If you’re suggesting that any questions toward God are irrelevant because we can’t comprehend Him, then that doesn’t make Christianity Christianity, it makes it Agnosticism.
This is also just a bit arrogant, no? “If you disagree with my position, it’s only because you don’t comprehend it.”
For those of you interested in the stone paradox, here’s our last thread dealing it.
No; the ‘rock thing’ is a malformed logical entity; an immovable object and an irresistable force cannot (by their own definitions) exist in the same universe;
Omnipotence need not be defined as ‘being able to do any thing, even if it is not a thing’.
Can I smell the colour nine? - no! - not because my sense of smell is impaired, but because ‘smelling the colour nine’ is illogical nonsense.
I like the analogy Mangetout. Asking a non-sensicle question doesn’t mean there can’t be such a thing as an omnipotent being.
But if we’re talking about the God of the Bible I have this question: from Genesis 6:6: And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
If He knows everthing he’s going to do in the future, why did He make man if He knew one day He would regret it?
Well now, that is a good question; I’ll leave it to the literalists to answer…
I probably hit send too early. What I’m saying is, if one repents thier own actions, that means there actions must not have been perfect. No?
How is being able to create a universe logical?
How is being able to exist “outside” of time logical?
How are and have been any of the great acts of God, logical? Because He willed them so? How’s that logical?
Christians say that God is beyond our comprehension; His logic is different from our logic; so who’s to say God can’t make an immovable object and an irresistable force (assuming He does exist and is omnipotent) exist in the same universe, under His logic?
If you’re saying that the term “logic” only encompasses everything mankind can do, and everything God has done, then who’s to say He can’t do more? Polycarp stated that God chooses not to act in all possible ways, so He doesn’t, but that means He CAN do other things, even if it is not a thing to us.
Not to be flippant, but of course you (and all of us) don’t. It’s impossible for any of us to fully understand something that exists outside of the confines of our own physical universe, something that need not be subject to the physical laws our universe creates, something unbound by the laws that create the most immediately “real” context for our understanding. But, of course, an omniscient and omnipotent being would, by definition, have to exist outside these confines, the very confines He created. Otherwise He’d be limited by our physical laws, the constraints of time, etc.–which is your point.
God is a non-physical being, unconstrained by the time and space and physics He created. He does not require that context to exist. Any limitations on his actions are self-imposed.
Well, speaking Ex Cathedra here, anytime my religion can’t explain something logically we hang a big Holy Mystery sign on it and make it part of the dogma. YMMV
What’s illogical about what God does? And remember that we need to speak of Him in terms that make sense to us as humans, but which are necessarily metaphors for Him. God no more “repented” of creating man than the Sun rose in the east this morning – both are metaphors describing from human perspective what actually happened in a quite different way.
My point on eternity above and the distinction from perpetuity was that God necessarily sees what we observe as a sequence of temporal events as one – because that’s implicit in eternity – the whole of time is taken as a single unit, much as we can see all of a rolling lawn that to an ant only the tiny part which he can observe at one moment is knowable.
So you’re saying that even though God seems self-contradicting to human logic, thats irrelevant because God exists outside our logic?
Again, this seems like you’re saying that God exists beyond our logic, so I can’t comprehend Him anyway regardles of how many contradictions I find.
Well, yes and no.
I’m saying several things:
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Implitly, that “contradictions in the Bible” are not necessarily evidence for or against God – they’re errors in a book comprised of writings by a bunch of humans over the years and alleged to be inspired by Him. (I know that wasn’t part of your argument, but it deserves to be touched on in passing, just for clarity’s sake.)
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That one cannot comprehend the totality of an entity of which the sorts of ultimate-type statements we’ve been examining in this thread can be made – one cannot “grok God” in the Heinleinian term.
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That one can “know” Him in the connoitre meaning – as a Person – without “knowing” Him completely in the savoir sense.
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That inherently contradictory assertions “logically reasoned” from propositions about Him are not accurate, in the same way as those subtle proofs that one equals zero or minus one are inaccurate, since they depend on dividing by a variable which, analyzed, turns out to be equal to zero.
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That determinism, fate, and such are not inherently contradictory of free will, but the results of our cause-and-effect time-limited system of cogitation, which is not applicable to an entity which “sees the entire program” as a whole, rather than trying to debug it one step at a time, to use a programming metaphor.
Yes. Logic as we define it has meaning within our physical world. God is not constained by it. He is beyond our complete understanding because we are imperfect, limited beings, and He is not.
Sounds like agnosticism to me.
I suppose it is, if you are referring to a very specific form of knowledge regarding God. I do not, however, posit that it is impossible to know God, only that it is not possible to fully understand His nature.
From this site:
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In Christianity, to be told my questions are irrelevent because I can’t comprehend God, and to simply accept all the teachings He wrote/inspired some people to write in a book (supposedly infallible, according to that same God) without question, is a big leap of faith and disregard of all my reason and common sense (no offense to any Christians, that’s just me and my own opinion).
Point taken. But that’s not what I’m saying, nor is it the stance of any other Christian in this thread so far as I can tell.
I can’t know all that there is to know about God – but I can certainly know some things about Him. And I’d be glad to share what I know about him (or believe that I do), to the extent that you want to listen. Nor do a great proportion of Christians believe the Bible to be infallible – we respect it but feel that scholarship about it is the way to get at the truth conveyed through it. Questions are not only acceptable but a demand of the thoughtful believer. Nor are you expected to disregard reason, just adopt the stance of humility that there are some things that you just ain’t gonna get the answer to right here and right now, and that God is somebody that you can trust to have those right answers and give them in His own good time. (That last is what I mean by faith – I trust Him, as I would a person of whose goodwill and ability to accomplish what he proposes to do I am utterly sure.)
Slight difference from where you’re coming from, I believe.
Not that there are not folks who take the stance you object to, of course – though they too will do their level best to resolve your questions insofar as they are able.
What is known about God? God is all-loving. But why is there so much death and other bad stuff going on? Satan caused it? Man caused it? Both were created by God, and God knew all this evil was going to happen. He doesn’t do anything about it; I say that doesn’t mean He’s all loving; Christians say its part of His divine plan; when I ask about His divine plan, its beyond human knowledge. How do I trust a being like that?
Many questions are geared toward believers who want to believe more and keep their faith and be able to defend it; I’m somewhere between agnostic and atheist, and faith seems to be the only thing separating me from a Christian; how do I have faith in something while there’s so much telling me not to?