God Is a Physical Being

Carl Emerson · May 19, 2020

The problem with your position is that it reduces God to your human concepts when He is past finding out.

Have you had an encounter with Him that has left you speechless for hours as you are impacted by His awesome unfathomable 'otherness' ???

JAL · May 19, 2020

ViaCrucis said:
Should I make my door bigger, so God has an easier time coming inside? I presume it needs to be a very big door, since "In Him we live and move and have our being".

How big do you think the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth is? Like, should I instead just have some sort of giant ceiling hatch on my roof or something?

I don't want God bonking His head when I pray.

-CryptoLutheran

All joking aside, some of us might indeed be alive when Jesus returns. And I surmise that He will send His angels to gather up His people.

26“At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens."

"We who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever" (1Th 4).

As for these angels that will collect our bodies and transport them, do you expect they will they do so with tangible hands? Or intangible hands? Just curious what your take is on all this.

JAL · May 19, 2020

Carl Emerson said:
The problem with your position is that it reduces God to your human concepts when He is past finding out. Have you had an encounter with Him that has left you speechless for hours as you are impacted by His awesome unfathomable 'otherness' ???

Actually I'd be surprised if you yourself actually had an encounter of the touted magnitude, given that our generation hasn't seen much in the way of real revival. No offense, but such claims usually seem to be slightly hyped-up to me. But I agree with you that a significant encounter with God would likely shake one to the core. (I remember physically shaking all night long after a man put a gun to my head, although I don't know if an encounter with God would shake me a similar way). Anyway you alluded to God's incomprehensibility. Let's be clear that it's quantitative, not qualitative (see posts 9, 10, 11). In other words, you DO comprehend God.

Let's talk about your encounter with God. He evidently targeted you with a powerful revelation. At that moment, why didn't the rest of us receive the same revelation? Physical dynamics. I already discussed this earlier. Your material sphere of reality is what individuates you from everyone else. As the Catholic Encyclopedia noted, even Platonists have a tendency to fallback onto a degree of materialism in order to salvage some vestige of individuation. Thus:
(1) You alone experienced that revelation because the divine Word targeted your body (alone) with it. Example:
"The [divine] Word came to [the prophet] Abram in a [revelatory] vision" (Gen 15:1).
(2) All intercommunication between two parties depends on that materialistic principle.
(3) The wrath of God depends on it as well. Consider the cross. How did God manage to pour His wrath out on Christ ALONE? He saw to it that Christ's body (alone) was physically targeted with that suffering.

In a followup post, I'll explain further why your encounter with God further corroborates materialism.

Aussie Pete · May 19, 2020

JAL said:
Wow. Plato's really got us blinded, hasn't he. This is a serious question? You're joking, right? Let me get this straight. I have defined God as a material being of a mass and volume so huge that, at minimum, it is enough to fill the whole universe (at varying densities, as He deigns). It's enough to fill 200 billion galaxies. And yet your question to me is, how could there possibly be enough of Him to fill the human bodies on planet Earth?

This reminds me of God's response when Moses questioned His ability to provide enough meat to feed Israel:

"The LORD answered Moses, "Is the LORD's arm too short?" (Num 11).

I must have missed something here. I think it is the use of the word physical. It makes no sense in the context of who God is. He is not made of something. He just IS - as He says Himself. If God is physical then you are headed into mystical territory that all creation is a part of God and God is part of it. That is just wrong.

JAL · May 19, 2020

Carl Emerson said:
The problem with your position is that it reduces God to your human concepts when He is past finding out. Have you had an encounter with Him that has left you speechless for hours as you are impacted by His awesome unfathomable 'otherness' ???

Consciousness is loudness. From the standpoint of experience, it is an ongoing stream of sensations more or less distinct ("loud and clear"). The cessation of those sensations, therefore, is unconsciousness and/or death.

Sensations also define fellowship. Fellowship between two parties can only be defined as a mutual exchange of sensations more or less distinct (loud and clear). I don't have to know the specifics of your encounter with God to subsume it under this general classification. After all, if the experience were insufficiently distinct ("loud and clear") for apprehension, you wouldn't even have noticed it.

The broader the spectrum of sensations, the more intimate the fellowship. Since God created us for fellowship (1Cor 1:9; Phi 2:1; 3:10; 1Jn 1:3, 6), it must be His desire to maximize the intimacy by availing of the full spectrum. Indeed He has little choice, because the mind will otherwise fill in the omitted details with its own idolatrous portraits of Him. This includes not only distinct ("loud and clear") sensations of love, joy, and peace, and the trembling at the distinct ("loud and clear") apprehension of His "unfathomable otherness" as you call it, but also, for example, the sensation of eating and drinking of Him:

"Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”

Not His earthly protoplasm - it was the divine Word being consumed here - the divine Body. Again, the Trinity is the Father seated on a throne, the Son at His right hand, and the Holy Wind/Breath emanating as the divine Word from their faces, mouths, and nostrils as Smoke, Wind, Fire, Light, etc.

Would you want a girlfriend never to be seen, heard, touched, smelled, etc? Matter is the basis of all intimacy. God's design for all of us, if we mature enough, is the same privileges awarded to Moses:

"The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend".

Hence Jesus lamented of the Jews:

"Ye have never heard His voice, nor seen His shape, nor does His Word dwell in you" ( Jn 5:37).

JAL · May 19, 2020

Aussie Pete said:
I must have missed something here. I think it is the use of the word physical. It makes no sense in the context of who God is. He is not made of something. He just IS - as He says Himself.

God is not an existing substance? Care to cite any theologians on this point? Seems to me that such a God - doesn't exist?

I think you mean to say He is an immaterial substance and thus, a substance without substance? And when you spread such apparent nonsense, are you sufficiently forthcoming to admit to everyone that it originated from the pagan philosopher Plato, not from Scripture?

If God is physical then you are headed into mystical territory that all creation is a part of God and God is part of it. That is just wrong.

Let's examine your words. Monism, in your view, implies that all parties involved constitute a single mind and a single moral agent? That's your position? It necessarily implies pantheism?

You don't actually believe that, however. If you believed your own words, you'd define atheistic materialism as follows:

"The doctrine that all physical beings jointly constitute one mind, one moral agent, thereby implying, for example, that if any one entity commits a crime, all entities in the universe should be punished."

To summarize, materialism is the basis of individuation, it is precisely what distinguishes me from God. Or in atheistic terms, "My body is what defines me and, by virtue of some physical distanciation from you, maintains me as an individual distinct from you and from all other moral agents."

Actually the odor (stench) of pantheism has always wafted from the traditional Platonic view, albeit rarely conceded. Immaterialism denies size and shape, it denies extension in space, it ultimately denies spatial location, and thus undermines the possibility of individuation. If all sentient reality is essentially an immaterial, non-individuated nothingness, then all of us, including God, form one pantheistic mind. You are logically indistinguishable from God.

Aussie Pete · May 19, 2020

JAL said:
God is not an existing substance? Care to cite any theologians on this point? Seems to me that such a God - doesn't exist?

I think you mean to say He is an immaterial substance and thus, a substance without substance? And when you spread such apparent nonsense, are you sufficiently forthcoming to admit to everyone that it originated from the pagan philosopher Plato, not from Scripture?

Let's examine your words. Monism, in your view, implies that all parties involved constitute a single mind and a single moral agent? That's your position? It necessarily implies pantheism?

You don't actually believe that, however. If you believed your own words, you'd define atheistic materialism as follows:

"The doctrine that all physical beings jointly constitute one mind, one moral agent, thereby implying, for example, that if any one entity commits a crime, all entities in the universe should be punished."

To summarize, materialism is the basis of individuation, it is precisely what distinguishes me from God. Or in atheistic terms, "My body is what defines me and, by virtue of some physical distanciation from you, maintains me as an individual distinct from you and from all other moral agents."

Actually the odor (stench) of pantheism has always wafted from the traditional Platonic view, albeit rarely conceded. Immaterialism denies size and shape, it denies extension in space, it ultimately denies spatial location, and thus undermines the possibility of individuation. If all sentient reality is essentially an immaterial, non-individuated nothingness, then all of us, including God, form one pantheistic mind. You are logically indistinguishable from God.

Way too deep for me. I am no student of Plato or any philosopher. I object to the word physical. That's all.

JAL · May 19, 2020

Aussie Pete said:
Way too deep for me. I am no student of Plato or any philosopher. I object to the word physical. That's all.

Ok, but as demonstrated on this thread, 100% of the biblical data favors a physical metaphysic over a non-physical one. As I quoted from the Catholic Encyclopedia on this point, the patristic church placed Plato (et. al.) on a par with Scripture and, accordingly, opted for the non-physical view (essentially dismissing the biblical data as misleading anthropomorphisms) - with the exception of the church father Tertullian (200 AD) who, like me, accepted the full materiality of God.

Anyway that's your theological heritage.

Carl Emerson · May 19, 2020

JAL said:
Actually I'd be surprised if you yourself actually had an encounter of the touted magnitude, given that our generation hasn't seen much in the way of real revival. No offense, but such claims usually seem to be slightly hyped-up to me.

Our church exploded in the 70's - you must have missed it.

Carl Emerson · May 19, 2020

JAL said:
In a followup post, I'll explain further why your encounter with God further corroborates materialism.

Please dont...

JAL · May 19, 2020

Carl Emerson said:
Our church exploded in the 70's - you must have missed it.

Many people have very different standards and definitions of revival.

Allen of the Cross · May 19, 2020

I've only read a couple of pages, so if someone else has said something like this, forgive me. I enjoy this conversation and would like to talk to you JAL.

Now I truly mean no offense, and am not putting anyone down, but this is my belief: I do believe that the nature of God is something so far out of the capabilities of human intelligence, that any attempt to define Him - to put His "physical" nature into a box - will not be 100% accurate, at least on this side of eternity. In other words, until we can hold the hand of the Father, I don't think we will understand what His existence is 100% like. That said, I commend you for your zeal, and respect your position, though I do have some questions then for you (and these are serious questions, not rhetorical or mocking):

1. Why can't we see Satan and his demons? (The book of Job, and Revelation, make it clear Satan dwells on the earth.)
2. Where did Jesus go after He ascended into the sky?
3. When God hid the angel from Balaam, but not his donkey, what exactly was going on there? (I don't expect an answer to this one; it's quite complex, but if you want to take a crack at it, feel free to.)
4. God the Father is seen in both Daniel, and in Revelation. Is His body of the same material as Jesus's body, or is it different?

Now, this is how I believe, if you are interested in hearing it: I don't think God is limited in terms of physical or non-physical. I think if God wishes to exist in material sense, (like He did when He met with Abraham with His two angels,) I think God can. However, I think God is also immaterial when He wishes to be. He can choose to take on whatever form He wishes to be, as He is God. Think of water: If God wishes to be steam, that doesn't prevent Him from being ice when He wants.

That said, I don't intend to argue with you about this... I feel like Paul would exhort us to maintain fellowship even though we disagree over this. Surely this is a non-salvific discussion. We can be reasonable, and respectful, I assume.

Carl Emerson · May 19, 2020

JAL said:
Many people have very different standards and definitions of revival.

Our church still exploded in the 70's.

I wrote this about it on another thread...

When our church exploded it was all hands on deck - Pastors of different denominations shoulder to shoulder as the outreach to the lost bought unity and that focus was the glue.
For a while, when He was doing fresh stuff folks didn't understand, things really moved. God was raising up the unlikely to minister, healings broke out, deliverance, love - folks gave houses! Then - what to do with the 'mentally unwell' they were declared off limits and ended up institutionalised when He was giving the power and gifts to set them free. This was a huge disappointment. The church was afraid of legal ramifications if stuff went wrong - and it did - suicides among the seekers is not a good look. So the controls came on - under the advice of some from the US featured in the movie no less. But the saddest part was not allowing home fellowships to become churches in their own right - tithes were needed to sustain mother church so the movement stalled. I was involved in the inner city so the work there was fruitful for a bit longer. It was a beautiful move but the old wineskin didn't manage to flex with the new life so the momentum faded. Dogma was never the issue - control was.

Barney2.0 · May 19, 2020

JAL said:
The function of the biblical God is to be the quintessential ruler and judge. Infinitude isn't clearly predicated, necessitated, articulated of God in Scripture, and thus, like any doctrine, is debatable.

If God isn’t infinite then he’s not divine by nature, you can’t have it both ways.

JAL said:
You need to read up on the Problem of Evil. You seem to have no idea what that term means.

This is the problem of evil in a nutshell:

It rests upon the false assumption that God created the world with evil.

JAL said:
No. Scripture never refers to God as a Spirit. I've done much on this thread to discredit that translation of the Greek/Hebrew.

Both the Greek Word Pneuma and the Hebrew Word Ruach both mean Spirit as in an immaterial non tangible thing:

Strong's Greek: 4151. πνεῦμα (pneuma) -- wind, spirit

Strong's Hebrew: 7307. ר֫וּחַ (ruach) -- breath, wind, spirit

It seems you know more than all the Biblical scholars that translated these words as Spirit.

JAL · May 19, 2020

Al Masihi said:
If God isn’t infinite then he’s not divine by nature, you can’t have it both ways.

Again, God couldn't care less about your Platonic definition of divine. He's got a job to do, and He does it quite well thank you very much, regardless of whether Plato disagrees.

This is the problem of evil in a nutshell:
It rests upon the false assumption that God created the world with evil.

No that's not the Problem of Evil. Unfortunately it's a bit of misnomer (that's what is throwing you off) because the actual meaning is the Problem of Suffering. Why would an infinitely self-sufficient God - who claims to be infinitely kind - create a world potentially susceptible to suffering? And no, it doesn't insist that God is the author of suffering. It allows for the possibility that free will (freedom to sin) is the cause of suffering. It goes deeper than that. It asks question like, Why didn't God just abstain from making us? What is this obsession with freedom?

I claim to be the only person in church history who has proposed a real solution. But my hands are tied. I don't want to see this thread shut down.

Both the Greek Word Pneuma and the Hebrew Word Ruach both mean Spirit as in an immaterial non tangible thing:

Strong's Greek: 4151. πνεῦμα (pneuma) -- wind, spirit

Strong's Hebrew: 7307. ר֫וּחַ (ruach) -- breath, wind, spirit

It seems you know more than all the Biblical scholars that translated these words as Spirit.

Think reasonably, sir. The TITLE of God cannot vary from verse to verse. You can't go from:
"Father and Son"
in one verse, to:
"first-cousin and mother-in-law"
in another verse. That's hermeneutical nonsense. It's one or the other. I'm not DENYING that both of these translations match the Greek:

(1) The Holy Spirit/Ghost as immaterial substance.
(2) The Holy Wind/Breath as material substance.

What I'm saying is that we must choose ONE of those two titles, and the CONTEXT of the relevant passages is decisively in favor of #2. I demonstrated this fact at, for example, posts such as 34, 38, 43, 51, 61, 116.

1213 · May 19, 2020

JAL said:
...That's what exegesis does. It's on a quest for the most PLAUSIBLE reading based on the context. Therefore we can definitely rule out this title:

"The Holy Spirit/Ghost"
in favor of this title

"The Holy Breath/Wind"
and there are several passages like that. If posts 34 and 43 aren't enough to satisfy, consider posts 51 and 61 as well.

Sorry, I disagree with you. If spirit means just breath/wind, it still would not be physical being and I don’t think it would fit to the description Bible has. Because Bible tells God is spirit and love that has certain influence, I don’t think it is just breath/wind.

JAL · May 19, 2020

1213 said:
Sorry, I disagree with you. If spirit means just breath/wind, it still would not be physical being and I don’t think it would fit to the description Bible has. Because Bible tells God is spirit and love that has certain influence, I don’t think it is just breath/wind.

Strawman, right? You've reduced my belief in a Trinity of three ineffably holy Persons to just "breath/wind"?

Ordinary breath/wind is not even conscious. (Or conceivably like a plant it is negligibly so, at best). It is not even a moral agent.

Basically, the only thing that ordinary breath/wind has in common with the divine Breath/Wind is that both are tangible/physical.

I'll comment a bit more later.

Blade · May 19, 2020

Some of this is over my head. Yet sometimes the simplest answer is correct. I look at this through the eyes of man which I am. We were created by a GOD, a word that does not begin to describe Him, created.. so man.... This where I get stuck. A song comes to mind

"what do I know of holy.
What do I know of wounds that will heal my shame?
And a God who gave life it's name?
What do I know of Holy?
Of the One who the angels praise?
All creation knows Your name
On earth and heaven above
What do I know of this love?"

I really liked listening to Chuck Missler talk about time, dimensions. Man is put in this time bubble because of sin. So now there are "LAWS" that ONLY apply to where we are. And this "realm" is not real. Man created by a GOD is going to define, describe, explain Him? For me it makes us look even more foolish. And so much is nothing more then speculation. My talk is simple..forgive me

Noxot · May 19, 2020

Seems like crude materialism as the only reality leads to pantheism and determinism which do not match the idea of God as a trinity of love. But I guess it depends on how complex you think the material reality is.

I can't prove it to you but Heaven has a material reality too, but it's not under the conditions of sin and it has more complicated rules. The material universe that we are in is but one "simulation", all such so-called simulations draw their power from one primordial and infinite reality, which we call God. just because this material Universe might be considered to be one of God's hairs does not mean it is all that God is. There are invisible realities that we experience all the time called spirit and they seem to be connected to us via some kind of non-local aspect of reality which allows for some overlap of multiple kinds of realities. Even many scientific theories speak of some complexity that is more than just this universe.

One of the major problems with making this simple Material World all of reality is it takes away from mankind that they are a microcosmos. Crude materialism inprisons both God and man and sets great restraints and limits upon God and man.

A Jupiter brain is a theoretical computer the size of Jupiter which is absolutely weak and teeny weeny compared to the size of the rest of the visible universe. Yet a computer that size could simulate every single thought of every human and all of our ancestors in two seconds. So even this idea that reality is some kind of simulation leads me to search for a greater, ultimate and most fundamental reality. I am in the crowd that thinks that the chances of this reality being some kind of simulation are very high. God as the infinite all-powerful and eternal fundamental reality that holds up all other things makes much more sense than to believe that all of reality is this universe which to us creatures appears Grand and large. God would simply be too imperfect if he was merely the universe.

Silmarien · May 19, 2020

JAL said:
This post seems a bit humorous to me. You start with this:
and oddly enough continue with this:
You are thus a Platonist who is, however, not influenced by Plato. Um...ok.

I was never indoctrinated into Platonism. I'm the product of a secular philosophy department, not a Christian church of one type or the other, so I have no conditioning to view God any particular way at all. Traditional theology meant nothing to me, since at that point, I thought the Christian God was just a particularly grand version of Zeus.

I'm now a Platonist (or technically speaking, probably some species of Platonic leaning Thomist), but I had to fight my naturalistic indoctrination every step of the way. Being influenced and being indoctrinated are two different things.

JAL said:
Right, because you currently find it virtually impossible to think of God in non-Platonic terms, even when you try.

I can think of God in non-Platonic terms in the same way that I can think of Zeus, Freya, or Manannán mac Lir. To borrow from the less hypothetical atheists, I see no reason to assume that such entities exist.

JAL said:
Ok I'll tell you the crucial point. You seem to assume that materialism necessitates material reductionism (and thus epiphenomenalism). Not at all. You may have heard of Maurice Merleau Ponty, who fought for an anti-reductionist view of the human body, in opposition to Descartes.

For me it's quite simple. All I believe in is matter. What causes matter to move? I see only two possibilities:
(1) Reality is chaotic. Matter moves randomly.
(2) Free will.
The choice for me is clear. Suppose someone punches you in the face. Would you be upset with him? If you're a determinist, you don't have much warrant for discontent, all motion is just mechanical cause/effect (just the laws of physics at work), he is therefore not really to blame. But if free will propelled that punch, NOW you have cause for complaint.

Most atheists that I meet seem to at least tacitly acknowledge free will. This contradicts their assumption that matter is fundamentally inert, non-sentient, and so on. It also contradicts any tendency for them to assume that we do not have a Dad who transcends the laws of physics. As I said, God creates those laws, by His own hands, by enforcing gravity for example.

Most atheists I meet actually do deny the existence of free will. As a hypothetical atheist, I am going to have to assert that everything, including our thoughts, is subject to natural laws that are not actually chaotic.

More interestingly, I really do not know what you mean by "a Dad who transcends the laws of physics." Is he a material being or is he not? If he is material, how can he transcend the laws of physics, given that they are what define what matter even is? The notion of transcendence automatically shoves us into the realm of the immaterial--your material God isn't material if he doesn't follow the laws that guide matter.

JAL said:
You seem to overlook one of the fundamentals of debate. I don't have to prove to atheists that God exists. Typically a debate starts at a point where the two parties already agree. For example Christians, when debating on this forum, assume the existence of God, and proceed from there.

I do not agree with you that a material God exists. Our conceptions of theism are fundamentally opposed, so for the purposes of this debate, there is no common ground.

JAL said:
Um....yeah. It takes considerable ingenuity for me to "make up" the concept of tangible substance. That really puts me in la-la land, it would seem.

What's a tangible soul? Sounds like gobbledygook to me. Can you provide empirical evidence for the existence of such a thing?

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