Fiach

I don't believe in spirits. I have no evidence that they exist. But I am going to put on my Christian hat now. Spirits are not matter or energy. Spirits are not defined except what they are not. They are not matter and as such do not occupy space and that implies that they are not constrained by time as well.

So unlike matter or energy, 2 or more spirits can occupy the same space because they are not part of space nor energy. God can be coextensive or more than coextensive with the universe, if defined that way. Lesser spirits are not defined by space or time either. Perhaps they can exist, coexist with God by not displacing him nor him displacing them. They overlap since they are not bound by the laws of matter, energy, and perhaps time.

Any theists here feel that this is in anyway close to their beliefs. If you think it is dauny gabberloony, I won't be offended.

Fiach

Albert Cipriani

Fiach,
I couldn't have said it better. Hooray for you! You finally got something right.

Which only goes to show that even a gabberloony loon like yourself isn't bereft of some hochmagandy. Your Gobshite Boye, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Fiach

Thanks, Albert. But now I have taken my Christian hat off. I am back to scepticism and unbelief again. But I can do a good Christian impersonation, eh?

Fiach

Darkblade

I am still reading through this thread, and I basically never post before reading the whole thread, but I will do so here.

If "free will" is supposedly needed in any creation by CGC (christian god-concept), and CGC supposedly never does evil, and CGC knew, in "his" omniscience, that creating humans would cause them to "create" evil for themselves, thus harming them, why didn't CGC, in "his" omniscience and omnipotence, just instead create an infinite (it should be infinite, in order to create a "maximum" happiness value) amount of beings similar or identical to "himself", in knowledge that said beings would never do evil, just as "he" never will? (I know that this sentence is very long,...)

Would CGC somehow be intimidated by the fact that these beings would (at least) be "his" moral and emotional equals (if not "his" equals in power and knowledge), or would "he" merely be bored by this arrangement? (and that this one is pretty long also.)

Darkblade

Apparently, the sort of things I talked about in my other post in this thread have been brought up. My apologies for probably wasting server space.

Darkblade

By the way, even supposing that any god that CGC makes is somehow lesser than CGC (supposing the perfection of CGC), just for the fact that it was created, why is it that only CGC, being perfect can have "free will" without ever doing evil? Are these lesser theoretical gods somehow affected morally by merely having been created???

Mageth

Albert:

Spirit is a word that denotes that which is not material, i.e., that which is non-stuff. To say that God and the angels are "made of" any kind of stuff let alone made of the same kind of stuff is to contradict the notion that they are spirits. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Yes, I understand this concept of "spirit". My use of "stuff" was a bit rhetorical, and used to counter the_cave's seeming assertion that angels/demons are somehow "different stuff" than god. All we know for sure is that the Bible claims they're both spirit, whatever the hell that's supposed to be.

That aside, "material", to me, applies to matter/energy in this universe, the "stuff" of this universe. To me, "spirit" implies at most that they're not made of material as in this universe. If they exist, whether or not they're made of some other kind of "stuff" I don't think any of us can say for sure, but it seems to me there must be something there for one to claim they "exist" in any meaningful sense. They aren't nothing, I suppose. And what's wrong with calling that something "spirit stuff"?

Fiach:

I don't believe in spirits. I have no evidence that they exist. But I am going to put on my Christian hat now. Spirits are not matter or energy. Spirits are not defined except what they are not. They are not matter and as such do not occupy space and that implies that they are not constrained by time as well.

So unlike matter or energy, 2 or more spirits can occupy the same space because they are not part of space nor energy. God can be coextensive or more than coextensive with the universe, if defined that way. Lesser spirits are not defined by space or time either. Perhaps they can exist, coexist with God by not displacing him nor him displacing them. They overlap since they are not bound by the laws of matter, energy, and perhaps time.

But if angels/demons are spirit, would this imply that they're (potentially) omnipresent, omnipotent, "infinite" in time or timeless, and even potentially omniscient, as they could see the past, present and future? If they're indeed not bound by the laws of matter, energy, and perhaps time, what makes them "lesser spirits"?

And wouldn't that make angels/demons a bit more than they're claimed to be? In the OT, they seemed to be quite "material" or limited beings, after all, wrestling with men, and having a hard go at it, and such.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Darkblade,
You ask:
He did exactly what you suggest. An infinite “number” (I prefer the word maximal number) of angelic beings were created just like Him in every way save quantity. God, being infinite, could only create finite versions of Himself.

Could He create an infinite version of Himself, He’d be creating a fourth person of the Blessed Trinity. For reasons beyond our kin, doing it twice (begetting God the Son from Whom together proceeds God the Holy Ghost) was enough. That is why God the Son and Holy Ghost are not called creations, for they ARE the same as God the Father in every respect except personality. (If they were not different persons, they would be indistinguishable from the Father and it’d make no sense to assert their being.)

What you fail to appreciate is that the metaphysical reality of God is a FREE BEING – not omniscient, not omnipotent, not all the stupid attributes that are merely the non-existent shadows of our anthropomorphisms.

Being is beyond our comprehension. But freedom is not. We have some notion of what it’s like to be free. So in creating the angels and us free, as God Himself is free, He necessarily opened up the Pandora Box for us to be slaves to sin through our misuse of freedom.

On the other hand, as a function of His infinity, God cannot misuse His own freedom. Just as the ocean cannot spill out of its basin, Yahweh cannot choose to be different than Who He is. There’s no “place” else for Him to go, no other template for Him to conform to.

But we, being finite creatures, imagine there is a different way for us to go… it’s called The Fall. We think that our nature is only one of many options that we ourselves can ultimately determine. That is the lie that tripped up Adam and Eve and continues to be the trip wire preceding every sin committed until this very day.

In short, every creature’s finite condition (the price of admission into creation) creates an existential void wherein evil lies may rush in to assuage the uncomfortable gap between our necessary finite condition and our longings to be less finite. Freedom, then, consists in our humble acceptance of our finite condition through prayer or rebellion against our finite condition through an egotistic belief in lies. Ergo, belief is the paramount religious issue and heresy is the oil-filled tank trench billowing the acrid stench of our egotistic fulminations. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Fiach

It might actually be chaotic like debating discrete math in a crowd of shouting soccer fans.

Fiach

the_cave

Boy, Albert & Fiach are way better at this than I am! I might just let them have at it...

It just means that being is not fully contained within the spatial dimensions of our universe. There could be other dimensions, or other states of being entirely. Mostly I myself am concerned with pondering the nature of the universe's existence in general--exactly how does it exist? What does it exist in relation to? How did it get the laws it has? Questions like that. I just think we can philosophically reason to some limited answers to those questions, even if science doesn't, or can't, provide the details. We at least can come up with some responses that satisfy our existential wonderings, beyond "just shut up and go do something else." (I'm not saying anyone here is saying that, I'm saying that's the impression I get from a lot of materialist arguments.)

Alright, but why do those laws exist? What brings them about? It seems to me the answer would have to be something that transcended our universe (which wouldn't necessarily mean it wasn't natural, or real).

Alright, but it did have a beginning.

I'm merely arguing that the existence of the universe has certain philosophical suggestions and implications as to the nature origins. I'm very happy science continues to investigate those origins. I think that there are certain philosophical conclusions that can be reasoned from those origins. Someone could certainly disagree with those conclusions, but I still think there's some debate.

Sure, I agree with that (though be careful--a theist who believes in revelation would surely claim that revelation is contained within the universe!) We differ about the philosophical conclusions that one can reason to from the data of the universe, and our existence within it.

Clearly they do, since here we are arguing about it

No, there would only be one ultimate origin of things. How could it be otherwise?

I just don't think it's logically possible for him to without contradicting himself, that's all.

Ooh, very good question. Albert's answer is pretty traditional--it's a mystery! I myself think the answer has to do with our human perception...in some important way, the Christian Trinity (which is really only about one god, remember) has to do with the human way of perceiving god, and says something about the relationship of human beings with the cosmos...it's a reflection of our experience as sentient beings separate from, yet present within, a larger creation. But I myself am not here right now to argue for or against the Trinity--I'm just working on god, period.

The bible speaks mythically about a lot of things. Not every word has to be taken literally. I'm not the only Christian to think so.