Kenny

To all,

Since this thread has wondered pretty far from the original topic under which I started positing, and since my life has become rather busy at the moment, I have no desire to keep up this thread much longer. I would like to respond to some of the other posts directed towards me thus far, however, but I don’t know when I’ll be able to since the holidays and then the end of the quarter at seminary are keeping me busy. So, if I get to it, it may be a few weeks – sorry.

God Bless,
Kenny

A3

Hi Keith,

This is the backdrop of my previous post. All revelations I mentioned were a progression of sorts. As I understand it, the third revelation was on the natural level to the Israelites. This was to generate obedience to the Law; as a parent might guide a child: “I suggest you do as I “command” you and you will prosper. All very external but it caused a turn-around for the human race. Do things from obedience.
The fourth revelation was to establish the Christian believe. This appealed to a higher level of the human mind, love. Love your neighbor and Me and you will be with Me in paradise. Do things from love. The fifth and last revelation was, we believe, directed to our rational mind. It explains practically everything in the Bible people ever wondered about or asked “Why?” No more wrong assumptions and consequent mysteries. Do things because you understand. The most consistent mistake people made with each revelation is to take the words literally. Now we can enter the Bible and our faith using our intellect, it will all make sense. Swedenborg’s writings are often refered to by us as the Third Testament.

The only “evidence” I can provide you is Bible text and our interpretation. A major part of this question seems best dealt with, however, in my post about His Trinity, and ours (a search will get you there, member # 5907).
Most Christians (and Jews too) will say that the most important teaching in the Bible is “That God is ONE.” So this doesn’t seem the issue here, the question is whether Jesus Christ was that ONE same God. We believe that God was working through His body from Mary to save mankind.
The orthodox Christian believe was formulated by a committee in 325 AD saying that there are three persons in one God, and whichever way we twist it, this means a believe in three gods entirely based on appearances. The saying that Jesus was “born from eternity” is an oxymoron and totally unfounded by the Bible. This was gratuitously passed on and excepted by the following generations.
(BTW we understand that because Christianity went off the rails there, Islam was instituted by God to perpetuate a believe in One God).

Most Christians are quite familiar with prophecies such as, “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son.” It is interesting that so many of these prophecies tell that God Himself--the One Lord, Jehovah--would come on earth to be with His people. For example, the passage just quoted goes on to say, “His name shall be called God-With-Us.” (Isaiah 7:14) Another passage declares that the Child who would be born would be “the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father.” (Isaiah 9:6) And when John the Baptist was announcing the coming of Jesus, he quoted the prophecy which says, “Prepare the way of Jehovah; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” This passage continues, “The glory of Jehovah shall be revealed... Say to the cities of Judah, `Behold your God!' Behold the Lord Jehovah shall come.” (Isaiah 40:3,5,10; Luke 3:4) People prayed for the coming of the One God: “Bow Your heavens, Jehovah, and come down.” (Psalm 144:5) His coming is the source of our joy: “And it shall be said in that day, `This is our God. We have waited for Him that He may deliver us; this is Jehovah... We will rejoice and be glad in His salvation.'” (Isaiah 25:9) So of course, it should be--it must be--that the One God would want to be with His people: “`Behold, I am coming and I will dwell in your midst,' says Jehovah.” (Zechariah 2:10).

There are many passages in the New Testament which identify Jesus as that One God. He is called the True God, (1 John 5:20) Saviour, (Luke 2:11; Matthew 1:21) God With Us. (Matthew 1:23) The Wise Men knew the prophecies, so they recognized Jesus as their King and God: they came and worshipped Him. (Matthew 2:2, 11) And all the angels worshipped Him at His birth. (Hebrews 1:6) Jesus identified Himself as the One God when He spoke of Himself as the One who came down from heaven to give life to the world, (John 6:33, 38) and when He said “He who has seen Me has seen the Father,” (John 14:9.) and “I and My Father are One.” (John 10:30)

This gives great depth and meaning to the assertion that we have been created in His image and likeness. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are in us our soul, our body and our influence on others.

Kind Regards
Adriaan

Synaesthesia

Kenny wrote:
The crux of my arguments is that it doesn't matter what limits you set on God's intentional qualities. The world we observe is in fact compatible with an unlimited variety of Gods, be they omnimanevolent or omnibenevolent. The fact that Christian theology holds that God is all good despite the presence of evil is a particularly obvious example of just how flexible the idea is.

That is, psycologically, what humans will naturally do. We are used to dealing with theoretical entities of limited complexity. God differs in three closely respects: unlimited complexity, empirical vacuity and structural opacity. I'll explain the consequences of these all-important properties because they are fundamental to the idea of God. In short though, the problem of evil is only a psycological one, not a logical problem. All one needs to do to solve it is to properly understand that the idea of God. It is an idea that can easily cope with any amount and any kind of evil in the world.

Since God is of infinite complexity, there is infinite explanatory leeway available before you have to change theoretical course. Naturally this means that it's never necessary to do so: any possible event is easily consistent with God. In other words, it's impossible for any phenomenon to be inconsistent in any substantial way with God. There are no boundaries on the range of compatible phenomenon.

The second quality is empirical vacuity. Even qualities which God possesses infinitely do not necessarily affect the nature of what we will observe. God has no predictive powers apart from the other theories with which we understand the world.

Third God doesn't have to be understood. In science, theories can be modifed to preserve certain aspects of them. (For example, postulating an unobserved planet to account for motion not predicted by newtonian mechanics.) However, there is a limit to how much we can modify them. At a point, retaining a particular theory would imply such a convoluted system that it would be better to start from scratch to develop something usable.

Theology has sidestepped this by already positing an entity of unlimited complexity. As such, when we are incorporating some information into our understanding of God, it doesn't matter whether it makes any *sense* - since we can't ever understand god - so long as we find it believable. The only limit is our credulity which, once having taken in an invisible being of infinite complexity and power, is often extremely flexible.

Unlimitedness is indeed one of the very fundamental ideas behind God. That is indeed WHY our choice of God is arbitrary and why there can never be any epistemological principles permitting the establishment of a truth preference.

So with respect to any possible observable phenoemenon, our choice of unlimited beings is, and can never be anything but, arbitrary.

Ontological arguments are nothing more than sophist's language games. I lend them no credence whatsoever and thus do not condition my belief on them.

As far as I can see, we can really only hope for deeper, broader, more clear explanations. I suspect that the more we understand, the less and less it will look like the classical formulation of 'ultimate explanation' is even meaningful. This of course is reflected in Christian theology which rejects the possibility of an ultimate explanation. Although God is often refered such an explanation, since we cannot explain God, he is a commitment to mystery.

It would of course be 'better' if an omnibenevoent being was actually out there with my interests in mind. Whether it is better to believe this is another story alltogether.

Descartes demon can trick us about God far more easily than about rocks and trees. After all, look around you: rocks! Trees! People who believe in invisible things that don't really exist!

World knowledge is epistemologically prior to theology. Value judgement aside, the fundamental principles which allow you to understand that understand also allow me to know that I understand.

Attribute the creation of the universe to God makes God very impressive. Subtracting God from the universe cannot detract from the majest of the blind heavens. If the universe is indeed an arbitrary collection of brute facts (which, incidentally I strongly doubt), what a bunch of facts it is!


That doesn't matter in the least since God has no predictive power other than that embedded in your world knowledge. As such, nothing about it can be empirically checked like other things that exist. The relationship of God to the world is a matter determined by faith and socially reinforced by the community of faithful.


I'll look for it at my city and university libraries. However, her quest is essentially misbegotten. Although I appreciate the motives behind the attempt to make God scientific, the very best she can hope to produce is vague metaphors or some sort of faith-based pseudoscientific theology.

Red Expendable

The reason why you don't see anyone eating fruit from the tree of knowledge is because some christians cut it down and used it to build a fire.

I really think that there's a lot of faithful, god-fearing, believers out there that could use a serving of fruit from the 'tree of knowledge.' As a matter of fact most of them could use a second helping, maybe it would bring them out of fantasy-land.

RedEx

Tree of knowledge, puuuuuhhhhhh-leeeeeeeeeezzz!

doodad

There are those who believe that Jesus was God in the flesh, as the question seems to imply, and there are those who think otherwise. The common thought is that Jesus was sent to run interference, or to shield mortal men from the wrath of God, but there's still the matter of judgement. This part of the Christian belief system is fuzzy to me, but people still have to account to God for their behaviour at some point down the road.

doodad

Agreed BH. Not much on the ball if he did. The followers of Christ made him a martyr in order to generate sympathetic support for their fledgling movement. Supposing Jesus had lived and had indeed been the Messiah? Would there be a Christianity or just another movement of Judaism?

doodad

It is not universally held that Jesus is God's avatar, or incarnation, if that what you are saying. Modalism, a version of the Holy Trinity, claims that Jesus is God himself, or at least it seems to me. There's another version that sees there being three distinct divine entites, God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The orthodox view of Trinity, and perhaps the most prevalent one, is that the godhead consists of one being with three essences of God, which is to say that Jesus is not actually God but is of the essence of God, or has God's divine attributes. The Trinity is perhaps the most contested concept of Christianity and is the subject of many hot debates. The Trinity, by the way, is believed to be a product of man some time during the reign of Constantine the Great circa 325 AD.

doodad

One possible explanation for God's motivation to have Jesus sacrificed for people's sins is that the ancient Jews were really miserable under the Judaic laws. There were so many laws that one could not help but stumble over something. God saw this and devised a better deal for his people. Jesus was to be the ultimate sacrifice for people's sins, and with him salvation could be had by merely believing that he could forgive their sins. An additional benefit of Chrisian salvation over that of Judaism was that in Christianity one could attain that status while still alive as a mortal being, where in Judaism salvation was granted or denied after death by a judgement process. This really drove some of the ancient Jews bonkers, and it's been said that some committed suicide rather than face possible damnation. Doing such didn't help them escape the final judgement after death, but they checked out early because the thought of it was too much to bear.

I cannot hope to satisfy your philosophical needs, but can merely try to supply you with a reasonable explanation of the execution of Jesus.
Granted, the existence of God is a subjective matter, but from a human standpoint I have tried to give you a decent answer that has a measure of rationality to it.

doodad

Could it be that this web site focuses on Christianity more than others, such as Judaism or Islam, because it is evangelical in nature. Jews and Muslims are apparently not into proselytizing. One must apparently be born a Jew or a Muslim (in the Arabic world). Evangelists can be very pushy and abrasive, and are possibly viewed by the atheist community a more of a threat to their well being that other faiths are.

I personally am a Christian of the moderate variety, and I normally try to be considerate of the atheists' viewpoint because I've been there myself.

doodad

Brian, the so-called conservative or fundamentalist Christian can make himself look pretty irrational at times, but is it really fair to characterize all Christians as "dumb"? I've been around a little myself and have done a little research on various religions. As to philosophy, I'm somewhat of a pragmatist, a live and let live guy, and I don't get too upset over why I'm here or about what may come tomorrow. Realistically speaking, what could I do about it if I cared to?

There's more than one field of knowledge or expertise, and there's more than one life for many of us Christians. I am a Christian, and I have a spiritual life as well as a secular or everyday mortal life. Unlike the fundie, I do try to be open minded about religious concepts and probably have a rather unique outlook on the value of religion and the existence of God. I also don't go around thumping bibles.

Am I a jibbering idiot? Not entirely. I am retired now, but in my day was a creative and productive systems analyst. What did religious principles or doctrine have much to do with my work? Very little, especially the concept of the afterlife. I do credit my childhood religious training for giving me a basic set of moral standards though, and in my data processing work I tried to be fair and conscientous. That's not saying that atheists cannot be ethical, but the practice of religion is one way to learn right from wrong.

If you want to learn what makes a Christian ticks how do hope to do it by insulting his intelligence? I'll work with you if you'll work
with me, but if you cannot respect me as an individual then you can buzz off.