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He didn't preexist space. He's a material being. How could He preexist space?If God pre-existed time and space then He cant be essentially physical.
What? Have you been reading any of my posts? I've already showed a series of biblical demonstrations of the divine physicality, as well as surfacing some of the unresolved problems of DDS.There you go - you presuppose He is a material being. Circular argument.
I strongly suggest you support your position with scripture, then we discuss.
Correct. I've addressed this question at post #4 where I noted, for example, that:God cannot be omnipresent and physical as you have defined it - there would be no unoccupied space for anything else.
Statements like this are too nebulous to debate. I could accuse you of the same thing, since the words don't convey anything clear. I've heard of theologians claiming that 50 or 60 dimensions exist. Can anyone say - gibberish?You seem to dismiss the concept of co-existing dimensions in the same time and space.
I'm terribly uncomfortable with apparent gibberish, especially when there is a perfectly lucid alternative theory.Are you comfortable with God creating something out of nothing?
Some insects can bat their wings 1000 times per second. Now imagine how fast Yahweh can move. Thus in the blink of an eye, He can accomplish amazing sleight of hand, for example:How can a physical being walk through walls?
What's the point of providing more Scripture? You've already bought into Plato and therefore are resolute to ignore the Scriptures. But if you insist, here's a passage worth contemplating. Have you ever seen a father play-wrestle with his kids? I'm confident you have. Fine. In that case, care to explain to me how Jacob physically wrestled with an intangible heavenly Father? How does that work, exactly?I strongly suggest you support your position with scripture, then we discuss.
I'm terribly uncomfortable with apparent gibberish, especially when there is a perfectly lucid alternative theory.
You DEMANDED Scripture from me (and I had already given plenty), and then you respond to me with NO SCRIPTURE, just logical arguments. Hopefully you've figured out that there is no scriptural basis for immaterialism.
Hate to break the news to you, but if the goal of exegesis is to select the most plausible translation based on the context, you can't possibly hold to "spirit" on a purely exegetical basis. If you hold to that conclusion based on Tradition, fine, but please don't associate it with exegesis - for a couple of reasons. I'll clarify one of them here.God is spirit.
The church father Tertullian (200 AD) was rightly a staunch materialist who realized that all of the biblical data - not just some of it, literally all of it - favors a wholly physical God. In fact the entire exegetical case for an immaterial God is predicated on the blatant, exegetically unsupportable mistranslation of the terms pneuma and ruach (breath/wind) as "spirit", due to the influence of a Platonic philosophy known as The Doctrine of Divine Simplicity (DDS). The term "spirit" is, in a nutshell, an English term unjustifiable exegetically. Moreover the human soul (i.e. the human pneuma) is truistically/tautologically material on an essentially empirical basis - for example Tertullian's tautological argument for the materiality of the human soul has never been refuted.
Understand that I'm a staunch Trinitarian, like Tertullian. In fact:
(1) Tertullian is the first person known to use the word Trinity.
(2) Phillip Schaff, one of the world's foremost experts on othodoxy, considered Tertullian to be one of the best defenders of orthodoxy in church history.
This discussion began on another thread closed at the request of the opening poster. I will copy some of that material, as it pertains to my posts, over to this thread.
Which Church Fathers acknowledge that angels are physical, do you have examples?Several church fathers acknowledged that angels are physical - and yet God (normally) keeps them hidden from material instruments. Therefore I wouldn't expect material instruments to detect any change in weight when He extricates the human soul from the dead or dying body.
Um...Is CPR a physical process, in your view? Or immaterial magic? Again, there is a huge burden of proof on those who seem to be proposing fairytales at odds with, and disconnected from, both biblical and empircal reality.Romans 4:17
God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.
Surely the resurrection is prime evidence of this.
One day a corpse, then suddenly appearing among them.
Have you considered the phenomenology of divine Fire in the OT? Based on what's documented there, why would you propose or consider anything OTHER than physical fire? (Oh that's right. Plato said so). Tell me what part of the following anecdote strikes you as clearly an immaterial Fire in action:And the Holy Spirit - were the flames of fire at pentecost physical?
Again, He is outpoured directly into your body - He comes into the vicinity. That makes ZERO SENSE, if He operates magically from a distance, instead of physically at hand. Shall we consider an example? Pentecost. Explain to me how an immaterial outpouring manages to vibrate the larynxes of 120 people with foreign languages. As the noted Pentecostal theologian Howard Ervin pointed out, this attests to a matter/energy continuum (his term), a physical Presence of the Third Person.Jesus within us - is that physical as well?
Right. You don't believe the Scriptures. You believe Plato. (I thought we discussed that already?).Anyway I am not so interested in debate... He has neither beginning of time nor end of days - pre-existing creation - Before anything was made He IS... Hardly a physical being...
Which Church Fathers acknowledge that angels are physical, do you have examples?
My primary goal is to ascertain the truth. In so attempting, I'm orthodox in some areas of doctrine, unorthodox in others.Are you saying that you agree with his concept of the Trinity which is certainly not orthodox.