Agnosticism IS the most dishonest position

[Belacqua]

Orderly laws around us - that make things appear to be designed - require an explanation themselves. 

I've skimmed the last few pages of this thread. What you say here is fairly familiar to me, given other things I've read. Let me see if I can put this in my own words in a way you'd find agreeable. 

As I understand it, classical theology posits that every contingent thing depends for its existence on something else. The sun's existence depends on the existence of hydrogen, for example, among other things. And hydrogen's existence depends for its existence on subatomic particles. And those particles depend for their existence on other things, including the orderly laws of nature. 

I don't think there's a problem of an infinite regress, because logically we come to an end. All things that exist depend for their existence on the fact that there is existence. Existence itself is the last step. Existence can't depend on a deeper law or entity, because such a law or entity would have to exist -- which means it partakes of existence, which means it depends for its existence on existence. 

So different theologians say that the deepest level is the Ground of Being, or just Being itself, which is what they call God. (Naturally at this point we have to specify that this argument only points to God as a Ground of Being and not the specifically Christian or Jewish, etc., God.) 

This sustaining thing -- the Ground of Being -- cannot itself be an orderly law, because that would just be one more law, and thus would offer no explanation for what sustains the laws. 

In this way of thinking, God is the designer in the sense that everything in the world depends for its appearance, structure, and operation on the existence which God is, and the orderly laws which result from that existence. Their is an analogy going on here between God, which determines what the world is like, and a human designer, who determines what a house (for example) is like. 

But the analogy breaks down quickly, at least in classical theology. A human designer develops his ideas over time, makes an active choice that things will be one way rather than another, and can change his mind or adjust his design as he goes along. The human designer is analogous in this way with the Demiurge in Plato's Timeaus. Plato, though, doesn't put the Demiurge in the highest position. The Demiurge itself depends for its existence on something eternal, unchanging, and ideal. And this ideal and unchanging thing is much like the classical theologian's idea of God. 

So in this system, it is correct to say that God determines the design of each snowflake. But people who are accustomed to think of human designers will misunderstand how God is said to work. God isn't sitting at a drawing board working out the designs. God sustains in existence the orderly laws of how water is and behaves, how cold weather affects it, and how in the right conditions it changes to snow. The apparent randomness of each snowflake's difference, then, is designed into the system. It is randomness by design. 

And the most reasonable explanation is a personal entity, since it obviously produced personal beings.

This is the part I'm unfamiliar with. I have never studied the theologians who argue for a personal God. 

In this view, what is personal about God? Is it subject to moods and changes, like a human person? Is it in some way not transcendent, as the classical theologians' God is? I honestly don't know these things. 

I also don't see the reasoning behind saying that since God produced personal beings this argues in favor of God being a person. 

This may all be too much for the present thread. If you'd rather just point me to a link I'd be grateful.