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Is God a 'thing'?

 
 
Reply Fri 22 May, 2009 02:40 pm
Herbert McCabe and, arguably, Thomas Aquinas argue that God is NOT a thing because He is the cause of all things. (He couldn't cause Himself of course)

Other people hold that God is a thing.


What do you think and why.


My problem with saying God is a thing is that God then requires an explantion, or even a cause. So we have the problem of explaining how God came to exist.

However saying God is not a thing creates a certain ineffability where humans can have no meaningful knowledge of God or even meaningfully talk about him. At best we can use imagery and metaphores and analogies to describle God, but they are human and so fallible and cannot really express what actually God is.

- btw you could hypothetically try to answer this thread even if your an atheist/agnostic.
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hue-man
 
  1  
Reply Fri 22 May, 2009 02:49 pm
@Greg phil,
Greg wrote:
Herbert McCabe and, arguably, Thomas Aquinas argue that God is NOT a thing because He is the cause of all things. (He couldn't cause Himself of course)

Other people hold that God is a thing.


What do you think and why.


My problem with saying God is a thing is that God then requires an explantion, or even a cause. So we have the problem of explaining how God came to exist.

However saying God is not a thing creates a certain ineffability where humans can have no meaningful knowledge of God or even meaningfully talk about him. At best we can use imagery and metaphores and analogies to describle God, but they are human and so fallible and cannot really express what actually God is.

- btw you could hypothetically try to answer this thread even if your an atheist/agnostic.


God is a thing in your head (i.e. your thoughts), nothing more.
Greg phil
 
  1  
Reply Fri 22 May, 2009 02:58 pm
@hue-man,
Hmm: so God is just a subjective idea. Ok; that's a possible view.


But I was really interested in what God is if He actually exists; i.e. what is the cause of the world like?
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Krumple
 
  1  
Reply Fri 22 May, 2009 03:34 pm
@Greg phil,
I like to think that if there was a god, imagine how incredibly boring or dreary such an existence would be? You have absolutely nothing around you. What's there? Your god television? So you can watch your imagination unfold?

I like to think god in absolute realization of existence destroyed himself in god suicide which created everything... lol

I don't really believe that but its how I view eternity according to humanistic behavior. You can't find enjoyment in something endlessly without having it's opposite become an influence.
Didymos Thomas
 
  1  
Reply Fri 22 May, 2009 03:38 pm
@Krumple,
Greg wrote:

However saying God is not a thing creates a certain ineffability where humans can have no meaningful knowledge of God or even meaningfully talk about him. At best we can use imagery and metaphores and analogies to describle God, but they are human and so fallible and cannot really express what actually God is.


Why is God being ultimately ineffable mean that humans cannot have "meaningful knowledge of God"? Ineffability does not mean that we cannot experience God, only that God cannot be precisely placed into language.

I never really understood why people think, or even desire, they can perfectly represent God in language. Isn't God greater than that?
hue-man
 
  1  
Reply Fri 22 May, 2009 03:40 pm
@Krumple,
Krumple wrote:
I like to think that if there was a god, imagine how incredibly boring or dreary such an existence would be? You have absolutely nothing around you. What's there? Your god television? So you can watch your imagination unfold?

I like to think god in absolute realization of existence destroyed himself in god suicide which created everything... lol

I don't really believe that but its how I view eternity according to humanistic behavior. You can't find enjoyment in something endlessly without having it's opposite become an influence.


That was good one, man. That honestly made me laugh. Making fun of that concept just seems too easy.
0 Replies
 
KaseiJin
 
  1  
Reply Fri 22 May, 2009 11:20 pm
@Greg phil,
those regulars here will eventually get tired of hearing it over and over, but if we talk about "God," with that capital 'G,' rather than 'god,' with the small letter (of course first word in a sentence being held on the side), we are (since we are using English), talking about YHWH for the most part. I say for the most part because there is the Jewish belief-system model, and then there is the Christian belief-system model which stems from but varies slightly from the Jewish model.

So if you are speaking about YHWH, just go check out those Jewish religious documents--they'll give you all you need to know. They'll let you know that YHWH is a male, is a being--not a thing--lives in a certain area above the waters above the dome, gets angry easily, hates homosexuality, loves the smell of burning animals, and has a tendency to sometimes say, 'hey, if you guys don't worship me, then to hell with you!'

If you are talking about any god, then any god is ok, I'd assume, so then there would surely be no need to ask what god might be, because anything would do the trick. I'll vote for nature !
Kielicious
 
  1  
Reply Fri 22 May, 2009 11:40 pm
@KaseiJin,
One could answer the question once we define god.

So far the question being phrased is: "is X a thing?"

....one cannot answer that question without more detail....
0 Replies
 
Didymos Thomas
 
  1  
Reply Fri 22 May, 2009 11:41 pm
@KaseiJin,
KaseiJin wrote:

So if you are speaking about YHWH, just go check out those Jewish religious documents--they'll give you all you need to know. They'll let you know that YHWH is a male, is a being--not a thing--lives in a certain area above the waters above the dome, gets angry easily, hates homosexuality, loves the smell of burning animals, and has a tendency to sometimes say, 'hey, if you guys don't worship me, then to hell with you!'


Then you will have a tough time explaining away Jews who disagree with this perception of God. Jewish theologians and scholars.

Not to say that all Jews believe this, but most Jewish scholars agree that the Old Testament should not be read literally (ie, YHWH is not a male) and that such readings are childish.
KaseiJin
 
  1  
Reply Sat 23 May, 2009 01:00 am
@Didymos Thomas,
Didymos Thomas;64498 wrote:
Then you will have a tough time explaining away Jews who disagree with this perception of God. Jewish theologians and scholars.


LOL !! Well, you may be right there, DT. My present position is (and of course, there are those scholars who would tend more so than not to agree), however, that we have to let those of the texts speak, because simply due to the passage of time and cultural expansion, their intentions and expressions of intended meaning cannot change. Perhaps the hard part here, however, would be having Jewish theologians relinquish their presently held regious emotion on non-biblical works post 70 CE; such as the Babylonian Talmud, and so on and so forth.


In today's climate, it would be of course embarrassing to admit to such a deity, and so any attempt to quietly sweep such under the carpet would be an expected move; I'd say.

It is the same for the first century Christian documents too--about letting those of the texts speak for themselves. (This may essentially be the Plain Reading argument, but we must first start there on all ancient textual criticism projects.)
Didymos Thomas
 
  1  
Reply Sat 23 May, 2009 01:25 am
@KaseiJin,
KaseiJin wrote:
LOL !! Well, you may be right there, DT.


Heheh, I might be: but let me also be the first to admit that I may very well be wrong. I'm not what you would call an expert.

KaseiJin wrote:
My present position is (and of course, there are those scholars who would tend more so than not to agree), however, that we have to let those of the texts speak, because simply due to the passage of time and cultural expansion, their intentions and expressions of intended meaning cannot change.


On this point alone (intended meaning) I wonder about the significance. There is a school of though that says that intent is essentially irrelevant when investigating the meaning of literature.

KaseiJin wrote:
Perhaps the hard part here, however, would be having Jewish theologians relinquish their presently held regious emotion on non-biblical works post 70 CE; such as the Babylonian Talmud, and so on and so forth.


I'm not sure their opinions are simply emotional responses, though. I am not scholar of Judaism (for example, I think of myself as knowing more about Buddhism than Judaism), but the idea that current Jewish opinion is emotionally based rather than based on Jewish scripture seems odd.

KaseiJin wrote:
In today's climate, it would be of course embarrassing to admit to such a deity, and so any attempt to quietly sweep such under the carpet would be an expected move; I'd say.


But then we must ask: is this Jewish position the result of modernity, or a long standing tradition? My hunch (and that's all it is) is that this position is long standing.

KaseiJin wrote:
It is the same for the first century Christian documents too--about letting those of the texts speak for themselves. (This may essentially be the Plain Reading argument, but we must first start there on all ancient textual criticism projects.)


I agree that the texts should "speak for themselves" but what this means with respect to proper interpretation is obscure in that it leads to a great many heated debates regarding what the texts say when they speak for themselves.

For example (from Christian scripture, a literary genre more familiar to me): do the Synoptic Gospels support the claim in John that Jesus is the "only begotten son?" Many, most, Christians say yes, while I disagree. It is not an easy debate.
0 Replies
 
Greg phil
 
  1  
Reply Sat 23 May, 2009 01:41 am
@Didymos Thomas,
Didymos Thomas wrote:
Why is God being ultimately ineffable mean that humans cannot have "meaningful knowledge of God"? Ineffability does not mean that we cannot experience God, only that God cannot be precisely placed into language.

I never really understood why people think, or even desire, they can perfectly represent God in language. Isn't God greater than that?


Well even we we could experience God that could only be us in respect to Him (not meant t be actually male of course) rather than Him in respect to us since He is immutable (or so many theologians claim).

But my point was not just that God cannot be precisely placed into language, but also that God cannot be actually described by language (i.e. understood, percieved) at all; if He is somehow not a thing.
And if we reject unequivocal language of God, then how is the major theistic religions (esp Judaeo-Christian) justified in their claims about God?


Kelicious wrote:

One could answer the question once we define god.

So far the question being phrased is: "is X a thing?"

....one cannot answer that question without more detail....

Well that's sort of my point; can God be actually defined at all? If not then the Abrahamic faiths are severely mistaken in many of their beliefs.
Didymos Thomas
 
  1  
Reply Sat 23 May, 2009 02:18 am
@Greg phil,
Greg;64515 And if we reject unequivocal language of God, then how is the major theistic religions (esp Judaeo-Christian) justified in their claims about God?[/quote wrote:


Well, unless they demand that God can be perfectly expressed in language I do not see how this is an issue.
dalesvp
 
  1  
Reply Sat 23 May, 2009 06:29 am
@Didymos Thomas,
Perhaps if we first state what "God" is not. God is not an anthropomorphic entity created in the image of man. Which means a jealous, hateful, vengeful male chauvinist that likes to beat up on his children and murder those he does not like or who thinks different than he does.

IMHO, "God" is a label used to describe 1) a universal state or condition. In modern parlance that condition would not be too unlike what is called "entanglement" in quantum mechanics and "sympathetic vibration or oscillation" in music and mechanical engineering. This state or condition would allow omniscience in that everything is aware of everything else on some level of awareness. Such as state is also analogous to unconditional "Love"; 2) a sentient self awareness capable of knowing "I Am" as unlimitable Cause (omnipotent) and 3) all the above abiding in a nonlinear universe where Time, Space and Matter are constructed effects (illusions) - a stage if you will where those who believe in it can act out their beliefs.

A few mind-altering definitions of "God":

"..God is love." Edgar Cayce Reading 688-4

"The CREATOR is the all-knowing Mind of undivided still and unconditioned invisible Light of Mind. The CREATOR is Mind only." Russell, Home Study Course, unit 6, page 397

"The eternally conscious entity - call it by whatever name we please - moves in cycles as eternal and infinite as itself; it oscillates and vibrates perpetually and is never unconscious of any present condition, be it pain or pleasure, joy or sorrow, shame or glory; like the pendulum of a clock or the sun, moon, or tides, it swings from the one to the other of these conditions, now in pleasure, now in pain, by its contact with the extremes of all varying conditions, like a child which throws up its head and laughing for joy exclaims, I KNOW I AM." [Keely, Dashed Against the Rock]

"Keely affirms, with other philosophers, that there is only one unique substance, and that this substance is the Divine spirit, the spirit of life, and that this spirit of life is God, who fills everything with His thoughts; disjoining and grouping together these multitudes of thoughts in different bodies called atmospheres, fluids, matters, animal, vegetable, and mineral forms." Bloomfield-Moore
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Greg phil
 
  1  
Reply Sat 23 May, 2009 12:06 pm
@Didymos Thomas,
Didymos Thomas wrote:
Well, unless they demand that God can be perfectly expressed in language I do not see how this is an issue.

Well maybe not perfectly, but they do claim to be able to at least vaguely make sense of their notion of God e.g. that God is concious and that God cares for people or - Christian- Jesus is God incarnate.
The point is is that 'God' is meant to be meaninful to Believers, but how is that possible is no human language or thoughts can grasp even one shadow or element of God (since God is Simple and has no parts)?

Dalesvp wrote:
Perhaps if we first state what "God" is not.

Well according to the Via negative, that is all we can say: but the problem is that then any religious claims of God become no more that imagery.


Quote:
IMHO, "God" is a label used to describe 1) a universal state or condition. In modern parlance that condition would not be too unlike what is called "entanglement" in quantum mechanics and "sympathetic vibration or oscillation" in music and mechanical engineering. This state or condition would allow omniscience in that everything is aware of everything else on some level of awareness. Such as state is also analogous to unconditional "Love"; 2) a sentient self awareness capable of knowing "I Am" as unlimitable Cause (omnipotent) and 3) all the above abiding in a nonlinear universe where Time, Space and Matter are constructed effects (illusions) - a stage if you will where those who believe in it can act out their beliefs.

Well I accept that people do make notions of God, but I wonder whether they are actually meaningful for a being which is no-thing.
Can anything be said of or understood of a being which is pure actuality, perfect, but not a thing?
Kielicious
 
  1  
Reply Sat 23 May, 2009 03:11 pm
@Greg phil,
Greg wrote:

Well that's sort of my point; can God be actually defined at all? If not then the Abrahamic faiths are severely mistaken in many of their beliefs.



God can be defined.

God is yaweh, god is zeus, god is allah, god is the first cause, etc...

Obviously, these dont get to the real issue of actually explaining god but they each has some presuppositions behind them that give more detail about the infamous 'god' dilemma.

It all depends on how we define god. If I were to say god is supernatural then not much, if anything, can be known about god. But if I were to substitute the word 'god' in relpace of another word like: god is nature, or god is love, then we can know alot more about god.

So god can be defined all day with unjustified claims but actually knowing god, well, that's another story.
KaseiJin
 
  1  
Reply Sat 23 May, 2009 04:56 pm
@Greg phil,
Greg;64515 wrote:

And if we reject unequivocal language of God, then how is the major theistic religions (esp Judaeo-Christian) justified in their claims about God? . . .

Well that's sort of my point; can God be actually defined at all? If not then the Abrahamic faiths are severely mistaken in many of their beliefs.


I cannot help but see this as offering a new god-model, since the Abrahamic belief-systems have quite clearly defined their models. And if we were to test those models, they all fail, just as you have hinted at.

And please do keep in mind the details of what Kielicious has just written in line two of his post. You appear to keep focusing on the YHWH-Christian-tinted-model, but those who developed that model, have pretty much spelled it out.
0 Replies
 
dalesvp
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 May, 2009 04:18 am
@Greg phil,
Greg;64582 wrote:
Well I accept that people do make notions of God, but I wonder whether they are actually meaningful for a being which is no-thing.
Can anything be said of or understood of a being which is pure actuality, perfect, but not a thing?


One would be compelled to define words. What is 'no-thing'? "Things" are of the Newtonian universe. Which is to say constructed of atomic and molecular substances. There are 'things' we cannot see yet are still 'things' but are not Newtonian 'things' such as radio waves, light waves, consciousness. Some of those 'things' we cannot see as 'things' are held to be 'non-things'. So to begin or end (dismiss) this conversation by saying something is or isn't a "thing" begs the question and leaves more questions for those of us who are seeking a deeper and greater awareness. My definition at least makes an effort to get at an explanation that would eliminate all the religious superstitions people seem to enjoy chit-chatting about.
0 Replies
 
Greg phil
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 May, 2009 02:31 pm
@Kielicious,
Kielicious wrote:
God can be defined.

God is yaweh, god is zeus, god is allah, god is the first cause, etc...

Obviously, these dont get to the real issue of actually explaining god but they each has some presuppositions behind them that give more detail about the infamous 'god' dilemma.

It all depends on how we define god. If I were to say god is supernatural then not much, if anything, can be known about god. But if I were to substitute the word 'god' in relpace of another word like: god is nature, or god is love, then we can know alot more about god.

So god can be defined all day with unjustified claims but actually knowing god, well, that's another story.

Well your last line is the real critical point I think. CAN we know God?
--as a side, I think not, which is the primary reason why I left Christianity

KaesiJim wrote:
And please do keep in mind the details of what Kielicious has just written in line two of his post. You appear to keep focusing on the YHWH-Christian-tinted-model, but those who developed that model, have pretty much spelled it out.

Well I am refering to a good, creator, omnipotent god, so yeah, roughly a judeao-christian model. But I disagee that they have is spelled out: even between different Christians there is massive disagreement as to what God is e.g. whether He is everlasting (temporal) or timeless (supratemporal) or whether His will forms moral law or whether He wills an independant moral law etc.


Dalesvp wrote:
One would be compelled to define words. What is 'no-thing'? "Things" are of the Newtonian universe. Which is to say constructed of atomic and molecular substances. There are 'things' we cannot see yet are still 'things' but are not Newtonian 'things' such as radio waves, light waves, consciousness. Some of those 'things' we cannot see as 'things' are held to be 'non-things'. So to begin or end (dismiss) this conversation by saying something is or isn't a "thing" begs the question and leaves more questions for those of us who are seeking a deeper and greater awareness. My definition at least makes an effort to get at an explanation that would eliminate all the religious superstitions people seem to enjoy chit-chatting about.

Well I'm working on a Thomist argument like this:
God is the Final Cause of all things: God is the reason why something rather than nothing exists (i guess that is my definition of God)
If God were a thing then He'd be the cause/reason of himself which is self-contrary
Thus God is not a thing.

Of course most believers DO see God as a 'thing'; which is the point of this thread --- whether or not God is a 'thing' and then
IF God is a thing, then what caused God to exist? OR
IF God is not a thing, then does the statment 'God exists' mean anything? and if yes then how still can we know of or talk about God?
KaseiJin
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 May, 2009 06:00 pm
@Greg phil,
Greg;64769 wrote:

Well I am refering to a good, creator, omnipotent god, so yeah, roughly a judeao-christian model. But I disagee that they have is spelled out: even between different Christians there is massive disagreement as to what God is e.g. whether He is everlasting (temporal) or timeless (supratemporal) or whether His will forms moral law or whether He wills an independant moral law etc.


Thanks for your reply. I'd like to ask you to please focus most conscientiously on what you have written, above. Who would you take that 'they' to have been, then (and please do notice the verb tense). By what process of thinking or information gathering are we able to claim knowledge of any fact such as 'someone has not defined something properly or fully' when our very basis for any understanding at all, on that very same matter, does not come chronologically prior to that most basic source?

Can it not be said, with a very high degree of factuality, that Christianity today, as Judaism today, has these problems due to the fact that they have passed through time (all the while, what the 'closer-to-the-autographers' claim to have known to be universal truth being closed)?

Your last line in your reply to Kielicious is the very reason why you would better off using the word 'god,' rather than YHWH (which is basically what is happening with "God" in English). Is it not more correct--or at least pragmatic--to conclude that if the H. sapien cannot not know something that it has created, and cannot satisfactorily demonstrate to the universal set the true factuality of what it has created, then what it has created is much more likely nothing more than the associative power of the big brain that it (H. sapien) has evolved into? (in other words, a practical figment of misassociation)

If taking this view, I'd be very tempted to argue that yes, god would be a thing (on a practical level), due to the fact that synaptical connections and neurons are actual, living, physical things (on the practical level . . . no left hemisphere neglect patient checks into the hospital to have their quantum fields re-spun, or arranged, or whatever....you know)?

---------- Post added at 10:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:00 AM ----------


Oh boy...oh girl...it got merged....sorry. (it wasn't supposed to be so long)

Thank you for your feedback there, DT. Regarding the matter of biblical exegesis, along with textual criticism, hermeneutics (which latter can be very much nuanced by form criticism, redaction criticism, and audience criticism) and historical method lines of thought, we very much arrive at the point where it is understood (in spite of the choice to ignore the above methodologies) that with these religio-culture inspired documents, we do, in fact have exact intention to communicate specific ideas into the minds of the intended audience (in most cases . . .some wisdom works and poetic works being different, as well as some degree of prophetic symbolism).

When the writer of that main portion of Genesis, for example, described the building of the ark, it was with the specific intention to report on a historical undertaking by a specific actual person (usually 'historical person' is the term used). When, in the scroll of Nehemian (Second Temple stuff) the author retells the story of the nation of Isreal taking the land of Canaan, he most obviously does so as per his understanding and intent to give an historical event.

When, as a second example, the author (probably Luke, an educated man) of Acts wrote (and this was a private work in the first instance, for a single recipient) how one Stephen gave a witness to the Jewish priestly council and told them the story of Moses, and some of its detail, the author very clearly intended to report as history, the story inside the story (of Stephen . . . although the author would not have witnessed that personally). Intention to communicate a specific idea is very common a thing.

Regarding the Jewish scholars, if you had written Israeli scholars, or biblical scholars, or scholars of judaic studies, I'd probably understand the academical stance, and would not have pinned any 'emotional-content-due-to-being-believing-members-of-a-particular-belief-system modifier on them. If, as you have worded it (and this is simply looking a possible facts, not on how you have presented it, in any way) those who object to the far greater bulk of many of the documents of Judaism (canonical or not) as presenting a specific and determined description/prescription of YHWH, are members of the Jewish religious belief-system, then it is religious emotion which has most surely led to making such a claim. . . so, I say emotion.

Basically, we will find three main catagories: scholarly religionist, religious scholars, and scholars of religious knowledge. As you would guess, the first class especially, do have an agenda. The second class, while being quite reasonable with much of the understanding brought to the table of discussion, will, more invariably, lean towards a certain 'participating religious belief-system' protective position; to varying degrees. The last group, as far as I have seen, communicated with, and have read, are the far more objective with the greater spread of data and methodologies.

By looking, for example and more specifically, at Jewish authors such as Flavous Josephus, it is easy to determine that such a view that you have reported on, would be due to modernity. Even ...uh oh...can't remember his name...a Medival Jewish writer...exemplifies such so as to clinch this understanding.

Regarding the 'only-begotten' matter, it'd best come under the Biblical Texts thread, so I'll work that in . . . some day (help me remember) but basically, due to linguistical matters (such as the definite article, for example) we can construe that the understanding that the authors of John more didactically emphasized, may have been behind such wording, but no intention of the author to express that concern to the audience can be seen.
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