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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Tue, 28 Oct 2003 07:34:40 GMT
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Viewed:
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974 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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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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It is illogical for an infinite being to even give free will-- it would seem
that all is predestined anyway.
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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.
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Never say never, Dave! Isn’t pleasure simply a release of endorphines in our
little electro-stimulated brains? Couldn’t it all be broken down into
molecules-- couldn’t God experience that?
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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).
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On the contrary! We accept the doctrine of fully human/fully divine; we openly
recognize that such a concept is beyond logic and reason. This is what I have
been trying to explain-- you can’t understand God through logic or reason.
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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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No offense Dave! but you really don’t know what you are talking about. You are
the blindman touching the elephant-- God simply defies human understanding.
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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 don’t think so. What we know about God is what He has revealed to us, and
what He has revealed is that He is a loving God. I suppose it could be some
huge deception, but what would be the point of that? I think that the
characterization of God being evil is anthropomorphizing-- God is Good, we are
the evil ones (evil in the sense that we choose not to do good-- that is, reject
God).
>>> I’m sure that you’d never deliberately do so, but your course of argument
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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.
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No, I didn’t take it that way-- just acknowledging that I am not a particularily
adept debater.
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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.
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Exactly! God is logically impossible. Now hear is my final criticism of
someone who uses only logic and reason to address the question of God-- it is
unfair and disingenuous. The question is: what if there IS a God that is
infinite beyond logic and reason? Is a person who seeks God through science by
definition eliminating the possibility that such a God could exist? Must
everything pass the scrutiny of Science in order for it to be recognized? Is
it possible for a scientist to believe in God and at the same time be considered
true to himself and his scientific principles? Or to be genuinely honest to
himself and his colleagues, must he be an atheist?
JOHN
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