What limits would this put on God

Daniel Marsh said:

Luke 9:45
But the followers did not understand what he meant. The meaning was hidden from them so that they could not understand it. But they were afraid to ask Jesus about what he said.

But, we know that God made things known to them after the Resurrection

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Luke 18:34
The apostles tried to understand this, but they could not; the meaning was hidden from them.

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As usual, nothing relevant in this response. And you still have no answer for the question that perplexed Dr. Michael Gleghorn, namely, of what substance does God consist, if He is not material, has no size and shape, is not even in space or time? You'll keep replying that God is Spirit - but that just begs the question as to what substance 'Spirit' is.

Incoherent nonsense. Enough said.

Daniel Marsh said:

"
I got into a debate with an atheist on the existence of God. I used the Cosmological Argument, and then demonstrated how God is timeless, space-less, and immaterial. He countered my conclusion with this question. “If God does not exist inside of time, space, and is not made of material, then in what way does God exist, and what is He made of, nothing?” I don’t know how to answer His objection, so I would appreciate it if you could help me out here. I hope that you will e-mail me your advice and direct me to some resources.

Probably the closest relevant biblical description we get of God comes from Jesus in John 4:24, “God is spirit.” But God is a personal (or better, tri-personal spirit) characterized by intelligence, will, etc. In this respect, many Christian philosophers prefer to think of God as an unembodied Mind.

In either case, however, the important thing to realize is that God, as you already know, is not a material or physical being. God is spirit; that is, God is an immaterial, or spiritual being. We could also describe God as a spiritual substance. Obviously, this is a long way from saying that God is “nothing”! A spiritual being is not a physical being, but it is every bit as real as a physical being. Indeed, in the case of God, He is actually more “real” than the physical universe (which only exists because He created it and continually sustains it in being).

For some excellent resources on the cosmological argument, please see William Lane Craig’s site here: www.reasonablefaith.org/site/PageServer?pagename=scholarly_articles_existence_of_God.

Craig is a top-notch Christian philosopher and is a world-recognized expert on the cosmological argument (as well as other issues).

Shalom in Christ,

Michael Gleghorn"
“If God is Immaterial, What is He Made Of?”

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Yep, this scholar is crying out for help because he cannot answer a simple question posed by an atheist. Immaterialism is incoherent nonsense. We already discussed this.

@Daniel Marsh,

Materialism is obvious. After all, how was the atonement possible? Simple. God allowed a physical, materialistic assault upon Christ's material body. That's why He alone suffered the torment- nobody else did! The same kind of principle is what makes intercommunication possible. For example I can whisper something to you - and nobody else hears it! Now try to imagine that angels are immaterial spirits. They would be unable to intercommunicate! How is one angel going to whisper to another? Even if you try to imagine telepathic waves:
(1) The wave has to get the angel's attention, it must therefore make a definite wavelike impact (matter/energy impact) upon the angel.
(2) The wave has to target that specific angel, if other angels aren't supposed to hear the message. Just like sound waves, it must be a burst of energy launched from one specific location to another.

Intercommunication between angels is a cinch to explain with materialism. But with immaterialism it is impossible to explain, because immaterialism leaves everything incoherent and impossible to make any sense of.

@Daniel Marsh,

Adam constitutes more proof that the human mind is material. Traditional views of the fall are unjust because they have 100 billion descendants of Adam suffering the consequences of his sin. I use an analogy in this post to demonstrate how unjust that is.

The only solution is that God created only one material soul named Adam (even Eve was a fragment of that one soul pulled from Adam's ribs). Likewise we too are material pieces/fragments of that one soul. In other words you are Adam even though you don't remember being in the Garden. This is the only way to explain why it is justice for all of us to suffer the consequences of his sin.

@Daniel Marsh,

Post 630 on the other thread is another example of how easy it is find biblical evidence for materialism.

JAL said:

Look, consciousness is an event, an experience

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I don't agree. Consciousness is not an experience, but that in which all experiences take place. You can't experience it, you can only experience through it.

Jonaitis said:

I don't agree. Consciousness is not an experience, but that in which all experiences take place. You can't experience it, you can only experience through it.

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I don't think you're disagreeing with me. I think you're just stating my position with more precision.

@Jonaitis

I don't think one happens without the other. Every moment of consciousness involves impressions/sensations more or less distinct ('loud and clear'). When those impressions cease, consciousness ceases. In discussions like this, therefore, I find that these conscious events are more germane to the discussion than the broader,. more precise definition of consciousness that you might like to supply.

JAL said:

I don't think you're disagreeing with me. I think you're just stating my position with more precision.

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No, I am saying that consciousness is that in which all experience appears, as in, nothing actually exists outside of consciousness. It is that in which we and our experiences appear to exist, the God in all.

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Jonaitis said:

No, the content of experiences may cease, but not consciousness. It just becomes unaware of perception, sensation, and thought.

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Contrary to fact. When a person loses his five senses, for example, we classify him as unconscious. And I'm going further than that - I'm saying that even internal impressions/sensations such as dreams and mental pictures (all of which are usually 'loud and clear') have ceased. That's unconsciousness to the extreme - it's really the very definition of death. It is anything BUT consciousness.

Look, if you really want to deprive the term consciousness of all practical meaning and still call it "consciousness", I'd say you're merely splitting philosophical hairs hardly worth debating.

Delete.

Jonaitis said:

No, I am saying that consciousness is that in which all experience appears, as in, nothing actually exists outside of consciousness. It is that in which we and our experiences appear to exist, the God in all.

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I overlooked the words in bold the first time. I don't know much philosophy, but it sounds somewhat like Hegel to me. Well if that's where you are headed, it's probably above my pay grade.

JAL said:

I overlooked the words in bold the first time. I don't know much philosophy, but it sounds somewhat like Hegel to me. Well if that's where you are headed, it's probably above my pay grade.

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Funny, I am actually going over Hegal's Doctrine of Being again at this very moment before I saw your notification.

"Nothing, pure nothing: it is simply equality with itself, complete emptiness, absence of all determination and content — undifferentiatedness in itself. In so far as intuiting or thinking can be mentioned here, it counts as a distinction whether something or nothing is intuited or thought. To intuit or think nothing has, therefore, a meaning; both are distinguished and thus nothing is (exists) in our intuiting or thinking; or rather it is empty intuition and thought itself, and the same empty intuition or thought as pure being. Nothing is, therefore, the same determination, or rather absence of determination, and thus altogether the same as, pure being."

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Jonaitis said:

Funny, I am actually going over Hegal's Doctrine of Being again at this very moment before I saw your notification.

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That kind of reading is pretty advanced. I wouldn't get very far with it, I'm afraid.

Daniel Marsh said:

Claiming that matter is eternal at creation strikes me as being contrary to the nature of God.

So, the claim that God is limited to eternal laws and eternal matter would limit our Lord how?

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It would oppose the teaching that it is in Christ everything exists (the implication being something existed without God).

JAL said:

That kind of reading is pretty advanced. I wouldn't get very far with it, I'm afraid.

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We cannot speak of nothing without implying its ground of being, and we cannot speak of pure being without implying its nothingness other than itself. Therefore, pure nothing and pure being are the same, and to speak of the Absolute, who I hold to be pure being and act, is to speak of nothing. It is actually funny. The atheist and the theist are both right, yet they are wrong about each other. The Principal Upanishads touch on this, and they helped me better understand when I first began studying negative theology. We are truly nothing.