God Is a Physical Being

JAL

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Could you provide some evidence to support the claim that Tertullian favors a wholly physical God, other than his belief in the Stoic concept that everything that exists has a bodily existence, for him that also included spirit and soul. He, in believing this, is not saying that God has a body.
How are you not contradicting yourself here? You admit that Tertullian ascribed bodily existence to everything but denied a body of God? Look, the church has for a long time been embarrassed about Tertullian's materialism as a result of being steeped in Platonic indoctrination. As a result, some individuals have tried to interpret him in immaterial ways. But there's too much evidence against that nonsense, it seems to me. Anyway here are a couple of sources.

The Catholic Encyclopedia admitted that Tertullian conceded immaterialism of not one thing, meaning he was a materialist in all things, and thus for him even God is a body, "Immateriality in the fullest sense he admits for nothing that exists, — even God is corpus".
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Tertullian

Tertullian made a clear "ascription to God of corporeity" (Encyclopedia4u.com on Tertullian).

Quoting Tertullian, Roberts insisted that materialism is plainly evident in Tertullian [who wrote], "'For who will deny that God is a body, although God is a spirit? For spirit has a bodily substance, of its own kind, in its own form.' Here the corporeity of God, in a certain sense, is clearly held, and the notion is applied in like manner to the human soul. [Tertullian stated:]‗Everything which exists is a bodily existence sui generis. Nothing lacks bodily existence but that which is non-existent" (R.E. Roberts, The Theology of Tertullian, p. 127).

As is well known, Tertullian regarded immaterialism as the incoherent claim of a substance without substance. Nothingness. Nada. Zilch. Or as Roberts stated in the above citation, Tertullian's view was this:

"Everything which exists is a bodily existence sui generis. Nothing lacks bodily existence but that which is non-existent".
 
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Lost4words

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Hate to break the news to you, but if the goal of exegesis is to select the most plausible translation based on the context, you can't possibly hold to "spirit" on a purely exegetical basis. If you hold to that conclusion based on Tradition, fine, but please don't associate it with exegesis - for a couple of reasons. I'll clarify one of them here.

2 Tim 3:16 says that all Scripture is didactic. God considers it potentially useful for instruction, and He is not an obtuse teacher, nor intentionally misleading. That's generally the presupposition of the exegetical procedure. Fine. In the passages NOT in dispute here (actual souls), how is the term pneuma/ruach used? Even in the Greek OT? All parties agree that at least 100 times, it clearly denotes physical wind/breath. And yet THAT is the SAME term that God chose for souls! (Laying aside for the moment the term soul/psuche, which ALSO originates in wind/breath).

Again, is God a wise instructor? Or a foolish one? Or intentionally misleading? When the NT was written God was WELL AWARE that there would be potentially two competing translations for the term pneuma and thus the phrase "The Holy Pneuma"
(1) The Holy Spirit/Ghost as immaterial substance.
(2) The Holy Wind/Breath as material substance.

God could have solved the conflict easily if He wanted to convey immaterial substance. He could have actually chosen a traditional Greek term for Ghost, or even used the word "immaterial" or "non-material". He did none of that. It thus looks to me, if I were an immaterialist, that's He's not doing a very good job here didactically speaking. But it only gets worse. The LEAST He could have done, in this conflicted scenario, is to abstain from mentioning wind/breath in the CONTEXT of the third person. After all, we're talking about the TITLE of the third person which, as such, cannot change from verse to verse. Therefore if we can find even ONE PASSAGE that clearly mentions wind/breath in the CONTEXT of the Third Person, the scales are tipped decisively in favor of translation #2. (Again, unless you think that God is an inane instructor).

In point of fact there are SEVERAL passages that put wind/breath in the context of the Third Person. Here's an example I gave at post 12:

"The Red Sea did not part instantly. Rather a wind slowly pushed the waters apart over the course of an entire evening. According to Moses, that wind was a blast of Breath from God's nostrils (Ex 15). This is God physically pushing a pencil - by direct agency. The word that Moses used for Breath in that passage is the SAME WORD blatantly mistranslated "The Holy Spirit" for 2,000 years."

My favorite example is John 20:22:

"Jesus breathed on His disciples, and said, 'Receive ye The Holy [Breath]" (Jn 20:22).

Jesus was expelling physical wind/breath from His nostrils. In my understanding, there was a scholarly consensus, for at least 1,000 years in the church, that the above rendering was the most literal translation of the Greek. Even some modern scholars admit this to be the most literal rendering.

Another great example is Pentecost:

"They heard the sound of a mighty rushing wind...They were all filled with the Holy [Wind]" (Acts 2).

Again, the CONTEXT is exegetically decisive. Even a relatively uneducated Greek child, in those days, would have rendered the text as I just did, based on the context. ONLY a Platonist could possibly read "magical immaterial substance" into these passages.

God is still spirit
 
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JAL

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God is still spirit
Repeating an assertion exegetically discredited at post 34 doesn't make it true. So I think your basis here is Tradition, not exegesis, although it would behoove you to be forthcoming about it. First, to recap, post 34 argued, regarding these two translations:
(1) The Holy Spirit/Ghost as immaterial substance.
(2) The Holy Wind/Breath as material substance.
that option 1 is an exegetically impossible conclusion given contextual considerations. As promised, it's a 2-part argument, and now is the time for part II.

Option 1 is an exegetically impossible translation because it culminates in a blatant misuse of language that doesn't even make sense. Suppose I were describing to you a particular family consisting of husband, wife, and child. But instead of using the terms husband, wife, and child - or even father, son, and mother - I used the following phrase:

"I introduce you to The father, the son, and the HUMAN BEING."

This kind of language DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE. Neither you nor anyone else would ever make such a ridiculous statement - ridiculous because ALL THREE OF THEM are human beings. To refer to ONE of the three members as "the human being" would - if anything at all - cast doubt as to whether the first two are even human. Secondly, one of the main functions of a title is to provide some kind of conceptual distinction between various members. If the Bible's language fails to provide distinctions between the three members, it thereby undermines the biblical basis for Trinitarianism. I'm a Trinitarian myself.

So here's the problem. Mainstream Christianity regards ALL THREE members as "spirit" (and holy). Thus the term "Holy Spirit", in mainstream thinking, actually applies to all three of them. Hence the phrase Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is just as ridiculous as saying of a human family, "The Father, the Son, and the Human Being." The only way to solve this is to acknowledge that "Spirit" is a mistranslation of the Third Person's title.

The correct translation is therefore obvious. "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Breath". This provides a clear formulation of the Trinity - it clearly distinguishes the three members:
(1) The Father is a physical figure seated on a throne.
(2) The Son is a physical figure seated at His right hand.
(3) The Holy Breath emanates from the Son's mouth when He speaks (Psalm 33:6), and from His nostrils when He breathes/exhales (John 20:22). He exhales even Fire and Smoke:

"Smoke rose from His nostrils, and consuming fire came from His mouth; glowing coals blazed forth..The channels of the sea appeared, and the foundations of the world were exposed, at Your rebuke, O LORD,at the blast of the breath of Your nostrils" (Psalm 18).

In all these passages, the word "breath" is the SAME word usually mistranslated "Holy Spirit" for 2,000 years.
 
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timewerx

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And let's keep some perspective here. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. There is no burden of proof on materialists because the existence of material object is not an extraordinary claim. Matter is something we see every day. Whereas immaterialism - the idea that some kind of magical, non-material substance exists - is a VERY extraordinary claim, and thus should be backed with extraordinary amounts of biblical evidence. Except - zero evidence exists!

I have to agree with you according to some experiments I performed mostly in the context of science.

...That "spiritual beings" are actually physical and even fits within the scientific model.

Science simply never looked into that direction because it's considered heretical in the field. Science is more or less a religion in the opposite sense (blind rejection of anything related to the concept of a god, and anything related to witchcraft). A false one, just like any other false religions that actually believes in a god. Boxed thinking which cataclymically prevents any real progress in knowing the truth.

But as I've said, you can collect tangible and repeatable data concerning supernatural beings. You just need to know where to look.
 
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A_Thinker

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The church father Tertullian (200 AD) was rightly a staunch materialist who realized that all of the biblical data - not just some of it, literally all of it - favors a wholly physical God. In fact the entire exegetical case for an immaterial God is predicated on the blatant, exegetically unsupportable mistranslation of the terms pneuma and ruach (breath/wind) as "spirit", due to the influence of a Platonic philosophy known as The Doctrine of Divine Simplicity (DDS). The term "spirit" is, in a nutshell, an English term unjustifiable exegetically. Moreover the human soul (i.e. the human pneuma) is truistically/tautologically material on an essentially empirical basis - for example Tertullian's tautological argument for the materiality of the human soul has never been refuted.

Understand that I'm a staunch Trinitarian, like Tertullian. In fact:
(1) Tertullian is the first person known to use the word Trinity.
(2) Phillip Schaff, one of the world's foremost experts on othodoxy, considered Tertullian to be one of the best defenders of orthodoxy in church history.

This discussion began on another thread closed at the request of the opening poster. I will copy some of that material, as it pertains to my posts, over to this thread.
In John 3, Jesus makes a difference ... between the spirit and the flesh, when Nicodemus questions Him, asking ...

4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?

5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Also, Jesus DESCRIBES the Spirit ... in a particularly incorporeal way ...

8 The wind blows where it desires, and you can hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from, or where it goes: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

Jesus is, certainly clear that God ... is a Spirit ...

John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Furthermore, the scriptures speak of the Spirit as ...

... One who would come, when Christ, Himself, had gone back to the Father.

... One who would comfort us, teach us, reprove the world of sin, communicate the deepest yearnings of our heart to the Father, remind us of the teachings of Jesus.

... One who come to live within us.

The coming of the Spirit is described as ... the sound of a rushing wind, and seen as "tongues of fire upon each one in the upper room", ... which imbued those gathered with the ability to speak the languages of all those gathered in the city for Pentecost.

Paul teaches that the Spirit leads us in our everyday living, that the Spirit makes our bodies its temple. Paul goes on to teach that the Spirit strives against our FLESH, to lead us from the works of the flesh (i.e. evil), ... and to produce the fruits of the Spirit (i.e. good).

According to the scriptures, the Spirit is here all around and inside us, and yet we do not see Him.

How would this be possible ... if the Spirit was not something other than physical ???
 
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Lost4words

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Repeating an assertion exegetically discredited at post 34 doesn't make it true. So I think your basis here is Tradition, not exegesis, although it would behoove you to be forthcoming about it. First, to recap, post 34 argued, regarding these two translations:
(1) The Holy Spirit/Ghost as immaterial substance.
(2) The Holy Wind/Breath as material substance.
that option 1 is an exegetically impossible conclusion given contextual considerations. As promised, it's a 2-part argument, and now is the time for part II.

Option 1 is an exegetically impossible translation because it culminates in a blatant misuse of language that doesn't even make sense. Suppose I were describing to you a particular family consisting of husband, wife, and child. But instead of using the terms husband, wife, and child - or even father, son, and mother - I used the following phrase:

"I introduce you to The father, the son, and the HUMAN BEING."

This kind of language DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE. Neither you nor anyone else would ever make such a ridiculous statement - ridiculous because ALL THREE OF THEM are human beings. To refer to ONE of the three members as "the human being" would - if anything at all - cast doubt as to whether the first two are even human. Secondly, one of the main functions of a title is to provide some kind of conceptual distinction between various members. If the Bible's language fails to provide distinctions between the three members, it thereby undermines the biblical basis for Trinitarianism. I'm a Trinitarian myself.

So here's the problem. Mainstream Christianity regards ALL THREE members as "spirit" (and holy). Thus the term "Holy Spirit", in mainstream thinking, actually applies to all three of them. Hence the phrase Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is just as ridiculous as saying of a human family, "The Father, the Son, and the Human Being." The only way to solve this is to acknowledge that "Spirit" is a mistranslation of the Third Person's title.

The correct translation is therefore obvious. "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Breath". This provides a clear formulation of the Trinity - it clearly distinguishes the three members:
(1) The Father is a physical figure seated on a throne.
(2) The Son is a physical figure seated at His right hand.
(3) The Holy Breath emanates from the Son's mouth when He speaks (Psalm 33:6), and from His nostrils when He breathes/exhales (John 20:22). He exhales even Fire and Smoke:

"Smoke rose from His nostrils, and consuming fire came from His mouth; glowing coals blazed forth..The channels of the sea appeared, and the foundations of the world were exposed, at Your rebuke, O LORD,at the blast of the breath of Your nostrils" (Psalm 18).

In all these passages, the word "breath" is the SAME word usually mistranslated "Holy Spirit" for 2,000 years.

No. God IS spirit. You see it differently to me. You interpret scripture in your own way so that it ties in with your beliefs.

God bless you
 
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A_Thinker

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So here's the problem. Mainstream Christianity regards ALL THREE members as "spirit" (and holy). Thus the term "Holy Spirit", in mainstream thinking, actually applies to all three of them. Hence the phrase Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is just as ridiculous as saying of a human family, "The Father, the Son, and the Human Being." The only way to solve this is to acknowledge that "Spirit" is a mistranslation of the Third Person's title.
The titles of the Persons of the Godhead ... are indicative of their primary roles regarding mankind.

The Father is the Creator of all, and He who superintends.

The Son is BORN into the human family ... and lays down that physical life ... to bring us back into communion with God. He is, essentially, ... a proper "elder brother".

Finally, the Spirit is our ever-present Guide into holiness, ... all around us and in us, though we cannot see Him, ... like the wind.
 
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Paidiske

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If you're going to quote posts from a closed thread in order to debate them, it'd be at least polite to tag those of us you are quoting so that we are aware of the ongoing discussion.

He didn't preexist space. He's a material being. How could He preexist space?

He created space. Dissenting from that would put you in conflict with the Nicene Creed, and the rules of this forum.
 
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JAL

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@A_Thinker.

The word "spirit" or "Spirit" is an exegetically unsupportable translation for reasons already stated.

In John 3, Jesus makes a difference ... between the spirit and the flesh, when Nicodemus questions Him, asking ...
No He didn't make a distinction between flesh and "spirit". He made a distinction between flesh and pneuma (body versus soul). There is no basis here for conjuring up Plato's "magical immaterial substance". Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That burden of proof hasn't been met. The passage is discussing the new birth. Are you aware that theologians have literally throw up their hands in frustration trying to define how the new birth occurs? They call it "inscrutable" - impossible to understand - because you cannot explain it on immaterial terms!

The new birth is a cinch to explain once you remove Plato from the equation. It is easily explained in material terms. How does God, for example, foster saving faith in Jesus Christ? Simple. Your thoughts proceed directionally as electrochemical impulses in your brain. All God needs to do is physically redirect those impulses toward saving faith in Christ! That's how the Third Person "convicted" (convinced) us. That's how we all got saved!

So tell me, why do I need to postulate magical immaterial substance to comprehend John 3? Or John 4? All that does is muddy the waters!

6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.


Exegetically unsupportable translation of verse 6. Here's what Jesus said at verse 6.


"That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Pneuma is pneuma" ()

What does Pneuma mean in this passage? It means the divine physical Wind. Verse 8 proves the point irrefutably:


"The [divine] Pneuma [i.e. Wind] blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound but know not where it is going or whence it came. So it is of everyone born [i.e. regenerated] of the [divine] Pneuma [i.e. Wind]".

How do I know this passage is talking about divine Wind, not about ordinary wind used as a metaphor for Spirit? Three reasons:
(1) Pneuma is used twice. A word is almost never used as a metaphor for the same word - that's not generally how metaphors work. Exegesis looks for the most PLAUSIBLE reading. Therefore it can be safely assumed that the term pneuma is not used here as a metaphor for pneuma. Let's bear in mind that this speech is the Son's magnum opus on salvation. It is literally God Himself standing in front of all mankind explaining how to be saved. That's the ONE speech that we'd expect to be relatively clear, not filled with confusing, senseless, essentially impossible metaphors.
(2) Pneuma-as-metaphor-for-Pneuma undermines Trinitarianism. If pneuma can serve as a metaphor for God, then we could justifiably limit the Trinity to Father and Son (i.e. a Duality) on exegetical grounds, because pneuma could be a metaphor for those two.
(3) Here's the clincher. Read the passage again. THIS kind of wind, it says, blows wherever it pleases. Whereas ordinary wind doesn't blow where it pleases, rather it is driven by forces of nature, and ends up wherever those forces drive it, it has no control over its destination. Clearly this is divine Wind blowing.

Again, this speech is supposed to be a clear description of salvation. The Platonic belief in Spirit has only muddied the waters. Hence for 2,000 years the church has considered John 3:5 to be obscure:

"Unless a man is born of water and Spirit [?????], he cannot see the Kindgom of God".

Water? But verse 16 says it is by faith alone! Remove Plato from the equation, and it all begins to make sense. Here's what Jesus REALLY said:

"Unless a man is born of [divine] Water [Hudor] and Wind [Pneuma], he cannot see the Kindgom of God".

Your body is mostly water, and wind (oxygen) plays a significant role even in the brain. Therefore it is logically impossible for God to regenerate you without recourse to assuming the shape of Water and Wind. He literally must sprinkle clean Water [Hudor] on you, and put His Breath/Wind in you:

"I will sprinkle clean water [Hudor] on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols...And I will put my Pneuma [i.e. Wind/Breath] in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws" (Ezek 36).

God supplies the Water! Therefore salvation is by faith alone (see verse 16) - no need for water baptism! The most that we have to bring to the table, if anything at all, is faith!

See what I did? By removing Plato from the equation, I just made sense of a passage that has mystified the church for 2,000 years.
 
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chilehed

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The church father Tertullian (200 AD) was rightly a staunch materialist who realized that all of the biblical data - not just some of it, literally all of it - favors a wholly physical God. In fact the entire exegetical case for an immaterial God is predicated on the blatant, exegetically unsupportable mistranslation of the terms pneuma and ruach
Please. This is total, complete nonsense. You're certainly entitled to hold this bizarre personal opinion, but that's all it is.

Rave on as you wish.
 
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A_Thinker

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@A_Thinker.

The word "spirit" or "Spirit" is an exegetically unsupportable translation for reasons already stated.

No He didn't make a distinction between flesh and "spirit". He made a distinction between flesh and pneuma (body versus soul). There is no basis here for conjuring up Plato's "magical immaterial substance". Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That burden of proof hasn't been met. The passage is discussing the new birth. Are you aware that theologians have literally throw up their hands in frustration trying to define how the new birth occurs? They call it "inscrutable" - impossible to understand - because you cannot explain it on immaterial terms!

The new birth is a cinch to explain once you remove Plato from the equation. It is easily explained in material terms. How does God, for example, foster saving faith in Jesus Christ? Simple. Your thoughts proceed directionally as electrochemical impulses in your brain. All God needs to do is physically redirect those impulses toward saving faith in Christ! That's how the Third Person "convicted" (convinced) us. That's how we all got saved!

So tell me, why do I need to postulate magical immaterial substance to comprehend John 3? Or John 4? All that does is muddy the waters!



Exegetically unsupportable translation of verse 6. Here's what Jesus said at verse 6.


"That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Pneuma is pneuma" ()

What does Pneuma mean in this passage? It means the divine physical Wind. Verse 8 proves the point irrefutably:


"The [divine] Pneuma [i.e. Wind] blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound but know not where it is going or whence it came. So it is of everyone born [i.e. regenerated] of the [divine] Pneuma [i.e. Wind]".

How do I know this passage is talking about divine Wind, not about ordinary wind used as a metaphor for Spirit? Three reasons:
(1) Pneuma is used twice. A word is almost never used as a metaphor for the same word - that's not generally how metaphors work. Exegesis looks for the most PLAUSIBLE reading. Therefore it can be safely assumed that the term pneuma is not used here as a metaphor for pneuma. Let's bear in mind that this speech is the Son's magnum opus on salvation. It is literally God Himself standing in front of all mankind explaining how to be saved. That's the ONE speech that we'd expect to be relatively clear, not filled with confusing, senseless, essentially impossible metaphors.
(2) Pneuma-as-metaphor-for-Pneuma undermines Trinitarianism. If pneuma can serve as a metaphor for God, then we could justifiably limit the Trinity to Father and Son (i.e. a Duality) on exegetical grounds, because pneuma could be a metaphor for those two.
(3) Here's the clincher. Read the passage again. THIS kind of wind, it says, blows wherever it pleases. Whereas ordinary wind doesn't blow where it pleases, rather it is driven by forces of nature, and ends up wherever those forces drive it, it has no control over its destination. Clearly this is divine Wind blowing.

Again, this speech is supposed to be a clear description of salvation. The Platonic belief in Spirit has only muddied the waters. Hence for 2,000 years the church has considered John 3:5 to be obscure:

"Unless a man is born of water and Spirit [?????], he cannot see the Kindgom of God".

Water? But verse 16 says it is by faith alone! Remove Plato from the equation, and it all begins to make sense. Here's what Jesus REALLY said:

"Unless a man is born of Water [Hudor] and Wind [Pneuma], he cannot see the Kindgom of God".

Your body is mostly water, and wind (oxygen) plays a significant role even in the brain. Therefore it is logically impossible for God to regenerate you without recourse to assuming the shape of Water and Wind. He literally must sprinkle clean Water [Hudor] on you, and put His Breath/Wind in you:

"I will sprinkle clean water [Hudor] on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols...And I will put my Pneuma [i.e. Wind/Breath] in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws" (Ezek 36).

God supplies the Water! Therefore salvation is by faith alone (see verse 16) - no need for water baptism! The most that we have to bring to the table, if anything at all, is faith!

See what I did? By removing Plato from the equation, I just made sense of a passage that has mystified the church for 2,000 years.
Your unresolved issues ...

John says God is Spirit/Pneuma-Wind.

Paul teaches that the Holy Spirit/Pneuma-Wind ... is here among us, inside of us, interacting with us on a moment-by-moment basis ... yet we never sense any PHYSICAL evidence of Him ...
 
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JAL

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Your unresolved issues ...

John says God is Spirit/Pneuma-Wind.

Paul teaches that the Holy Spirit/Pneuma-Wind ... is here among us, inside of us, interacting with us on a moment-by-moment basis ... yet we never sense any PHYSICAL evidence of Him ...
We never sense any physical evidence of Him? The degree to which we feel God's presence can vary, for example on factors such as these:
(1) Our spiritual maturity.
(2) The presence of revival. Most nations haven't seen revival for centuries, and even most revivals don't compare to Pentecost.

Trust me, if you live through a major revival, you'll feel the divine Presence physically. But for now, just consider the biblical data. The Light that shone in Paul's eyes, was it physical? Yes. How so? It lasered his eyes blind, such that physical scales formed over his eyes. That's a fact of Scripture. And it's one of those clear cases where excuses about "metaphors" aren't going to cut the mustard. Physically blinded eyes do not a metaphor make.

Same with Moses. When he came down from the mountain, his face shone. Was it a physical Light? Yes. How so? He had to put a physical veil over his face to restrain it from blinding Israel's eyes. A physical veil cannot restrain immaterial Light!
 
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JAL

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Oh sorry did I forget to mention the Transfiguration? That was physical Light too. How so? Because every time that Peter's sleepy, droopy eyelids fell shut, he lost sight of the vision. That's a fact of Scripture.

Again, 100% of the biblical data supports physical dynamics. And the attempt to dismiss it all as metaphors contradicts the facts.
 
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Here's a good example. In the OT, the pillar of divine Cloud turned to a pillar of Fire by night, to illuminate Israel's path in their journeys. That's because fire radiates light. Fire up a candle in a dark room if you don't believe me. If God is a magical being who radiates magical immaterial light, why does Scripture document the event as physical Fire radiating physical Light? Again, only the ingenuity of a philosophical thinker like Plato could possibly find any trace of "magical immaterial substance" in the biblical phenomenology.
 
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A_Thinker

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We never sense any physical evidence of Him? The degree to which we feel God's presence can vary, for example on factors such as these:
(1) Our spiritual maturity.
(2) The presence of revival. Most nations haven't seen revival for centuries, and even most revivals don't compare to Pentecost.

Trust me, if you live through a major revival, you'll feel the divine Presence physically. But for now, just consider the biblical data. The Light that shone in Paul's eyes, was it physical? Yes. How so? It lasered his eyes blind, such that physical scales formed over his eyes. That's a fact of Scripture. And it's one of those clear cases where excuses about "metaphors" aren't going to cut the mustard. Physically blinded eyes do not a metaphor make.

Same with Moses. When he came down from the mountain, his face shone. Was it a physical Light? Yes. How so? He had to put a physical veil over his face to restrain it from blinding Israel's eyes. A physical veil cannot restrain immaterial Light!
So ... your points here only adress my second point, ... and is invalid ... because there is no reason to suppose that the non-physical can manipulate the physical.

It is, after all, His creation ...
 
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JAL

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He created space. Dissenting from that would put you in conflict with the Nicene Creed, and the rules of this forum.
It's a question of definition and perspective. In Tertullian's definition of God as a material being, space is an attribute of God. God does not have to create His own attributes.
 
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JAL

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So ... your points here only adress my second point, ... and is invalid ... because there is no reason to suppose that the non-physical can manipulate the physical.

It is, after all, His creation ...
I'm not clear on what crucial point of yours that I've missed. I've provided plausible exegetical evidence for my position. For the most part, the other participants on this thread have regurgitated traditional philosophical views without recourse to Scripture, and without much logical cogency.
 
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