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(Continued) This continues a message started at post# 78 below. Please start there!
Angels are also called “pneuma”, as well as demons.
Do you want me to sit here and show you that all the biblical evidence is for physicality? I won’t tire you on this point. Suffice one example. According to Scripture, chains physically fetter demons in hellish prisons. As early as 200 AD the church father Tertullian took these chains as proof of angelic physicality. Tertullian was 100% materialistic, even though he was one of the main founders of mainstream Trinitarian doctrine. He utterly rejected the notion of an immaterial God, largely due to this problem of Wind/Breath in Scripture. Do you recall that God breathed into Adam his soul? That’s how Charles Hodge read it (Gen 2:7), anyway, and he was an immaterialist.
I’m not even denying the possibility of an immaterial God. That’s not the issue here. The issue here is that His manifest Presence, as recorded in Scripture, is consistently physical, and I can also quote Augustine on this fact.
Now Hebrews tells us that God upholds the universe by the Word. What Word? We’ve already seen it, His Wind/Breath. Many scientists have said that what holds the objects of our universe in a certain relation to each other are various unexplained “forces” (such as gravity, magnetism, and nuclear force). But the Bible says that God upholds the universe. How do we reconcile these facts? One cogent way to do it is to argue that God, as Physical Mass, is the agent of all these forces. Here’s more evidence that His Word is physical. As you recall, His Word is affiliated in Scripture with His speech (His voice). According to Hebrews, the divine voice speaking to the whole nation of Israel from MT Sinai was so sonic that it shook the whole mountain violently (Heb 12).
I have said repeatedly that we should try to reconcile and explain ALL the biblical data (all the evidence). The problem with unqualified immaterialism is that it explains NONE of the evidence. You asked, “Why do we need to explain the biblical data?” I could reply, “Why do we need to explain the data that you call scientific evidence?” The answer is simple. To get a better understanding, in the hopes the information could prove useful. The information could expose weaknesses and contradictions in our thinking that could even have eternal consequences.
John the Baptist and the crowd around him saw the Holy Breath (as a Dove). Moses spoke with God face to face, as did Jacob, Abraham, Isaiah, and many others. I cannot here discuss the passages which SEEM to say that no one can see God’s face. My point is this. If God’s Manifest Presence is physical, it is likely that He wants us all to see Him face to face, as part of spiritual maturity. Jesus rebuked the Jews, “You have never heard God’s voice, nor seen His form, nor does His word dwell in you” (Jn 5:37). A very brief introduction on how I would defend this idea of the need to see God is found on another thread, post #65.
Earlier I asked Gluadys, “how does God do His work? By magic?” She said, “No. He does it spiritually.” But what does that mean? Let’s consider the wind that blew apart the waters of the Red Sea “all that night.” Where did the wind come from? Someone probably has said, “It was ordinary wind that God created magically out of nothing.” So here we have a wind mighty enough to split a sea apart, and the people are standing safely on the shore? They are not getting sucked in by vacuum? Or blown in the opposite direction? Or simply carried off in the wind? Ordinary wind could have handled this delicate situation so deftly? And how come no water overflow drowned the people on the shore? A series of miracles would be needed to make this wind operate with sufficient dexterity as to avoid harming the people. Here we have wind being manipulated to function somewhat like a “force” (like gravity or magnetic repulsion) as to hold the waters apart. This is really not that much different than letting a physical firmament split apart a body of water and then uphold the water, and the stars, in a gravity-like manner. In other words I do not have to insist that God is gravity, I can also hold that it is a physical subsistence analogous to wind that He miraculously controls. This too would be an alternative to the assumption that gravity is just a “natural force” or “freak of nature.”
Angels are also called “pneuma”, as well as demons.
Do you want me to sit here and show you that all the biblical evidence is for physicality? I won’t tire you on this point. Suffice one example. According to Scripture, chains physically fetter demons in hellish prisons. As early as 200 AD the church father Tertullian took these chains as proof of angelic physicality. Tertullian was 100% materialistic, even though he was one of the main founders of mainstream Trinitarian doctrine. He utterly rejected the notion of an immaterial God, largely due to this problem of Wind/Breath in Scripture. Do you recall that God breathed into Adam his soul? That’s how Charles Hodge read it (Gen 2:7), anyway, and he was an immaterialist.
I’m not even denying the possibility of an immaterial God. That’s not the issue here. The issue here is that His manifest Presence, as recorded in Scripture, is consistently physical, and I can also quote Augustine on this fact.
Now Hebrews tells us that God upholds the universe by the Word. What Word? We’ve already seen it, His Wind/Breath. Many scientists have said that what holds the objects of our universe in a certain relation to each other are various unexplained “forces” (such as gravity, magnetism, and nuclear force). But the Bible says that God upholds the universe. How do we reconcile these facts? One cogent way to do it is to argue that God, as Physical Mass, is the agent of all these forces. Here’s more evidence that His Word is physical. As you recall, His Word is affiliated in Scripture with His speech (His voice). According to Hebrews, the divine voice speaking to the whole nation of Israel from MT Sinai was so sonic that it shook the whole mountain violently (Heb 12).
I have said repeatedly that we should try to reconcile and explain ALL the biblical data (all the evidence). The problem with unqualified immaterialism is that it explains NONE of the evidence. You asked, “Why do we need to explain the biblical data?” I could reply, “Why do we need to explain the data that you call scientific evidence?” The answer is simple. To get a better understanding, in the hopes the information could prove useful. The information could expose weaknesses and contradictions in our thinking that could even have eternal consequences.
John the Baptist and the crowd around him saw the Holy Breath (as a Dove). Moses spoke with God face to face, as did Jacob, Abraham, Isaiah, and many others. I cannot here discuss the passages which SEEM to say that no one can see God’s face. My point is this. If God’s Manifest Presence is physical, it is likely that He wants us all to see Him face to face, as part of spiritual maturity. Jesus rebuked the Jews, “You have never heard God’s voice, nor seen His form, nor does His word dwell in you” (Jn 5:37). A very brief introduction on how I would defend this idea of the need to see God is found on another thread, post #65.
Earlier I asked Gluadys, “how does God do His work? By magic?” She said, “No. He does it spiritually.” But what does that mean? Let’s consider the wind that blew apart the waters of the Red Sea “all that night.” Where did the wind come from? Someone probably has said, “It was ordinary wind that God created magically out of nothing.” So here we have a wind mighty enough to split a sea apart, and the people are standing safely on the shore? They are not getting sucked in by vacuum? Or blown in the opposite direction? Or simply carried off in the wind? Ordinary wind could have handled this delicate situation so deftly? And how come no water overflow drowned the people on the shore? A series of miracles would be needed to make this wind operate with sufficient dexterity as to avoid harming the people. Here we have wind being manipulated to function somewhat like a “force” (like gravity or magnetic repulsion) as to hold the waters apart. This is really not that much different than letting a physical firmament split apart a body of water and then uphold the water, and the stars, in a gravity-like manner. In other words I do not have to insist that God is gravity, I can also hold that it is a physical subsistence analogous to wind that He miraculously controls. This too would be an alternative to the assumption that gravity is just a “natural force” or “freak of nature.”
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