God Is a Physical Being

[Saint Steven]

I might see Jesus standing in front of me (Please God, one day) and for all and intense purposes He could look 'physical' but actually be 'Spirit'.

I suspect that would be the case.
Are we not physical, while also being spiritual? (seems so)

 

[Saint Steven]

Spirit can still look physical

There may be a very good reason for that. - lol

 

[Saint Steven]

How do you know that what he saw was indeed physical?

I'm, not saying that it wasn't spiritual. I think it was both spiritual and physical.
I believe that John was actually transported in the Spirit to witness these things.
It wasn't a vision in his mind. The language throughout the book describes him being transported. This passage is no exception.
John, "... who testifies to everything he saw..." Rev.1:2

Revelation 4:1-3
After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. 3 And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne.

 

[topher694]

I aware you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

 

[JAL]

What does it matter?

It doesn't matter whether God is spirit or physical? And so I shouldn't be defending one or the other? Ironically, in that same post, you defended YOUR position on the issue by adducing this article:
Does God have a physical body? | GotQuestions.org
Although I'm not really sure why the church still tolerates theological gibberish, I'll identify some of the gibberish in the article.

The article states dogmatically that God is infinite. That's gibberish. Why so? Although an infinite number of points-in-space is theoretically postulated in integral calculus, it's only used to project a pattern and thus draw a conclusion. An actually existing infinity is an unintelligible theory. A reality that exists but exists without any specific, discrete magnitude? So it is always growing? If it is growing, then, at any given moment, it is currently a specific, discrete, finite quantity. And the math simply doesn't work. Suppose I have an infinite amount of money and lend you 3 billion dollars. How much do I have left? An infinite amount, right? The same amount that I started with! Total gibberish.

Again, God doesn't need to be infinite to function as an impeccably capable ruler and judge. He doesn't need to live up to Platonic ideals. He's got a job to do, and He does it very well, thank you very much.

Infinitude also contradicts the facts of Scripture. For example, authentic love doesn't merely proclaim affection, it intervenes and thus, in God's case, atones. Infinite love would mean infinite atonement - even the sin of rejecting Christ would be atoned for. No one would go to hell, not even the devil and his angels.

Foreknowledge is also a logical problem, as it contradicts divine freedom. Free will is a moment of indecision that transitions, over a period of deliberation, to a resolute state. It doesn't make sense to say, "I already foreknow my decision even though I have not decided yet, or made up my mind." Total gibberish.

Infinite power implies impassibility. After all, what is suffering? Suffering is measured by the degree to which it cripples/disables you. Suppose for instance I pickup a weighted barbell. Pumping that iron might be easy at first, but as the suffering intensifies, my motions gradually decelerate until I simply can't move it anymore. Infinite strength would preclude such a crippling, and thus contradicts the concept of suffering. How did an infinite God suffer on the cross? The very theologians who insist on the hypostatic union admit it to be humanly incomprehensible, for example: Charles Lee Feinberg stated, "No sane study of Christology even pretends to fathom it" (Charles Lee Feinberg, "The Hypostatic Union: Part 2," Bibliotheca Sacra, (1935), p. 412). This seems to be a frank admission of gibberish.

Impassibility is a serious logical problem because God is supposed to have merit even APART from the cross. And there is no merit without suffering, as I discussed at post 219.

Another gibberish statement in the article is that God has no form. Let's approach that question from a different angle. Picture yourself standing at the pearly gates. God says to you,
"Before I pull your body into the city, please make a choice between two options:
(A) You can enter with all the five senses.
(B) You can enter blind, deaf, mute, etc.

You realize, don't you, that option B is death? It is the cessation of consciousness! Presumably, then, you'd opt for choice-A. Fine. You enter the city - and you see God. What exactly do you see, if not form/shape of some kind? Obviously it won't be a static figure, at minimum you'll see rivers of divine Fire flowing through His figure (Dan 7), but nonetheless it will be a figure of some kind. In fact, as noted earlier, it is LOGICALLY NECESSARY that God flood our senses with revelations of Himself because, otherwise, our mind - which always cogitates in mental pictures - would continue to fabricate inaccurate idolatrous images of Him. Consider:

"Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up 10and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky" (Ex 24).

The writer thinks that such theophanies are essentially false representations of God. Again, what then is the point? Just to foster conceptual idolatry? Note that, as cited above, Moses had already seen God face to face but, subsequently he asks:

"Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”(Ex 33).

Moses had already seen God face to face - but not in the fullness of His glory. And what does it matter, if all these theophanies are false representations of God, as the article suggests? Clearly Moses was petitioning to see the real thing. He was asking to both (A) see the real God (not some fake representation) and (B) see Him clothed in the fullness of His glory. And what was God's response? Was it:
(A) "No way Moses. Not going to happen this life. All you get for now is a bunch of fake sightings."
(B) Or was it, "You CAN see my back in the fullness of its glory, but not my face."
And what's the nature of that glory? For one thing, it's a fullness of divine Light evident in Moses' radiant face subsequently.

In other words, in those other theophanies where God spoke to Moses face to face, Moses was actually observing only a shaded view of God's face. Looking ahead to Revelation, "His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance" (Rev 1). In fact, even here too, Moses would see:
(A) shaded view of God's face
(B) an unshaded view of God's back
(I mention these specifics because they are evidentiary for biblical materialism). Here's the passage:

"And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

21Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”

Notice what's documented here. God partially accomplishes shading by shoving Moses into the cleft of a rock. But that's still not quite enough. Yahweh actually hand-shades His own face while passing by Moses. And then He removes the hand-shade to grant Moses an unshaded view of His back. If that isn't physical dynamics, then nothing is.

I'll respond to the article a bit further in my next post. I've still got 1 or 2 points to make.

 

[Carl Emerson]

There seems to be something arrogant going on when we insist God conforms with our puny 'logic'.

Gods is who He is and His ways are past finding out.

 

[Bobber]

There seems to be something arrogant going on when we insist God conforms with our puny 'logic'.

Gods is who He is and His ways are past finding out.

Well Carl true to a point....but also keep in mind Jesus ALWAYS put forth much in his teaching asking the question along the lines, "Look who and what do you think God is? Not loving? If you then being evil know how to give good things to your children how much more does your heavenly Father" and which of you if your ox fell into a ditch wouldn't reach down and help it out? The answer is you would. In other words Jesus was basically saying to them Look God's love and mercy and ways of thinking is not too foreign as compared to yours, in fact man has a natural way of showing mercy because he got that from God. So I think there is a place where we're called upon to use basic logic in understand the ways of God.

 

[Carl Emerson]

Yes of course, I agree - but, I am referring to our friend claiming that God cant be infinite because it clashes with his conceptual thinking - As if God has given us the mental tools to ever fully comprehend Him...
Frankly unless one has an encounter with Him and in the process experiences a 'download' via the Spirit, respect for His 'otherness' is likely to be limited.
His teaching is via the anointing within us direct to our spirit and bypasses the mind. The mind takes time to catch up and never really contains the unspeakable Glory revealed direct.

 

[Andrewn]

I think I provided a pretty clear explanation of the relevance. Sounds like you ignored my explanation because you were already intent on charging me with irrelevance.

Others have already pointed out that a matter that is not made of neutrons, protons, and electrons and that has many extraordinary characteristics is not a physical matter. I'll call it a "heavenly matter" and it is the same thing that Christians call "spirit."

Angels, like God, have no unconscious body. They are pure mind - tangible mind.

Pure mind = heavenly matter = spirit. Nothing new in this, just semantics. In Hinduism, Brahman is called pure mind or pure consciousness all the time.

This thread is somewhat in that vein. Recognition that God is a physical figure helps opens our minds to the prospect and expectations of tangible, face-to-face encounters.

This is what every Christian waits for anyway. Hopefully, in this life but definitely in the next life.

What is really _different_ is your ontology of God: That you deny that He is infinite, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient.

 

[Saint Steven]

There seems to be something arrogant going on when we insist God conforms with our puny 'logic'.

Gods is who He is and His ways are past finding out.

Thanks, Carl.
That saw cuts both ways.

It is just as likely that that the spiritual state of God is physical than not.
We only claim God is not physical on the basis that we believe he is spiritual.
Which assumes that the opposite of spiritual is physical, therefore we posit that God cannot be physical. (because he is spiritual)
But if our assumption is wrong (very likely) then God could most certainly be both spiritual and physical.

 

[JAL]

There seems to be something arrogant going on when we insist God conforms with our puny 'logic'.

Gods is who He is and His ways are past finding out.

Let me get this straight. Prior to this thread, if someone had asked you a question about God such as, "Is He a spirit?", you would have replied, "Forget about it. I have no idea and never will, because He is incomprehensible." This has always been your standard reply?

And if I go back and review your posts on other threads, can you assure me that I will always find that standard reply?

 

[JAL]

Others have already pointed out that a matter that is not made of neutrons, protons, and electrons and that has many extraordinary characteristics is not a physical matter. I'll call it a "heavenly matter" and it is the same thing that Christians call "spirit."

What extraordinary characteristics? I have identified two fundamental properties of matter:
(1) Tangibility
(2) Self-propelling free will
And claimed that men, God, angels - and even inanimate matter - have them both (except that what we call "inanimate" matter only has them in infinitesimally low quantities because God has never encouraged this matter to fully awaken but certainly could per Mat 3:9).

If you're going to claim "extraordinary characteristics" of anything, bear in mind that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and you DON'T HAVE ANY.

And God CAN arrange His particles as neutrons, protons, and electrons anytime He wants. (And angels likewise, if He permits). For example the divine Word quite possibly does so as Real Presence in the bread and wine (or at least did so in the past, I'm dubious that it's happening in today's pseudo-churches). That rearrangement would decrease His merit in no way, shape, or form.

Secondly what you're suggesting about mainstream Christianity is patently false. There's a free book online about DDS (Doctrine of Divine Simplicity), for example, confirming that DDS has dominated the church's definition of God for at least 1800 years. And I listed 13 points of DDS-incoherence in an earlier post. The church's position - aside from Tertullian - has always been that Spirit is the absolute antithesis of matter, that the two have essentially NOTHING in common, not even tangibility, indeed least of all tangibility.

Pure mind = heavenly matter = spirit. Nothing new in this, just semantics. In Hinduism, Brahman is called pure mind or pure consciousness all the time.

See above.

What is really _different_ is your ontology of God: That you deny that He is infinite, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient.

You just described God as heavenly matter. Mind explaining to me how "heavenly matter" can be omnipresent - plenally present - in the absolute sense and still allow room for created matter? Bear in mind that gibberish doesn't count as doctrine. Not on my thread, at least.

 

[JAL]

Yes of course, I agree - but, I am referring to our friend claiming that God cant be infinite because it clashes with his conceptual thinking - As if God has given us the mental tools to ever fully comprehend Him...

And you don't see the irony of this statement? You say we lack the tools to comprehend Him. And in the same breath, you claim:
(1) I have every right to claim that God is NOT finite.
(2) Jal has no right to claim that God is finite.
Make up your mind - do we have any tools to comprehend God, or not?

I'm not saying that we plenally comprehend Him in a quantitative sense - I have only an inkling, at best, of the full magnitude of His love, power, purity, merit, and so on. But if we can't even comprehend Him in a qualitative sense, then:
(1) Paul apparently lied when he claimed Scripture to be didactic?
(2) And therefore we should all throw away our Bibles?

 

[JAL]

Does God have a physical body? | GotQuestions.org

Following up on post 265, this is part 2 of my critique of the article.
Does God have a physical body? | GotQuestions.org

The article makes a clear assertion of DDS (Doctrine of Divine Simplicity).

"God is spirit as opposed to physical/material in His Being....God is not composed of matter nor any other imaginable substance. He also cannot be measured, is not spatial, and has no true location..."

Most participants on this thread, as well as the article itself, are telling me that it is logically impossible for God to actually BE matter, that at most He can (misleadingly) PORTRAY Himself in the semblance of a material object. That's not what Scripture teaches:

"The [divine] Word became flesh" (John 1:14).

The Greek word for flesh is sarx discussed at length at post 191. The above words are the literal rendering, as opposed to something less radical such as, "The Word entered into flesh." No. The Word BECAME flesh. This is an occasioning of the equation: "The divine Word IS flesh". If Scripture wants to convince us that God isn't matter, it's doing a poor job. Someone once asked me, "Doesn't this contradict your own view. If God is already matter, how can He BECOME matter?" Suppose you eat a peanut butter sandwich. Your digestive system transforms it into cellular protoplasm. It BECOMES flesh. Thus we have the simple formula: Matter can become flesh. No problem there. However, what if somone "fed" you an immaterial sandwich (were that possible). Would it become flesh? Total nonsense. Total gibberish. To summarize, John 1:14 confirms that materialism is exegetically more plausible than immaterialism. Ok, this was a new argument not yet introduced. The rest of my critique of the article will be somewhat redundant to arguments already made, for those who don't really have time to read the whole thing.


To repeat the quote from the article:

"God is spirit as opposed to physical/material in His Being. This does not mean He cannot localize a physical appearance. God is not composed of matter nor any other imaginable substance. He also cannot be measured, is not spatial, and has no true location (presence is a different concept)."

Sheer gibberish. How can God, on the one hand, lack spatiality - no size, shape, location in space - and yet "localize a physical appearance"? Is such an "appearance" a mere hologram? After all, a hologram is just a light-manipulation, it's likely too intangible to accomplish this:

"Fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar" (Luke 9:24)

And recall that Abram welcomed God into his own house for supper, baked him up a loaf of bread, fired Him up a beef steak, and chatted with Him over the meal (Gen 18). Do holograms generally prefer beef? Or pork, maybe? What does the writer mean by claiming that God will sometimes "localize a physical appearance"? If it's a magically induced vision existing "only in the mind", localization is pointless. And again, a magical vision wouldn't be a tangible Fire consuming sacrifices. Therefore the writer must have in mind localized substance. What is this substance? Created matter? God encourages His people to bow down and worship created matter? Certainly he can't claim it is divine mattter, since he said:

"God is not composed of matter nor any other imaginable substance. He also cannot be measured, is not spatial, and has NO TRUE LOCATION."

Certainly the theophanies were not mere magical visions. How so? The divine Voice often emanated directly from the pillars of Cloud and Fire. Objective sound is energy originating from a specific spatial location. Examples:

"For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses FROM WITHIN THE CLOUD" (Ex 24)

"While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came FROM THE CLOUD, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” (Luke 9).

That's not a magical voice. A magical voice would originate from NOWHERE. His voice even shook Mt.Sinai (Heb 12:26). Similarly, the pillar of Cloud transformed itself into Fire at night to illuminate Israel's travels, because Fire radiates Light - from a specific spatial location.

The above citations of the article, in the spirit of DDS, are anti-volumetric, that is, they repudiate (potentially) measurable volumes of the divine Glory. And yet the language of Scripture favors volumetric intepretation. How so? Ephes 5:18 and John 20:22 shed light here:

"Be filled with the Holy Breath" (Eph 5:18)
"Jesus breathed on them, and said, 'Receive ye the Holy Breath'" (John 20:22).

Jesus was expelling a volume of the divine Pneuma from His lungs. Equally decisive is Paul's usage of the term "filled". How so? It's safe to say that the human soul is a substance. After all, it DOES have a location (it is inside the human body) and can be thrown into hell. God does not throw a concept into hell (makes no sense), nor does He throw an emotion into hell (makes no sense). He throws substances in hell. Interestingly John "SAW THE SOULS of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus" (Rev 20:4). And using similar reasoning, it's pretty clear that God is a substance. How would Jesus outpour the Third Person on Pentecost if He is not an existing substance? How did He descend on Samson time and again?

Again, Paul wanted the human soul to be filled with the Holy Breath (Eph 5:18). How is the term "filled" used? I submit that there is no exception to the following rule - not in any language neither modern nor ancient: When the term "filled" is used to refer to one substance being filled with another substance it is always a volumetric connotation. In terms of the most plausible exegesis, therefore, the phrase "filled with the Holy Breath" is a volumetric reference. I already argued that the soul spans the human body. Sanctification, therefore, is the divine Glory filling His temple from head to toe. Note how the term "filled" is used volumetrically in Scripture:

"The cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle" (Ex 40).

"When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple" (2Chron 7)

"Fill your hands with burning coals from among the cherubim and scatter them over the city." (Ezek 10:2)

"Then the glory of the LORD rose from above the cherubim and moved to the threshold of the temple. The cloud filled the temple, and the court was full of the radiance of the glory of the LORD" (Ezek 10:4).


"“Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the Lord." (Jer 23).

"I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple" (Isa 6).

"The whole earth is full of His glory.” (Isa 6).

"The temple was filled with smoke" (Isa 6, Rev 15)


These verses confirm my metaphysics. In my understanding, divine omnipresence means volumes of the divine Word distributed more or less sparsely throughout the universe. Yahweh fills the whole universe with His glory.


God alone is holy (Rev 15) because holiness refers to the sum total of His perfections. Thus humans are holy only in a derived sense. For example Samon either had real strength (real muscles) or derived strength, meaning God clothed him like an Iron-man suit and did all the heavy lifting Himself. Regardless whether Samson's strength was real or derived, however, it's pretty clear that our holiness is derived. Why is this important? Holiness is not obedience - holiness is where God dwells. "Take off your sandals, since you stand on holy ground". Why was the ground holy? Was it obeying God? No. The Fire in the burning bush radiated divine Light even onto the ground at Moses' feet, making it holy ground. Now for the million dollar question. How much of the human body does God want holy? All of it, which means that sanctification must be defined as waiting on God, in prayer and praise, to fill the human temple from head to toe. Christians have not understood that revival and sanctification are the same thing (basically the whole point of Galatians). We need outpourings.

This completes my rebuttal of the article.

 

[Carl Emerson]

Let me get this straight. Prior to this thread, if someone had asked you a question about God such as, "Is He a spirit?", you would have replied, "Forget about it. I have no idea and never will, because He is incomprehensible." This has always been your standard reply?

And if I go back and review your posts on other threads, can you assure me that I will always find that standard reply?

Not at all - we have been provided the language of the Scriptures to use including the word 'Spirit'.

This does not mean we fully comprehend what it means when we use the word.

We may never know - even in eternity. Such is the Wonder of God.

 

[Carl Emerson]

And you see the irony of this statement? You say we lack the tools to comprehend Him.

That is a misquote - I said fully comprehend...

Consider Psalm 111:2

2Great are the works of the LORD; they are pondered by all who delight in them.

Pondered does not mean fully understood.

Our learning of His Glory will never end even in eternity.

 

[Saint Steven]

"God is spirit as opposed to physical/material in His Being....God is not composed of matter nor any other imaginable substance. He also cannot be measured, is not spatial, and has no true location..."

So much for the Lord's Prayer. - lol
"Our Father, who art in heaven..."

 

[JAL]

That is a misquote - I said fully comprehend...

Consider Psalm 111:2

2Great are the works of the LORD; they are pondered by all who delight in them.

Pondered does not mean fully understood.

Our learning of His Glory will never end even in eternity.

Sure sounded like you were saying it's okay for you to draw your conclusions from Scripture but not okay for me to plumb it on the same topics. Perhaps I misunderstood. I re-read your post and decided it wasn't particularly clear. I'll leave it at that.

 

[JAL]

So much for the Lord's Prayer. - lol
"Our Father, who art in heaven..."

Excellent point. I hadn't even thought of that. Thanks. Reminds me of the Reformed theologian Louis Berkhof, who stated in his Systematic Theology that Scripture unquestionably points our eyes geographically upwards to heaven and downwards to hell. A couple of examples:

"9After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight" (Acts 1)

"But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God." (Acts 7).

You're right. Based on exegesis, it's hard to claim that the Father has no spatial location.

I like how that last verse has "the glory of God". There was no need to say "The Father" because, in the OT, the glory of Yahweh was typically a human-shaped figure enshrouded in pillars of Fire and Cloud. I find it entertaining to detect possible instances of continuity between the two testaments.

 

[JAL]

@EVERYONE;

If the divine Word is immaterial, one wonders why Jesus would speak like this:

"And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” (Lk 22).

For several centuries, I am told, it was standard practice for Catholics to worship the host. My mother is Catholic, and still does it today. Personally I can't do such a thing in good conscience because I am not confident that the divine Word is sacramentally present in today's ceremonies. But the point is this. If the divine Word is immaterial, Jesus should have never spoken in a manner that potentially fosters idolatry. And His related statements would seem equally inappropriate:

"Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you"

Surely this is not a reference to His earthly flesh and blood. Even Paul says that all creatures have differing kinds of flesh. Therefore Jesus was perfectly warranted in classifying the various liquids and solids of the divine Word as His own flesh and blood. Again:

"This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

It's hard to see this verse as a mere metaphor, since He LITERALLY gave up His flesh for the life of the world.