Rationalists have vigorously argued the improbability of God's existence, based on their own inability to understand God's motives. Questions like the following, but not limited to:
It does mean that the much celebrated human intelligence is not good enough to understand the world around us. How would the rationalists explain all the supposed bad things (crime, death, different life spans of different creatures, death of the young, war, etc) in the world, assuming that there is no God. Randomness and probability! Is that even an explanation, or an intelligent way of saying "I don't know". I believe, they surely will cook up reasonable sounding theories to explain it, but which cannot be proved as true or false for a long time, which does raise question about the validity of the theory.
How could people understand God's mind and reasons, when people don't understand their own minds and reasons. Human mind, including the champion of rationalists, will most likely be unable to answer the many philosophical questions about themselves.
Billions of human specimen are available for doing scientific research and understanding the human mind, and still we don't understand the human mind. Then it appears foolish to insist that we should be able to understand God's mind and reasons, whom we have never met.
To add another dimension to this question, why do animals do the things they do, how do their minds work? A lot of animal species are available for research, but human knowledge of working of animal mind remains rudimentary.
If people and science did understand the human mind and reasons, then mental illness would have more definite treatment and cures. Most mental illness treatments have a degree of unpredictability, and most times the illness is managed and not cured. The reason for mental illness has eluded the best minds of science.
Many scientists spend their whole life working on a handful of problems. If they were smarter probably they should have solved the problems in lesser time, and done more with their life. And a majority of the humans beings on the planet won't even understand the the problems that they work on. So it does tell something about the average human intelligence. Being more intelligent than a pet cat or dog, does not mean human intelligence is good enough to solve all the problems in the world, and explain everything in this world, or explain Creator's mind.
Most likely, a Noble prize winning physicist does not know how to perform a heart surgery. A genius mathematician may not know how to fix a car engine, or cook a particular dish. A charted accountant may not know the best technique to increase a farm produce. The basic idea is that human knowledge and skills are limited, and a very intelligent human being may be ignorant about knowledge of things beyond his/her immediate interests. So why would you expect 'expert' advice on theology from a biologist, a mathematician, physicist, or a common lay person (who may have struggled at many of the basic subjects in schools, maybe art/music, maybe science, maybe finance, maybe literature). Especially when the knowledge of God has a component of experiential knowledge (and even then, not everyone in a Gold-rush is lucky!).
Bottom line is that our knowledge of the human or animal mind will almost always be incomplete. It will keep increasing, but most likely remain incomplete. Human beings understand the working of a mind using experiments, observations, measurement, dissections, medical reports, etc, and there is no way similar data can be collected for the Creator's mind, assuming God exists. So how could we understand God's reasons? Is it even logical to assume that we could?
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- How could God do this? Why would God do this?
- If there is a God, why is there suffering, war, death, terrorism, etc in this world?
- Why do good people have a bad experience?
- Why do some bad people have a good comfortable life?
- Why does not God show Himself?
- Who created God?
- I don't understand, if there is a God, then... <fill your words here>?
- I can't imagine, if there is a God, then...<fill your words here>?
- It does not make sense, if there is a God, then...<fill your words here>?
It does mean that the much celebrated human intelligence is not good enough to understand the world around us. How would the rationalists explain all the supposed bad things (crime, death, different life spans of different creatures, death of the young, war, etc) in the world, assuming that there is no God. Randomness and probability! Is that even an explanation, or an intelligent way of saying "I don't know". I believe, they surely will cook up reasonable sounding theories to explain it, but which cannot be proved as true or false for a long time, which does raise question about the validity of the theory.
How could people understand God's mind and reasons, when people don't understand their own minds and reasons. Human mind, including the champion of rationalists, will most likely be unable to answer the many philosophical questions about themselves.
- Why does a person like a particular color over another,
- Why does a person like a particular food item over another,
- Why do different people have different answers for same questions (favorite color, music, food, career choice, marriage partners, etc), Countless other questions of human preferences where a reason for a particular choice remain elusive?
- Why is a human being particularly good at somethings, and not others?
- Why do people find difficult to kick their addictions, or phobias? Or, to change their habits?
- Where does motivation, will-power, etc to change habits come from?
Billions of human specimen are available for doing scientific research and understanding the human mind, and still we don't understand the human mind. Then it appears foolish to insist that we should be able to understand God's mind and reasons, whom we have never met.
To add another dimension to this question, why do animals do the things they do, how do their minds work? A lot of animal species are available for research, but human knowledge of working of animal mind remains rudimentary.
If people and science did understand the human mind and reasons, then mental illness would have more definite treatment and cures. Most mental illness treatments have a degree of unpredictability, and most times the illness is managed and not cured. The reason for mental illness has eluded the best minds of science.
Many scientists spend their whole life working on a handful of problems. If they were smarter probably they should have solved the problems in lesser time, and done more with their life. And a majority of the humans beings on the planet won't even understand the the problems that they work on. So it does tell something about the average human intelligence. Being more intelligent than a pet cat or dog, does not mean human intelligence is good enough to solve all the problems in the world, and explain everything in this world, or explain Creator's mind.
Most likely, a Noble prize winning physicist does not know how to perform a heart surgery. A genius mathematician may not know how to fix a car engine, or cook a particular dish. A charted accountant may not know the best technique to increase a farm produce. The basic idea is that human knowledge and skills are limited, and a very intelligent human being may be ignorant about knowledge of things beyond his/her immediate interests. So why would you expect 'expert' advice on theology from a biologist, a mathematician, physicist, or a common lay person (who may have struggled at many of the basic subjects in schools, maybe art/music, maybe science, maybe finance, maybe literature). Especially when the knowledge of God has a component of experiential knowledge (and even then, not everyone in a Gold-rush is lucky!).
Bottom line is that our knowledge of the human or animal mind will almost always be incomplete. It will keep increasing, but most likely remain incomplete. Human beings understand the working of a mind using experiments, observations, measurement, dissections, medical reports, etc, and there is no way similar data can be collected for the Creator's mind, assuming God exists. So how could we understand God's reasons? Is it even logical to assume that we could?
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