The Divinity-Nature-Dichotomy Fallacy

It is common among lay religious people to subscribe to a religious viewpoint by, yet ironically, committing the, self-dubbed, Divinity-Nature-Dichotomy Fallacy. This, of course, is in reference to my previous post, from which I gave all credit to Spinoza’s work Theological-Political Treatise. Though it may be true that such a view is held by the lay-religious unconsciously as fallacious, they nevertheless tend to commit it when confronted with situations that are not to their own liking.

Often, whenever diseases, sicknesses, natural disasters, mass murders, genocides, civil wars and all the other countless other undesirable scenarios occur (including the loss of loved ones), the lay-religious often assert that these are not the doings of a omni-benevolent being. Rather, all bad things have come about as a result of nature. As in the case of Abrahamic religions, it is strange how they can fit the holy bible’s creation story of Genesis with natural tragedies. As asserted before, if God indeed had singularly created the universe, that every characteristic of the universe reflects his divine will, then it must be necessarily true that any disease, sickness, natural disaster, mass murder, genocide, civil war, and the loss of loved ones (including small innocent children) were all pre-planned by this being that they worship so dearly. That is, after all, that if God exists, and that the creation story is true, then ALL that occurs in the universe must attributed to God’s desire and will. Ironically, this comprises God killing little girls with AIDS because of the sins of her parents, or the murder of children who are born with any sort of genetic disease – which cannot be prevented or mitigated to any conceivably larger extent, thus leading to either death or longtime suffering. That is, since God is omniscient, he alone already knew who was to die early or late, or suffer thus invariably. If God truly sees good will coming out of all bad things, it is strange then why God does such atrocious things to little children who have done nothing wrong to deserve suffering.

However, if one contends that the universe was designed, not created, then it seems as if the DND fallacy is not committed. That is, the energy-matter of the universe has always existed, and thus did not come about ex nihilo – out of complete non-existence. However then comes the vicious cycle for theologians as they would have to accept that, despite all the other occurrences, many little children are born having genetically-linked diseases or of other types that are incurable and thus doomed for death. Then, the dichotomy-controversy exists, of whether God is omnipotent but not omni-moral, or that God is omni-moral but not omnipotent. Either way, this version of God is not the traditional one people of the Abrahamic religions believe in. This, then, would be religion independent of silly superstition – David Hume’s natural religion.