A good and thoughtful reply, thank you!
A parallel line of thinking, though, led to real confusion in the 18th and early 19th century in the field of philosophy. Immanuel Kant looked, not at ‘reality as such’ - which he thought we could not know - but at our experience of the world (whatever it might really be like) and, based on that phenomenology, reasoned FROM our experience TO what WE must be like; what must the mechanics of our understanding be, what must we humans be like, to have those kinds of experiences?
So in his philosophy, we experience only the phenomena; the ‘nuomena’, the ‘real world’ is beyond our reach. Kant wanted to put aside ‘knowledge’ (scientific/reductionistic/materialistic) to make room for ‘faith’.
There is a ton more we could say about Kant (who was a great great philosopher) but in a nutshell, his approach was found to be unsatisfactory as a representation of both reality and humanity. Still I should say that many neo-Kantians are still around, and I am sympathetic with their views to an extent.
I’m sure you see the parallel to your reply? The temptation is to look at ‘the world’ and especially the evil in the world, and then ask “What MUST God be like to account for all this?” If we do that - and I don’t want to mis-characterize your thought by stating that is what you said, so please correct me if I’m doing that - but if we do that, we can’t really say anything true about God UNLESS we accept the revelation He has given us in the scriptures, in nature and most of all, by His Son. In that light, we can see light.
I’ve taken a lot of flak here for the following stance, and I understand why, but I’ll stick to my guns and quote a Creed that I am NOT fond of, but I like this part:
Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable;[1] yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation.[2] Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His Church;[3] and afterwards for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing;[4] which makes the Holy Scripture to be most necessary;[5] those former ways of God’s revealing His will unto His people being now ceased.[6] (Westminster Confession)
I’ll go further - it is imo (and I am not speaking of you, Fe4R or anyone in particular here) a real lack of education in understanding the Bible that hampers our ability to understand and interpret experience. There is a biblical way to understand the cosmos, and to the extent we don’t understand the scriptures, it’s like looking at the world through a very very dirty windshield.
In any case, there it is, my mini-rant.
Again, thank so much for your contributions, even if you proceed to blow me out of the water with your next post.