Can God self Terminate?

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Just as YHWH IS SPIRIT, not "A" SPIRIT, HE IS NOT "AN" ENTITY.

 

[Uber Genius]

doesn't factor in willpower and motivation.

Aseity has to do with necessary existence. You asking if God can choose to self-terminate is like asking if a he can choose to create a triangle with more or less than three sides.

This is a misunderstanding of omnipotent. That attribute is properly defined as able to do all things that are logically possible to do.

So properly defined God can't created square circles, or married bachelors, of agents who will freely obey his will.

So aseity means he must exist so he can't self-terminate.

However the boredom question has some fruitful potential. Can you think why it might be the case that God's experience of the external world might be significantly different than ours?

 

[Uber Genius]

Just as YHWH IS SPIRIT, not "A" SPIRIT, HE IS NOT "AN" ENTITY.

That is not correct.

I'm clearly talking philosophically in my post. And by the way you and I are said to predicate "spirit" like God. Uber is spirit.

Numbers can be entities. Concepts can be entities, and God can be an entity.

"Is" and "is a" make not distinction whatsoever here.

Unless you want to say God's identity is spirit. I am spirit, you are spirit, so if we do that we now have polytheism. Think we ought to let my predication stand as it is.

 

[Radrook]

Aseity has to do with necessary existence. You asking if God can choose to self-terminate is like asking if a he can choose to create a triangle with more or less than three sides.

This is a misunderstanding of omnipotent. That attribute is properly defined as able to do all things that are logically possible to do.

So properly defined God can't created square circles, or married bachelors, of agents who will freely obey his will.

So aseity means he must exist so he can't self-terminate.

However the boredom question has some fruitful potential. Can you think why it might be the case that God's experience of the external world might be significantly different than ours?

I am only going by how God is described in the Bible. In the Bible he is definitely expressing emotions that I enumerated in my post. The boredom issue doesn't really count for much since almightiness would provide him with all power necessary to avoid such an emotion. Perhaps that is why he is described as the blessed or happy God. Who would not be blessed and happy if one could do the wonders at his disposal.

Please note that as a living, thinking, conscious being he definitely MUST relate to himself via pondering the meaning of his own existence. He is not merely an unconscious, eternally existing blob.

BTW
The impossibility of termination his own existence would not bother him since he is described as being a blessed and happy God. Perhaps what is unavoidable here is the happiness and the blessedness due to his almightiness. Or better yet, the impossibility of his being unhappy with his own existence would make self termination impossible anyway..

 

[Uber Genius]

I am only going by how God is described in the Bible. In the Bible he is definitely expressing emotions that I enumerated in my post. The boredom issue doesn't really count for much since almightiness would provide him with all power necessary to avoid such an emotion. Perhaps that is why he is described as the blessed or happy God. Who would not be blessed and happy if one could do the wonders at his disposal.

Please note that as a living, thinking, conscious being he definitely MUST relate to himself via pondering the meaning of his own existence. He is not merely an unconscious, eternally existing blob.

Can God self-terminate is NOT a subject directly discussed in the Bible!

So why do you start with a philosophical question, and get a philosophical answer within the theological attributes described in the Bible and then say, "I'm just going on what's in the Bible."

And to your philosophical statement "as a living, thinking, conscious being he definitely MUST relate of himself via pondering his own existence."

This violates impassability! And commits anthropomorphic fallacy. You are projecting human attributes on to God.

Now to be fair to your point so does the text in both OT and NT. Exegesis of the respective passages aside, why think God ponders his existence just because you do.

You are not operating the way you were designed to operate. He is.

You have emotions impacted by your physiology. He doesn't.

You have emotions and thoughts based on your environment. He doesn't.

You have limits on your knowledge, past and future, including "Why are you here?" He doesn't have those limitations.

You are in time. He is not.

You are a being who is finite. He is not.

In fact when God says, "My ways are not your ways," I take that to be much more difference than similarity in how we experience the world.

 

[miknik5]

What do you mean by that?

All sin shall be forgiven except for one...

 

[Radrook]

All sin shall be forgiven except for one...

What are you talking about?

 

[Radrook]

Can God self-terminate is NOT a subject directly discussed in the Bible!

So why do you start with a philosophical question, and get a philosophical answer within the theological attributes described in the Bible and then say, "I'm just going on what's in the Bible."

And to your philosophical statement "as a living, thinking, conscious being he definitely MUST relate of himself via pondering his own existence."

This violates impassability! And commits anthropomorphic fallacy. You are projecting human attributes on to God.

Now to be fair to your point so does the text in both OT and NT. Exegesis of the respective passages aside, why think God ponders his existence just because you do.

You are not operating the way you were designed to operate. He is.

You have emotions impacted by your physiology. He doesn't.

You have emotions and thoughts based on your environment. He doesn't.

You have limits on your knowledge, past and future, including "Why are you here?" He doesn't have those limitations.

You are in time. He is not.

You are a being who is finite. He is not.

In fact when God says, "My ways are not your ways," I take that to be much more difference than similarity in how we experience the world.

First, this is a Controversial Theology Forum not a philosophy one. So if indeed anyone is deviating from forum requirements it isn't me by bringing in a theological approach. It is yiou by bringing in a totally philosophical one who is deviating.

Second, you are taking the scriptural; passage completely out of context, It is referring to how mankind tends to be unforgiving and God tends to be infinitely compassionate in comparison,. It does not refer to his thinking being completely alien to mankind in the way you describe it.

Third, you are also totally ignoring the fact that we are described as beings made in His image. That is to say we have the same reasoning abilities, which entail wisdom, which involves justice and which also includes the ability to love. Al these abilities are found in Him in superlative balance but they are not totally alien to us because we as his children share those faculties and are capable of relating to them. So he isn't some aloof alien who is totally incomprehensible to his creatures especially not to his human children to whom he has clearly revealed himself via his inspired word the Bible.

In conclusion, your basis for considering the creator as totally alien to human consciousness and thought processes goes completely contrary to what has been revealed. He does work within the stream of events of cause and effect. He does speak of timelines. He does refer to his activities within the cause and effect framework we are familiar with. He does describe himself in totally human terms which are totally understandable to us humans. So if indeed we consider him humanlike, it is because he himself has described himself in that way and not as you imagine and depict him.

Now, if you will then dismiss those anthropomorphic descriptions as foolish, then you are in the wrong forum since this forum is about controversial theology and it is within Christian forum context where people do value the Bible as the inspired Word of God.

 

[Radrook]

Aseity has to do with necessary existence. You asking if God can choose to self-terminate is like asking if a he can choose to create a triangle with more or less than three sides.

This is a misunderstanding of omnipotent. That attribute is properly defined as able to do all things that are logically possible to do.

So properly defined God can't created square circles, or married bachelors, of agents who will freely obey his will.

So aseity means he must exist so he can't self-terminate.

However the boredom question has some fruitful potential. Can you think why it might be the case that God's experience of the external world might be significantly different than ours?

I never claimed that his experience is identical to the human experience.
Obviously his experience must be different.

1. He is a spirit
2. He lives in a spirit realm
3. His powers are vastly superior.

Those three alone are sufficient to make his experiences and thought processes different. However, not so different as you portray them to be where they become totally incomprehensible to the human mind. Being in his image we are able to relate.

I never claimed that he can square a triangle, or do illogically impossible things.
However, your concept that he is forced to exist and that he has absolutely no choice because he MUST exist isn't how I envision the situation.

 

[Uber Genius]

First, this is a Controversial Theology Forum not a philosophy one. So if indeed anyone is deviating from forum requirements it isn't me by bringing in a theological approach. It is yiou by bringing in a totally philosophical one who is deviating.

Second, you are taking the scriptural; passage completely out of context, It is referring to how mankind tends to be unforgiving and God tends to be infinitely compassionate in comparison,. It does not refer to his thinking being completely alien to mankind in the way you describe it.

Third, you are also totally ignoring the fact that we are described as beings made in His image. That is to say we have the same reasoning abilities, which entail wisdom, which involves justice and which also includes the ability to love. Al these abilities are found in Him in superlative balance but they are not totally alien to us because we as his children share those faculties and are capable of relating to them. So he isn't some aloof alien who is totally incomprehensible to his creatures especially not to his human children to whom he has clearly revealed himself via his inspired word the Bible.

In conclusion, your basis for considering the creator as totally alien to human consciousness and thought processes goes completely contrary to what has been revealed. He does work within the stream of events of cause and effect. He does speak of timelines. He does refer to his activities within the cause and effect framework we are familiar with. He does describe himself in totally human terms which are totally understandable to us humans. So if indeed we consider him humanlike, it is because he himself has described himself in that way and not as you imagine and depict him.

Now, if you will then dismiss those anthropomorphic descriptions as foolish, then you are in the wrong forum since this forum is about controversial theology and it is within Christian forum context where people do value the Bible as the inspired Word of God.

You start out with a philosophical question that is unrelated to controversial theology because no one proposes God thinks that way. There is no evidence from scripture. Fine, I don't care.

So ask whatever you like, but don't be a hypocrite and then claim you are giving a theological response. Your not.

Further you don't have basic knowledge that is taught in a basic doctrine class about God's essential attributes. Namely you are unfamiliar with aseity.

I make the point that you are making basic errors in thinking (fallacies) that caused you to deny impassability of God, another thing you would have learned in your first doctrine class or your first logic class.

So what, lot of Christians are ignorant of these distinctions but to be arrogant and not do a simple search for words like "aseity" or "impassability" or 30 seconds of research is more than surprising. It is not normal to spend 10 minutes giving philosophical arguments for why philosophy is not useful, instead of half that gaining basic knowledge about the topic you are posting about.

This is not productive and I have no hope of you doing the minutes of research it would require to make it productive.

Good luck on your journey, and by all means reach back out if you decide to invest that time researching.

 

[Tree of Life]

Is total self-termination or total self-obliteration within the parameters of God's abilities? Or do we conclude that no matter how he might feel concerning his own existence, He is incapable of such an act?

No.

 

[miknik5]

Well, if his personality doesn't permit certain things then we have to understand that when the Bible says that all things are possible with God it excludes sinful things including the sin of self termination.


1 Corinthians 14:33 ESV
For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints,

This is what I responded to when I said all sin shall be forgiven except for one

 

[miknik5]

I am only going by how God is described in the Bible. In the Bible he is definitely expressing emotions that I enumerated in my post. The boredom issue doesn't really count for much since almightiness would provide him with all power necessary to avoid such an emotion. Perhaps that is why he is described as the blessed or happy God. Who would not be blessed and happy if one could do the wonders at his disposal.

Please note that as a living, thinking, conscious being he definitely MUST relate to himself via pondering the meaning of his own existence. He is not merely an unconscious, eternally existing blob.

BTW
The impossibility of termination his own existence would not bother him since he is described as being a blessed and happy God. Perhaps what is unavoidable here is the happiness and the blessedness due to his almightiness. Or better yet, the impossibility of his being unhappy with his own existence would make self termination impossible anyway..

Why would HE be bored? HE knows the end from the beginning for all of HIS creation

Even if we cant figure out everything while in the midst of living

 

[Vicomte13]

Well, if his personality doesn't permit certain things then we have to understand that when the Bible says that all things are possible with God it excludes sinful things including the sin of self termination.

Suicide is a sin for man because God forbade us to shed the blood of man. God told us nothing at all beyond the rules that bind us, except where he made specific contracts, convenants with him - IF certain men do x and y, THEN God will do z for them. Those are the covenants. God bound himself to those. He went no farther than that, and there is no basis other than hubris to try to write laws that go beyond what God said. We have no idea, and can't know, because he didn't tell us. Our capacity to reason is limited by the limitations of our design as three-dimensional, temporal creatures. All logic breaks down when speaking of God, who knows all future and past time and every event in it.

In other words: we're not going to bind God by human logic.

 

[Radrook]

Suicide is a sin for man because God forbade us to shed the blood of man. God told us nothing at all beyond the rules that bind us, except where he made specific contracts, convenants with him - IF certain men do x and y, THEN God will do z for them. Those are the covenants. God bound himself to those. He went no farther than that, and there is no basis other than hubris to try to write laws that go beyond what God said. We have no idea, and can't know, because he didn't tell us. Our capacity to reason is limited by the limitations of our design as three-dimensional, temporal creatures. All logic breaks down when speaking of God, who knows all future and past time and every event in it.

In other words: we're not going to bind God by human logic.

I disagree that ALL logic breaks down when we think about our heavenly Father.
Also, I am not attempting to write laws that go beyond what God said.
I clearly stated that there are things which God forbids and which are therefor obligatory for him to also avoid doing.
That is not going beyond what has been written. Neither does logic break down when we apply that requirement to God.

 

[Radrook]

Why would HE be bored? HE knows the end from the beginning for all of HIS creation

Even if we cant figure out everything while in the midst of living

Why would HE be bored? HE knows the end from the beginning for all of HIS creation

Even if we cant figure out everything while in the midst of living

I never said that God is susceptible to boredom.
I said that his almighty power would prevent boredom from setting in via provision of a infinity of activities and viable possibilities. However, your argument that he knows EVERYTHING and that the future holds no surprises does seem indeed like a formula for boredom for a lesser deity.

 

[Radrook]

This is what I responded to when I said all sin shall be forgiven except for one

Which one is that?

 

[Radrook]

No.

No what?

 

[miknik5]

I never said that God is susceptible to boredom.
I said that his almighty power would prevent boredom from setting in via provision of a infinity of activities and viable possibilities. However, your argument that he knows EVERYTHING and that the future holds no surprises does seem indeed like a formula for boredom for a lesser deity.

What did you think the cloud of witnesses think?

Do they appear to be bored to you?

 

[miknik5]

Which one is that?

Well, if his personality doesn't permit certain things then we have to understand that when the Bible says that all things are possible with God it excludes sinful things including the sin of self termination.


1 Corinthians 14:33 ESV
For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints,

the sin of "self-termination" as per your own words