What is God?

Unqualified

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God is spirit, He loves us, responds to faith in Him, is in control, has many names, hats, things he likes to do, the forgiver of sins, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and so on... Jehovah Jireh our provider.
 
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Maria Billingsley

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When a person believes in God, what do they really mean by that? What is it they are believing in?

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They belive in a creator of all things. From that point some know exactly who the Creator is, how He came in the flesh and why He revealed Himself to us.
Blessings.
 
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1watchman

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Our Creator-God says in His Holy Word Of Truth: "He that has the Son, has eternal life; and he that has NOT the Son of God, has not that life" (see 1 Jn. 5:10-12). Read also John 14 in the Bible. It all speaks of receiving God's beloved Son --the Lord Jesus. One can do that in simple prayer and ask the Lord Jesus (God manifest as a Man in the flesh), to come into their heart. He WILL, and you will know it by the sealing of the Holy Spirit! Just walk and talk with Him daily, and the Father will be pleased; and you will be in Heaven one day forever.
 
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Vap841

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When a person believes in God, what do they really mean by that? What is it they are believing in?

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All kinds of different things. So it’s important to clarify your terms and ask each person what they mean by God
 
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com7fy8

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the Creator

invisible and knows everything and I will answer to Him after I die

Jesus is His Son who came to this earth and died for our sins in order to save us so we can spend eternity with Him. And He rose from the dead and now is Lord of all . . . the owner and in control, ruling us the most beneficially while we obey Him in His peace and love any and all people while we share with other Jesus people who are our family in Jesus

How He is is to be discovered, and how His love has us becoming in our character.
 
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1watchman

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If one desires to hear God speaking to them they can read John 14, as the Lord Jesus explains how He is God in the Spirit and only speaks the same as His Father: our Creator-God (Holy Spirit). Jesus said: "if you have seen Me you have seen the Father...".

Many seekers do not read the Bible, so do not see that God IS A SPIRIT, and came down as a Man in the person of Jesus (see His birth in the four Gospels). Inventing ideas about our God is the deceit of our enemy: Satan, and so we need to read the Holy Word Of God.
 
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Jeffwhosoever

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Find a Holy Bible and find out who God says He is! Also visit a local church and listen, and if the first church you find doesn't reach you with God's word, try another and kept seeking God. A couple of good books beyond the Scriptural that helped my walk of faith including JI Packer's "Knowing God" and Tozer's "Pursuit of God" as well as the writings by CS Lewis and the Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.
 
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Hawkins

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When a person believes in God, what do they really mean by that? What is it they are believing in?

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Like history, God is witnessed by those humans encountered Him with their testimonies recorded down. These witnesses all portraying the same God with the same set of characteristics as recorded in the Bible. These records also mention that God has a message about our salvation.

If God has a message, He has two options to convey this message.
1) to convey directly to each and every single human. This way however is not viable because by the covenants humans need to be saved by faith.

2) by means those encountered Him as a witness.

There's not a third way.
 
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ViaCrucis

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When a person believes in God, what do they really mean by that? What is it they are believing in?

Thanks.

One of the core Christian teachings about God is that He is, in His Essence, wholly unknown and unknowable; ineffable, and incomprehensible.

Thus the question of "What is God?" cannot be answered. Or at least, it cannot be answered non-tautologically, (i.e. "God is God").

Thus God is unknowable in His Essence; and is only knowable by revelation. And it is God-in-revelation that Christians confess in the Creeds: "One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, our Lord, etc", to speak of God as Trinity is to speak of God-in-revelation; because God as Trinity is comprehended solely by the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Word and Son of the Father made flesh.

As such, when the Christian says "I believe in God", what is meant (or, what it should mean) is this:

"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ His only-begotten Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell. He rose again on the third day, He ascended into the heavens where He sits at the right hand of the Father, from whence He will come again to judge the living and the dead. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen."

Namely, "God" can never be reduced to some philosophical metaphysic; but must always be understood and comprehended solely in Jesus Christ, who speaks of God His Father, Israel's God and the world's Redeemer, who makes Himself home in us by the Holy Spirit.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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Dorothy Mae

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One of the core Christian teachings about God is that He is, in His Essence, wholly unknown and unknowable; ineffable, and incomprehensible.

Thus the question of "What is God?" cannot be answered. Or at least, it cannot be answered non-tautologically, (i.e. "God is God").

Thus God is unknowable in His Essence; and is only knowable by revelation. And it is God-in-revelation that Christians confess in the Creeds: "One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, our Lord, etc", to speak of God as Trinity is to speak of God-in-revelation; because God as Trinity is comprehended solely by the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Word and Son of the Father made flesh.

As such, when the Christian says "I believe in God", what is meant (or, what it should mean) is this:

"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ His only-begotten Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell. He rose again on the third day, He ascended into the heavens where He sits at the right hand of the Father, from whence He will come again to judge the living and the dead. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen."

Namely, "God" can never be reduced to some philosophical metaphysic; but must always be understood and comprehended solely in Jesus Christ, who speaks of God His Father, Israel's God and the world's Redeemer, who makes Himself home in us by the Holy Spirit.

-CryptoLutheran
The god of the Muslims is unknowable. The God of Jesus is knowable. Let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me” -God

When those who asked “what is god” to men, I wonder if God will say to them “what (not who) are you” and if they’ll like be asked what kind of thing they are?
 
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Vap841

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One of the core Christian teachings about God is that He is, in His Essence, wholly unknown and unknowable; ineffable, and incomprehensible.

Thus the question of "What is God?" cannot be answered. Or at least, it cannot be answered non-tautologically, (i.e. "God is God").
I like this explanation I think it’s really good, key word being wholly, WHEN this explanation is used as a description of reality (i.e. “Reality is Reality”). If you try to wholly describe reality your head will just explode (be it a theistic reality, an atheistic reality, no matter what it might be). Attaching a grand consciousness to reality itself (God with a capital G) is my biggest brain teaser.
Thus God is unknowable in His Essence; and is only knowable by revelation. And it is God-in-revelation that Christians confess in the Creeds: "One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, our Lord, etc", to speak of God as Trinity is to speak of God-in-revelation; because God as Trinity is comprehended solely by the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Word and Son of the Father made flesh.

As such, when the Christian says "I believe in God", what is meant (or, what it should mean) is this:

"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ His only-begotten Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell. He rose again on the third day, He ascended into the heavens where He sits at the right hand of the Father, from whence He will come again to judge the living and the dead. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen."

Namely, "God" can never be reduced to some philosophical metaphysic; but must always be understood and comprehended solely in Jesus Christ, who speaks of God His Father, Israel's God and the world's Redeemer, who makes Himself home in us by the Holy Spirit.

-CryptoLutheran
So are saying that you may as well just throw all the general revelation stuff out as far as evidence for proof of God goes? That special revelation alone is the only argument worth having when you wanna discuss proof of God? I’m interpreting that as being your point because even with special revelation you still can’t WHOLLY get your head wrapped around what God is. Even Jesus says “I tell you a mystery”, even Jesus knows that his own followers’ heads will explode if they tried to understand everything about special revelation lol, for example trying to wholly understand a triune God. So if I understood you correctly, you were asked the simply question of what is God, and you preferred to point out that all of the general revelation explanations are not ready worth much at all, but even though you also can’t wholly explain special revelation it is still the only answer to the question that has substance to it?
 
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ViaCrucis

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I like this explanation I think it’s really good, key word being wholly, WHEN this explanation is used as a description of reality (i.e. “Reality is Reality”). If you try to wholly describe reality your head will just explode (be it a theistic reality, an atheistic reality, no matter what it might be). Attaching a grand consciousness to reality itself (God with a capital G) is my biggest brain teaser.

So are saying that you may as well just throw all the general revelation stuff out as far as evidence for proof of God goes? That special revelation alone is the only argument worth having when you wanna discuss proof of God? I’m interpreting that as being your point because even with special revelation you still can’t WHOLLY get your head wrapped around what God is. Even Jesus says “I tell you a mystery”, even Jesus knows that his own followers’ heads will explode if they tried to understand everything about special revelation lol, for example trying to wholly understand a triune God. So if I understood you correctly, you were asked the simply question of what is God, and you preferred to point out that all of the general revelation explanations are not ready worth much at all, but even though you also can’t wholly explain special revelation it is still the only answer to the question that has substance to it?

In the Lutheran tradition we sometimes speak of Deus Absconditus, "The Hidden God" and Deus Revelatus, "The Revealed God". So that "general" or "natural revelation" is aligned with God in His Hiddenness: God's "power and wisdom" that St. Paul describes as being displayed in the created order. Seeing the power and glory of God in the created order, however, is God hidden. If I look at the power of the sun on a hot day warming the earth (and there's a heat wave here on the west coast of the US, so that power of the sun is seeming pretty strong today) it cannot get me to a place where I can confess God as Father; I can at best confess "That Great Power" or "That Which I Know Not" but which nevertheless declares "I AM". It is only through the Revelation of God in Jesus Christ that we come to know God as God the Father, for Christ speaks of Him as His Father, and then invites us to join with Him in calling His Father our Father, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name".

In that sense "nature's God", or "the philosopher's God", can only ever get us, at best, to the Deus Absconditus. And thus paradoxically God in His nakedness (Deus Nudus) is hidden, God in the nudity of His glory is unknowable and unapproachable. This knowledge cannot lead us to the cross. Only God, unveiled in Jesus, clothed in humility and suffering, can show us God's face". Thus to know God, in the Christian sense, can only ever mean to know God in Jesus Christ. That is what Jesus means when He says, "No one can come to the Father but by Me". Jesus isn't talking about "going to heaven" here, but how to encounter God personally, the personal encounter with God happens in the Person of the Incarnate Son and Word. The Father makes Himself known in and through His Son, so that whoever knows the Son, knows the Father as well; whoever sees the Son, clothed as He is in human weakness, humility, and suffering, sees the Father. It is here, in Jesus, that God is Deus Revelatus.

Thus, Dr. Luther writes the following concerning false theology (theologia gloriae, "theologies of glory") and true theology (theologia crucis, "the theology of the cross")

"That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the »invisible« things of God as though they were clearly »perceptible in those things which have actually happened« (Rom. 1:20; cf. 1 Cor 1:21-25). This is apparent in the example of those who were »theologians« and still were called »fools« by the Apostle in Rom. 1:22. Furthermore, the invisible things of God are virtue, godliness, wisdom, justice, goodness, and so forth. The recognition of all these things does not make one worthy or wise.

He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross. The manifest and visible things of God are placed in opposition to the invisible, namely, his human nature, weakness, foolishness. The Apostle in 1 Cor. 1:25 calls them the weakness and folly of God. Because men misused the knowledge of God through works, God wished again to be recognized in suffering, and to condemn »wisdom concerning invisible things« by means of »wisdom concerning visible things«, so that those who did not honor God as manifested in his works should honor him as he is hidden in his suffering (absconditum in passionibus). As the Apostle says in 1 Cor. 1:21, »For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.« Now it is not sufficient for anyone, and it does him no good to recognize God in his glory and majesty, unless he recognizes him in the humility and shame of the cross. Thus God destroys the wisdom of the wise, as Isa. 45:15 says, »Truly, thou art a God who hidest thyself.« So, also, in John 14:8, where Philip spoke according to the theology of glory: »Show us the Father.« Christ forthwith set aside his flighty thought about seeing God elsewhere and led him to himself, saying, »Philip, he who has seen me has seen the Father« (John 14:9). For this reason true theology and recognition of God are in the crucified Christ, as it is also stated in John 10 (John 14:6) »No one comes to the Father, but by me.« »I am the door« (John 10:9), and so forth.
" - Martin Luther's Heidelberg Disputation, Theses 19-20

That is, to confess "God is very powerful" is not true theology, that's not really saying anything specifically Christian about God. It is only when we meet God in Jesus, in Jesus' suffering, God clothed by the cross, that we actually meet God.

It's the difference between saying, "There once was a very great king who lived in a kingdom far away" and "I have met the king, and the king is very kind and humble".

-CryptoLutheran
 
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Vap841

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Thus to know God, in the Christian sense, can only ever mean to know God in Jesus Christ. That is what Jesus means when He says, "No one can come to the Father but by Me". Jesus isn't talking about "going to heaven" here, but how to encounter God personally, the personal encounter with God happens in the Person of the Incarnate Son and Word. The Father makes Himself known in and through His Son, so that whoever knows the Son, knows the Father as well; whoever sees the Son, clothed as He is in human weakness, humility, and suffering, sees the Father. It is here, in Jesus, that God is Deus Revelatus.
God can not be a certain species that wouldn’t make sense, so it would be interesting if you had a human Jesus hear on Earth, and then for any other enlightened species in the universe God also sends his Son but as their species. An Ewok Jesus, a Vulcan Jesus, an Avatar Jesus, etc.

Reality means everything, if we just forget about disagreements as to what encompasses reality let’s just equate it with the word everything whatever that everything might be. Reality creates entities, and if the entity is formed into a certain configuration that entity is a rational self aware being. Should it or should it not then follow that reality itself would be rational and self aware? That’s where I get stuck.
 
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ViaCrucis

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God can not be a certain species that wouldn’t make sense, so it would be interesting if you had a human Jesus hear on Earth, and then for any other enlightened species in the universe God also sends his Son but as their species. An Ewok Jesus, a Vulcan Jesus, an Avatar Jesus, etc.

The following is going to be, perhaps, a bit long winded. I wanted to cover a lot of topics because I think they are all connected and are important to properly understand the Christian religion.

Speaking of avatars, it's important to point out here that Jesus isn't one. Jesus isn't the human manifestation of God on earth. And the Incarnation was not a temporary condition: Jesus is a human being, right now. The Christian confesses faith in a Lord who bears human flesh--and indeed, still bears the wounds of His crucifixion and passion. Jesus is not a vessel which contained God on earth; Jesus is Himself a very real Person-- an eternal and Divine Person.

There are Three Divine Persons: Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. One God, three Persons. Jesus, as the Divine Person of the Son, is truly fully really God. This Person united Himself to human nature, becoming really truly human. Which is why we call Jesus the "God-Man" (Theanthropos in Greek), and it's why we call His mother, Mary, Theotokos, literally "Birth-giver of God" but usually translated as God-Bearer, or "mother of God" (though that is more accurately a translation of mater theou, literally "God's mother"). We call Mary Theotokos and mother of God because we are emphatic about Mary's offspring, Jesus, being Himself truly, really, actually, seriously God. It's not, as some mistakenly think, about glorifying Mary, but rather glorifying Mary's son, Jesus. Hence the Church says with St. Elizabeth in Luke's Gospel, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the Fruit of your womb [Jesus]"; because it is Jesus that makes His mother blessed and holy. Because Jesus is God.

Further, Christianity maintains that this same Jesus is Himself the One from whom all things come, "All things were made by Him, and nothing that was made was made without Him" (John 1:3), "For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent." (Colossians 1:16-18)

So when we turn our attention to the hypothetical, namely, to hypothetical life elsewhere out in the universe; I am wary of the "many Jesuses" speculation.

Likewise, I am careful about being too anthropocentric.

So instead I tend to view things like this: The particular works and actions of God have cosmic significance. Just because, for example, God does something here on earth does not mean that it does not have meaning elsewhere in the universe.

Starting small: Jesus was a Jewish male who grew up in a Galilean village called Nazareth, He lived His entire earthly life confined to a small region in the Levant. When He was put to death, He was put to death as an annoying, but still rather obscure nobody from the perspective of Roman, let alone international, politics. And yet, what occurred there in that small little place is, by Christian confession, for the whole world. We don't just mean the entire Jewish world, or just the entire Greco-Roman world, or just the old world peoples of Asia, Africa, and Europe. As the world got bigger, so has the Christian understanding of the world had to change to recognize the depth of its mission. When Europeans realized there was a massive stretch of land which they came to call the Americas, the "discovery" of peoples living in previously unknown lands was almost as incredible for them as if we were discover there were peoples--intelligent beings--on other worlds in the cosmos.

But the Christian hope has always been that not just this world--the earth--is renewed and restored, but all of creation. The vision presented in the Bible of God restoring and renewing the heavens and the earth speaks not to "human souls going to heaven", but of God actively healing and repairing the universe.

What Christians call "salvation" is both the whole of God's rescue project, as well as our specific participation and sharing in that rescue project. My salvation is not about me "going to heaven" when I die, but rather God's taking hold of me and making me part of what He is doing for the whole universe.

Specifically: What God has done in and for Jesus, God is going to do for all creation. Resurrection, not death, is God's ultimate word about what He has made.

As such, Ewoks, Klingons, and little green men have their salvation in Jesus Christ. Not a separate Ewok Jesus, but the one and only Jesus.

Because God made the universe, God loves the universe, and God is going to make sure the universe does not fade into the ultimate futility of cosmic heat death wrought by the terrible tyranny of entropy.

When the Christian says "Jesus Christ is risen!" it isn't just a nice religious greeting. It is a statement and action of defiance against death itself: Jesus stopped being dead, Jesus defeated death, death has no place in God's future. That is why Christians look forward to the resurrection of the body, and the life of the Age to Come. Because we say in Jesus death has died, and death's final gasp shall be at His return, and the dead are raised, and all creation is set to rights.

I don't believe those things which have lived and died shall be lost. I do not believe that human labor is meaningless, that the great works of art, and poetry, of love and friendship and companionship will simply all cease to be.

St. Paul writes to the Christians in Corinth about the future resurrection of the body because he wants them to be hopeful, and so in light the resurrection and God's good future for the world, the Apostle writes,

"For this perishing flesh must be clothed in the imperishable; and this mortal flesh must be clothed in immortality. When the perishable is clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal is clothed with immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written,

'Death is swallowd up in victory.'
'O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?'

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
" - 1 Corinthians 15:53-58

It's that line, "that in the Lord your labor is not in vain". That which is done here on earth, in this life, matters.

That is why Christians are not called to simply go live in a closet with a Bible trying to ready themselves for some existence in heaven. But rather, to live fully here in this world, loving our neighbors, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty. We don't do that to get bonus points on a score card. Nothing we do is going to impress God.

The way in which our works do matter is in relation to our fellow human beings and the rest of creation. I can't improve my position before God even by the smallest fraction even should it be within my power to end poverty tomorrow. But the one who does benefit is my neighbor who lives in poverty, and for this reason I am called to the least of these, to love my neighbor as myself.

If there are Ewoks, then I am called to love Ewoks. And if there are Ewoks, then I am confident that there will be Ewoks in that good future world. Because of that one and same Jesus, born of Mary's womb, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; who rose on the third day, ascended into the heavens, seated at the right hand of the Father, from whence He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

What happened on a cross-laden hill outside of Jerusalem is cosmically, universally significant.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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Vap841

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You are a good writer. Very interesting summary of critical points! I wasn’t trying to make Jesus out to be some type of pocket hologram that God just whips out and uses like a flashlight and then puts away (I was referencing the aliens in the movie Avatar), my thinking was more along the lines that different worlds would require their own historical Jesus to run through their own history. Because if not they would be limited to that Romans style of general revelation that you said wasn’t good enough.

That is very interesting that Jesus would be a human body for all eternity I never heard that theory before. I just figured that if he could appear in different times like how he was Melchizedek, and how the Image of God doesn’t refer to a physical body but rather it refers to a rational and good/perfect being, that it would be no big deal for him to also appear in other parts of space, and that which specific organism of body that he utilized would be inconsequential.
 
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ViaCrucis

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You are a good writer. Very interesting summary of critical points! I wasn’t trying to make Jesus out to be some type of pocket hologram that God just whips out and uses like a flashlight and then puts away (I was referencing the aliens in the movie Avatar), my thinking was more along the lines that different worlds would require their own historical Jesus to run through their own history. Because if not they would be limited to that Romans style of general revelation that you said wasn’t good enough.

Perhaps, or perhaps other aliens don't need the kind of thorough deep cleansing we need; or perhaps God has other means of accomplishing His purposes with them. Such questions deal with countless possible variables that it makes speculation little more than a fun thought at best.

That is very interesting that Jesus would be a human body for all eternity I never heard that theory before. I just figured that if he could appear in different times like how he was Melchizedek, and how the Image of God doesn’t refer to a physical body but rather it refers to a rational and good/perfect being, that it would be no big deal for him to also appear in other parts of space, and that which specific organism of body that he utilized would be inconsequential.

For clarity, from the historic, traditional Christian faith the figure of Melchizedek is nothing more than an ordinary human being. I am familiar with some who hold that Melchizedek was Jesus in the Old Testament, but this position is regarded at best as non-orthodox and at worst actually heretical.

In historic Christian teaching Jesus really did rise from the dead, He had the wounds of His crucifixion to prove that it was Him to His followers. It's this Jesus which Christians believe has "ascended into heaven" with "all authority in heaven and on earth", seated at "the right hand of the Father", exalted as "King of kings" and "Lord of lords". Which is why according to historic, orthodox Christian teaching we really are eating and drinking Jesus' flesh and blood in Holy Communion, also known as the Lord's Supper and/or the Eucharist. That is, in a way which we really have no idea, Jesus has promised that the bread of His Supper is "My body broken for you" and that the wine of His Supper is "the cup of the new covenant in My blood". So St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:16 that we partake of Christ's body in the bread, and we partake of Christ's blood in the cup of wine. This is known as the Doctrine of the Real Presence, and is what mainstream Christians have always believed, and which Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, and [many/most] Anglicans continue to believe. It wouldn't make sense to speak of sharing in Christ's body and blood through the Eucharist unless Jesus really has flesh and blood--and He does, because He's human.

That is to say, there is a dark-skinned Jewish male human being with nail wounds in His hands and feet who reigns as Lord and God over the entire cosmos. And this is the normative, mainstream Christian position--whether talking about Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox churches.

A rejection of Jesus' resurrected bodily humanity would be, from the traditional Christian perspective, considered quite heretical, being a form of Docetism, one of the few ancient heresies which is explicitly condemned in the New Testament itself.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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mmarco

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I like this explanation I think it’s really good, key word being wholly, WHEN this explanation is used as a description of reality (i.e. “Reality is Reality”). If you try to wholly describe reality your head will just explode (be it a theistic reality, an atheistic reality, no matter what it might be). Attaching a grand consciousness to reality itself (God with a capital G) is my biggest brain teaser.
Actually I think that the question "what is reality? " (at least "what is physical reality") must be addressed thorugh a rational analysis of our scientific knowledges.
Since I am a physicist, I think that physics provides fundamental information about the nature of phsyical reality.
In fact, the extraordinary success of the laws of physics in predicting sistematically with great accuracy natural phenomena, reveals a fundamental property of the universe, which is its close correspondence with abstract mathematical structures, to the point that abstract mathematical structures are the only means to identify general principles able to account coherently for the variety of natural phenomena. The physical reality manifests itself as a realization of some specific abstract mathematical structures (what we call “the laws of physics”); in fact, according to modern science, the building blocks of the universe are not particles, but quantum fields, which are abstract mathematical structures which properties are abstract mathematical properties. This close correspondence with abstract mathematical structures represents the most fundamental and relevant information that science provides about the nature of the universe and the physical reality.

On the other hand, mathematical structures are only constructions of the rational thought and a mathematical structure can exist only as a thought in a thinking mind conceiving it; this implies that matter (and the physical reality) is not the foundation of reality, but its existence depends on a more fundamental reality i.e. consciousness: contrary to the basic hypothesis of materialism, consciousness is a more fundamental reality than matter.

Therefore the existence of this mathematically structured universe implies the existence of a conscious and intelligent God, conceiving it as a mathematical model. In other words, the universe can be only the manifestation of a mathematical theory existing in the mind of a personal God.

There is another argument from physics that I find strongly convincing; according to our scientific knowledges, all chemical and biological processes (including cerebral processes) are caused by the electromagnetic interaction between subatomic particles such as electrons and protons. Quantum mechanics accounts for such interactions, as well as for the properties of subatomic particles. The point is that there is no trace of consciousness, sensations, emotions, etc. in the laws of quantum mechanics (as well as in all the laws of physcis). Consciousness is irreducible to the laws of physics, while all cerebral processes are, which is sufficient to prove that consciousness is irreducible to cerebral processes and that cerebral processes cannot be identified as the cause of consciousness. The basic assumption of materialism (which identifies cerebral processes as the origin of consciousness) is then contradicted by this fundamental scientific result, i.e. the irreducibility of consciousness to cerebral processes. This result represents the most strong argument in favour of the existence of the soul, as the unphysical and trascendent principle necessary for the existence of our consciousness. Since our soul cannot have a physical origin, it can only be created directly by God. The existence of God is a necessary condition for the existence of our soul, as well as for the existence of us as conscious beings.
 
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