Apparent Chronological Problems

[Derf]

I'm not aware of any Scripture that I've thrown out. William Lane Craig admitted that DDS originated in philosophy, not from Scripture, even though he himself accepts a lot of it.

Ok, let me know if you come up with an objection you'd like to discuss.

 

[JAL]

Ok, let me know if you come up with an objection you'd like to discuss.

I don't understand. Are you saying that you can resolve the approximately 15 areas of seeming incoherence in DDS theology? Such as the notion that God is immutable and yet became man?

 

[Derf]

Aseity is part of a philosophically ideal/idealized concept of God. Such has nothing to do with who Yahweh is, in my view, hence He cares nothing for it. Yahweh is merely a regular person who chose to unselfishly make the best of a potentially bad situation - He's merely my Father. He is King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. That's it. Nothing more. He isn't Existence, Essence, Being, Absolute, Immutable, Impassible (etc. etc. etc. etc.) - all that philosophical stuff came from the Greeks, in my opinion. You can read my simplistic definition of Yahweh here.

You might appreciate some of Bob Enyart's work. He dismisses, or at least downplays, the "Ims" and the "Omnis", as he calls them, in favor of what God tells us about Himself. Here's an excerpt from one of his articles:
"The biblical attributes of our eternal God are that He is living, personal, relational, good, and loving. These correct and trump the Greek and philosophical attributes of the OMNIs and IMs (immutability, impeccability, impassibility, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence). For example, a stone idol is immutable, impeccable, and impassible."

I don't understand. Are you saying that you can resolve the approximately 15 areas of seeming incoherence in DDS theology? Such as the notion that God is immutable and yet became man?

I guess I don't see all of those things as necessary for DDS.

 

[JAL]

You might appreciate some of Bob Enyart's work. He dismisses, or at least downplays, the "Ims" and the "Omnis", as he calls them, in favor of what God tells us about Himself. Here's an excerpt from one of his articles:
"The biblical attributes of our eternal God are that He is living, personal, relational, good, and loving. These correct and trump the Greek and philosophical attributes of the OMNIs and IMs (immutability, impeccability, impassibility, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence). For example, a stone idol is immutable, impeccable, and impassible."

I guess I don't see all of those things as necessary for DDS.

Ok, but I think the more you remove aspects of DDS:
- The less it should be called DDS.
- The more you have already gravitated towards my position. For example if we admit that God has finite knowledge (let's say He knows exactly 100,000 languages), how did He get this knowledge?

 

[Derf]

Ok, but I think the more you remove aspects of DDS:
- The less it should be called DDS.
- The more you have already gravitated towards my position. For example if we admit that God has finite knowledge (let's say He knows exactly 100,000 languages), how did He get this knowledge?

Why is that relevant to DDS?

 

[JAL]

Why is that relevant to DDS?

DDS tends to define God as an infinitely knowledgeable being - immutable in knowledge, incapable of learning.

Are we going to keep these Omni's, or not? If not - if He doesn't know an infinite number of languages but say only 100,000 - where and how did He learn them?

 

[Derf]

DDS tends to define God as an infinitely knowledgeable being - immutable in knowledge, incapable of learning.

Are we going to keep these Omni's, or not? If not - if He doesn't know an infinite number of languages but say only 100,000 - where and how did He learn them?

I think what you mean is "DDS proponents tend to define God" that way. But it isn't a necessary condition to be a DDS proponent, afaik.

I can give you my answer to your language question, but when God knew them depends on who created them. God created some languages, like the one Adam spoke or that the people at Babel started speaking. Others man created, and God learned them as man created them, like the names of the animals in Genesis 2:19 (KJV) And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought [them] unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that [was] the name thereof.
Those were additions to the language God created, and therefore like a new language in some ways.
Or Fortran or C++ might be called new languages God learned from humans.

 

[Jonaitis]

Aseity is part of a philosophically ideal/idealized concept of God. Such has nothing to do with who Yahweh is, in my view, hence He cares nothing for it. Yahweh is merely a regular person who chose to unselfishly make the best of a potentially bad situation - He's merely my Father. He is King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. That's it. Nothing more. He isn't Existence, Essence, Being, Absolute, Immutable, Impassible (etc. etc. etc. etc.) - all that philosophical stuff came from the Greeks, in my opinion. You can read my simplistic definition of Yahweh here.

So for you, Greek Philosophy = Bad?

Yeah, I don't agree with that and any of the things that you have said. I rather benefit from all worldviews in so far that provides greater insight into the truth. I will not blindly accept something without questioning and working it out. God did not create a rational world, with rational intelligent beings, only to reject a rational way to understand the truth. We were made to use our intellect, not to forego it.

 

[JAL]

I think what you mean is "DDS proponents tend to define God" that way. But it isn't a necessary condition to be a DDS proponent, afaik.

I can give you my answer to your language question, but when God knew them depends on who created them. God created some languages, like the one Adam spoke or that the people at Babel started speaking. Others man created, and God learned them as man created them, like the names of the animals in Genesis 2:19 (KJV) And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought [them] unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that [was] the name thereof.
Those were additions to the language God created, and therefore like a new language in some ways.
Or Fortran or C++ might be called new languages God learned from humans.

Ok so God created some languages, right? Fine. So how many languages did He know before then, and where did He learn them?

 

[JAL]

So for you, Greek Philosophy = Bad?

Yeah, I don't agree with that and any of the things that you have said. I rather benefit from all worldviews in so far that provides greater insight into the truth. I will not blindly accept something without questioning and working it out. God did not create a rational world, with rational intelligent beings, only to reject a rational way to understand the truth. We were made to use our intellect, not to forego it.

Theology cannot divorce itself from philosophy. In my opinion Greek philosophy has been bad for the church because, from what I can see, it has led to incoherent conclusions far removed from the truth.

 

[JAL]

@Jonaitis

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying to avoid the study of philosophy - even Greek philosophy. What I'm saying is that there is a LOT of incoherent philosophy out there. If you're drawing coherent conclusions that the human mind can comprehend, seem to align with Scripture, and seem to resolve any enigmas in Scripture - wonderful!

I myself am a monistic materialist. Obviously I subscribe to a philosophy, right?

 

[Jonaitis]

@Jonaitis

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying to avoid the study of philosophy - even Greek philosophy. What I'm saying is that there is a LOT of incoherent philosophy out there. If you're drawing coherent conclusions that the human mind can comprehend, seem to align with Scripture, and seem to resolve any enigmas in Scripture - wonderful!

I myself am a monistic materialist. Obviously I subscribe to a philosophy, right?

I understand what you mean.

I now subscribe to a philosophy that can't be comprehended, and there is some conflict it has with Scripture. I am the opposite of a materialist, but am a monist of some sort.

 

[Derf]

Ok so God created some languages, right? Fine. So how many languages did He know before then, and where did He learn them?

Again, this doesn't seem to have anything to do with DDS.
But I haven't any idea how many languages God knew before He created some and learned others. If there was a time when there wasn't anyone around that spoke other languages, then God wouldn't have to know those nonexistent languages.

 

[JAL]

Again, this doesn't seem to have anything to do with DDS.
But I haven't any idea how many languages God knew before He created some and learned others. If there was a time when there wasn't anyone around that spoke other languages, then God wouldn't have to know those nonexistent languages.

Ok. The main point is that God, in your view, had a finite amount of information/knowledge from the getgo, right? I mean, He certainly didn't know an infinite number of languages.

Let's suppose we could store His original sum of information on hard drives, and let's say it took one million hard drives to do this. (Of course that's a tiny number compared to the infinite number of hard drives needed for the infinite God of DDS).

Why did God start out knowing that particular set of data storable on 1 million hard drives?

As opposed to an entirely different set of data storable on 1 million hard drives?

You don't see where I'm going with this? Let me explain. I see only two strongly competitive choices:
....(1) God has always had infinite knowledge, innately. Problem here: incoherent because infinity is not really a number.
....(2) God began with zero knowledge and had to learn EVERYTHING (my view).

I think you want to hold to a third position:
....(3) God began with a finite amount of knowledge, maybe enough to fill 1 million hard drives.

The reason that 3 is particularly implausible is that one has to wonder, why that particular set of data?

 

[Clare73]

There are more apparent birth narratives problems I found, but I may spare that for another time. For example, when Joseph fled to Egypt being warned in a dream and then told to return, why did he want to return to Bethlehem but instead fled to his native home of Nazareth because of Archelaus (Matthew) if he was only there for the census (Luke)?

Or how do we reconcile the the purification of Mary after the birth of Christ (Luke) with her fleeing with Joseph to Egypt (Matthew)?

A cursory examination of two accounts revealed the following:

Depart from Nazareth to Bethlehem (census) -- Luke 2:4,
Birth of Jesus in Bethlehem -- Luke 2:7; Matthew 2:1,
Fulfillment of purification laws -- Luke 2:39,
Return to Nazareth in Galilee -- Luke 2:39,
Months later, Magi go to their house in Nazareth -- Matthew 2:11,
Joseph flees to Egypt -- Matthew 2:13-14,
Joseph returns to Nazareth in Galilee after death of Herod -- Matthew 2:15, 19:23.

And let's not assume the purpose of the accounts was to be a completely accurate chronological record, but to be a completely accurate presentation of the meaning, relation and understanding of things.

 

[JAL]

Again, this doesn't seem to have anything to do with DDS.
But I haven't any idea how many languages God knew before He created some and learned others. If there was a time when there wasn't anyone around that spoke other languages, then God wouldn't have to know those nonexistent languages.

What has this got to do with DDS? I think I mentioned already that DDS believes that concepts/properties exist, and that God is the omniscience-concept/property itself.

Such a God has infinite knowledge by definition, nay, He IS infinite knowledge.

"God is omniscient, then, not in virtue of instantiating or exemplifying omniscience — which would imply a real distinction between God and the property of omniscience — but by being omniscience. And the same holds for each of the divine omni-attributes: God is what he has as Augustine puts it in The City of God, XI, 10. "
Divine Simplicity (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

[Derf]

What has this got to do with DDS? I think I mentioned already that DDS believes that concepts/properties exist, and that God is the omniscience-concept/property itself.

Such a God has infinite knowledge by definition, nay, He IS infinite knowledge.

"God is omniscient, then, not in virtue of instantiating or exemplifying omniscience — which would imply a real distinction between God and the property of omniscience — but by being omniscience. And the same holds for each of the divine omni-attributes: God is what he has as Augustine puts it in The City of God, XI, 10. "
Divine Simplicity (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

I guess now you have to define omniscience, since it equates to God.

And what other things equate to God? One from the Bible is "love".
1 John 4:8 (KJV)
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

Not only that, but love is of God, so we can't really be related to God unless we love.
1 John 4:7 (KJV)
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God...

But then we have a problem, because God "has love".

1 John 4:16 (KJV)
And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

How can God HAVE something that equates to Him? That makes it something He exercises rather than something that equates to Him.

I'd have to say that the Bible treats God's knowledge in a similar way. He learns, and searches, and numbers. If that counteracts the definition of DDS, then we at least have evidence that DDS, so defined, is wrong. But that's not the definition I read of DDS. It was more about whether God has parts that have to be assembled by someone else for God to exist, which I would deny, but you seem to adhere to.

 

[JAL]

I guess now you have to define omniscience, since it equates to God.

And what other things equate to God? One from the Bible is "love".
1 John 4:8 (KJV)
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

Not only that, but love is of God, so we can't really be related to God unless we love.
1 John 4:7 (KJV)
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God...

But then we have a problem, because God "has love".

1 John 4:16 (KJV)
And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

How can God HAVE something that equates to Him? That makes it something He exercises rather than something that equates to Him.

Equates to Him in the Platonic sense that God is that concept/property itself? Meaning love exists as an immaterial concept/property somehow "hanging out there"? I think that's reading too much into the text. If I say, "That devious businessman is pure greed", it's not a Platonic assertion. Similarly I can say, "God is pure love" without being Platonic.

But that's not the definition I read of DDS. It was more about whether God has parts that have to be assembled by someone else for God to exist, which I would deny, but you seem to adhere to.

That's why I cited from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. DDS is about ANY plurality/multiplicity in God. This led to an apparent contradiction (discussed in that article): if God is the omniscience concept/property, how then can He be other concepts/properties as well such as love? Wouldn't this be multiplicity?

All that stuff is incoherent. None of it makes any sense because we're supposed to be talking about three persons, not three concepts/properties.

 

[Derf]

Equates to Him in the Platonic sense that God is that concept/property itself? Meaning love exists as an immaterial concept/property somehow "hanging out there"? I think that's reading too much into the text. If I say, "That devious businessman is pure greed", it's not a Platonic assertion. Similarly I can say, "God is pure love" without being Platonic.


That's why I cited from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. DDS is about ANY plurality/multiplicity in God. This led to an apparent contradiction (discussed in that article): if God is the omniscience concept/property, how then can He be other concepts/properties as well such as love? Wouldn't this be multiplicity?

All that stuff is incoherent. None of it makes any sense because we're supposed to be talking about three persons, not three concepts/properties.

Ok, I get where you're coming from. Thanks for your patience.

Now it's been so long, what does this have to do with the topic?

 

[JAL]

Ok, I get where you're coming from. Thanks for your patience.

Now it's been so long, what does this have to do with the topic?

Probably nothing. As I recall, someone mentioned distrust of DDS, and I concurred, and somehow it took off from there.