Theli

I can see there are a couple of theists at this board, and I would like to hear your defenition of the word "god".

Is he active? Meaning... Can he do what he wan't on earth, including destroying it?

Is he Allpowerful? Is he not a subject to anything?

Is he Good/Evil/Neither? If neither... Please specify.

Has he existed forever or was he created out of nothingness? Please explain.

If your religion/god is true are all other false?

Does Heaven/Hell exist?

Does god hear/care about prayers?

Was the universe created to match us? Or did we evolve to interpret our surroundings?

Is evolution true or false?

Tercel

The Bible would appear to attest that God is active in the world to at least some degree. Can he do anything to the world? Theoretically yes, actually no. Yes, he possesses omnipotence so he could do anything logically possible to the world. But in actual fact he is constrained by his own nature and previous decisions in various ways which serve to prevent any sort of "complete control" on God's part.
eg the Bible would appear to indicate that God has given, to a large degree, control of the material world to other spiritual authorities aka angels and demons etc. This constraint, unless God decides to break it, naturally limits his ability to interfere and prevent evil etc. According to the Bible, God will eventually break this constraint and utterly destroy all evil. However He delays this interference, preferring to show mercy and works through those who will serve him to work for good through the evil that occurs. But according to the Bible, one day evil will grow to intolerable levels where no/too little further good can be accomplished; whereupon God will interfere and annihilate all evil that exists.

He is Allpowerful as in he can perform any logically possible task in the material world.

Good. This is not to say that God conforms to some external standard of "Good", but rather: What God wills is good by definition, and our perception of good comes from an inbuilt understanding of God's will.

He exists outside of time... thus saying he has existed "forever" is a bit misleading. Instead he simply exists. He is also the cause of all other existence.

I certainly think my religion is true. That is not to say that all the others are completely false... everyone perceives God in different ways and filters these experiences through their own cultures. However I think God's most complete revelation of himself to us was through Jesus Christ.

Yes.

Yes.

The universe was created ex nihilo by God for the purpose of containing intelligent life. Whether this was us only, or whether there are other intelligent material beings out there remains to be seen.

True.

Theli

First of all I would like to thank you for responding. Many people tend to use the word "god", without any description.

"God has given, to a large degree, control of the material world to other spiritual authorities aka angels and demons etc."
Are you saying that god created the demons?
If he gave the demons thier powers he's ultimatly the creator of evil, isn't he?

"God will eventually break this constraint and utterly destroy all evil. However He delays this interference, preferring to show mercy and works through those who will serve him to work for good through the evil that occurs."
Why would he do that?
If he shows mercy to the demons and let them continue their rampage, he can't have much mercy for us (their victims).

"He is Allpowerful as in he can perform any logically possible task in the material world."
If he is constrained by his own creation, how does that make him allpowerful?
So, you are saying that god in fact is a subject of natural laws?

"Good. This is not to say that God conforms to some external standard of "Good", but rather: What God wills is good by definition, and our perception of good comes from an inbuilt understanding of God's will."

So if god asked you to murder your entire family (if you have one) with the knowledge that they would burn in hell, would you do it? would that be "good"?

"He exists outside of time... thus saying he has existed "forever" is a bit misleading. Instead he simply exists. He is also the cause of all other existence."

That's a scientific claim, would you mind explain? In scientific terms, can you explain how an entity that exists outside time can create and interfer in something that exists in time? This statement requires a model on how time functions on your part.

"I certainly think my religion is true. That is not to say that all the others are completely false... everyone perceives God in different ways and filters these experiences through their own cultures. However I think God's most complete revelation of himself to us was through Jesus Christ."

Not only cultures, but personalities also. Some imagine god as a kind of Santa Claus, others sees god as hateful. It seems more to me as everyone "invented" a god of their own wich conforms to their own mentality/ideas of an athority figure. Maybe it's a basic human need to have someone "watching over you". Just as a child looks for athority/father/mother-figures. And I think that religions in many way's fill this need, but also exploits it to further their own agenda.

"The universe was created ex nihilo by God for the purpose of containing intelligent life"
This is also a scientific testimony, can you back it up?

I had another question that I forgot to add... Does god care if we believe in him or not?

Tercel

Hi again Theli and sorry for the delay in my reply - I was on holiday and without the use of a computer.

Yes, I think God was the creator of demons. I doubt they were evil upon their creation though. The bible seems to indicate that they are fallen angels, ie they were originally good beings in the service of God but using their power they turned against God.
There is a much quoted phrase which runs:
<strong>Whereas God created the fact of freedom, man performs the acts of freedom. God made evil possible; creatures make it actual.</strong>
I suppose it could be argued that if God could forsee the future actions of these creatures would turn to evil he should not have created them. I don't find such an argument compelling because we are in no position to say for sure that such a creation would not eventually result in a greater [edit: good].
But whether or not God could forsee the future actions of his creations is debateable. -It seems to be generally agreed except by process theologians that God can forsee any future event within our universe's space-time. But this is different as we are here talking about things outside our universe.

If humankind were completely innocent of all wrong then I suppose God might have a strong duty to protect us. (Though whether a creator-God can actually have a duty towards his creation is an interesting question for moral philosophy) But we not exactly a bunch of complete innocents, are we?

You also have missed the idea that God is not merely showing mercy towards the demons by giving them time (or whatever passes for time wherever they live) to repent but towards humans as well.


I am saying that God is completely all powerful. He can perform any task. (I say "logically possible task" in order to clarify that nonsensical things are not included. eg "Can god make a rock so big that he can't lift it?" or "Can he give people the ability to choose between doing good and evil freely while preventing them from doing evil" etc)

This always gets asked... ~sigh~ and I think it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept. Let me try and explain:

I believe I know murder to be wrong because I believe that God wills against murder. -The Bible says so, my conscience says so, and the vast majority of human civilisations have said so (reflecting, I believe, their understanding of "good" which I believe reflects the will of God). Hence I know that God wills against murder and that murder is morally wrong.
So you can see that God really willing me to murder my entire family would be the equivalent of me finding that 1 + 1 = 3. Something is seriously wrong.

I disagree - it's a metaphysical claim.

A lot of related topics were dealt with in <a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000009&p=" target="_blank">this thread</a> a while back. I suggest you read it, especially Kenny's posts which I generally agree with.

But if you want some sort of "model", here is the way I think of it/believe it to.
The theories of relativity and modern science have done a lot to shatter our ideas of an absolute time. Time is relative, not absolute. It is, far from being an overarching metaphysical concept, simply another dimension in our universe of space-time. (This actually agrees with/makes possible the Christian ideas of the relationship between God and time. I would hate to try and defend the doctrine of God's eternity in a system where time extended to God - the opening post in the thread linked to above shows one of the many problems with such a position)
So time is relative and simply bound up with universe it relates to - but what does this mean? It means that God does not reach out from his timelessness and "interfere" with a moment of time in the universe as it trots by him somehow. Rather it means that at the "moment" of creation the entire space-time was created. Time as a dimension means everything that every happens in the universe was decided at that instant. Thus every "interference" God would ever make was mixed together with "natural law" and "free will" etc to produce a consistent concept of this universe which then became existent at the will of God. Since the creation of the universe itself is not the question here - the creation of space-time is not an event in time- I think that answers the question of how a timeless being could interefere in time.

No doubt that is true in many perhaps even most cases. Need, and personal agendas are powerful forces. Of course this doesn't actually tell us anything about whether God exists or not.
After all, I could argue that atheists disbelieve in God because they have experienced emotional problems (eg parents divorced which destroyed their idea of a Father-God) or don't want to believe so they don't have to face up to their sins etc...
Gross generalisations like these are fun... but I do think there are rational people out there. Certainly if I had to assess myself on the issue I would say I was far too rational.

I would have said it's a metaphysical statement about my personal beliefs...
I can however back this one up by a combination of arguments from current scientific thought regarding the Big Bang and the Fine Tuning Argument which I discuss and present my favourite version of <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000011&p=" target="_blank">here</a>.

I don't know that God makes any difference between simple belief and disbelief in his existence. However belief is normally associated with attempting to live obediately to God, loving and trusting God etc which I believe he cares about.


Tercel

[ January 29, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>

Theli

But if he created their free will he must have implemented a chance for evil in their minds. And they couldn't have been badly influenced by their surroundings since that was also created by god.

Obvoisly, if god existed he would have no way of forseeing the future, because then it would be fixed and fully predictable. In that way, free will would be impossible.

But god created the free will, did he not?
And it's only through free will that we can commit evil. In that meaning, we are punished for his mistakes.

I didn't ask you if you think he would ask you to do it. I asked you if you would do it, and if it would be "good". And about the bible and murder.
Do a search on ("bible contradictions" + murder) and you will find LOTS of texts in the bible where god has "murdered" or commanded his followers to.

Meta-physical? What is metaphysical, really?

Yes, but not a geometric one, like the 3 (maybe more) others.
I know that time is relative to a point, but it holds the charecteristics of a line, with a start and an end. This was what I meant by "model". If you know of another way to view time I would like to hear it.

I agree. But if god would chose a point in time to act then the time of our space must also exist for him.

Note that a moment can't exist for god if he's timeless. Neither can the duration between the universe's creation and destruction. They would be simultainesly (damn word!).

But how could free will then exist? If gods actions in this universe was set in the creation of the universe, he cannot cope with "free will". Since "free will" constitutes actions made by conscious beings (such as us) wich are not set at the point of their creation.
And in that theory nothing is chaotic. It all must be ordered, since the course of the universe's history was set at it's own creation. If it was not, then god would be unable to interact with it, since he's actions in this universe had to be set aswell.

I don't know about this... If someone was afraid of being punished for or to have to face up with their sins, I don't think atheism is the right answer. A person would probably suck up as much as he could for god, scared to death for the punishment that might await him.


About Ex Nihilo... Could god really create something Ex Nihilo? I mean, if god had a plan or a blueprint of the universe then it didn't really get created out of nothing. There would also be some kind of energy in play to guide the creation to support life.

If god existed, I don't think it would matter if you believe or not. If it did, then why don't god just show us his existance in a way that would eliminate all doubt?
I'm not going to go into that time-question again, atleast not now... That shit is giving me a headache.

:-)

Well... thanks for answering.

Scrutinizer

Theli,

The future is not "predictable" to God in the sense that he knows what is going to happen but hasn't already. God simply sees it all in a single "now". Please point out how that precludes free will.

Not necessarily. If God chooses to act in our universe, obviously from our perspective he is acting in a point in time. From God's perspective there is no temporality.

You're right, a moment can't exist for God if he's timeless. Moments can exist for us, however. So, we subjectively think that the creation of the universe was however many millions of years ago. That, however, doesn't apply to God.

I think it would be very helpful if you provide your definition of free will. If free will is defined (loosely) as decisions that are caused by an agent from within rather than by external factors, the fact that the universe was "set" has nothing to do with whether we have free will and are morally responsible for our actions.

Having a plan doesn't mean you're not creating ex nihilo. If you decide to build a house with nothing but an idea or "plan", you still need bricks & mortar and all the rest of it, otherwise you are still creating ex nihilo.

Regards,

- Scrutinizer

Tercel

Theli,
Scrutinizer has already answered several of your queries, so I will deal with the remaining ones as far as I am able. However I'm not a physicist so I can't really help you much futher with the nature of time. I suggest you ask Kenny if you want to further discuss the subject (he's a physics and philosophy major) - I can contact him for you if you would like.

Agreed.

Are you trying to imply free will is a mistake? Do you think the world would be a better place if all that existed was mindless robots which perhaps said "I love you" when you pressed their buttons correctly? Without free will there could be no meaningful life, no freedom, love, compassion etc. Can we really say that free will is wrong because it allows evil, when it is also required for so many good things? Do we have even remotely sufficient knowledge to make such a judgement?

If I was sure (I don't really see how I could be though) that it was God asking me to do it, then I would. However, thinking of the story of Abraham and Isaac, I would imagine that God would stop me before I carried it out.

Indeed, there are lots of contradictions and errors in the Bible: It simply means you have to be a careful in your exegesis and not support large theories on single verses or with questionable material.
But I can think of many times in the OT where God commands his followers to go to war or perform some war-like killings en masse. However murder as we (and the Israelites) understand it is rather different and war and its related killings are not counted as murder. There may well me several examples of (alleged) God commanded murders in the Bible - but I can't think of any and my searches only turned up wars: So please refresh my memory.

To be properly "scientific" requires it to make predictions which can be verified or falsified by repeatable testing. The statement I made was with regard to my philosophical beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality beyond all scientific testibility. That branch of philosophy is called metaphysics, the claim being therefore a metaphysical one, not scientific.

That was why I put moment in quotes. But the universes creation and destruction cannot be "simultaneous" either just as they can't be created in a "moment". Anything outside of time simply exists it doesn't begin, it doesn't end, it just IS. -Why do you think God called himself the "I AM"?

The doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo is not simply that the universe was created out of nothing (a simple contradiction as it stands - after all: Ex nihilo nihil fit [out of nothing comes nothing]). Rather the doctrine is that the universe came only from God and God's creative power. It was against the Greek idea that some kind of eternal matter existed in the beginning along with God and he molded it into this world. Creation Ex Nihilo affirms that God was the only "first" thing and from him comes all else, the universe included. God having a plan etc or using his power to create the universe does not disprove Creation Ex Nihilo, but rather agrees with it.

Tercel

Theli

Scrutinizer....
But that IS the same thing! If he sees the demise of the universe (something wich hasn't happened yet) and also the demise of me, then he knows what will happen before it have even happened. In the sense that he "sees" it. And also if everything would happen simultaneously in his eyes it would be impossible for him to interact with the universe since the idea of past, present and future wouldn't exist in his "now" perspective, so he couldn't know what has happened and what has not happened yet. So his single action would be spanned out on the entire history of the universe, since it's all "now" for him. If it's not "now" for him, but is infact past, present and future (like it is for us) then he would be bound in the time of our universe and had to wait for something to happen before he would be able to know it (just like us).

That's excacly why we can interact with the universe, but something "timeless" cannot.

"Free will"?
It's abit hard to explain it. You could say that something wich have the ability to make decisions (to choose), and have a will of it's own would have a free will. A persons actions doesn't always have to comform with enviroment, and have logic behind them wich is based on external factors. Of course these are important factors but they are not the only ones. Imagination is of course a factor of itself.

It has everything to do with free will. If the course of the universe and every single particle in it was set from the begining (wich is neccesary for something to have a clear view of the future) then our actions had already been predicted and "programmed" in the world from the point of it's creation. Therefore we would be unable to choose between beeing good or evil since the course of our own extistance must have been set at our birth aswell. We couldn't possibly be responsible for our actions, they were already set at the point of our creation.
And if god is our creator, and he can see our future then he also created the course of our existance and is himself responsible for our actions. That would mean that he would punish us for his own mistakes, for his own evil.

I could never create something Ex Nihilo, since I would have use my own energy to the poject of creating the house. And if I add energy to the process then the house was created from something. Also the house would require my plans aswell as natural laws such as gravity in order to be created. This also validates the "Created from nothing" prerequisite for Ex Nihilo.
God could not be able to do so either, since his "will" is "something" and also validates the "nothing" prerequisite. It also validates his "timeless" prerequisite since he would have to change state from non-action to action and then back to non-action. In a timeless existance these would happen simultaneously and thus negate each other.

Theli

No,no,no,no,no... I think free will is a very good thing. The best aspect of living beings as ourself. We should embrace it.
But I responded as if god existed. And according to most Theists, god is infalible and good. But it's our own free will (or the demons free will) that makes us commit evil. This equation doesn't hold, since god created the free will we are using. And if god existed we should not be punished for it, since it's gods mistake to make it a possibility of evil. There is a simplier answer to this equation - God does not exist.

That's frightening...

Ofcourse there are many ways that people wan't to justify murder. In war it can be quite comfortable for someone to justify his own monstrosities by calling it "good" or "the will of god" or "for their country".
I bet the ones who crashed into the world trade center was quite comfortable with their actions. All they needed was Allah's blessing.

Yes I agree. Scientific theories requires testing and calculations before being called truth. That's why a scientific theory holds more value than a metaphysical one. Since a metaphysical theory is invented (made up) in lack of a better term. Of course a metaphysical theory can't be tested with calculation or microscopes, but it can be tested with logic. Since it's most probably invented with the use of logic, or by lack of logic..;-)

I know, but that would be the viewpoint of a timeless being. Since a duration between the universes creation and destruction would be 0. The creation couldn't happen before the destruction if time didn't exist. Because the consept of "before" requires time.

No it can't. I'm trying to explain this to you, that nothing can be timeless and changable at the same time.

God did not say that. God didn't say anything. It is just something writen in a book.

As far as I have learned, Ex Nihilo means created out of nothing. Not created out of god.

It comes from the Latin sentence "Creatio Ex Nihilo" where...
"Creatio" means Creation
"Ex" means out of/from within
"Nihilo" comes from the word "nihil" (nihilum) wich simply means nothing.

[ January 29, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]</p>

Tercel

How can free will make you do anything? Free Will is simply the ability to determine your own will without it being forced upon you by outside influences. eg If God directly altered my mind so I wanted to write this, then that's not free will and I'm not morally responsible. But if based on my past experiences, personality and my inner nature (whatever that might be exactly) I decided that I wanted to write this then that would be Free Will in action and I would be morally responsible for what I wrote and my decision to write it.
God made evil possible, yes. That doesn't make him responsible for anyone who decides of their own free will to make the evil actual.
Say you stab me with a kitchen knife. Is it the knife manufacture's fault for creating a knife which could be used to hurt me (despite the fact that the maker meant it to be used for cutting vegetables), or is it your fault for choosing to use it to hurt me? Making evil possible, where that possibility is a side-effect of a good purpose, is not wrong. (However making evil possible for the sake of doing so would seem to be - eg a person asks for a gun to shoot their spouse and you give it to them etc)

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. Asking what I would do in a situation which it would be impossible to find myself in is not going to yield answers that tell you much about anything.

I agree.
On the other hand, aren't the American military just a bunch of mass murderers?
If we're going to go into moral philosophy, perhaps you'd like to tell me why you think murder is morally wrong (assuming you do)? Say I was a Nazi SS commander at a concentration camp and one of the Jews complains such murder is morally wrong: I am quite bemused by this since I believe that I am advancing the evolution of the human race by wiping out the inferior Jews, I also have a command from Hitler himself my highest athority (I'm an atheist). I ask, "Surely it is morally right for me to obey the command of my supreme authority and to advance the evolution of the human race? (Not to mention I'm sworn to obey my military commands) You might think it is wrong for me to kill you, but that's just your subjective opinion. From my point of view there is no moral reason not to kill you and every reason to do so."
Do you think the SS commander is wrong, if so explain please...?

Perhaps. It certainly seems to me to have anticipated modern theories of God and time...

I'd noticed. Your latin is correct and the titled of the doctrine is "Creation out of nothing". But, as I've explained, your understanding of what the doctrine means is wrong.

Tercel