Same God?

[Percivale]

How much progress has theology made?

I believe it has made some. But you're just dodging my question, and besides, the less it has made, the stronger my point.

I didn't discount the possibility of there being something that is infinite in some respect. My response to Received needs to be taken in context. He claimed that an actual infinite cannot exist, but then asserted that God is infinite in various respects. So you really should ask him whether he denies that anything infinite exists, since he apparently does, but also doesn't.

He's saying an infinite succession of finite units cannot exists (because it results in mathematical contradictions), but something can be infinite in other respects. I'm not convinced an infinite succession cannot exist, since those contradictions may be treating infinity too much like a finite number. But I'm not sure on that.

 

[Tree of Life]

I've thought of a good analogy for the question whether Christians, Muslims, Confucians, and the rest believe in the same God or not.
Aristotle and Copernicus, Einstein and Newton, or Fred Hoyle and Stephen Hawking all talking about the same universe?

People who argue that different religions worship different gods generally prove their point by pointing out the differences in beliefs about God that those religions have. But one could point out that the universe of ptolemy or aristotle bears hardly any resemblance to that of hawking and other modern scientists, yet the only person that could use that argument to deny that they are talking about the same universe would be the idealist that denies that any universe exists.

It seems better in both cases to say that everyone is talking about the same god or universe, just have different understandings of it.

Of course this does not apply to polytheistic gods. There's no logical reason Zeus and Thor could not both exist; they are not in competition like concepts of the ultimate creator god, such as Allah or Brahma, are.

I'm sure someone will note that each concept of the universe successfully replaced the previous, unlike in religion where different concepts continue to coexist. This is because natural objects are more conducive to examination than intelligent beings are; it's the same reason that political science and psychology have made so much less progress than natural science.

In a sense you're absolutely right. Everyone who's trying to figure God out is grasping toward the same God since there is only one true God. The question is which religion gets it right? Which religion most accurately reveals the true God? Which religion shows the way to know the true God?

 

[Songsmith]

I guess I very confused. Maybe this has already been addressed, so I apologize in advance if it has.

You say that the universe of Aristotle looked vastly different than the one of Hawking. I don't know upon what you are basing that assumption. The constellations are the same, the stars are the same. What has changed so much? They saw more of it with the naked eye because there was less light pollution, but that is not a change with the universe.

When talking about God though, there are actual differences between the concept of the Christian God and those of any other religion. Those differences make them not the same God or the law of non-contradiction is voided. Christians say that Jesus is, in fact, God in human form. Every other religion in the world says that is not the case. He either is or is not. He cannot be both and logic still exist. They could not both be wrong about that point by itself, let alone whether he was actually crucified, whether he actually raised from the grave, whether he truly bore the sin of the world (all of which are specific claims that Christianity makes about our God). Either Christianity is correct or it is false. There is no middle ground for interpretative flaws. He either is those things or he is not those things.

 

[TillICollapse]

I guess I very confused. Maybe this has already been addressed, so I apologize in advance if it has.

You say that the universe of Aristotle looked vastly different than the one of Hawking. I don't know upon what you are basing that assumption. The constellations are the same, the stars are the same. What has changed so much? They saw more of it with the naked eye because there was less light pollution, but that is not a change with the universe.

When talking about God though, there are actual differences between the concept of the Christian God and those of any other religion. Those differences make them not the same God or the law of non-contradiction is voided. Christians say that Jesus is, in fact, God in human form. Every other religion in the world says that is not the case. He either is or is not. He cannot be both and logic still exist. They could not both be wrong about that point by itself, let alone whether he was actually crucified, whether he actually raised from the grave, whether he truly bore the sin of the world (all of which are specific claims that Christianity makes about our God). Either Christianity is correct or it is false. There is no middle ground for interpretative flaws. He either is those things or he is not those things.

See: Arianism. Not all Christians believed Jesus was "God". Arianism was deemed heretical by the First Council of Nicaea and Constantine supposedly began to persecute those who adhered to forms of it, even though according to some he/himself later sided with Arianism in his later years, and two successive Roman Emperors after him were Arian or sided with forms of it in the East. Modern groups who believe they are Christians still exist which side with some of the ideas of Arianism.

 

[Percivale]

I guess I very confused. Maybe this has already been addressed, so I apologize in advance if it has.

You say that the universe of Aristotle looked vastly different than the one of Hawking. I don't know upon what you are basing that assumption. The constellations are the same, the stars are the same. What has changed so much? They saw more of it with the naked eye because there was less light pollution, but that is not a change with the universe.

When talking about God though, there are actual differences between the concept of the Christian God and those of any other religion. Those differences make them not the same God or the law of non-contradiction is voided. Christians say that Jesus is, in fact, God in human form. Every other religion in the world says that is not the case. He either is or is not. He cannot be both and logic still exist. They could not both be wrong about that point by itself, let alone whether he was actually crucified, whether he actually raised from the grave, whether he truly bore the sin of the world (all of which are specific claims that Christianity makes about our God). Either Christianity is correct or it is false. There is no middle ground for interpretative flaws. He either is those things or he is not those things.

The actual universe Aristotle saw was the same as that which Copernicus saw, but their concepts of that universe were very different. In Aristotle's understanding, the planets orbited earth, while Copernicus understood them to orbit the sun. They can't both be right, but they were trying to describe the same universe. Likewise, Muslims say God has no son, Christians say he does. They can't both be right, but they do agree that there is a God who is the creator and is wise, merciful, sovereign, etc. If you say they are talking about different gods, you could also say every denomination of Christians worship a different god--to say that people must have identical understandings of who God is in order to be talking about the same God is just unreasonable. I suggest that we should say the same God is being talked about if the two concepts of God both fit the basic definition of the word 'God', and if they can't both be true separately (Thor and Zeus could both exist without contradiction, but Allah and Brahma could not).