Is God objective or subjective?

[trentlogain2]

yeah whatever. edit: nah..not done.

she is the one who has Christianity as her faith. im not asking her to defend her salvation. i believe if shes saved it will speak for itself. besides asking if someone is born again isnt personal. THIS IS A CHRISTIAN BASED FORUM.

its your thread, mr mod. so ill do as you ask.

 

[IDDQD]

Taking bets on when this thread's gonna get locked down now.

 

[Apollo Celestio]

A mod made the thread...
But I'll bet DECEMBER (tomorrow..)

 

[IDDQD]

A mod made the thread...
But I'll bet DECEMBER (tomorrow..)

How many blessings you wanna wager? :v

And because a mod made this thread, the winner gets double blessings. ;U

 

[kevlite2020]

MOD HAT ON

Really guys, I asked for this to remain on topic, and the next handful of posts are bets on if the thread is going to get closed or not. How is that helpful or edifying? There are plenty of topics here that allow for randomness, but please when an OP asks for a thread to stay on topic, please be kind and respect that wish. Thank you.

MOD HAT OFF​

 

[Marycita]

sorry I didn't pose any questions and I wanted to, hit post too fast! ahhh anyways...

Do you think God is objective, or is He whatever we want Him to be?

a)I wouldn't be able to believe in a god that was what I wanted him to be...
b) if God was what I wanted Him to be, then I would be god

Do you think debating theological points are healthy and good for the church, or not?

I think it depends on the attitude behind it...if it's prideful and wanting to prove you are right, then no. If it's with a heart of wanting to really find the truth and help others do so, and therefore get closer to Jesus, sure.

Do you think the Bible tells us enough to know as much as we need to know about God on this earth?

Absolutely..we're only humans...why should we have privilege of knowing anything?

 

[canehdianhotstuff]

God is subjective in a way. He is subjective to each one of our feelings in a way that is different to anyone else. Each person is different and unique, and God knows this. he created us as so. He knows that every person is going to view Him differently, and experience Him differently and He is subjective to it.

Your experiences and opinions of scripture and not the same as mine likely, but that doesn't make God any more objective either way. God cannot be put in a box. While God may be objective to certain things and indeed many common factors people will share about in their experiences, but I believe the majority of it is entirely based on subjectivity of each individual towards God.

An entirely different way to look at it would be to say that the universe (and object) was created by God (the subject) thus God is the subjective one and we are the objective ones needing to live through God. Us as human beings cannot grasp a subjective God, but nonetheless I think God would be subjective.

 

[stephanieamber]

I don't understand the word objective in this context, so I am skipping the first question.

#2!. Personally I hate the word debating. I like the word wrestle. Either way, I think it's important in terms of learning and growth. It's just a really touchy thing, though. Because our relationships with God are personal, I don't believe there is a "right" or "wrong" answer for some theological points (but now I am realizing I don't know what you mean by theological points). We all get to know God in many different ways. We all see God differently, even if we are taught by the same people and study the same Scriptures. He is too big for us to ever begin to comprehend. So of course we are all going to be discovering different aspects of him. Because of that, I believe there are parts of him that don't make sense to us when mentioned by others because that's not something we're meant to understand, if that makes sense?

For example, my friend Krystin whom I LOVE and who encourages me SO MUCH was telling me of a youth pastor friend of hers who lost his wife to cancer and never got over it and a few years later killed himself. Krystin wrote to me about how she was CONFIDENT that he was resting in the arms of God.

Do I believe God is merciful? Absolutely. However, I cannot say without causing my heart to be troubled that if a believer commits suicide, they for sure go to Heaven. It will do nobody any good to try and convince me of one way or another; this uncertainty and fear of the possibility of eternity without God is the only thing that has kept me from suicide attempts.

I hope this example explains my point.

#3. I don't think the Bible is enough. the Bible, without prayer and the Spirit, is just a book full of words. A lot of what I know about the Lord can't necessarily be backed up by a Scripture (though I'm sure I could find something) because it's what I gained through experience with Him. So really, no. I don't think the Bible tells us everything we need to know. What would be the point of a relationship with God, were it not to offer us a deeper understanding of who he is?

In general, I think God gives us as much as we can handle on the earth. Think about how Moses couldn't even see God. God had to cover his face, walk in front of him, and then Moses could see his glory. In that same way.. I don't think God allows us to see all of him, because we can't handle that here. We are limited in our physical being and our mental being and even to some extent, our spiritual being.. not because he wants to withhold himself from us or doesn't love us enough to let us get all of him - but because we couldn't handle it.

Think about how we have such a hard time with paradox. Three in One. God and man. Completely merciful and completely just. Patient and revengeful. We don't even really truly understand the majority of what he's given us. One day when we are with him, restored to perfection BY Perfection.. that will all be revealed to us.

 

[kevlite2020]

thanks steph and mary for sharing, very interesting stuff! And steph, objective basically means like an unchanging absolute truth. Subjective is something that isn't an absolute truth, that can change person to person.

For example, if you said to God, hey I love pink! and God responded, yeah pink is awesome, that's why I made it. And then I went to God and said, hey I really hate that pink color, and God was like, I know it sucks, I should get rid of it. That would be a subjective God, one that changes for all of us. I do not think that's the kind of God we have, our God does not change for anyone, He is the same today, yesterday, and for the rest of eternity. But some people think that they can pick and choose what God is and that He can be different for different people, that's what I'm addressing.

 

[canehdianhotstuff]

You see, but something like the colour pink is subject to being liked or disliked, and even though God created it, He is not going to care even some people like it or dislike it. As humans it is our nature to be subjective towards things.

God Himself is subject to even exist from one person to another, but as God being an absolute truth it doesn't really matter.

I personally think the Bible can be summed up in the two verses. Love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself. If these are followed the rest should fall into place. And a lot of it will be subjective beliefs based on personal experience.

 

[kevlite2020]

You see, but something like the colour pink is subject to being liked or disliked, and even though God created it, He is not going to care even some people like it or dislike it. As humans it is our nature to be subjective towards things.

God Himself is subject to even exist from one person to another, but as God being an absolute truth it doesn't really matter.

I personally think the Bible can be summed up in the two verses. Love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself. If these are followed the rest should fall into place. And a lot of it will be subjective beliefs based on personal experience.

I know God doesn't care if we like or dislike pink haha... I was just using that to explain to steph what the word objective means. And yes, I agree that people's view of God is subjective (otherwise we couldn't have atheists, obviously) but God really is objective. But I don't think the Bible can just be summed up like that and then not consulted any more. I do agree that what you said is the most important part of the Bible and how we need to apply it, but what I'm talking about is things like the attributes of God. Some people will look at the OT and say, well that's not right cuz I don't feel like God is jealous or full of wrath so I'm going to ignore that and focus on something else about God, and then you get a limited view of who God is. But God has clearly shown His attributes and that is not a subjective thing, it is what He is whether people want to accept all His attributes or not. Can't change who He is. And it troubles me to see people try to treat His attributes subjectively and combine things from other religions to make Him into the God they want, and then call me close-minded. If believing in the God of the Bible is close-minded, I'm fine with it and I'll take that insult, but I think it's a very dangerous idea to try to mix God with other things of this world or other gods or whatnot to try and make a perfect god, when the God of heaven and earth is already perfect as He is!

 

[ceh85]

These are my thoughts:
(I'm going to take the last two questions in reverse order, if that's ok with you Kev.)

Do you think God is objective, or is He whatever we want Him to be?

Well, God came first and He made us, so no, He isn't affected by what we believe or what we want to think about Him. We have the free will to believe whatever we want about Him, but we might well be wrong

Do you think the Bible tells us enough to know as much as we need to know about God on this earth?

Yes, as much as we need to know to have faith, but not as much as we WANT to know. But we know not everything will be revealed to us during our time on earth. If we knew everything about God the concept of faith in Him would be redundant anyway.

Do you think debating theological points are healthy and good for the church, or not?

Well, the church is a body of believers, and I think debating points can *sometimes* be healthy for believers because for me personally that's often how I become aware of the flaws in my own beliefs. It ties into the previous question IMO, which is why I answered that one first - we don't have God on tap to ask 'is this ok, what did you mean by that' etc. It can be helpful to ask other believers for guidance because even if we know the Bible back-to-front sometimes we can be blinded by what's going on in our own lives - we are human and sinners after all. I am not saying we should ask other believers for their opinions which aren't backed up by anything, but they might know scripture or have had their pastor explain something to them or whatever which might help.

Saying that... I don't think it is always helpful to go into the nitty-gritty about technicalities, or things which no one knows for sure because it always seems to end up at deadlock. Debating with other believers can get you nowhere, whereas if you pray about it you can at least get peace about the fact that you don't know!