Subject:
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Re: Holy crap! (was Re: The partisian trap in California)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 27 Oct 2003 21:40:59 GMT
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Viewed:
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825 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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Well, the chain works like this: To “want” something (such as fellowship),
is to imply a lack of that thing (or a desire to prevent the
negation/removal of that thing). A being who lacks something is incomplete,
and incompleteness indicates imperfection.
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God intentionally limits Himself by giving us free will (as far as we know).
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I’m afraid that the doctrine of free will is incompatible with the notion of
original sin; it is logically inconsistent to believe in both.
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God desires us to have abundant life-- I don’t see where this indicates that
God is incomplete or imperfect. Perhaps you could say that God is limited,
but it is by His choice.
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God is limited in other ways, too. God, as an omnibenevolent being, can never
take first-hand pleasure in killing an innocent human being. God, as an
omniscient being, can never know first-hand the intellectual pleasure of solving
a riddle. God, as an omnipotent being, can never know first-hand the pleasure
of overcoming a difficult obstacle. God, as an omnipresent being, can never
know first-hand the pleasure of returning to a fondly remembered place. There
are lots of limitations along these lines.
Some might claim that, having incarnated Himself as Jesus, then He could
experience these things Himself, but that fails, too:
If Christ was finite, then he was not infinite, and he therefore couldn’t be
God.
If Christ was infinite, then he was not human, and his crucifixion had no value,
since he stood to lose nothing by “dying.”
If Christ was both fully human and fully divine, then he was a logical
contradiction, which Christians don’t generally seem to want to accept (ie, let
me see God create an odd number evenly divisible).
If God was infinite, then there is nothing He could have learned through Christ,
even within the above “omni” limitations. That is, if God learned of something
through Christ, then He didn’t already know it, which implies incompleteness,
which implies imperfection.
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God is beyond logic and reasoning. I know that those are
the only tools our finite brains have, but they are useless when it comes
to matters of the infinite.
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Let’s first stipulate that you’re witnessing in this passage rather than
debating. That’s not wrong, but it’s different from actually presenting a
case for something.
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I fully acknowledge this. I’m not sure exactly how else to discuss the
topic-- my limitation.
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But there are certain criteria to which God must adhere, by His very nature.
If He is infinite and incomprehensible, then you must accept that He is capable
of committing abject evil. If He is not so capable, then you admit that He is
limited. But if He is so capable, then you admit that he is not
omnibenevolent.
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This sends us back to the problem that you can’t assert with any confidence
that God truly is good; you can only say that you deeply believe that he’s
good based on that small portion of Him that you believe yourself to have
perceived.
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True. I only know about God what God has revealed Himself to be. Jesus
reveals Him to be a good and loving God. I accept this regardless of how I
perceive Him at any given time (especially in times of grief, etc)
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Do you then, in principle, acknowledge that God could be evil in disguise?
I’m not asking if that’s what you believe, but do you accept that possibility,
given our human limitations that you’ve already acknowledged?
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I’m sure that you’d never deliberately do so, but your course of argument
has generated that conclusion!
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Obviously the fault of my limited arguing abilities!
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I didn’t mean that as in insult, and I apologize if it came across that way.
Actually, the deeper problem is that this kind of discussion naturally leads to
logical inconstencies, through no fault of the debater. It’s at that point that
some people are inclined (or able) to make a leap of faith, while others
identify that point as a fatal flaw in the underlying premiss of God.
Dave!
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