Worldviews, Part 4

Now that my intuition (see previous posts on this topic) has established, and evidence has not refuted, my presupposition that there is a creative Being of some sort out there that is vastly greater than me but shares some of my same affinities, I move on in this section to what more can be learned about that Being and how.

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As I look around me, I notice a number of things that tell me something about this Being:

•      an affinity for beauty, order, and vitality, since this characterizes the created order (nature)
•      sweating the details.  Things fit precisely, systems are complex, in little things as well as big things; rather like a NASA engineer - nothing is too small to do well.
•      a tolerance (at minimum, if not a preference) for variation. Order does not mean sameness to this Being; variation within a system or a species is normal, expected.
•      creaturely independence seems to be woven into the fabric of the animal kingdom.  Even if their actions are driven by instinct, animals (and even insects) are free to go where they like, eat what they wish, mate with whomever they want, and interact peacefully or violently with other species.  The larger the animal's brain, the more point-by-point decision making they seem to do; but at all levels they do not act uniformly.  This creative Being seems not to want to force anything.
•      there is a reliability (albeit laced with unpredictability) about the cycles woven into nature.  Summers yield to winters and days to nights without exception.. but with variation.  Each day, each season, each year of life, is different from the rest, but they still come 'round with a comforting regularity. 
•      not only is there variety in nature's cycles, but with that a staggering variety of life forms on this planet, many of which seem to have little or no utility (i.e. mosquitos), or are simply good for human amusement (like housecats - see internet videos).  This creative Being apparently is a fan of diversity.
•      social organization is integral to most species, with individual social relations particularly noticable in the higher order mammals.  The more intelligent the species, the greater the degree of complex personal relationships are formed.  You might expect that this creative Being, then, would both expect and value relationships, even ones across species, in these higher-order creatures.  From this you might infer that this Being would be a relational Being, since relationality is built into nature in this way.

So to sum up, it appeared intuitively clear to me that whatever Being was responsible for nature's existence and function is a Being who:

•      could be considered as having preferences - in other words, personality (vs impersonal)

•      is likely a relational Being, and as a result probably approachable

•      shares an affinity with humanity's common preferences for beauty, order and vitality

•      is comfortable with variation, and individual free choice (including the results that flow after)

•      is reliable, dependable and consistent, but not machine-like; likely exercises own free choice as well

•      could be (but not sure yet about this) engaged with nature on an ongoing basis

The implications of these findings will be explored next.