). But if we put measure equipment at the slits, we get the behavior of particles (if I understand it right), and only two lines show up (straight motion of the photons). However, which photon going through which slit is based on statistics (as you pointed out), but that's as far as we know how it distributes. The question is if there's an underlying pattern to which slit or which interference of waves that occurs. And my understanding is that this is still an unanswered field of science. If there is a pattern to how they distribute, even on the lower lever (individual photons), not just statistically, then it's fundamentally deterministic. Right? Just trying to pick your brain here. But if, by some method, we discover that it is truly random... wait, I'm not sure if it can be. Truly random would mean that one experiment shouldn't result in the same statistical probability either, would it? One experiment should result in all photons going through one slit or the other, but never distributed. The statistical distribution suggests an underlying order, doesn't it?
Thief
Rogue Theologian
Saw the science documentary.
The study has taken off and has been dubbed.....'chaos'.
Bird123
Well-Known Member
Chaos only exists in the minds of those who lack knowledge and understanding of what actually is. When knowledge is lacking, it is substituted with beliefs using feelings as a patch. Feeling lost and confused? It is no wonder chaos exists in your view.
People see this world as a mess. They see chaos everywhere. When one reaches true understanding of this world and the people factor,the vale of confusion lifts to expose the real true. This world is a MASTERPIECE!!!
Even when one reaches this point, it is merely the tip of the iceberg. Yes, God and everything does add up completely.
God is very very smart working on multiple levels with multiple views. One must look well beyond the mere surface in order to get a clearer picture.
People see this world as a mess. They see chaos everywhere. When one reaches true understanding of this world and the people factor,the vale of confusion lifts to expose the real true. This world is a MASTERPIECE!!!
Even when one reaches this point, it is merely the tip of the iceberg. Yes, God and everything does add up completely.
God is very very smart working on multiple levels with multiple views. One must look well beyond the mere surface in order to get a clearer picture.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
The word Masterpiece implies a Master.....I agree.
But I think of the word ...chaos....as a method to the madness.
( a play on words)
1. Chaos and randomness is a natural thing, something beyond God (if there is a God or not)
Or God simply allows some chaos through and, without God, chaos would have destroyed us long ago.
2. Chaos and randomness is part of God's nature, not created, but something that's eternal/non-temporal/non-spatial like any of the other properties of God
Could be part of God's nature, and could certainly be an aspect of god like infinite or all-knowing.
3. God created chaos and randomness.
Also a fair belief.
#4. Chaos and randomness doesn't really exist, it only seems to be that way to us, but in reality there's an underlying order and nothing is random (God or no God).
Another good one. Also, there could be an underlying order and "chaos" simply describes the disruption of it.
Or God simply allows some chaos through and, without God, chaos would have destroyed us long ago.
2. Chaos and randomness is part of God's nature, not created, but something that's eternal/non-temporal/non-spatial like any of the other properties of God
Could be part of God's nature, and could certainly be an aspect of god like infinite or all-knowing.
3. God created chaos and randomness.
Also a fair belief.
#4. Chaos and randomness doesn't really exist, it only seems to be that way to us, but in reality there's an underlying order and nothing is random (God or no God).
Another good one. Also, there could be an underlying order and "chaos" simply describes the disruption of it.
Sign me up for #4. It is all divine play/drama of the Lord.
