One of my major cruxes is the idea that God isn't capable of lying, in my own perspective (if true) this would lessen divinity, in the way that I'd much rather a God that is capable of both good and evil that chooses to be good then one that can't be evil in the first place.
I can never kill my children because I love them; this does not represent a limitation of my power. God is the supreme good and He is the source of all good, all love and all goodness. Therefore He will never do evil, and this is the meaning of the expression "God cannot lie".
Also I don't know if I can believe that someone/entity can be constantly pure and good, if we were created in the image of God then inherently wouldn't our fallibilities and shortcomings have come from him?
No, God created us with a free will, and free will implies the possibility of rejecting God's will, and this is sin.
You must understand that if God had created a universe in which all living creatures were not inclined to sin (such as angels), we would not exist. God , in His infinite love, has chosen to created also creatures like us, who are inclined to sin with the purpose to save us from our sins and lead us to the eternal and holy life.
In other words, my answer to the question: "Could God have created me as a better person?" is: God has created better people than me, but those people are not me and God, in His infinite love, has chosen to create also me. However, this is not the end of the story; in fact, God can change us and make us better people. In fact God only is the source of all true good and true love. We are unable to pursue the true good only with our own strengths; we need God, His grace, His teachings, His spiritual help. We need to be saved fom ourselves, our egoism and our sinful passions.
Only God can change us and make us better people.
Also, who create the creator? I can never wrap my head around the idea that an entity was always there. Wouldn't there need to be an origin for God?
if God had an origin, then the true God would be the cause of such origin. Buth then you would ask; what is the origin of the origin of God? and so on in an infinite sequence of origins. The point is that God is eternal and He is the Creator of everything.
The existence and the Goodness of God are the most fundamental truth and I do not think that this truth can be deduced through any form of reasoning, because this would mean believing more in such reasoning than in God. The fundamental reason why I believe in God is that I experience His Presence in my life. However, I believe that there are solid rational arguments that show that the belief in the existence of a conscious and intelligent God is absolutely reasonable, i.e. that this belief has a rational foundation. In particular, being a physicist,I would like to give you two rational and scientific arguments supporting the existence of God. The first argument proves that consciousness is not generated by the brain and that the origin of our mental experiences is not physical. This implies the existence in us of an unphysical element, which is usually called soul or spirit; God can be defined as the cause of the existence of our soul.
Physicalism/naturalism is based on the belief that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, but it can be proved that this hypothesis is inconsistent with our scientific knowledge and implies logical contradictions. There are in fact 2 arguments that prove such hypothesis contains a logical fallacy.
1) All the alleged emergent properties are just simplified and approximate descriptions of underlying processes and arbitrary abstractions of the actual physical processes. In fact, the underlying microscopic processes are described by the fundamental laws of physics and no emergent properties are involved in such description; this implies that all the alleged emergent properties are only arbitrary and approximate descriptions of the actual physical processes (arbitrariness is involved when more than one options is possible; in this case, more than one possible descriptions). An approximate description is only an abstraction, and no actual entity exists per se corresponding to that approximate description, simply because an actual entity is exactly what it is and not an approximation of itself; an approximate description is an idea that exists only in a conscious mind. This means that emergent properties are concepts that refer to something that has an inherent conceptual nature (abstract ideas).
2) An emergent property is defined as a property that is possessed by a set of elements that its individual components do not possess. The point is that every set of elements is inherently an arbitrary abstraction which implies the arbitrary choice of determining which elements are to be included in the set. Therefore, any property attributed to the set as a whole is inherently arbitrary because it depends on the arbitrary choice used to define the set. Arbitrariness is a precondition for the existence of any emergent property, and consciousness is a precondition for the existence of arbitrariness.
Both arguments 1 and 2 are sufficient to prove that every emergent property requires a consciousness from which to be conceived. Therefore, that conceiving consciousness cannot be the emergent property itself. Conclusion: consciousness cannot be an emergent property; this is true for the neuron, the brain and any other system that can be broken down into smaller elements.
In other words, emergence is a purely conceptual idea that is applied onto matter for taxonomy purposes. On a fundamental material level, there is no brain, or heart, or any higher level groups or sets, but just fundamental particles interacting. Emergence itself is just a category imposed by a mind, so the mind can't itself be explained as an emergent phenomenon.
If a concept refers to “something” whose existence presupposes the existence of arbitrariness, such “something” cannot exist independently of a conscious mind and can only exist as an idea in a conscious mind. For example consider the property of "beauty": beauty is intrisically subjective, abstract and implies arbitrariness; therefore, beauty cannot exist independently of a conscious mind. My arguments prove that emergent properties, as well as complexity, are of the same nature as beauty; they refer to something that is intrinsically subjective and arbitrary, which is sufficient to prove that consciousness cannot be an emergent property because consciousness is the precondition for the existence of any emergent property.
The "brain" doesn't objectively and physically exist as a single entity. We create the concept of the brain by arbitrarily "separating" it from everything else; however, there is no objective criterion that allows us to identify what separates brain and non-brain. Obviously, consciousness cannot be a property of an abstraction, because an abstraction cannot conceive of itself. Any set of elements is an arbitrary abstraction because it implies the arbitrary choice of including some elements in the set and excluding others. Physically the brain is not a single entity and therefore every alleged property of the brain is an arbitrary concept, a subjective abstraction, because it depends on the arbitrary definition of the brain. This is sufficient to prove that the hypothesis that consciousness is a property of the brain is nonsensical because it contains an intrinsic logical contradiction; consciousness is a necessary precondition for the existence of arbitrariness, and therefore the existence of consciousness cannot be a consequence of all that implies arbitrariness.
Conversely, if the concept refers to “something” that is NOT inherently arbitrary or subjective or conceptual, then such “something” can exist independently of consciousness. An example of a concept that does not refer to something that is inherently subjective and presupposes the existence of arbitrariness, is the concept of “indivisible entity”.
My arguments prove that the hypothesis that consciousness is an emergent property implies a logical fallacy and an hypothesis that contains a logical contradiction is certainly wrong.
Since consciousness cannot be an emergent property whatsoever, consciousness can only be a fundamental property of an indivisible entity, because only an indivisible entity does not imply any kind of arbitrariness; furthermore, this indivisible entity must interact globally with brain processes because we know that there is a correlation between brain processes and consciousness. This indivisible entity cannot be physical, since according to the laws of physics, there is no physical entity with such properties; therefore this indivisible entity corresponds to what is traditionally called soul or spirit.
Second argument: the laws of physics describe reality very differently from our sensory perceptions; microscopic reality is even beyond the capabilities of our imagination and we can only describe this physical reality through abstract mathematical structures. Classical physics described reality in terms of particles, and the common sense idea of a particle refers to something that does not intrinsically imply the existence of a conscious mind; there are no logical contradictions in postulating the existence of a classical particle as an entity existing independently of a conscious mind. The problem is that, according to quantum physics, there is no "particle of common sense" in physical reality. At the microscopic level, nothing exists as a solid object and reality is described in terms of quantum fields; the concept of quantum field refers to an abstract mathematical structure, something inherently abstract and conceptual in nature, and therefore a quantum field cannot exist in and of itself, but can only exist as an idea in a thinking mind.
The extraordinary success of the laws of physics in systematically predicting natural phenomena with great accuracy reveals a fundamental property of the universe, which is its close correspondence with abstract mathematical structures, to the point that abstract mathematical structures are the only means of identifying the general principles capable of consistently accounting for the variety of natural phenomena. Physical reality manifests itself as the realization of some specific abstract mathematical structures (what we call "the laws of physics"); this close correspondence with abstract mathematical structures represents the most fundamental and relevant information that science provides about the nature of the universe and physical reality.
On the other hand, mathematical structures are only constructions of rational thought and can only exist as concepts in a thinking mind that conceives them; this implies that physical reality is not fundamental, but its existence depends on a more fundamental reality which is mental reality or consciousness: contrary to the basic hypothesis of materialism, consciousness is a more fundamental reality than matter. The existence of this mathematically structured universe implies the existence of a conscious and intelligent God, who supports the existence of the universe by conceiving it as a mathematical model. In other words, the universe is the manifestation of a mathematical theory existing in the mind of a conscious and intelligent God. Atheism does not take into account the most important and fundamental information that science provides on physical reality (that is, its property of being mathematically modelable) and denies, without any rational argument, the only rational explanation.
It is not reasonable to expect that such a close correspondence between some mathematical models (the laws of physics) and the universe would have to exist if the universe did not have the inherent property of being mathematically modelable. It is worth considering that mathematics is incapable of solving problems internal to mathematics itself, even internal to arithmetic; for example, there is no mathematical formula that can predict the sequence of twin primes. Why is the human mind able to conceive mathematical structures that so accurately predict what happens in the universe, if the existence of the universe should be independent and prior to the existence of rational thought and any thinking mind? The point is that the property of being mathematically modelable implies the existence of mathematics, which in turn implies the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind (God).
The second step is to understand that God, the Creator of our own soul and of the whole universe, is the God of the christian faith. I think that the strongest argument supporting the divine nature of Christ is that the christian concept of God and of divine love is the highest possible concept. It is not possible that man could conceive a concept of God superior to the true God, being God the highest good, the source al all good and all true love. I find that the idea itself that God loves us so much that He chose to assume the human nature and accepted to suffer crucifission in order to save us, expresses such a high concept of God and of divine love that it can comes only from God and it is certainly a truth. I believe that Chirst suffered His Passion to help us to have faith in Him and trust Him, to make us understand that God loves us infinitely, that God is good and merciful, that God is near to us and that we are so precious for Him so that we may totally trust Him, open our heart to Him and let Him change our existence in true life and true love. Christ taught us to turn to God as Father and to feel loved as children, and this is something new with respect to the Old Testament. In the Old Testament the transcendence of God, His omnipotence and His justice are highlighted; he is a God far from man, even if he is the God who does not want the sinner to die, but who repents and lives. But Jesus Christ is the God who, driven by His irrepressible Love, strips himself of His Transcendence and omnipotence in order to be as close to us as possible. The christian faith is unique because it gives a very concrete and unique meaning to the concept of divine love: in fact God wanted to express His love in a concrete act, the acceptance of a terrible physical suffering; the God of the christian faith loves us so much that He is willing to suffer a painful death in order to save us from a vain and sinful existence. In the christian faith, love is not only a theoretical and vague concept; Christ’s Passion is a clear and concrete realization of the true love and teaches us the true meaning of love.
