Are These Mainstream Doctrines In Need of Reform?

[HatGuy]

JAL - You have now posted that you don’t believe in time, but God is somehow constrained by it? Please explain this.

You have stated God cannot have foreknowledge, as he is constrained by time (something you now say you don’t believe in). Your Bible is much thinner than mine, since it is full of prophecy, which cannot be from God, as, in your view, he cannot know the future.

You believe in a finite God, on a philosophical level, but fail to understand that a scientific examination of God's claimed attributes in scripture clearly force Him to be eternal and unconstrained by time. That you have narrowed your view strictly to philosophical understanding while not considering science or scripture in any way makes your assumptions fall apart when tested.

You assume God cannot be infinite, but is finite instead.You have assumed this because of his interaction with man on a finite level. This falls apart when considering that man is finite, and as such, why wouldn’t God’s interactions with him seem finite? Of course, that doesn’t mean they are finite, as God’s interactions have eternal data available to him. Perhaps your understanding of God’s love is warped because you have a thimble’s worth of data measured against God’s ocean of data?

You are being intellectually dishonest when you claim that you must form an opinion on only the data you have. While it may be true to an extent, the fact that you are aware that you have limited knowledge but are not making any provision that other possibilities may exist based on having greater information available is just simply dishonest.

Thank you. You worded this a lot better than my attempts

 

[JAL]

JAL - You have now posted that you don’t believe in time, but God is somehow constrained by it? Please explain this.

Try to put a little effort in to reading between the lines please. I shouldn't have to spell out EVERYTHING.

It's funny I always think my posts are way too long and over-explained, and then I get hit with objections confused about my position. I just don't get it.

(Sigh). I'll say it again. I don't believe in time as an EXISTING SUBSTANCE. Note the difference:
(1) "A thought crossed my mind" (or "passed through my mind"). This LITERALLY refers to a physical, electrochemical stream flowing through your brain. That's a fact.
(2) "Some time passed by". There is no 'river of time' that I can put my hand into. It's just a convenient word for counting motions (such as the earth's rotations).

My point is that God doesn't transcend such 'time'.

You have stated God cannot have foreknowledge, as he is constrained by time (something you now say you don’t believe in). Your Bible is much thinner than mine, since it is full of prophecy, which cannot be from God, as, in your view, he cannot know the future.

Already addressed. I distinguished between foreordination vs genuine foreknowledge.

You believe in a finite God, on a philosophical level, but fail to understand that a scientific examination of God's claimed attributes in scripture clearly force Him to be eternal and unconstrained by time. That you have narrowed your view strictly to philosophical understanding while not considering science or scripture in any way makes your assumptions fall apart when tested.

You say your view represents Scripture, but oddly enough I am the one who gave biblical evidence for divine temporality. You're just making assertions.

You assume God cannot be infinite, but is finite instead.

I didn't just assume this. I gave multiple reasons, both Scriptural-based and common-sense based.

You have assumed this because of his interaction with man on a finite level. This falls apart when considering that man is finite, and as such, why wouldn’t God’s interactions with him seem finite? Of course, that doesn’t mean they are finite, as God’s interactions have eternal data available to him. Perhaps your understanding of God’s love is warped because you have a thimble’s worth of data measured against God’s ocean of data?

As limited human minds, we have to try to make the best interpretation of Scripture with our finite data. That's what I'm trying to do here.

You are being intellectually dishonest when you claim that you must form an opinion on only the data you have. While it may be true to an extent, the fact that you are aware that you have limited knowledge but are not making any provision that other possibilities may exist based on having greater information available is just simply dishonest.

Again, as limited human minds, we have to try to make the best interpretation of Scripture with our finite data. That's what I'm trying to do here. I see no other option, unless we're bent on being irresponsible exegetes.

 

[JAL]

I'm sure you think your position is more cogent. You do appear to be in love with your own thoughts more than the thoughts of 2,000 years of Christian history, after all, so I don't know why I should be an exception.

I'm not alone. Atheists have been objecting to theism based on the problem of evil since at least the Renaissance. No atheist believes, even FOR ONE SECOND,that a God of infinite love would allow suffering that isn't NEEDED. Which takes us back to the only 2 realistic options:
(1) Did God NEED a world like this?
(2) Did He merely WANT a world like this, just for the fun of it?

So stop pretending that I'm alone. You're just in denial about the severity of the problem of evil, as have been most Christian theologians for the last 2,000 years. As mentioned earlier I took a college class on the philosophy of religion, with a Christian professor. The problem of evil was central to the class. The professor was a Christian. Although we had our differences, he never downplayed the problem of evil, nor pretended to have a solution (not that I recall anyway). Certainly he never pretended that an easy solution exists. He seemed well aware that a finite God solves the problem, but he didn't seem to want to go that route.

You're not being a responsible exegete when you assume that a finite response from an infinite God with infinite resources is responding selfishly. You cannot make such an assumption with your limited knowledge. I ask again: Why CAN'T an infinite God respond in a finite way to finite creatures? You're not actually answering that.

Actually I have. There are really two objections here.
(1) Why would an infinitely self-sufficient God make a pain-prone world like this, if He is infinite love?
(2) Even if I were to agree that He would do so (which I certainly wouldn't), why would a God of infinite love/intervention abstain from full atonement?

Here's the thing. There really AREN'T any substantial objections to a finite theodicy. I mean, if God needed us, and acted in good conscience, then he can't be faulted for creating us.

Why should I go with your approach, which SEEMS to have two insurmountable objections, when I can opt for a problem-free solution? That would be irresponsible.

I agree that the atonement gets the balance right, but I've no idea what that has to do with whether it is appropriate for an infinite God to respond in a finite way.

Because you're in complete denial about what infinite mercy, kindess, love, benevolence, goodness (etc) actually mean. In your view, God can CLAIM to have these virtues while opting out whenever it's convenient for Him, since any excuse will do.

You're also in denial about balance. As long as justice is satisfied, we know of no compelling reason for Him to be stingy in mercy (stingy as compared to the scale of infinite mercy).

You'll respond, "But we don't have all the data." Exactly. We have to BASE OUR THEOLOGY ON WHAT DATA WE DO HAVE. Otherwise, we're being irresponsible if we select any doctrine that suits us, regardless of the data.

I would add that the atonement seems to atone infinitely, given that those who put faith in Christ do get eternal life. However, it does not appear to atone for those who refuse it. That does not mean it is not infinite, because if the atonement does get the balance right, then it has to also balance the free choices of free finite agents.

No. It doesn't. Suppose you walked out of a restaurant without paying the bill. The manager is about to call the cops. I step up and pay the bill. Later you find out about it and announce your refusal to accept my atonement. Is the manager under any obligation to honor your wishes? I see no reason why. It's HIS choice.

Problem is, the manager here is God, and since it is HIS CHOICE, then it's pretty obvious to me that an infinitely MERCIFUL God would pay that bill. You can keep denying this all you want, but I'm pretty sure, even with LIMITED resources, and LIMITED love, you hope to minimize (overall) suffering for your kids.

I've no idea why this seems to be a problem anyway. How does making God finite and material actually save souls?

If you don't think doctrine is important, take a look at Gal 3:1 for starters. Paul seemed to think it was worth screaming about, if we don't get it right.

Ahem. No, that's YOUR definition of love.

It's pretty much everyone's definition throughout history, except those desperate to 'refute' me on this thread. The irony of it all is that you pretend I'm the one unwilling to listen to the wisdom of the last 2,000 years. Very hypocritical.

God is not in time, and he is not outside of time. That's my view. He is ETERNAL, which means time, for lack of a better way to put it, exists within HIM and is eternal since He is the ultimate.

More apparent gibberish. Nobody's going to make sense of that statement, even if some might opt to pretend to.

I have not claimed to have a more water-tight argument than 2,000 years of Christian thought. You made that claim. Highlighting that such a statement from an individual behind a keyboard is rather absurd is not an ad hominem, it's just a plain old rational observation.

Um, yes you have. You sit here and claim that God's virtues such as love have little or nothing to do with mercy.

You're the odd one out and yet you think you're the ONLY one who is right? Dude, that's actually called delusion. I'm not being ugly here, but have you seriously wondered why you're the odd one out?

Absoutely considered it. Until I got into arenas such as this forum and soon saw for myself that no one was producing good arguments for their position, nor good arguments against my conclusions, which was a precise confirmation of exactly what I had seen to be true in various standard theology textbooks and hundreds of articles from seminary journals. At this point, "Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me, Amen!"

Is there any one - perhaps a contemporary theologian, or some theologian in the past - that agrees with your views?

The inspiration for my beliefs was Andrew Murray. After reading about 30 of his prayer books (he published 200 books), it seemed to me that he had a very intimate relationship with God stemming from a very profound understanding of Him - he left me feeling that most of the church had no idea who God is or what intimacy feels and looks like. Just a feeling at that time. He also made some occasional radical statements about the church being way off the mark and deeply in need of a Second Reformation. BUT HIS BOOKS DIDN'T EXPLAIN WHY. And so it eventually became painfully obvious to me that he knew our hearts to be too hard to consider non-traditional doctrines. So he kept his mouth shut most of the time. But I continued to read between the lines attempting to reconstruct his biblical and logical rationale. And I think I've succeeded - and found it convincing. In one statement, for example, he CLEARLY (in my opinion) alludes to God's self-evolutionary self-development over time. He wrote, "
If the image and likeness of God was not to be a mere name, and man
was really to be like God in the power to make himself what he was to be,
he must needs have the power of free will and self determination….Man
was to be a creature made by God, and yet he was to be, as far as a
creature could be, like God, self made.

A self-evolutionary God follows logically from the (unanimous) definition of merit, as i argued early in this thread.

You're putting words into the scripture's mouth. It does not say 'no human being can quantitatively wrap their heads around the magnitude of God's virtues such as His love' but it says 'His understanding is infinite / beyond measure'.

No actually YOU'RE the one doing that. You're basically trying to build some very technical theological conclusions on what is essentially poetic stanza. And what you end up with is a theology of gibberish that cannot convincingly hold up even against the most common-sense objections such as the problem of evil.

You need to explain HOW a finite God's understanding (knowledge) is BEYOND MEASURE.

No I don't, but it's easy enough. In order for me to quantify something in my mind (get a reasonably precise idea of its magnitude), I need to either see the component parts in one mental vision, or at least have enough time to ponder them one by one. I'll never accomplish that with God.

Other translations say his knowledge is WITHOUT LIMIT...
Others say there is NO END to his understanding.

And precisely because there are multiple possible interpretations, I feel no obligation to accept YOURS.

A finite God's understanding would be (a) measurable (even if not by us, by himself, at least); (b) limited; (c) have an end.

So an infinite God couldn't measure His own understanding, because it is too infinite to measure? So he doesn't really know how much He knows? And you say this is not gibberish? LOL.

It appears, however, his understanding has no end. Well, that's according to scripture itself.

Interesting opinion. In your next post, could you provide one that's not gibberish?

Try again. Your answer is not convincing and certainly not water tight at all.

Often a verse can be justifiably reinterpreted (ambiguities in the languge often allows for it). But certain hermenutical principles should NOT be violated, if possible. Like avoiding gibberish. Like avoiding apparent contradictions.

Wait, what? The Totality?

The sum total of matter. Guess you didn't read my theory of creation.

Are we dealing with gnostic stuff now?

(sigh). All religions and philosphies have points of intersection. It's unavoidable. For example Jehovah witnesses, somewhat understandably, accuse us Trinitarians of falling into the trap of polytheism. While I disagree with their conclusion, I've seem them defend this accusation surprisingly well.

So you'll need to do more than just loosely affiliate me with some ancient heresy - you'll need to DEMONSTRATE that my conclusions stand on weaker biblical footing than traditional views.

So God presumably awakened out of the Totality. Okay. Scripture please.

Scripture doesn't give us clear information on what God was doing prior to forming our universe. I've merely taken a position that seems the least-gibberish and least self-contradictory. After all, God has a temporal past (this is based on my original arguments about merit, which is a biblical concept unless you deny Calvary). A temporal past cannot be infinite, and thus implies a FIRST MOMENT (an awakening).

Thus, while Scripture isn't clear on what God was doing prior to creating the world, an argument can be made based on the (unanimous) definition of merit.

For example, show me in Scripture where God created matter out of nothing. Scirpture isn't clear on this theory - as some noted evangelical scholars acknowledge.

(P.S. is this 'original' sum total of matter infinite?)

I don't believe in an existing infinitude. I see finite objects every day. I'm not aware of what it even MEANS to speak of an infinite object. Is it still growing? For example, in your view, is God still growing in knowledge? Or does He have a definite, finite amount of knowledge?

Are the 'heavens' measurable? All time and space?

In my opinion, all matter and space form a finite region. That seems to be the most reasonable position.

Obviously this raises the question of boundaries - but that question arises for ALL sides of the debate. Theologians and philosophers, almost without exception, never broach this topic because everyone seems to be in tacit agreement that we can't seem to form any cogent theories about boundaries - just gibberish.

So here's my own gibberish-theory about it. If you were to travel to the end of this finite region (the 'Totality' as I like to call it), and put your foot accross its boundary, it would probably land you on the opposite end of the Totality (you'd likely reemerge on the opposite side - but so seamlessly that you wouldn't even know that you were ON the boundary). Why so? Because NOTHING lies outside the Totality (not even empty space, which is measurable inches) and thus the distance between one end of the Totality and the opposite end is ZERO INCHES.

That's the best I can do.

Okay, you'll have to explain this Totality.

Secondly, is he measuring it all at once?

His physical presence. (Am I not a clear writer?).

Errr... how do I put this...?[/QUOTE] LOL. Not fair. I don't think you read all my posts. Naturally you'd be confused.

 

[InterestedApologist]

The inspiration for my beliefs was Andrew Murray. After reading about 30 of his prayer books (he published 200 books), it seemed to me that he had a very intimate relationship with God stemming from a very profound understanding of Him - he left me feeling that most of the church had no idea who God is or what intimacy feels and looks like. Just a feeling at that time. He also made some occasional radical statements about the church being way off the mark and deeply in need of a Second Reformation. BUT HIS BOOKS DIDN'T EXPLAIN WHY. And so it eventually became painfully obvious to me that he knew our hearts to be too hard to consider non-traditional doctrines. So he kept his mouth shut most of the time. But I continued to read between the lines attempting to reconstruct his biblical and logical rationale. And I think I've succeeded - and found it convincing. In one statement, for example, he CLEARLY (in my opinion) alludes to God's self-evolutionary self-development over time. He wrote, "
If the image and likeness of God was not to be a mere name, and man
was really to be like God in the power to make himself what he was to be,
he must needs have the power of free will and self determination….Man
was to be a creature made by God, and yet he was to be, as far as a
creature could be, like God, self made.

This explains so much. Wish this had been posted earlier. Perhaps I was unfair with my assertion that you are merely making god in your own image....it seems you may actually believe more in man becoming god instead.

 

[HatGuy]

I'm not alone. Atheists have been objecting to theism based on the problem of evil since at least the Renaissance. No atheist believes, even FOR ONE SECOND,that a God of infinite love would allow suffering that isn't NEEDED. Which takes us back to the only 2 realistic options:
(1) Did God NEED a world like this?
(2) Did He merely WANT a world like this, just for the fun of it?

It's really difficult to try and create one coherent argument in this thread. There's just too much. I suggest you actually take each of the doctrines you have an issue with an discuss each on separate threads. Because right now all that seems to be happening is a lot of talking past each other and a lot of insulting, even from me.

Okay, I'm going to try again.

Let's address your "Did God need to create / create it all for fun" argument below to try and centralise the discussion and keep it from going in a million directions.

So stop pretending that I'm alone.

Dude, I'm not *pretending* you're alone. You flat out said you have NEVER seen an argument as coherent and water-tight as yours in all of 2,000 years of Christian history. That's a bold statement.

You're just in denial about the severity of the problem of evil, as have been most Christian theologians for the last 2,000 years.

I'm not in denial about the problem of evil, and neither have Christian theologians been in denial about it. To my knowledge and reading, Augustine tried to address it; Anselm tried to address it; Aquinas tried to address it; and that's just a couple of big names. In my own library, I have several books from various contemporary theologians trying to address it from multiple angles and from multiple backgrounds. I have looked at it from the Calvinist - determinist perspective, to the Arminian one, to the Open Theism one, and have even attempted to understand Process Theology. The latter two are distinctly all about theodicy. I have dozens upon dozens of saved articles in my Pocket account about this very subject. I even had an online debate of sorts at my own blog with Thomas Jay Oord, who is an open-theist process theologian guy (he tries to mix the two) about this very subject. It's a subject that interests me greatly, hence my continued perseverance on this very thread.

As mentioned earlier I took a college class on the philosophy of religion, with a Christian professor. The problem of evil was central to the class. The professor was a Christian. Although we had our differences, he never downplayed the problem of evil, nor pretended to have a solution (not that I recall anyway). Certainly he never pretended that an easy solution exists. He seemed well aware that a finite God solves the problem, but he didn't seem to want to go that route.

Yet another Christian who is trying to address the problem. This proves my point. Christians of all stripes have not ignored the problem. They might not have answered satisfactorily to many atheists, but I know of other atheists who have been satisfied with the answers that can be found both in orthodox Christianity and neo-orthodox circles. So I'm left scratching my head why we need to throw away 2,000 years of Christian thinking and not at least let it be part of the journey.

Okay, enough said about this. It's only distracting from the real issues.

I don't believe a finite and material god really does solve the issue of the problem of evil because of a few reasons.

Firstly, He is changeable (self-evolutionary, in your words). A changeable, non-immutable God is one that comes with no guarantees. In other words, today he might be loving, but tomorrow He is not loving. Perhaps he changes and becomes evil. What is stopping him from doing so? Is there some sort of power outside of Him that prevents him? And if so, what is this power? How can I know, for sure, that he will always be loving?

I guess the question to you is how do you know, with all certainty, that God is actually completely loving and not also evil? What if evil also comes from God? Or what if he changes and becomes evil one day? Is God the definition of love (is God love)? And if so, why? And what does it mean if this love can change?

A finite God cannot love infinitely, correct? Therefore, a finite love can change. So how does this solve the problem of evil?

Not only can this god's love change, but so might his power. What is it then, in your scheme, that grounds the nature of God?

The only substantial way I can see this solving the problem of evil is it lets God off the hook by claiming he is limited (finite) and therefore he cannot do certain things as the nature of the world he is in and his very own nature / abilities constrains him from doing so. You're hinting at this, I think, by claiming that God was presumably 'born' out of the Totality (the original sum-total of all matter). This means that the very nature of matter limits God, and therefore he is certainly bound by certain laws that prevent him from acting in a way that he would like. (Would this be a fair way to explain things?)

The question then should surely be, where does evil then actually come from? In your scheme, it's not coming from God. Fine and well. Is it coming from the way matter works, then? Or is it coming from free agents working against God? If I stick to your choice of 'evolution', I'd venture to say that your thinking is that there must be some sort of chaos / instability for progress / evolution with / by 'matter' to happen. Would that be fair? And it's within this chaos that evil occurs. So a rock falls on someone crossing a mountain - no one's fault, it is simply chaos doing it's thing. Randomness exists in the world and it exists because matter is self-evolving. It needs randomness, in fact. There must be a time period of instability, no matter how minute, for a forward movement.

God, for his part, works to put it into order. Why, I'm not sure, though. Does he NEED to or does he WANT to? (Careful with that one.)

Fine, all fair and well (I guess) until you find that there is once again no guarantee that God will ever be able to rise up above the way it all works. Since he is not the very ground of all being, but matter is, then there is no reason to believe that this system of chaos - order - chaos - order will not continue on forever, because that is how it must be. Randomness will always be with us and by implication, evil.

Which absolves God from evil, blames it on matter and just the way things are (thanks Totality!) and creates a nice logical system that an atheist might be happy with, but simply does not work with the Biblical framework which insists God wins in the end and is not something most human beings are happy with. So you've made the atheists and all those who love logic happy, but you've pretty much lost most of the world. Nor does it make sense of sin or free choices. For my own sin can then surely be explained in light of saying that it is a necessary part of the progress / self-evolution of our cosmos.

We then run into the second problem, which addresses the whole ordeal about why God created the world.

Here's how you've put it. He either created the world because

(1) He needed to
(2) He wanted to, for the fun of it.

You've highlighted your problems with (2). (My answer is more the 'joy' of it - like an artist gets joy from creating something). But there are problems with (1) If God NEEDED to create the world, then he MUST create it. (I assume so, since you do not like (2) - you are implying that he could not WANT to make it; it must be made of necessity.) Therefore, it could not have been otherwise. But of course, where does this MUST come from? Why MUST he do it, as God? And if God is coerced by some external force / law that insists he MUST then fine and well, but what then prevents things from ever being otherwise?

The answer is nothing is capable of preventing it. This does not really solve the problem of evil because it does not indicate any resolution to evil. It might solve it from a logical point of view by letting God off the hook by limiting his power but never limiting his intentions, but you offer no resolution. I don't know why I would be interested in a god who is really stuck in the same system as me, but on a much more grander scale. Ultimately the system sucks, and my only philosophical resolution (honestly) would probably be nihilism. Perhaps you could convince me by indicating that the only resolution is to become like God one day and escape the system on earth, but it seems to me that God's emotional state must be far worse than mine, because he experiences the pain of all humankind but yet is unable to do anything about. So, become like God? No thanks. My only hope under this system is to die and hope there's no afterlife.

Okay, that's the best I can do right now with the limited information I have of your worldview. I think I've made some assumptions, but I've done so on the basis of what I do know of your worldview - (1) God is finite, (2) God is material, (3) God is changing.

Lastly, thanks for opening up about Andrew Murray. Very interesting story. Whenever I've tried to read him I tend to leave feeling condemned and not good enough. So I eventually gave up on reading him . I do feel his spirituality was a bit much.

 

[JAL]

HatGuy, don't really have much time right now, but to start off, when you make accusations like 'No guarantees about God being loving tomorrow' it seems you haven't actually read my posts (as I keep pointing out), for example my discussion of the Third Person functioning (in my theory) as a kind of divine Immune System - immunity to sin.

 

[HatGuy]

HatGuy, don't really have much time right now, but to start off, when you make accusations like 'No guarantees about God being loving tomorrow' it seems you haven't actually read my posts (as I keep pointing out), for example my discussion of the Third Person functioning (in my theory) as a kind of divine Immune System - immunity to sin.

Thanks. It's hard to read all the posts in this thread. They are long and complicated and would take hours to digest and understand.

Having said that, I do recall something of the "divine immune system" analogy. However, I didn't quite understand it. The same criticism might apply though, in terms of if this immune system can be changed or diseased.

By the way, these are not "accusations" but criticisms. There is a difference. Criticisms are healthy for a debate. If you want a debate, let's stay away from language such as "accusations".

Take your time, I'm also quite overloaded and do want to spend time effectively.

Thanks!

 

[JAL]

Thanks. It's hard to read all the posts in this thread. They are long and complicated and would take hours to digest and understand.

Later I'll try to locate some of the key posts and provide you a lists. I just don't see how we can proceed if you don't know my position.

Having said that, I do recall something of the "divine immune system" analogy. However, I didn't quite understand it. The same criticism might apply though, in terms of if this immune system can be changed or diseased.

Obviously. That's why the logic of it rules out the possibility. In fact that's the whole point - the Immune itself cannot shut itself down, nor can God shut it down, nor can it fail in its assignment. As to how God managed to produce such an Immune System from scratch, was explained in the original post.

I see it as the only solution to problems historically unsolved and otherwise insoluble apparently.

By the way, these are not "accusations" but criticisms. There is a difference. Criticisms are healthy for a debate. If you want a debate, let's stay away from language such as "accusations".

I meant it synonymously with criticism, in this context, as opposed to a personal accusation against me.

Hope to be back later tonight.

 

[JAL]

I'm not in denial about the problem of evil, and neither have Christian theologians been in denial about it. To my knowledge and reading, Augustine tried to address it; Anselm tried to address it; Aquinas tried to address it; and that's just a couple of big names. In my own library, I have several books from various contemporary theologians trying to address it from multiple angles and from multiple backgrounds.

Historically I see two types of denial.
(1) Many theologians don't acknowledge several HUGE gaping problems in their theology - don't even mention those issues, such as the mind-body problem.
(2) Some theologians address the issues at great length, but try to leave the reader with the misleading impression about having reached a satisfactory solution.

Take for example the Protestant doctrine of Adam as our representative. That's a HUGE theodicy issue, because it calls God's goodness into question. Yet how many theologians are honest about his hole in their theology. Well in this case thank God for G.C. Berkouwer - a theologian reputed to have an acumen greater than Karl Barth's. In his 600 page book 'Sin', he acknowedges that neither he nor anyone has manged to defend federalism.

 

[JAL]

It's really difficult to try and create one coherent argument in this thread. There's just too much. I suggest you actually take each of the doctrines you have an issue with an discuss each on separate threads. Because right now all that seems to be happening is a lot of talking past each other and a lot of insulting, even from me.

To save you some reading, I've summarized many of the key posts. But in some cases I point out that the original post is worth reading.

- Post #3 - I explained why the title 'The Holy Spirit' amounts to an obviously inane use of language - so foolish that probably no human being has ever articulated in that manner with respect to non-trinity realities. In essence, then, it is a senseless and linguistically unprecedented idiom and, as such, the LEAST likely to be in agreement with Scripture. Yet it was you, as I seem to recall, who referred to this fact as 'nitpicking'.

Post#5. I pointed out the "The Holy Breath/Wind" (John 20:22) as the obvious alternative, and cited several similar verses. In some cases, such as John 20:22, the biblical writers documented actual aerodynamics of the Third Person.


Post #14 provides a definition of Adam alternative to the (indefensible) theory that he represented mankind. It's my own theory, and the only viable one known to me.

Posts #15 and #16 point out a major contradiction in traditional theology. God is defined as INHERENTLY (and thus immutably holy). Such a God, I argued, would merit no praise. I explained that the church is unanimous on the definition of merit. Merit is a status achieved ONLY by freely choosing to labor/suffer for a righteous cause over an extended period of time. Thus God's knowledge, skills, and kindness have no merit and merit no praise unless he labored/suffered to develop them, as the Ancient of Days. I then explained why this blows Young Earth Creationists out of the water, as God would merit virtually zero praise for creation if He learned how to do it in just seven days, or already knew how.

God's slow acquisition of knowledge and skills, at least over the 4-billion year span of creation, and presumably the 13 billion-year age of the universe - minimum - are all part of His gradual acquisition of HOLINES. Since 13 billion years is, in my mind, a HUGELY greater sacrifice than the 3-day Calvary atonement, I fault the church for stomping all over His greatest sacrifice (denying it for the last 2,000 years and giving Him no credit/praise for it).

And I provide a fairly cogent biblical basis for this notion of God laboring for (apparently) billions of years.

Post #17 begins to answer the question, WHEN did God begin laboring? If not yet holy at the outset, who was He to begin with? Here I provided a simple hypothesis as follows based on two reasonable premises:
(1) Time cannot go back forever.
(2) Preexistent matter (the 'Totality') is more plausible than a preexistent immaterial God who creates matter out of nothing. The Totality's first motion/thought was propelled by free will (even as we move our bodies by free will today). That first thought is pretty much EXACTLY like the first thought of a fetus in a mother's womb. In this case the first piece of matter to awaken was an individual that we now knw as Yahweh.

Post #18 explains why Yahweh felt that He NEEDED us. He needed to make us FOR OUR OWN PROTECTION. I'll summarize this point. Potentially, any piece of matter to awaken in the Totality, could choose to be malicious (imagine the Totality as a huge prison of sorts), awakening others only to use, abuse, enslave, and control them, perhaps just for the fun of it. To prevent this, Yahweh decided to become the perfect Ruler and Judge of the Totality - and He needed to become HOLY to do it. He needed the knowledge and skills to monitor the entire Totality, to protect anyone and everyone from undue harm. Problem is, the overwhelming task of becoming holy was probably TOO DAUNTING for Him to face, without some hope of a reward (the church as His bride). Second problem is, if He remained all alone (perpetual solitary confinement), He might eventually lose His sanity - thus putting all of us in grave danger. Again, He created us for our own protection.
- That same post explained the Immune System.
- Funny you entered the conversation at post 25, and you say that I'm asking you to read way too much material? If that's too much work for you, it's a darn good thing that YOU weren't the one in Yahweh's shoes, faced with the task of becoming holy! (Smile).


Although post #48 was a long post, the last couple of paragraphs might be worth reading - or I'll just summarize briefly. The Father presumably Incarnated the Son by simply extracting a small subsection and physically scrambling it (effectively scrambling its brains so to speak) as to render it ignorant, and then merged it to an embryo placed in Mary's uterus. This is a relatively simple, seamless explanation, in stark contrast to the humanly incomprehensible tradition known as the 'hypostatic union'.

Oddly that post was a response to you, but I'm not sure you read it.

Post 64 added a couple of arguments against infinite knwoledge:
(1) A God with infinite knowledge, specifically foreknowledge, would not have free will. Free will must be defined as a moment of indecision and deliberation eventually culminating in a resoluteness of decision. It doesn't make sense for someone to say, "Although I haven't yet made my decision, I already foreknow it."
(2) Foreknowledge raises serious doubts about the goodness of God. If God foreknew the fall of Adam,Eve, and Lucifer, why not create Bob, Sue, and Vincent instead?

Later I added this argument.
(3) Suppose God forgot one billion languages. He now knows exactly:
infinity minus 1,000,000,000 languages.
which is still - infinity! The same amount He started with! Total nonsense!

Post #104 actually is a list of some of the posts that I made, on this thread, in defense of materialism, revealing a pretty solid biblical foundation - not that I need to 'prove' that matter is real. The burden of proof falls on the immaterialist, to prove that non-material substance exists.

posts #106 to 110 significantly extend my biblical defense of materialism. Worth reading.

Post 130 was another biblical defense of materialism. Worth reading.

Post 134 is a philosphical, common-sense defense of materialism. Worth reading.

post 137 was another biblical defense of materialism. Worth reading.

 

[JAL]

Dude, I'm not *pretending* you're alone. You flat out said you have NEVER seen an argument as coherent and water-tight as yours in all of 2,000 years of Christian history. That's a bold statement.

(Sigh) It's far less bold than you make it out to be. Here's why.

Mainstream theologians are committed to a foundational set of assumptions presumed to be non-negotiable (such as immaterialism and divine infinitude). This limitation somewhat ties their hands in terms of the range of solutions available to them, for major theological problems. Even the Protestant 'Reformed' theologians held to the same set of traditional assumptions and thus, in many respects, weren't much reformed at all.

The point is that it didn't take any brains for me to land upon several solutions more cogent than traditional ones - all I needed was a willingness to think outside the box. To put it another way, mainstream theologians faced with incredibly simple problems have made them extraordinarily difficult, even impossible, to solve.

I know of other atheists who have been satisfied with the answers that can be found both in orthodox Christianity and neo-orthodox circles. So I'm left scratching my head why we need to throw away 2,000 years of Christian thinking and not at least let it be part of the journey.

When I was an atheist, I actually didn't give much thought to the problem of evil. I was more of an agnostic than an atheist, to begin with. In a sense I was a nominal atheist, not a serious one.

I've never met a SERIOUS, WELL-INFORMED atheist who was satisfied with traditional Christian answers to the problem of evil. You seem to be saying you know some. Fine. I doubt many exist.

I guess the question to you is how do you know, with all certainty, that God is actually completely loving and not also evil? What if evil also comes from God?

As to how we KNOW of God's existence and goodness is an epistemological question. For one thing, I don't KNOW anything (with 100% certainty), I can't even prove that you exist. However, I do have about 95% certainty, seemingly due to the convicting/convincing work of the Holy Breath. Regardless, the ASSUMPTION on these forums is that God is good. As mentioned in post #41, we must take this to mean the human definition of goodness, justice (etc) to avoid self-contradictory doctrine.

I would LIKE to have 100% certainty which, in my view, is the definitive mark of prophetic revelation (I don't think a human being can bolster 100% certainty without divine aid).

Or what if he changes and becomes evil one day? Is God the definition of love (is God love)? And if so, why? And what does it mean if this love can change?

Change the definition of love? (Sigh). Again, I covered this nonsense at post #41.

Not only can this god's love change, but so might his power. What is it then, in your scheme, that grounds the nature of God?

His Third person acting as a kind of 'Immune System'.

A finite God cannot love infinitely, correct? Therefore, a finite love can change. So how does this solve the problem of evil?

See above.

The question then should surely be, where does evil then actually come from? In your scheme, it's not coming from God. Fine and well. Is it coming from the way matter works, then? Or is it coming from free agents working against God? If I stick to your choice of 'evolution', I'd venture to say that your thinking is that there must be some sort of chaos / instability for progress / evolution with / by 'matter' to happen. Would that be fair? And it's within this chaos that evil occurs. So a rock falls on someone crossing a mountain - no one's fault, it is simply chaos doing it's thing. Randomness exists in the world and it exists because matter is self-evolving. It needs randomness, in fact. There must be a time period of instability, no matter how minute, for a forward movement.

Reality is not chaotic/randomness in my view. Free will moves matter. Matter wasn't already in some kind of chaotic motion at the outset. Rather, Yahweh's first freely willed thought/motion initiated all history and all 'time'.

God, for his part, works to put it into order. Why, I'm not sure, though. Does he NEED to or does he WANT to? (Careful with that one.)

I think He awakened as any embryo gradually awakens (I mean it's already alive but not self-aware in any keenly sentient sense of the term, at first). Not sure what I need to be 'careful' of here.

Fine, all fair and well (I guess) until you find that there is once again no guarantee that God will ever be able to rise up above the way it all works. Since he is not the very ground of all being, but matter is, then there is no reason to believe that this system of chaos - order - chaos - order will not continue on forever, because that is how it must be. Randomness will always be with us and by implication, evil.

You seem to be rambling. God's in full control. His JOB is to make sure that we never undergo undeserved harm. (Trouble is that we all deserve harm, for the way we behaved as Adam).

Which absolves God from evil, blames it on matter and just the way things are (thanks Totality!) and creates a nice logical system that an atheist might be happy with, but simply does not work with the Biblical framework which insists God wins in the end and is not something most human beings are happy with. So you've made the atheists and all those who love logic happy, but you've pretty much lost most of the world. Nor does it make sense of sin or free choices. For my own sin can then surely be explained in light of saying that it is a necessary part of the progress / self-evolution of our cosmos.

Trouble is, your summary of my position doesn't capture my views at all.

We then run into the second problem, which addresses the whole ordeal about why God created the world.

Here's how you've put it. He either created the world because

(1) He needed to
(2) He wanted to, for the fun of it.

You've highlighted your problems with (2). (My answer is more the 'joy' of it - like an artist gets joy from creating something). But there are problems with (1) If God NEEDED to create the world, then he MUST create it. (I assume so, since you do not like (2) - you are implying that he could not WANT to make it; it must be made of necessity.) Therefore, it could not have been otherwise. But of course, where does this MUST come from? Why MUST he do it, as God? And if God is coerced by some external force / law that insists he MUST then fine and well, but what then prevents things from ever being otherwise?

He wasn't coerced by some invincible force. Everything He did was completely VOLUNTARY. He amazingly chose to have the decency to do the right thing - and becoming holy was a labor of love so monumentally unselfish and exhausting that even the sinless angels are eclipsed by it, to the extent that Jesus said, "There is none good but God alone."

 

[rjs330]

You're right. I went back and read that post about my 'irrefutable' arguments. Let's make some distinctions here. Two different contexts.
(1) I can't even prove that you exist. No argument FROM SCRATCH, therefore, is water-tight. This is what I mean when I say I can't make an irrefutable argument.
(2) When I'm debating with a Christian and I make an argument that seems to flow from his EXISTING ASSUMPTIONS (and thus NOT from scratch), I might conclude that the argument is 'irrefutable' (to him). Of course here too I can be mistaken in that assessment (see my signature) but nonetheless I call'em like I see'em.

When I point out, for example, that an 'existing infinity' is an oxymoron (it boils down to gibberish for one thing), that in itself seems to me an irrefutable argument (in the #2 sense)

Anyway, the main thought here is that the position taken by me on these issues is logically more water-tight than the opposing sides.

In your opinion it is water tight. It's not. You have offered no scriptural basis for your argument. So it's totally invalid and certainly not water tight.

 

[JAL]

Your Haveing some real problems with the term 'spirit', here. Yes literally it's breath but the Holy Spirit is not air.

If the human pneuma is material, so too the divine Pneuma most likely. Here I want to present a biblical basis for a material human soul.

Earlier I pointed out that "filled" is volumetric whenever it refers to one substance filling another substance. "They were all filled with the Holy Breath." Both the Holy Breath AND THE CONTAINER (the human heart) are volumetric. "God hath sent forth the [Pneuma] of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Gal 4:6).

The Greek word 'sarx' (flesh) occurs 150 times and always in conformity to English usage. Meaning, when it refers to an existing substance, it always means (protoplasmic) flesh. Why then does Romans 6 to 8 equate 'flesh' with the sinful nature? Our body is our sinful nature? Yes - in the sense that our fleshy-textured soul is intermixed with our body (even though God hides our soul from instruments of detection). Consider 8:10,"Your body is dead because of sin."

Physically dead? Spiritually dead! Since ordinary inanimate matter is neither spiritually alive nor spiritually dead, he must be referring to a body-soul. Hence the regenerating Life (the new birth) is pumped directly into our members: "He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you" (verse 11). Did you catch the phrase "quicken your mortal bodies"? The BODY is what gets regenerated. That's why Paul, when advising the Colossians to put to the death the sinful nature, phrased it like this: "Mortify therefore your members" (Col 3:5).

Consider Rom 7:23-24 where Paul finds himself "in captitivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

And if that weren't enough, consider 8:3 - bearing in mind that an immaterial spirit is defined as a substance without size an shape. "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh". Did you catch that? The Son was sent IN THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH. He resembled sinful flesh. Either:
(A) He resembled sinful flesh in the sense that He too, was sinful. OR:
(B) He resembled sinful flesh in the sense that He LOOKED like the sinful flesh.

Obviously choice B is the acceptable answer. Therefore the sinful flesh DOES have a shape - the shape of a human body. In my understanding (and Andrew Murray was pretty explicit on this point as well), the soul is intermixed with the entire body from head to toe. Therefore sanctification is literally a volumetric filling of the body, with the Holy Breath, from head to toe.

In fact the phrase 'sinful nature' never occurs in the Greek. Paul's terminology for the sinful nature was simply 'flesh' and 'body'.

Ok, enough of Romans. Shall we let James have a say? According to James, the tongue itself is evil, dragging THE REST OF THE BODY into sin. And no man can fully tame it (although, I presume, the Holy Breath can do so).

Was James really claiming that inanimate matter is inherently evil? Was he himself guilty of the gnostic heresy? James said, "All sorts of LIVING CREATURES can be tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue." He's not referring to inanimate matter. The tongue is a living creature insofar as it is saturated with an evil soul. Sanctifying the brain, therefore, won't solve the problem. The tongue itself needs sanctification. Consider Isaiah 6 on this point, "I am a man of unclean lips" - so how did God solve the problem? By sanctifying his brain? Look at verses 6 and 7:

"Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged."

The Holy Fire had to be applied DIRECTLY TO HIS MOUTH. That was the only possible solution.

Does any of this scream immaterialism to you? Certainly not to me.


"Your body is the temple of the Holy [Breath]" (1Cor 6:19). Why does God want to dwell in our body? Because that's where our soul is. But why did He put our soul inside our body? If the soul could interact with the body magically, from afar, there would be no need to position them in mutual proximity. Fact is, it's not a magical relationship, but a physical one. In fact, if right now God swapped my male body out for a female body, much of my mental and emotional experience would suddenly change. However, if he merely put the female body NEXT to my soul, it would be insufficient proximity, I still wouldn't get the female experience. Even though it would still be true that 'He gave me a new body', it would have no effect. The physicality of these dynamics could hardly be more obvious or more clear.

If I wanted to make yet another argument for materialism (not sure I should expend the time), I would discuss the sacramental passages, or as Catholics call it, the Real Presence (although I don't believe we should presume such to happen today absent 100% certainty qua prophetic revelation).

 

[JAL]

In your opinion it is water tight. It's not. You have offered no scriptural basis for your argument. So it's totally invalid and certainly not water tight.

You can keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better.

In general I provide plenty of Scripture for my conclusions. In some cases, however, I do let it suffice to simply expose logical contradictions in the opposing position(s). It strikes me as completely irrational that you dub this form of argument as unscriptural-and-therefore-invalid.

Make up your mind please. Either:
(A) You agree that exegetes should do their utmost to honor the law of non-contradiction (and be honest about the state of affairs when they can't seem to find a non-contradictory solution). OR:
(B) You are fine with theologians spewing out numerous contradictions, as long as they cite TONS OF SCRIPTURE to (supposedly) 'back it up'.

 

[rjs330]

You can keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better.

In general I provide plenty of Scripture for my conclusions. In some cases, however, I do let it suffice to simply expose logical contradictions in the opposing position(s). It strikes me as completely irrational that you dub this form of argument as unscriptural-and-therefore-invalid.

Make up your mind please. Either:
(A) You agree that exegetes should do their utmost to honor the law of non-contradiction (and be honest about the state of affairs when they can't seem to find a non-contradictory solution). OR:
(B) You are fine with theologians spewing out numerous contradictions, as long as they cite TONS OF SCRIPTURE to (supposedly) 'back it up'.

Jal I have tried to get you to focus. You go in and on about a great many things and have a tough time focusing on one. Perhaps it is just the way your brain works.

I need you to focus here. Provide and argument using scriptures for a finite God. As I have explained your logic is not valid unless supported by scripture. Your ways are not his ways. Your thoughts are not his thoughts. In fact Romans declairs man's wisdom is foolishness to God.

In order to prove your point of a finite God you must use scriptures in order for your thoughts to be valid. If you are leaning on your own understanding you are way off base.

So I try one last time. If you keep avoiding this I will have every reason to point out you have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[JAL]

Jal I have tried to get you to focus. You go in and on about a great many things and have a tough time focusing on one. Perhaps it is just the way your brain works.

I need you to focus here. Provide and argument using scriptures for a finite God. As I have explained your logic is not valid unless supported by scripture. Your ways are not his ways. Your thoughts are not his thoughts. In fact Romans declairs man's wisdom is foolishness to God.

In order to prove your point of a finite God you must use scriptures in order for your thoughts to be valid. If you are leaning on your own understanding you are way off base.

So I try one last time. If you keep avoiding this I will have every reason to point out you have no idea what you are talking about.

First problem. I've provided scripture-based arguments that you ignore. Why should I keep repeating myself?

Second problem. EVERY reality that I encounter in life is finite and material and, if alive, has a finite amount of knowledge acquired over a finite period of time. I don't even know what it MEANS to speak of an infinite object (much less an immaterial one). Is it still growing? This is gibberish - it's like you're defining Him as the flying spaghetti monster, and then you tell me that I am the one with the burden of proof, I have to prove to you that He is NOT the flying spaghetti monster. Does anyone see the absurdity of this?

Give me one irrefutable proof from Scripture that your flying spaghetti monster (i.e. an infinite immaterial God) exists. Cause I've never seen one of those.

 

[mark kennedy]

If the human pneuma is material, so too the divine Pneuma most likely. Here I want to present a biblical basis for a material human soul.

There is none, whatever the soul is made of it's of a substance far beyond the material plane. Yet transcends time, space and the physical aspects of being.

Earlier I pointed out that "filled" is volumetric whenever it refers to one substance filling another substance. "They were all filled with the Holy Breath." Both the Holy Breath AND THE CONTAINER (the human heart) are volumetric. "God hath sent forth the [Pneuma] of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Gal 4:6).

This is really starting to sound like dialectical materialism, everything has to have a naturalistic explanation, no matter how much of a strain it is on logic.

The Greek word 'sarx' (flesh) occurs 150 times and always in conformity to English usage. Meaning, when it refers to an existing substance, it always means (protoplasmic) flesh. Why then does Romans 6 to 8 equate 'flesh' with the sinful nature? Our body is our sinful nature? Yes - in the sense that our fleshy-textured soul is intermixed with our body (even though God hides our soul from instruments of detection). Consider 8:10,"Your body is dead because of sin."

Clearly Paul is talking about inordinate bodily appetites, exaggerated and inflamed due to suppressing the truth of God in unrighteousness. When you worship and serve the creature rather then the creator he can turn you over to those vanities as an act of judgment. The dead are inanimate, devoid of desire and thus, incapable of satisfying the cravings of the natural man.

Physically dead? Spiritually dead! Since ordinary inanimate matter is neither spiritually alive nor spiritually dead, he must be referring to a body-soul. Hence the regenerating Life (the new birth) is pumped directly into our members: "He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you" (verse 11). Did you catch the phrase "quicken your mortal bodies"? The BODY is what gets regenerated. That's why Paul, when advising the Colossians to put to the death the sinful nature, phrased it like this: "Mortify therefore your members" (Col 3:5).

When Adam was cursed God said, 'surly you will die'. The Hebrew expression literally means, 'dying you shall die'. Pursuing the carnality of the sinful nature deadens the spirit, quenching the spirit by directing your energies from the things of God. The conscience is deadened as well, becoming unresponsive at the seat of moral reflection. Putting to death the flesh is a euphemism for abandoning the gratification of those vain imaginations. Sin is never what it seems, it's the proverbial carrot on a stick, in striving to reach some fleeting satisfaction the appetites are exaggerated and restraint is consumed. Repentance starves those inordinate affections, responding as it were, as a dead man.

Consider Rom 7:23-24 where Paul finds himself "in captitivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

A good example, the Law tells Paul, 'thou shalt not covet', sin seizes the opportunity to suppress that truth in unrighteousness. If thy foot offend thee, cut it off. If thy hand offend thee cut it off, if they eye offend then pluck it out. Why? Because we look, we desire what we see, we pursue and then we reach out to have. That is why looking at a woman with lust in your heart is the same thing as the act of adultery, it's the same morality.

And if that weren't enough, consider 8:3 - bearing in mind that an immaterial spirit is defined as a substance without size an shape. "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh". Did you catch that? The Son was sent IN THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH. He resembled sinful flesh. Either:
(A) He resembled sinful flesh in the sense that He too, was sinful. OR:
(B) He resembled sinful flesh in the sense that He LOOKED like the sinful flesh.

Tempted in all ways, except without sin, that's the point.

Obviously choice B is the acceptable answer. Therefore the sinful flesh DOES have a shape - the shape of a human body. In my understanding (and Andrew Murray was pretty explicit on this point as well), the soul is intermixed with the entire body from head to toe. Therefore sanctification is literally a volumetric filling of the body, with the Holy Breath, from head to toe.

In fact the phrase 'sinful nature' never occurs in the Greek. Paul's terminology for the sinful nature was simply 'flesh' and 'body'.

The sinful nature is the lust of the flesh, natural desire distorted into unnatural affection, covetousness and the old English word for it is evil concupiscence.

Desire (Noun and Verb), Desirous: "a desire, craving, longing, mostly of evil desires," frequently translated "lust," is used in the following, of good "desires:" of the Lord's "wish" concerning the last Passover, Luk 22:15; of Paul's "desire" to be with Christ, Phl 1:23; of his "desire" to see the saints at Thessalonica again, 1Th 2:17. With regard to evil "desires," in Col 3:5 the RV has "desire," for the AV, "concupiscence;" in 1Th 4:5, RV, "lust," for AV, "concupiscence;" there the preceding word pathos is translated "passion," RV, for AV, "lust" (see AFFECTION); also in Col 3:5 pathos and epithumia are associated, RV, "passion," for AV, "inordinate affection." Epithumia is combined with pathema, in Gal 5:24; for the AV, "affections and lusts," the RV has "passions, and the lusts thereof." Epithumia is the more comprehensive term, including all manner of "lusts and desires;" pathema denotes suffering; in the passage in Gal. (l.c.) the sufferings are those produced by yielding to the flesh; pathos points more to the evil state from which "lusts" spring. Cp. orexis, "lust," Rom 1:27. (Vine’s Dictionary G1939 epithymia)​

The Greek term for desire here is qualified by being a 'pathos' desire, an evil concupiscence, an inordinate affection, that promise pleasure but in the end cause suffering and quench the spirit.

Ok, enough of Romans. Shall we let James have a say? According to James, the tongue itself is evil, dragging THE REST OF THE BODY into sin. And no man can fully tame it (although, I presume, the Holy Breath can do so).

Was James really claiming that inanimate matter is inherently evil? Was he himself guilty of the gnostic heresy? James said, "All sorts of LIVING CREATURES can be tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue." He's not referring to inanimate matter. The tongue is a living creature insofar as it is saturated with an evil soul. Sanctifying the brain, therefore, won't solve the problem. The tongue itself needs sanctification. Consider Isaiah 6 on this point, "I am a man of unclean lips" - so how did God solve the problem? By sanctifying his brain? Look at verses 6 and 7:

"Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged."

The Holy Fire had to be applied DIRECTLY TO HIS MOUTH. That was the only possible solution.

Jesus tells us if you call your brother a fool you are in danger of hell fire, even murder itself isn't so great a sin. From the words we speak terrible calamity can occur. It's much easier to destroy then it is to build. Just light a match and the whole house can be reduced to ashes, building another house is not so simple a matter. I really don't know where you are trying to go with this material/immaterial thing but I suspect we are off on a tangent.

Does any of this scream immaterialism to you? Certainly not to me.

What would concern me about the distinction between material and immaterial? I really don't get such a long trip to a less then substantive point.

"Your body is the temple of the Holy [Breath]" (1Cor 6:19). Why does God want to dwell in our body? Because that's where our soul is. But why did He put our soul inside our body? If the soul could interact with the body magically, from afar, there would be no need to position them in mutual proximity. Fact is, it's not a magical relationship, but a physical one. In fact, if right now God swapped my male body out for a female body, much of my mental and emotional experience would suddenly change. However, if he merely put the female body NEXT to my soul, it would be insufficient proximity, I still wouldn't get the female experience. Even though it would still be true that 'He gave me a new body', it would have no effect. The physicality of these dynamics could hardly be more obvious or more clear.

If I wanted to make yet another argument for materialism (not sure I should expend the time), I would discuss the sacramental passages, or as Catholics call it, the Real Presence (although I don't believe we should presume such to happen today absent 100% certainty qua prophetic revelation).

Materialism? Really? That was what you were trying to drive home with this? The presence in Catholic communion is a spiritual one, it's a way of reflecting on being in the very presence of God. While I do enjoy some of your wranglings with this matters I do hope your not trying to promote a materialist worldview and impose it on the testimony of Scripture. That would be a very disappointing end to this rambling but mildly searching discussion.

 

[HatGuy]

To save you some reading, I've summarized many of the key posts. But in some cases I point out that the original post is worth reading.

Thanks. I've gone one step further and also downloaded your book. I was going to suggest to you to put it into a book, and so I found you already had.

As a professional writer I have some suggestions that you might find useful. Firstly, you need to build your arguments a bit more slowly. You address too many big concepts too quickly. You need to first find a point that connects you with your reader. Since most (if not all) of your readers will not be materialists as you are, you need to (1) outlay the argument for immaterialism, then (2) show why it's logically flawed, and then (3) outlay your alternative, and (4) show why your alternative is superior. You need to do this logically and slowly. What you are doing (and this is just me trying to be a helpful critic) is trying to do all four things at once, and it loses your reader.

That's just some free advice from a professional of eleven years. You can do what you like with that advice. You don't have to reply to this. But if you went a little slower and made things in bite-size 'chunks' for people, you will find yourself much less frustrated.

Okay, onward!

- Post #3 - I explained why the title 'The Holy Spirit' amounts to an obviously inane use of language - so foolish that probably no human being has ever articulated in that manner with respect to non-trinity realities. In essence, then, it is a senseless and linguistically unprecedented idiom and, as such, the LEAST likely to be in agreement with Scripture. Yet it was you, as I seem to recall, who referred to this fact as 'nitpicking'.

I do remember saying something about 'nitpicking'. What I meant was simply to say that if something incomprehensible to me it doesn't mean it is illogical or unrealistic. The flaw might remain with me. For example, if someone comes and speaks to me in Khoisan, it's going to be incomprehensible to me, but that does not make it nonsense or gibberish. The fault lies with me because I am unable to grasp it. In time I might learn. This is why theologians such as Erickson will admit that certain orthodox ideas are logically "absurb from a human standpoint". But in time we might find that it is perfectly logical, when we have more data.

You have stated that this idea is not a good one because we must be good exegetes with the information we might have. I agree with that, but from my point of view, it's clear God has deliberately left out a great deal of information. The Bible does not give us tons of information. It does not tell us much about physics, for instance. It does not tell us how food is digested. It didn't even tell us about germs. God left much up to us to discover and to speculate on. Likewise, theology in the Bible is not all there is to know - a great many things will only be discovered by us in eternity.

Post#5. I pointed out the "The Holy Breath/Wind" (John 20:22) as the obvious alternative, and cited several similar verses. In some cases, such as John 20:22, the biblical writers documented actual aerodynamics of the Third Person.

Okay, I've read it, and read it in your book. I'm not going to get much into this discussion right now (or ever) as I want to try and focus the discussion.

Post #14 provides a definition of Adam alternative to the (indefensible) theory that he represented mankind. It's my own theory, and the only viable one known to me.

Thanks. I'm not really interested in discussion Original Sin etc. (at least not yet).

Posts #15 and #16 point out a major contradiction in traditional theology. God is defined as INHERENTLY (and thus immutably holy). Such a God, I argued, would merit no praise. I explained that the church is unanimous on the definition of merit. Merit is a status achieved ONLY by freely choosing to labor/suffer for a righteous cause over an extended period of time. Thus God's knowledge, skills, and kindness have no merit and merit no praise unless he labored/suffered to develop them, as the Ancient of Days. I then explained why this blows Young Earth Creationists out of the water, as God would merit virtually zero praise for creation if He learned how to do it in just seven days, or already knew how.

I don't really care for debating Young Earth Creationism.

God's slow acquisition of knowledge and skills, at least over the 4-billion year span of creation, and presumably the 13 billion-year age of the universe - minimum - are all part of His gradual acquisition of HOLINES. Since 13 billion years is, in my mind, a HUGELY greater sacrifice than the 3-day Calvary atonement, I fault the church for stomping all over His greatest sacrifice (denying it for the last 2,000 years and giving Him no credit/praise for it).

I must say a few things here, based on what I can glean from your theology.

A. I disagree that God deserves praise for BECOMING / WORKING towards holiness. This is because I'm in a fundamental disagreement with you, it seems, on what holiness is. I don't see holiness as something that must be worked towards. Humanity's problem is that it continues to try and climb some ladder of virtue. Virtue is something you can get better at, yes. Virtue is endless, yes (goodness has no end). But fundamentally, holiness is something God gives you from his very nature. We do not work for it or towards it, and God did not work for it or towards it. Praise is not due to God because He is Holy as much as praise goes to Him because He makes us holy from his own grace.

B. You've failed, at least from the reading I've now done, to account for the EXISTENCE of something called 'holiness' (as you have for 'love' and several other ideas). If God worked to become holy then there is some standard he was / is working towards that exists outside of Himself (objectively). This standard is not found within what you have called the Totality, as it seems (according to what I can understand from reading your posts and book) the Totality's consciousness appears to be neutral (I'd argue there is no such thing as morally neutral, but let's try and focus).

There has to be a perfect version of holiness that God must be working to become. Otherwise the concept of 'holiness' is just nonsense, because it is actually nothing. You can only say that whatever God has become is holy, but then you will strip the praise from God away anyway because he didn't have to 'work' towards becoming this thing, simple 'time' and evolution got him there. Without any objective standard to work towards that comes from outside of God, there is no reason to praise God for what it is he simply became because that's just the way things went.

C. You have also not accounted for the existence of evil. If God has, over billions of years, laboured to become good, then evil exists as some sort of eternal concept because he has laboured against it for all this time. But why? Why did he make this choice? Why was there a choice to begin with? Where does evil actually come from in this scheme? I proposed that your solution may have to do with randomness / chaos (which is what Process Theologians say) but you appear to have rejected that. (I found that a surprise, given that you don't seem to believe in creation ex nihilo).

Instead, you've stated that free will moves matter. Ah, but now we have a problem. You see, at some point you are dealing with infinite concepts. You are simply swapping what is infinite with something else, but trying to keep it within the framework of the finite. It is not working, though. You've rejected God as the person as being infinite, but you've made concepts such as goodness and evil and love and free will to appear out of thin air. Unless you can account for why they exist under your scheme, I'd say you're dead in the water. However, since these are immaterial concepts, I've no way of seeing you resolve this problem.

Ok. Under your scheme, it appears that free will is an infinite concept. Why? Because free will is what moves matter. But free will cannot be free will unless there is choice, right? Otherwise, what is the 'will' doing? Free will is acting according to discretion. There would have to be choices - either A or B. There cannot have been only one choice, because that is nonsense. Choice means more than one direction can be followed. But where do such choices come from? In this case, you've certainly implied quite strongly that God made the free will choice to move towards goodness rather than evil. But here goodness and evil appear, again, to be infinite concepts if I pick apart your view. Because they have no basis whatsoever in a material world. They cannot exist on their own. They are abstract concepts that seem to appear to pre-date not only God but the Totality. The trouble with all these concepts is they require personality to make them true. Free will can only be possessed by personal agents.

Which leads into the next issue.

D. The Totality appears to have been conscious for eternity times past (or however you view time) which means that the Totality is a personal being of some kind. This is why I said there were gnostic concepts coming out here. It appears one kind of god has given birth to another. (A part of the Totality awoke and became 'God'). But surely you can understand that if you give all of material a consciousness you have pretty much articulated pantheism, which leads you into the same problems of pantheism. At best, your view may be articulated as panentheism (since God seems to have at least some kind of transcendence, although I can't see exactly how) but nevertheless, it then runs into the same sort of criticism as pantheism and panentheism.

Unfortunately, your view is also not accounting for the original consciousness of the Totality. Why did it gain consciousness? Where did consciousness come from? How could it have even 'gained' such consciousness?

Preexistent matter (the 'Totality') is more plausible than a preexistent immaterial God who creates matter out of nothing. The Totality's first motion/thought was propelled by free will (even as we move our bodies by free will today). That first thought is pretty much EXACTLY like the first thought of a fetus in a mother's womb. In this case the first piece of matter to awaken was an individual that we now knw as Yahweh.

Unfortunately, your analogy of a fetus in a mother's womb leads you into trouble, as the mother is conscious itself. Your Totality, then, is actually the real God, whereas who you know as God is secondary to it.

Post #18 explains why Yahweh felt that He NEEDED us. He needed to make us FOR OUR OWN PROTECTION. I'll summarize this point. Potentially, any piece of matter to awaken in the Totality, could choose to be malicious (imagine the Totality as a huge prison of sorts), awakening others only to use, abuse, enslave, and control them, perhaps just for the fun of it.

This is an example of my criticism above. It appears maliciousness (evil) here is some sort of eternal abstract concept (even though evil requires conscious, personal agents to be anything). You need to account for where evil comes from in your scheme and what evil even means. If it simply comes from the Totality as a part of the very nature of existence, then you have to account why evil is actually evil, and not just simply the way things are. Concepts such as love and so one fall under the same issues in your scheme.

To prevent this, Yahweh decided to become the perfect Ruler and Judge of the Totality - and He needed to become HOLY to do it. He needed the knowledge and skills to monitor the entire Totality, to protect anyone and everyone from undue harm.

Sorry dude, this is mind-boggling. God awoke from the Totality, realised that the Totality could be used for evil (yet evil comes from...?) and decides to judge the Totality. But yet he had to work to become holy so he could do so. But where did he gain the understanding of what holiness is? And if he realised that he had to become holy to judge the totality, where / when did he acquire enough holiness to realise that the Totality could be manipulated in such a way and therefore pass his first judgement and make his free will decision to actually now become holy?

If this sentence is confusing, it's because this theology is confusing. It's missing substantial points of reference and has just become circular.

 

[HatGuy]

Problem is, the overwhelming task of becoming holy was probably TOO DAUNTING for Him to face, without some hope of a reward (the church as His bride). Second problem is, if He remained all alone (perpetual solitary confinement), He might eventually lose His sanity - thus putting all of us in grave danger.

If God needed a reward to work to becoming holy, then I'm in question about the perfection of his love.

Secondly, if God could become 'insane' this implies the existence of chaos in your theory. Which you appear to have rejected. Also, 'sanity' is a measurable term. Which means that God has something to measure his state of mind / emotions against. He cannot measure it against the Totality, so what / who is He measuring it against? The others in the Trinity? But this still falls into the same problem as to why sanity is sanity in the first place. Regardless of whether God is one or three, you are now approaching an idea that closely resembles the infinite.

Again, He created us for our own protection.
- That same post explained the Immune System.

The immune system idea appears to be circular. The Holy Breath appears to be the better god of the three, or the best part of God, since he is the one making sure that the other two don't step out of line. Somehow, I don't know how under your scheme, the Holy Spirit has discovered what holiness really is. How it was 'discovered' if it didn't exist before God himself became it, I can't grasp. Admittedly, I don't think you've used the word 'discovered', but the problem is (once again) that holiness has to be a standard existent somewhere for the Holy Spirit to understand that God must become that thing.

In your book, you've stated that God has set up his own immune system (the Holy Breath being the one who actions this) by his own intent and design. But how could he have designed something for himself that resembled perfection when he was still learning what perfection actually looks like (becoming holy). And then, where does 'perfection' come from if God has to 'learn' it?

You've said he remains unchanging (Heb 13:8) since he achieved irreversible moral purity. But where the idea of 'moral purity' and the standard of it came from, I can't understand. You don't seem to answer this lingering and pervasive question.

Although post #48 was a long post, the last couple of paragraphs might be worth reading - or I'll just summarize briefly. The Father presumably Incarnated the Son by simply extracting a small subsection and physically scrambling it (effectively scrambling its brains so to speak) as to render it ignorant, and then merged it to an embryo placed in Mary's uterus. This is a relatively simple, seamless explanation, in stark contrast to the humanly incomprehensible tradition known as the 'hypostatic union'.

Oddly that post was a response to you, but I'm not sure you read it.

I did read it, but (I think I stated this, or might have not) that I'm not truly interested in discussing the details of it.

Post 64 added a couple of arguments against infinite knwoledge:
(1) A God with infinite knowledge, specifically foreknowledge, would not have free will. Free will must be defined as a moment of indecision and deliberation eventually culminating in a resoluteness of decision. It doesn't make sense for someone to say, "Although I haven't yet made my decision, I already foreknow it."
(2) Foreknowledge raises serious doubts about the goodness of God. If God foreknew the fall of Adam,Eve, and Lucifer, why not create Bob, Sue, and Vincent instead?

I'm not going to address this as I did state that I'm happy to admit God's relation to our time may be temporal. This is a whole other discussion and just a distraction from the main issues at hand, IMO.

Later I added this argument.
(3) Suppose God forgot one billion languages. He now knows exactly:
infinity minus 1,000,000,000 languages.
which is still - infinity! The same amount He started with! Total nonsense!

Unfortunately, I would say the example you've used is total nonsense Can God forget a language? Maybe, if He chooses to. But it's the same as asking if God can create a rock He cannot move. It's just a nonsense question.

Post #104 actually is a list of some of the posts that I made, on this thread, in defense of materialism, revealing a pretty solid biblical foundation - not that I need to 'prove' that matter is real. The burden of proof falls on the immaterialist, to prove that non-material substance exists.

There is enough philosophy in this world to address this question, so I don't want to get bogged down with it. Obviously, if your presupposition is matter only exists, it's going to be difficult to get out of that. But since you can't equate for where concepts like holiness and love and even free will actually come from, I think you're going to run into philosophical trouble with sticking to materialism.

Unfortunately, I have to close by saying that your moving towards pantheism / panentheism does not solve the problem of evil. You are not managing to crack the nut of theodicy so far.

I've spent about three hours making this reply, in addition to the reading I've done both of your posts and your book. I think that warrants for a fair response. I'm not really keen to spend much more time on this, though, and would kindly ask that you focus in your debate(s) here and keep things limited to the main issues.

I'm away on vacation for a week, and I won't be spending it on these forums, so you won't hear from me for awhile.

 

[HatGuy]

While I do enjoy some of your wranglings with this matters I do hope your not trying to promote a materialist worldview and impose it on the testimony of Scripture. That would be a very disappointing end to this rambling but mildly searching discussion.

I'm afraid that's exactly what JAL is trying to do. Make up your mind now to invest in this conversation now as you might be here a while otherwise