Argument for God's existence.

[Tom 1]

Just like I decide how something is "beatiful" or "ugly". Just like I decide how something is "delicious" or "disgusting".

I don't really know how to tell you "how" I decide how something is bad other than to point to my own internal moral compass.

Just pointing out that the question isn't incoherent.

 

[Skreeper]

Just pointing out that the question isn't incoherent.

His phrasing definitely was. Just because I don't rely on some absolute or objective standard for my morals doesn't mean I can't have any.

 

[Tom 1]

He has no excuse to hide himself if he wants us to follow him.

This is the what the whole question of free choice in a relationship with God hinges on, the extent to which his reluctance to influence us overtly, and to adapt according to how we act, is necessary for any degree of freedom to exist. To get a sense of how this is portrayed in the bible, I'd recommend reading the first chapter of Auberbach's Mimesis.

 

[Tom 1]

His phrasing definitely was. Just because I don't rely on some absolute or objective standard for my morals doesn't mean I can't have any.

I don't think that's what he is saying, more that saying something is bad, but also saying there is no objective standard for bad, just looks like an avoidance of the question.

 

[createdtoworship]

Yes that’s fine, it’s the same concept as “there must be a creator because there’s been a finite amount of time.”

never heard of that argument, that because their is finite time, there is a God.

 

[createdtoworship]

This is just incoherent word salad.



The thing that commands my body to do things is my brain, which isn't massless. I don't believe in the "soul" or "mind".



Nothing you have said thus far makes any sense.



I can still have free will and decide to reject God even if I knew he existed.

He has no excuse to hide himself if he wants us to follow him.

free will is required in any relationship. But if God proved himself, it would be like forcing everyone to believe. Many would believe in God yet still not want a relationship with Him.

however God's presence can still be proven as I have in the OP and numerous times in this thread. It's just that the reason He doesn't just show His face, is partly because all the wicked would explode in flames, and secondly, because of our free will.

 

[Tinker Grey]

The biblical idea of God is that he is eternal and infinite, and any ordering of events, if you like, is from that perspective a matter of will, not the result of the inevitable forward movement of time, as in the projection of something eternal into a context where it has a when.

[emphasis added]
You can assert that and it even follows the rules of grammar, but it doesn't mean anything. How, exactly or even approximately, does this work? We cannot conceive of it. Ergo, these words are meaningless. How does a being outside time will one thing and then another without time? How could one willing be subsequent to another?

If all things a timeless being does is simultaneous then that being never does anything at all. It's all done. Your god goes from dynamic-energetic-personal being to a static blob--a Tillichian "ground of being"--a thing so simple it isn't even nothing. Thus is Christianity stripped of its quiddity.

 

[Tom 1]

[emphasis added]
You can assert that and it even follows the rules of grammar, but it doesn't mean anything. How, exactly or even approximately, does this work? We cannot conceive of it. Ergo, these words are meaningless. How does a being outside time will one thing and then another without time? How could one willing be subsequent to another?

If all things a timeless being does is simultaneous then that being never does anything at all. It's all done. Your god goes from dynamic-energetic-personal being to a static blob--a Tillichian "ground of being"--a thing so simple it isn't even nothing. Thus is Christianity stripped of its quiddity.

How it actually works - who knows? It’s just how I think of it. What I mean is will as in ordered by will, not the expression of will, i.e if you had a mass of water that was unchanging and sentient (and had the power to move) it could will movement in one direction or another but would still be entirely what it is, and occupy exactly the same space. God occupies eternity but can exert his will on time bound reality at points of when. That doesn’t need a corresponding when to exist eternally, when has no meaning in eternity, God’s acts of will are absolute, they fill eternity as water fills a certain amount of space.

 

[Tinker Grey]

How it actually works - who knows? It’s just how I think of it. What I mean is will as in ordered by will, not the expression of will, i.e if you had a mass of water that was unchanging and sentient (and had the power to move) it could will movement in one direction or another but would still be entirely what it is, and occupy exactly the same space. God occupies eternity but can exert his will on time bound reality at points of when. That doesn’t need a corresponding when to exist eternally, when has no meaning in eternity, God’s acts of will are absolute, they fill eternity as water fills a certain amount of space.

But how does water move without time. Movement without time is incoherent. If the 'water' was unchanging, it wouldn't move--it wouldn't even go from having no motivation to move to having one.

As I said, such a god is static.

 

[Tom 1]

If all things a timeless being does is simultaneous then that being never does anything at all. It's all done. Your god goes from dynamic-energetic-personal being to a static blob--a Tillichian "ground of being"--a thing so simple it isn't even nothing. Thus is Christianity stripped of its quiddity

No, not really. God interacts through his will with creation. The bible has nothing to say about what created things there were before the Genesis narrative, presumably all of the other beings referred to in the bible were created before that, but it doesn’t say. It’s best to think of everything that God is or expresses as absolute - whether you see him as real or not - as he can only be absolute. If something is his will, it is an expression of his being, which we (creation) experience when it intersects into our timebound reality.

 

[Tom 1]

But how does water move without time. Movement without time is incoherent. If the 'water' was unchanging, it wouldn't move--it wouldn't even go from having no motivation to move to having one.

As I said, such a god is static.

God’s ‘movement’ to the extent the bible has anything to say about it, is in relation to created things. How this is explained is through a lot of metonymy and metaphor, which the biblical writers were pretty handy with. The basic idea as I understand it is that God expresses himself, as he always is, meaning the expression of his essential, unchanging, nature, within what is creation’s perspective. His being outside of that is total, absolute, it has no need of context to be what it is, but from our perspective is expressed in a way that relates to our time bound state. Static isn’t the right word I think, if by static you mean stopped, non functional, or something of that sort. God isn’t becoming, but it doesn’t follow that he is ‘stopped’. His essence ‘is’ things, not just expressions of them, he ‘is’ love, creativity etc.

 

[Tinker Grey]

No, not really. God interacts through his will with creation. The bible has nothing to say about what created things there were before the Genesis narrative, presumably all of the other beings referred to in the bible were created before that, but it doesn’t say. It’s best to think of everything that God is or expresses as absolute - whether you see him as real or not - as he can only be absolute. If something is his will, it is an expression of his being, which we (creation) experience when it intersects into our timebound reality.

Again, grammatically correct. Semantically null. I don't say this to be insulting but rather pithy. (Of course, adding an explanation makes it non-pithy. *shrug*).

We cannot conceive of interaction without time. We cannot conceive of willing without time. Such assertions cannot have meaning. It is like those that might assert that a god could make a square circle. Even if it were true, we could not begin to judge that that god had succeeded. Even if your assertions are correct, you cannot know that they are. You cannot assess that they are.

I've come to a place that such statements cannot be brought into my framework.

 

[Tom 1]

We cannot conceive of interaction without time.

Sure you can. God ‘is’. He’s not the expression, or becoming, or then and now of something- he is. His existence is absolute. The point at which he interacts with creation is an eternal moment on one side, a point in time on the other. We see it as something that happened, God sees it as something that is.

 

[Moral Orel]

our mind, the thing that commands our body and brain to commit sin, is massless. Therefore it is outside of time. So it is eternal.

This would mean that my soul doesn't have a beginning, and therefore God didn't create it.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Sure you can. God ‘is’. He’s not the expression, or becoming, or then and now of something- he is. His existence is absolute. The point at which he interacts with creation is an eternal moment on one side, a point in time on the other. We see it as something that happened, God sees it as something that is.

This moves the framework to humanity. Of course, humans would perceive anything from a framework of time. I'm interested in how a being without time does anything. That we would be perceive it as time is uninteresting. How does a being interact/act without time. Just saying "will" doesn't solve anything.

 

[Tom 1]

This moves the framework to humanity. Of course, humans would perceive anything from a framework of time. I'm interested in how a being without time does anything. That we would be perceive it as time is uninteresting. How does a being interact/act without time. Just saying "will" doesn't solve anything.

‘Is’ meets ‘happening’. The thing that is just is, there isn’t a not was or not will be. Where it meets with a thing that wasn’t but now is, what defines the interaction is the point of meeting in the thing that once wasn’t. Nothing on the other side changes. The plan of creation and the existence of creation are the same thing in eternity. God’s ‘let there be...’ is an eternal command, the effect of it is what we see. It seems to me something like if we were able through dreams to bring things into being, if our dreams were eternal and the things, in relation to us, were external expressions of an eternal thing - but finite (or partially finite) within their own terms of reference.

Edit (my wife got home and I lost my train of thought) - if ideas we had simply began their existence external to ourselves we would see them come and go. If we were eternal, and absolute, we could experience every moment of their existence as something our being could be part of, and therefore would be part of. Our being would express itself in that context as it ‘is’ in its eternal state; action in the context, unchanged being in eternity.

 

[Tom 1]

This moves the framework to humanity.

No, it’s the opposite of that - our framework is things happening- that’s what we perceive. God’s is being. God is fully who he is, his will has no beginning or end. From that perspective the notion of the beginning and end of creation is also meaningless- those things are part of our experience, not God’s.

 

[HitchSlap]

This is the what the whole question of free choice in a relationship with God hinges on, the extent to which his reluctance to influence us overtly, and to adapt according to how we act, is necessary for any degree of freedom to exist. To get a sense of how this is portrayed in the bible, I'd recommend reading the first chapter of Auberbach's Mimesis.

You wouldn’t consider the threat of hell as overt influence?

 

[Tom 1]

It’s

You wouldn’t consider the threat of hell as overt influence?

It’s not really clear what hell is, for one thing. More to the point though a threat that we never see materialise is too abstract for most people. I think it only really has a present affect on people brought up within strict religious environments.

 

[Tom 1]

You wouldn’t consider the threat of hell as overt influence?

This passage from psalm 32 illustrates a theme in the bible quite well, that comes up repeatedly. There are carrot and stick moments blended with the overall theme expressed here:

“You said to me, “I will point out the road that you should follow. I will be your teacher and watch over you. Don't be stupid like horses and mules that must be led with ropes to make them obey.””
‭‭
The bible describes death as ‘the wages’ of sin. It’s difficult to explain fully how I understand it, as in the whole picture, taking the different ideas relevant to his than can be found in the bible, in a post, but the ends as expressed in heaven and hell are pictured as the ultimate destination of paths we take or choose to stay on. What exactly is meant is hard to define, I think, what is meant by heaven and hell I mean.