God Is a Physical Being

[Silmarien]

Not borrowing from Berkeley or Kant but perhaps from - Hegel? I see him cited in your signature.

Look, the idealism of someone like Hegel - the theory that reality consists of mere immaterial ideas rather than real matter - won't prove terribly useful to you if someone hits you in the head with a baseball bat. It's a useless theory because it doesn't change the reality of the material dynamics that we are forced to live with 24 hours a day. For instance, that philosophical theory certainly didn't prevent an atomic bomb from falling on Hiroshima killing 200,000 people.

I said that I wasn't above borrowing from Berkeley and Kant. I was very much offering a classical argument from Berkeley, and I think he would respond that you still only have sensory impressions of being hit by the baseball bat. Personally, I think the bat is there, but I'm not sure if it's meaningful to say that it's made out of matter. If you try to give a fundamental physical description of what the baseball bat is, after all, you get molecules that are made up of atoms, which collapse into particles that almost seem to be more virtual than actual. I don't think the materialist can say that we know that matter exists when some people are wondering whether "matter" isn't just mathematical patterns.

If you're some kind of Hegelian idealist, or a solipsist, perhaps my quarrel is not with you. For example, how can I disprove the solipsist, who claims I'm just a figment of his imagination? I cannot, and don't much care to try.

Can I disprove Hegel's idealism? Well, for one thing, who is having these ideas? Just God? Are we all God? Or, if I'm a figment of His imagination, how is it that I'm thinking with my own mind right now? Or maybe I am God, doing this thinking, as are you? This doesn't seem to be fruitful.

Oh, I'm not a solipsist. And what you're describing is Berkeleyan idealism, not Hegelian idealism. The whole question of whether materialism or idealism is true is really a side point, though. For the sake of argument, we can just assume that materialism is true. This means that I will be arguing as an atheist, since I think that materialism entails atheism. You will have to actually demonstrate the existence of a material God, since I see no valid reason to accept that one could exist.

Oh. It's a big problem? Ordinary matter is something hard to conceive? But you find creation ex nihilo to be a perfectly straightforward claim? Let's conside that claim. Suppose you asked your wife or kid, "I need to fix something. Please grab me a hammer from the empty toolbox." Wouldn't they say you're off your rocker?

I do find creatio ex nihilo to be fairly straightforward, yes. Also fairly difficult to refute, since you and I as conscious entities at one point did not exist, and now do. Our bodies are constituted by preexisting material elements, but as self-aware agents, we are new creations.

A materialistic world view, such as mine, isn't susceptible to such logical contradictions and incoherence. Matter is the basis of individuation. As such, there will never - can never be - more than one Jal. I am numerically distinct from every other piece of matter in existence.

The material composition of your body is in a constant state of flux. There's apparently a complete turnover in the atoms in the human body every five years, so you're not really a "piece" of matter in any meaningful sense.

No sir. No proof is needed to establish the theory that material objects exist. The burden of proof is on those who claim that magical, immaterial substances dreamed up in Plato's fairytale land somehow exist in real life. Certainly there is no scriptural support for that gibberish.

I'm a woman, not a man. Please do not refer to me as "sir."

Also, I am not asking you to establish the theory that material objects exist. I'm asking you to establish that a material God exists. Remember, in this thought experiment where only the physical exists, I am an atheist.

If you're interested in playing this game, I'll repeat my questions concerning the entity whose existence you're positing.

 

[public hermit]

Um...By existence I meant substance.

Is there more than one substance? I have been assuming that you think there is only one kind of substance, i.e. matter. But, maybe I am not understanding your position. Do you hold that there are more than one kind of substance? What exists beside matter?

Love is a state of mind. I can't pour you a glass of love. It's not a substance.

So, what is a state of mind? Are you a dualist who thinks God is physical? That is very strange. Does God have a body and a mind, as we do? Is God made in our image? Are you keeping track of the absurdities?

After all, no one can really "prove" that matter exists, or "prove" that it should be the default definition of substance. And until then, it's perfectly rational to believe whatever you want.

I'm not opposed to the idea that it can neither be proven nor disproven that all is matter. But that was not part of your opening statements. You seemed to be saying it is obvious that all is physical, because of our experience of the physical. Of course, this was part of your support that God is physical. Are you now saying your materialism is an unproven assumption, just as is the idealism of the idealist? Well, that's a different position all together. I am sympathetic to that way of seeing things.

God calls Himself the Great Physician. Does your doctor rely on magic? Mine uses his own hands.

My doctor can't stop the wind or raise the dead with a word. That's just not how the physical works. Sorry, bud. Your ontology is anemic.

 

[Radagast]

You keep trying to impose an unrealistic burden of proof on me.

You're the one who's throwing 2,000 years of Christianity out the window. The burden of proof is on you.

Look, all we know is matter.

Speaking as a Christian, that's false. Speaking as a mathematician, that's also false.

I have SHOWN that Scripture confirms the default assumption

No, you really haven't.

Here's a little reminder for you, as to what the ISBE commented

I'm not sure why this book from 1915 should be the definitive source of all wisdom, but it certainly contradicts your position. It says, inter alia:

"The Old Testament and the New Testament, in their doctrine of creation, recognize no eternal matter before creation." (from "Creation")

 

[JAL]

This means that I will be arguing as an atheist, since I think that materialism entails atheism. You will have to actually demonstrate the existence of a material God, since I see no valid reason to accept that one could exist.

Why would you assume that? Do you not have parents? That's essentially my claim, loosely speaking. Jesus called God His father. And told us to to pray that way. You just don't get it. You don't grasp that 2500 years of Platonic influence and indoctrination have utterly biased to think of God in abstract terms. Again, to function as an impeccable ruler and judge, God need not fit any of the traditional dogmas:
(1) Infinitely omniscient.
(2) Infinitely impassible
(3) Infinitely omnipresent
(4) Infinitely immutable
(5) Infinitely non-contingent.
(6) Immaterial
(7) Supernatural/Magical
(8) Infinitely self-sufficient
(9) The Absolute
(10) Indivisible into parts
(11) etc., etc., etc.,

Probably no one even thought in such terms prior to Plato. If you'd used such language with David, for example, he likely would have replied, "Huh? I always thought of Yahweh as the King of Kings, and, beyond that, He's pretty much just my Dad".

One day I was discussing these things with a friend who said to me, "If God isn't all those things, then someone could overthrow Him!"

I replied, "Let's see. He holds 200 billion galaxies in the palm of His hand. Are YOU going to overthrow Him? And if not you, then who?"

Personally I like the way Paul put it, "Are we stronger than he?"

I will be arguing as an atheist...You will have to actually demonstrate the existence of a material God, since I see no valid reason to accept that one could exist.

Huh? Atheists don't believe it is logically possible to have a Dad? Here's what atheists don't believe. They don't believe in the possibility of the ridiculous definition of God summarized in the ten points above - as it seems self--contradictory. Atheists complain, for example, that the Problem of Evil flies in the face of the assumption that such a God exists. On this thread I can't cover all the reasons why such a God is logically self-contradictory because, whenever I do so, they shut down the thread. My hands are a bit tied here. I'm afraid to even give you my full definition of God.

For the moment, here's what I CAN say. God moves matter. And I can think of no way for one object to directly move another object, except by reaching out with a material hand to push or pull it. You've heard of tornadoes, right? Strong windds? How easily they can carry away trees, homes, human bodies, and vehicles? Consider the following passage:

"When they came up out of the water, the [Pneuma] of the Lord suddenly took Philip away".

As I just said, God moves matter, even by His own direct agency. Seems to me we have two possible readings here:
(1) God reached out with intangible hands to pickup Phillip's body and carry it away.
(2) God reached out with tangible hands to pickup Phillip's body and carry it away.

Option 1 seems to be an incredibly stupid, incredibly self-contradictory exegesis. And yet you insist that there is a huge burden of proof for me to demonstrate the UNLIKELY notion that God could POSSIBLY be a material being. My question to you is, What the heck else could He POSSIBLY be? Please set aside your Platonic brainwashing for JUST ONE MOMENT, read the two options again (i.e. 1 and 2 above), and then consider your answer.

I do find creatio ex nihilo to be fairly straightforward, yes. Also fairly difficult to refute, since you and I as conscious entities at one point did not exist, and now do. Our bodies are constituted by preexisting material elements, but as self-aware agents, we are new creations.

Lovely. So I'm apparently being unreasonable to conjecture that I might have a Dad named Yahweh, while you assume it perfectly rational to claim, "I grabbed a hammer out of the empty toolbox." Nice.

The material composition of your body is in a constant state of flux. There's apparently a complete turnover in the atoms in the human body every five years, so you're not really a "piece" of matter in any meaningful sense.

I was referring to my tangible soul. We are soul (pneuma) and body (sarx/soma). Sometimes the soul is called psuche.

 

[JAL]

"The Old Testament and the New Testament, in their doctrine of creation, recognize no eternal matter before creation." (from "Creation")

Um..that doesn't refute what I said about the ISBE. Read my statement again.

 

[Radagast]

Um..that doesn't refute what I said about the ISBE. Read my statement again.

I'm saying that even the ISBE disagrees with your unorthodox views.

James Orr is no doubt looking down from heaven in shock at your use of his work, because the god you describe is not the God of Christianity.

 

[Barney2.0]

There’s no way for God in his divinity to be a physical being and still be infinite or as @Carl Emerson said pre exist matter and or time. To be physical by definition is to occupy space and time, there’s no way to be physical without occupying space and without the laws of physics applying to you. If God is a physical being according to his divine essence well then he can’t be infinite at the same time and with respect to his divine essence. Also the idea of God being a physical being is by definition a pagan/platonic idea.

 

[Bobber]

There’s no way for God in his divinity to be a physical being and still be infinite or as @Carl Emerson said pre exist matter and or time. To be physical by definition is to occupy space and time, there’s no way to be physical without occupying space and without the laws of physics applying to you. If God is a physical being according to his divine essence well then he can’t be infinite at the same time and with respect to his divine essence. Also the idea of God being a physical being is by definition a pagan/platonic idea.

Well the Bible says God is a Spirit. But didn't the physical come out of the Spirit. So if the physical came out of the Spirit or we could say the spiritual universe then why can't it just be thought of as the spirit or Spirit is a higher grade of reality. Think of it as two cups of coffee. One cup has the substance of coffee BUT also cream and sugar (the spiritual) ....the other cup is the substance of coffee but without the added ingredients it's coffee black or (the physical) So the one with the less ingredients would represent a lower grade of reality.

 

[Silmarien]

Why would you assume that? Do you not have parents? That's essentially my claim, loosely speaking. Jesus called God His father. And told us to to pray that way. You just don't get it. You don't grasp that 2500 years of Platonic influence and indoctrination have utterly biased to think of God in abstract terms. Again, to function as an impeccable ruler and judge, God need not fit any of the traditional dogmas:
(1) Infinitely omniscient.
(2) Infinitely impassible
(3) Infinitely omnipresent
(4) Infinitely immutable
(5) Infinitely non-contingent.
(6) Immaterial
(7) Supernatural/Magical
(8) Infinitely self-sufficient
(9) The Absolute
(10) Indivisible into parts
(11) etc., etc., etc.,

Probably no one even thought in such terms prior to Plato. If you'd used such language with David, for example, he likely would have replied, "Huh? I always thought of Yahweh as the King of Kings, and, beyond that, He's pretty much just my Dad".

I haven't been indoctrinated by 2500 years of Plato. I was actually indoctrinated by naturalism with a dose of incoherent New Age nonsense, so genuinely grasping the Platonic vision was a revelation for me. Especially the Good.

I self-identify as a Platonist, so it's pretty pointless to tell me that nobody thought in such terms prior to Plato. I don't care, because obviously I think that Plato was right. Most of the Church Fathers also think Plato was right, so I'm in good company there. If Platonic theism is false, then my back-up metaphysics would be Aristotelian naturalism. I don't think Platonic theism, is false, but for the sake of argument, I will continue arguing as if I were an Aristotelian naturalist and therefore an atheist.

Huh? Atheists don't believe it is logically possible to have a Dad? Here's what atheists don't believe. They don't believe in the possibility of the ridiculous definition of God summarized in the ten points above - as it seems self--contradictory. Atheists complain, for example, that the Problem of Evil flies in the face of the assumption that such a God exists. On this thread I can't cover all the reasons why such a God is logically self-contradictory because, whenever I do so, they shut down the thread. My hands are a bit tied here. I'm afraid to even give you my full definition of God.

For the moment, here's what I CAN say. God moves matter. And I can think of no way for one object to directly move another object, except by reaching out with a material hand to push or pull it. You've heard of tornadoes, right? Strong windds? How easily they can carry away trees, homes, human bodies, and vehicles? Consider the following passage:

As a hypothetical atheist, I do not believe that it is logically impossible to have a father. If you refer to your biological father with the term "material God," then I will agree that your material God, i.e., your actual biological father, does in fact exist. This seems a poor candidate for the term "God," however.

Please, tell me more about this entity that you call a material God and what reason I, a hypothetical atheist, might have to believe that it actually exists. I have never seen a material God that is actually physically moving matter--this seems to exclusively be the result of the laws of physics. (If I were not a hypothetical atheist, I would wonder why the laws of physics hold, but I suppose we're in the realm of brute facts for the moment.)

Option 1 seems to be an incredibly stupid, incredibly self-contradictory exegesis. And yet you insist that there is a huge burden of proof for me to demonstrate the UNLIKELY notion that God could POSSIBLY be a material being. My question to you is, What the heck else could He POSSIBLY be? Please set aside your Platonic brainwashing for JUST ONE MOMENT, read the two options again (i.e. 1 and 2 above), and then consider your answer.

I have set aside my Platonic "brainwashing," if by "brainwashing" you mean actually bothering to study Platonism and concluding that it is correct. I am currently a hypothetical atheist, so clearly I do not have to believe that God is anything at all. Why should I believe in this entity? Are the laws of physics (+ brute facts, since we are materialists) not sufficient to explain reality?

I was referring to my tangible soul. We are soul (pneuma) and body (sarx/soma). Sometimes the soul is called psuche.

I'm literally a Platonist. I read classical Greek halfway decently. Πνεῦμα is somewhere between "breath" and "spirit," I would say, though that's not at all uncommon. Ψύχη is somewhere between "soul" as animating force and mind. Neither of these ideas are particularly meaningful for materialists, so it seems to me that you're just making things up and calling them material.

 

[JAL]

There’s no way for God in his divinity to be a physical being and still be infinite...

What if He's not infinite? To function as ruler and judge, God need not meet your ideal standards. In fact if God were infinitely self-sufficient, I don't think He would have created a world potentially susceptible to suffering - just for the sadistic pleasure of it? (An issue otherwise known as the Problem of Evil). The very first church father, having read the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis, should have realized that the biblical God couldn't possibly be a conformity to Platonic standards. I certainly wouldn't put my kids in harm's way unless there were a real need for it.

"But God wanted free will!" Let's get something straight. An infinitely self-sufficient God, by definition, is NOT in want of anything. To even so suggest is already a blasphemy of such a God.

...or as Carl Emerson said pre exist matter and or time. To be physical by definition is to occupy space and time, there’s no way to be physical without occupying space and without the laws of physics applying to you.

Wrong. I define time in terms of matter-in-motion, as I discussed earlier. Yahweh initiated/created time by moving. And no, the laws of physics such as gravity do not control God. As stated, God creates gravity by applying pressure with His own hands.

Also the idea of God being a physical being is by definition a pagan/platonic idea.

Wrong again. All belief systems and religions have things in common. It's the differences that are important. Therefore blanket statements like yours don't amount to a hill of beans, especially when there is plenty of Scripture to contradict it.

 

[JAL]

I'm saying that even the ISBE disagrees with your unorthodox views.

I'm well aware of the inconsistencies in traditional thinking. Hence this thread. What a theologian will admit with respect to one passage might very well contradict his exegesis of other passages. Again, hence this thread. [/QUOTE]

 

[JAL]

This post seems a bit humorous to me. You start with this:

I haven't been indoctrinated by 2500 years of Plato.

and oddly enough continue with this:

I self-identify as a Platonist

You are thus a Platonist who is, however, not influenced by Plato. Um...ok.

As a hypothetical atheist, I do not believe that it is logically impossible to have a father. If you refer to your biological father with the term "material God," then I will agree that your material God, i.e., your actual biological father, does in fact exist. This seems a poor candidate for the term "God," however.

Right, because you currently find it virtually impossible to think of God in non-Platonic terms, even when you try.

Please, tell me more about this entity that you call a material God and what reason I, a hypothetical atheist, might have to believe that it actually exists. I have never seen a material God that is actually physically moving matter--this seems to exclusively be the result of the laws of physics. (If I were not a hypothetical atheist, I would wonder why the laws of physics hold, but I suppose we're in the realm of brute facts for the moment.)

Ok I'll tell you the crucial point. You seem to assume that materialism necessitates material reductionism (and thus epiphenomenalism). Not at all. You may have heard of Maurice Merleau Ponty, who fought for an anti-reductionist view of the human body, in opposition to Descartes.

For me it's quite simple. All I believe in is matter. What causes matter to move? I see only two possibilities:
(1) Reality is chaotic. Matter moves randomly.
(2) Free will.
The choice for me is clear. Suppose someone punches you in the face. Would you be upset with him? If you're a determinist, you don't have much warrant for discontent, all motion is just mechanical cause/effect (just the laws of physics at work), he is therefore not really to blame. But if free will propelled that punch, NOW you have cause for complaint.

Most atheists that I meet seem to at least tacitly acknowledge free will. This contradicts their assumption that matter is fundamentally inert, non-sentient, and so on. It also contradicts any tendency for them to assume that we do not have a Dad who transcends the laws of physics. As I said, God creates those laws, by His own hands, by enforcing gravity for example.

I have set aside my Platonic "brainwashing," if by "brainwashing" you mean actually bothering to study Platonism and concluding that it is correct. I am currently a hypothetical atheist, so clearly I do not have to believe that God is anything at all. Why should I believe in this entity? Are the laws of physics (+ brute facts, since we are materialists) not sufficient to explain reality?

You seem to overlook one of the fundamentals of debate. I don't have to prove to atheists that God exists. Typically a debate starts at a point where the two parties already agree. For example Christians, when debating on this forum, assume the existence of God, and proceed from there.

I'm literally a Platonist. I read classical Greek halfway decently. Πνεῦμα is somewhere between "breath" and "spirit," I would say, though that's not at all uncommon. Ψύχη is somewhere between "soul" as animating force and mind. Neither of these ideas are particularly meaningful for materialists, so it seems to me that you're just making things up and calling them material.

Um....yeah. It takes considerable ingenuity for me to "make up" the concept of tangible substance. That really puts me in la-la land, it would seem.

 

[danielmears]

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.

Scripture gives us insight into God, One God, and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. Ephesians 4:6 God is love. 1 John 4:16 God is light, revealed in 1John 1:5 So definitely God is in and through all things, including us, the sons and daughters of the Living God! Jesus said, God is a spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and truth, paraphrased. Also the transfiguration of Christ reveals that indeed, God is light. As the son of an illumined preacher, I have literally seen light, not a vision, but actual light! So, Light and Love, therealmbydanielmears.com/commentary-on-the-light

 

[Barney2.0]

What if He's not infinite? To function as ruler and judge, God need not meet your ideal standards. In fact if God were infinitely self-sufficient, I don't think He would have created a world potentially susceptible to suffering - just for the sadistic pleasure of it? (An issue otherwise known as the Problem of Evil). The very first church father, having read the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis, should have realized that the biblical God couldn't possibly be a conformity to Platonic standards. I certainly wouldn't put my kids in harm's way unless there were a real need for it.

"But God wanted free will!" Let's get something straight. An infinitely self-sufficient God, by definition, is NOT in want of anything. To even so suggest is already a blasphemy of such a God.

If he’s not infinite than he’s finite, if he’s finite in his divinity, then he’s not really divine or God now is he? The problem of evil rests on the assumption that God created evil, when that’s false, evil is simply the absence of God’s grace, humanity itself allowed evil to manifest within itself the moment it fell. Suffering is a direct result of man’s ability to choose participate in God’s energies and grace or to reject them and be suspectible to suffering. By the way your technically expressing heresy and stepping out of what is considered a Orthodoxy on Christian Forums, I’d remove the label Christian if I were you (not meant to be an insult) since your pretty much saying that God made a mistake. Adam and Eve were specifically put out of harms way, yet still chose to go in harms way, didn’t God tell them you shall return to dust if you eat of the fruit and that they will slowly succumb to the fruits of death if they eat of it? Platonism isn’t Christianity, we don’t look at the scriptures and God through a platonic lens, the last person who did that ended up being a heretic with a boatload of wrong ideas (Origen). You seem to be conflating self sufficiency or more specifically needing something with wanting something, weren’t we all taught in school the difference between wants and needs, God wanting something doesn’t necessarily mean he needs it, and yes God does want certain things, he wishes all of mankind to be restored to its former glory and made back into the image that he created mankind in, pure, without depravity, or suffering.

Wrong. I define time in terms of matter-in-motion, as I discussed earlier. Yahweh initiated/created time by moving. And no, the laws of physics such as gravity do not control God. As stated, God creates gravity by applying pressure with His own hands.

Your definition of time is simply wrong, according to Merriam Webster time is the measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues.

Definition of TIME

Time is never defined simply as matter in motion. Thus if God has a real physical hand that exists, then it logically follows that it occupies space and time. If the laws of physics do not apply to God than there’s no possible way for him to have a real physical hand or body. Also wheee are you getting this from, certainly not from the Bible nor the Church Fathers, your whole theology is based on Platonism.

Wrong again. All belief systems and religions have things in common. It's the differences that are important. Therefore blanket statements like yours don't amount to a hill of beans, especially when there is plenty of Scripture to contradict it.

All religions have some degree of truth in them, they do however contradict on the fundamentals which is why they are different belief systems and religions to Christianity and not one and the same. Scripture pretty much refuted your assertion by referring to God as a Spirit, a Spirit by definition is non physical meaning that it can’t have physical body parts, also your theology would contradict the incarnation clearly taught in the scriptures that the Word whose God only assumed flesh and a body after the incarnation, meaning he didn’t possess a physical body before the incarnation. Keep in mind that this is just the scriptures, I haven’t even brought up all the Church Father’s and the historical Christians and even Jewish understanding that God in his divine essence is immaterial and a spirit that’s non physical and infinite in the sense that he’s not specially limited by anything in the whole entire universe by nature.

 

[JAL]

If he’s not infinite than he’s finite, if he’s finite in his divinity, then he’s not really divine or God now is he?

The function of the biblical God is to be the quintessential ruler and judge. Infinitude isn't clearly predicated, necessitated, articulated of God in Scripture, and thus, like any doctrine, is debatable.

The problem of evil rests on the assumption that God created evil

You need to read up on the Problem of Evil. You seem to have no idea what that term means.

Scripture pretty much refuted your assertion by referring to God as a Spirit

No. Scripture never refers to God as a Spirit. I've done much on this thread to discredit that translation of the Greek/Hebrew.

 

[JAL]

Scripture pretty much refuted your assertion by referring to God as a Spirit.

I could have been more specific on this reply but was a but busy. I challenged "Spirit" at posts 34, 38, 43, 51, 61, in terms of comparing these two competing titles of the Third Person.
(1) The Holy Spirit/Ghost as immaterial substance.
(2) The Holy Wind/Breath as material substance.

On this comparison, one relevant verse was not yet mentioned.

"He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire" (Mat 3:11).

Since the translators presumed God to be immaterial, they naturally were led to put fire in lowercase. Otherwise you end up with an extrapolation like this:

"He will baptize you with the immaterial Holy Spirit and material Fire"

Huh? He is the immaterial material God? So understandably they went with lowercase fire. But that too is a bit torturous (pardon the pun). Was God really going to immerse His disciples in ordinary fire? Ouch! In a nutshell, Spirit and fire don't comport together well. They don't seem to go hand in hand. But two elements that DO happen to exhibit a frequent camaraderie are wind and fire.

"He will baptize you with the Holy Wind and Fire" (Mat 3:11).

As fulfilled on Pentecost:

"They heard the sound of a mighty rushing wind. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy [Wind and Fire]" (Acts 2).

Let's go back to the original passage:

"He will baptize you with the Holy Wind and Fire" (Mat 3:11).

You could have easily deduced this translation from the immediate context, without cheating a look ahead to Pentecost. How so? Look at the next verse:

"His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (verse 12).

What was the purpose of the farmer's fan? It utilized wind helpful to separate wheat from the chaff to be burned in the fire.

"In its simplest form it involves throwing the mixture into the air so that the wind blows away the lighter chaff, while the heavier grains fall back down for recovery."
Winnowing - Wikipedia

 

[Aussie Pete]

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.

OK, so how much does the soul weigh? Something, so it seems. Man is also spirit. What is physical about the spirit of man? Can you put it under a microscope and view it? Can you spray paint it to make it visible? If you cut it, will it bleed? How can every person have the Spirit of God at the same time, all over the earth, if He is physical? It makes zero sense to me.

 

[JAL]

Scripture pretty much refuted your assertion by referring to God as a Spirit.

God is a Spirit? Nah. I'd instead liken Him to a piece of charcoal. Because when He gets really angry, He becomes extremely hot, catches on fire, and discharges smoke.

"Then one of the four living creatures gave the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever. 8And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power; and no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed "(Rev 15).

Did you catch that? Wrath. God got really angry, thereby overheating the temple to a degree too daunting for entrance. The next time you're tempted to believe a Platonic myth about God, you might want to check with Scripture first. Ex 19 is a good place to start.

 

[JAL]

How can every person have the Spirit of God at the same time, all over the earth, if He is physical? It makes zero sense to me.

Wow. Plato's really got us blinded, hasn't he. This is a serious question? You're joking, right? Let me get this straight. I have defined God as a material being of a mass and volume so huge that, at minimum, it is enough to fill the whole universe (at varying densities, as He deigns). It's enough to fill 200 billion galaxies. And yet your question to me is, how could there possibly be enough of Him to fill the human bodies on planet Earth?

This reminds me of God's response when Moses questioned His ability to provide enough meat to feed Israel:

"The LORD answered Moses, "Is the LORD's arm too short?" (Num 11).

 

[JAL]

Is there more than one substance? I have been assuming that you think there is only one kind of substance, i.e. matter. But, maybe I am not understanding your position. Do you hold that there are more than one kind of substance? What exists beside matter?

By matter I'm typically referring to any and all tangible substance (it need not be arranged as electrons, neutrons, protons). Ultimately all tangible substance, in essence, is qualitatively alike, but not quantitatively. Is a plant alive? Is it conscious? Negligibly so. And a rock is exponentially less conscious than a plant. Effectively, it has zero consciousness - but God could awaken a rock to full consciousness if He wanted to (in fact that's essentially how He formed Adam's soul, not specifically from a rock as such, but from (effectively) unconscious matter).

"I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham" (Mat 3:9).

Thus I consist of two parts:
(1) A body, as normally understood (unawakened, essentially inanimate matter).
(2) A soul (awakened matter) that self-propels by free will. God's hand permits it enough freedom from the laws of physics to escape determinism but not enough freedom to escape the human body. It's not inherently comprised of protons, electrons, neutrons, but possibly assumes such modalities as to properly meld with, and physically animate, the human body).

So, what is a state of mind?

A state of mind is the event of feeling/experiencing something, whether due to the (physical) impact of external stimuli upon the mind, or to spontaneous intuition, or deliberate cogitation.

Are you a dualist who thinks God is physical? That is very strange. Does God have a body and a mind, as we do? Is God made in our image? Are you keeping track of the absurdities?

No, God isn't inherently a coupling of inanimate/unawakened matter with sentient matter (except insofar as the Incarnation conferred upon the Son such an inanimate body). He is simply a distinct mass of sentient matter generically referred to in Scripture as the divine Word.

I'm not opposed to the idea that it can neither be proven nor disproven that all is matter. But that was not part of your opening statements. You seemed to be saying it is obvious that all is physical, because of our experience of the physical. Of course, this was part of your support that God is physical. Are you now saying your materialism is an unproven assumption, just as is the idealism of the idealist? Well, that's a different position all together. I am sympathetic to that way of seeing things.

I always argue my case vigorously, as though my conclusions were apodictic, but of course I'm fallible. But what I've seen confirmed here, as well as on other threads, is that a materialistic exegesis seems to offer significantly more fidelity to the text than immaterialism.

My doctor can't stop the wind or raise the dead with a word. That's just not how the physical works. Sorry, bud. Your ontology is anemic.

A very wise principle known as Occam's Razor argues that the simplest explanation is typically the correct one, and thus we should be reluctant to multiply the set of explanatory factors. This isn't rocket science - because the soul is self-evidently tangible (it seems). Thus raising the dead is simply a two-step physical process:
(1) Surgically repairing the damaged body.
(2) Pushing the soul back into the body.

Again, not rocket science, therefore Occam's Razor is applicable.

My doctor can't stop the wind or raise the dead with a word.

Neither does God. He doesn't just say "Abracadabra" - it's not magic at all. You seem to have overlooked the biblical phenomenology that I discussed earlier. Consider the highly esteemed evangelical commentary of Keil & Delitzcsh, on Isiah 55:11, according to which, the divine Word is a substance that departs from God's mouth, ventures into the vicinity where the miracle is needed, performs it, and then returns to the throne. (Surely, that's physical dynamics. That's God reaching down to push a pencil with His own tangible hands).

"As it goeth forth out of the mouth of God [the Word] acquires shape [and travels] there to melt the ice, as it were, and here to heal and to save; and does not return from its course till it has given effect to the will of the sender. This return of the word to God also presupposes its divine nature." (Keil & Delitzcsh).

Again, what normally comes out of a person's mouth when he speaks? Wind/breath/air.

"By the word of the LORD the heavens were formed, their starry host by the breath [Pneuma] of his mouth" (Psalm 33:6).

Occam's Razor, my friend. It's not complicated.