God as spirit makes one wonder what spirit is composed of,if God showed Moses His back side, He must have some material matter, how else could Moses see that?
Are you talking about Exodus 33:23? It says,
“Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be see.” (NKJV)
It seems like pretty clear figurative language to me. It certainly is not a slam dunk case for a material God. Besides, God is considered to be the creator of all material things, which would strongly suggest that he is not material himself.
If indeed it is figuative, there is no way of knowing any more than that the rest of Scriptures are figuartive. It still suggests that God of the Abrahamic Religions have a back and a face. No one can say for sure what a spirit is, spirit is a human term like all terms.
If God is a spiritual “Being” that communicates with some people and not others, He would first need a spiritual(at least) place to exist. Then existence would also be spiritual?
There are many differences as to what God is, or does,each person uses what they think is the truth. No one can in truth say they ‘Know’, just believe or think.
For me, spirit is not an indwelling presence, nor is God a spirit. For me, spirit defines a certain relationship between persons. And by persons (in the grammatical sense) I include God. When events in my life speak meaningfully to me, I believe it is God speaking to me.
Knowing another human being is not the same as knowing about them. I know God, but I don’t know anything about God. God’s existence is incomprehensible to me.
Spirit is a “human term”? What is that supposed to mean? And even if it is, how does this make the term unintelligible? Surely you wouldn’t suggest that all human terms are beyond comprehension.
As for the claim that this would somehow mean that all scripture can be considered figurative, I strongly disagree. As with any literary analysis, one should consider both the immediate and the general context to determine whether a passage is meant to be literal or figurative. The Bible declares that God is eternal and existed before the creation of all things, which would require him to be immaterial.
With this in mind, it’s hardly unreasonable to recognize Exodus 33:23 uses figurative language, especially since there are close parallels in modern day English. For example, we often speak about “turning our backs” on other people or “turning our faces away” from them, even when we do not literally execute a 180 degree turn in their presence. I daresay that most reasonable people would recognize this as an obvious metaphor rather than force-fitting a literal interpretation into such language.
The Bible is a work of human beings,not a God, Humans decided what was of God and what was not. Every thing we know, are taught, or read, etc. is strickly human. Humans decide what God is or is not,or what He said or did each person uses his or her own mind to decide, or they take the word of some other human. There are many translations for the word God. It is a matter of belief not fact. Some want it to be a metaphor because they want to believe, others see it in a different way. It would seem God wants people to be confused, or the Bible and other teaching about Him would not be conflictive. A good father would teach each of his children the same truths, not tell one one thing and one another as an example: To each one he would say, that mushroom is poision don’t eat it, he would tell one to eat it and another not to,loving all His children He would not want any to suffer for all eternity, nor would He create some, knowing they would suffer for all eternity, or in the example’s place, eat a mushroom that would kill them. One can believe the inner voice is God talking to them or instructing them and that is their right, but it doesn’t mean because they believe it it is the truth.
One turns one’s back by just turning around In a physical way, one can physically turn their face just by turning one’s head to the side, it doesn’t have to be 180 degrees. The fact that God told Moses he had a back side and Moses couldn’t see his face and live, shows that he meant it in a physical way or Moses(who by the way is probably not a historic person) wouldn’t have seen anything except in an imaginary way. One tends to translate the Bible to their own thinking, that is why there are so many different believers or religions.
Addressing the general topic of the OP:
Attempts to formulate ideas about god function to provide a rationale for things that one fears might have no rationale. (There may be no rationale for the existence of the world. There may be no rationale for moral behavior. There may be no rational for the social order. There may be no rationale for mystical experience. There may be no rationale for my conceptual scheme. There may be no rationale for insane behavior. And so on. Each of these things are the kind of thing people have tried to justify, explain, rationalize, or whatever, by appealing to concepts of the divine.)
And if there is anything that can provide a rationale for these kinds of thing, it can’t be yet another material entity with normal causal powers. (Material, causal factors may be the cause in each case, but they don’t provide a rationale, i.e., a foundational justification of a practice or of an evaluation.) Materiality and causality are themselves (esp the latter) yet more things one is likely to look–fearing in vein–for a rationale for.
Clearly, it’s hopeless to try to actually accomplish what we try to accomplish when we formulate ideas about god in this way. The function of these formulations simply can’t be fulfilled. Yet the attempt seems productive. We learn alot about ourselves, and alot about the world, alot about the social order, alot about the conceptual order, as we muddle through this kind of thing, as long as we are intellectually honest about it. (This said, it turns out (IME at least) that being intellectually honest about it is going to cause us never to be satisfied with our present answer, and tends toward a kind of cynicism or skepticism about the whole endeavor–yet for all that a cynicism or skepticism that fails to undermine the motivation for the attempt. The kind of cynicism that smiles and laughs at its own futility, even as it forges on in that futile effort. And there’s probably no rationale for this kind of behavior. But one might try to formulate one anyway, and learn something from the attempt.)
This is how I understand the drive to understand god as “spirit”. Whatever one is looking for when one is formulating ideas about god, a material, causal entity just doesn’t seem to fulfill the purpose of one’s search. Causal explanation can not provide rational justification. When we try to figure out what to think about god, we’re trying to figure out what we think about the rational justification–or lack thereof–of the way things are. So when we try to figure out what to think about god, a god who fits in the causal order doesn’t seem sufficient. I take it that by “spirit” people mean something that is real but that doesn’t figure into the causal order, covered by causal laws.
Am I reporting my own views about god? If I have to talk in god-terms, this is near and around the kind of thing I would say. But I actually think the best thing is just stop talking about god altogether. Search, honestly and bravely, for those impossible rationales. Find, destroy, and discover and rebuild again, the meaning behind your tradition. But do it in private or in small groups. In your closet, for example. In real life, in the world, apply what you’ve learned, but shut up with the useless, pointless, completely irrational god talk. Stop trying to tell a good story, except perhaps, ashamedly, in private, to yourself and a small group of intimates. (Be suspicious of metanarratives!) Instead of trying to tell a good story, try to live a life that is both good and infectious. That’s how you make things better.
There, I’ve outed myself, sort of.
(Where do I get this? I used to read a lot of Christian theology and I’m sure that’s where I picked up the muddle I just expressed. But as for names and sources, I have no clue where any of this comes from. In fact, if anyone knows of a way to fit me into the intellectual order re: contemporary theology, I’d love to have some pointers as far as books or authors to take a look at.)
Even if we grant that to be true, it is completely irrelevant to the question of whether Exodus 33:23 was mean to be literal or figurative.
Again, irrelevant to the question at hand.
It’s only a conflict if one insists that Exodus 33:23 should be taken literally. If one recognizes that the language used is figurative – again, a claim that’s pretty intuitive and consistent with our own modern language – then there is no conflict or confusion.
Only if one interprets that statement in a 100% literal fashion, which is precisely the issue under dispute.
A petty and irrelevant detail. It doesn’t matter if one would turn one’s face around by 180, 270, or even 90 degrees. The point is that such language is metaphorical, so the number of degrees involved is simply irrelevant.
Again, that’s just foolish. He didn’t "tell’ Moses that he had a back side or a face. Rather, he used those terms in a statement that can be reasonably interpreted in a figurative fashion.
When someone talks about the “four corners of the world,” is this equivalent to telling one’s listeners that the world has four corners? Obviously not. Yet that is the approach that you’re using to exegete Exodus 33:23. Every single one of your objections implicitly or explicitly assumes a literal interpretation – the very topic that’s under dispute. That’s circular reasoning and you know it.
Frylock, that’s a beautiful post. I often feel a bit lost myself as an atheist materialist who nevertheless enjoys Christian theology. You’ve explicated a lot of my thoughts on the matter. I would have described the purposes of god-language slightly differently, but I agree with everything you said. I’m sure I’ll incorporate some of what you’ve said in my own future meditations on the subject.
As far as where you fit in, I think you’d find Karen Armstrong’s new book resonates somewhat with what you say (though obviously she takes a different position on the value of god talk). You might also enjoy reading Feuerbach if you haven’t yet, although he’s not exactly “contemporary.” Unfortunately, philosophy of religion seems to have been largely abandoned by contemporary philosophers, and most theologians have given up on traditional liberalism in favor of postmodernism (though that obviously influences you, so you might find postmodern theology more satisfying than I did). You could also try Tillich, of course, though the little bit I read didn’t appeal to me. (I may feel differently if I went back to him now.) You might also check out Gordon Kaufman and his idea of “constructive theology” (The product description gives a good idea of what the book is about.)
You clearly need to take that passage in context. Here is 33:11
And here are the three verse right before 23
There is an awful lot of specificity here for something purely figurative. And God also talks about his presence:
This is clearly distinguished from God’s physical presence.
Good fiction writers can imbue physical actions with symbolic meanings, and that is clearly happening also. But that doesn’t mean that the actions don’t exist in the context of the story. If you think a dose of additional meaning can be used to invalidate the supposed truth of the action, I’d remind you that that Christ dying on the cross and being resurrected has tons of additional meaning - do you reject their historical reality for the same reason you reject the reality of this verse?
In other words, what justification do you have for considering this passage purely figurative besides the fact that it crosses your incredulity threshold. And why is your’s more accurate than mine?
Well there is the problem there. The very need to understand what spirit is composed of is an attempt to make spirit into material. It’s a category error.
Generally I find that when I say spirit = pattern I get blown off.
Again, easily dismissed as figurative language. Or if you wish, it’s entirely possible that God took on a human appearance for his encounter with Moses. None of that suggests that God is inherently material in nature.
Being specific has nothing to do with being literal or figurative. You can repeatedly play up a metaphor, but that doesn’t make it any less metaphorical.
Which still does not prove any material quality. You folks are REALLY straining when you insist that these things somehow prove that God is inherently material in nature.
You miss my point, or you didn’t read the verses closely enough. It is clear that God is talking about both a noncorporeal body (presence) and a physical one at the same time. (Or that he can throw his voice real well.) But in some sense the physical presence is also the real God, which is why Moses cannot see his face, because it is too divine to look at without dying.
In any case, if you are saying that the face and rear are not just metaphors, that is as much as I can ask for. It is pretty clear that the story does not have God as just wandering around, like Wotan, and casting spells. This might be a mix of older and newer legends, though.
But in this story the spirit clearly becomes physical. Maybe it makes a body for itself by manipulating matter like Bowman does in 2010. But anyone accepting this story has to also accept that God as a spirit can come down here and show us its bum anytime it wants to.
That is kind of the definition of a pattern. The pattern is not physical the arrangement of the matter in conformity with the pattern is physical.
You are trying to define spirit as something that is separate and distinct, rather than intrinsic to reality. You are starting from the premise where materiality and reality are synonyms. As per your definition above where imaginary by definition meant not real, which isn’t true. Imaginary by definition means existing only in the mind, which is different from, ‘not real’.
You are assuming that the spirit requires some sort of stable materiality in order to affect the material world. I am arguing that this is not the case. Or more specifically when discussing this God in particular it supersedes all materiality therefore it already interacts with every single wave and particle in existence and that it never doesn’t interact with all that exists.
Actually, for this passage I was addressing the contention that the authors meant it figuratively; that they never intended the reader to think that Moses actually saw God’s butt. I think it is clear that this is not the case. Now given that, the question of whether they thought God had a real butt or God is a spirit who created a butt is impossible to determine at this late date - especially because it is fiction.
I’ve said many times that patterns and processes are just as material as things you can touch and hold. As for your definition of spirit, fine. I’m more interested in how you arrived at it than arguing about if it makes any sense or not.
Is he not considered to be the creator of all immaterial things?
For that matter, many people create material things-does that make them immaterial?
The Bible I read; God told Moses when asked to show Himself told Moses He would show him his back because Moses couldn’t see His face and live.
That is your interpretation and you are entitled to it, but as I pointed out there are other ways to look at it. You seem to see it to back your own beliefs as many do. Others see it differently.
People in the days that Moses was supposed to have lived thought the world was flat and literally had 4 corners!
JThunder’s argument does work out - if someone creates all material things, they cannot be material, otherwise they would fall under the category of “material things” themselves. If God is a material thing, then logically he cannot have created all material things, not having created himself (unless it is held he did).