Best argument

[TGB]

Allan: God has a perfect and eternal idea of each of us which he is actualizing in time and space. God loves the person we will become, and he loves us here and now inasmuch as we conform to that perfect idea.

Tom: What Maximus called the logoi of created things, that which inscribes (as it were) in us the divine image, is our truest self. If I’m nit-picking, Allan, forgive me, but I wouldn’t say that God loves us “in as much as we conform to that perfect idea,” for that suggests that the less we conform the less we are loved and the more we conform the more we are loved. I’m not sure it’s a good idea even to ground God’s love for us in our constitution or conformity to an ideal, or in anything about us whatsoever. I prefer to say the fact THAT God loves us is unexplained by anything about us. I think our unique constitution (created in the divine image and uniquely fitted for loving relationship with God) is itself the consequence of God’s loving plan for us. Love preceds all created contingencies and grounds their being. In other words, God loves freely, fully, and unimprovably and not in response to created initiatives or performance. I totally agree, though, that the uncreated logoi of created beings is what grounds our free and irrevocable possibility to become all that God’s love for us intends.

Tom

[AllanS]

if God was not essentially love; that is, if some of God’s actions could not be qualified in some sense as an expression of love (which is essentially what the God-is-not-essentially-love crowd argues), then in what sense is God to BE LOVED by us on account of such actions?

That is indeed the question.

“Choose you this day whom you will serve,” said Joshua. “From all the gods in the market-place, make your choice.” If we are to worship this God, he must be worthy, and worthy in our eyes. On the Day of Judgment, not only will God judge men, but men will judge God. The Heavenly Choir will sing “Worthy is the Lamb” because they will have good reason to believe it’s true.

But if our experience as God’s image bearers grounds our capacity to speak truthfully about God (a very safe assumption), then surely the belief that God is loving in all he does is aesthetically more satisfying than believing that God loves some and not others or that there is that in God which is not qualifiable (to invent a word) as love.

Fred: God is not good as we consider goodness. Because we are evil, we cannot know what true goodness looks like.

Sally: Is that a good argument?

Fred: My word it is!

Sally: You know what a good argument looks like, but not what a good God looks like? Doesn’t that strike you as odd…?

We don’t want to shape God in our own image. But this danger is faced by the denial that God ‘is’ love as equally as it is by the affirmation that God ‘is’ love. Both affirmation and denial stand within the limitations of human experience and language.

Yes. Folk who think universalism is “scratching itchy ears” never seem to wonder if ECT scratches another sort of itch. Our hunger for revenge can be pretty savage.

But so long as one admits the meaningful possibility of the existence of a necessarily existing personal being, one is bound to concede this being’s actuality as well.

I’ve not come across that argument before, and it’s left me blinking stupidly. Did he really pull a rabbit out of that hat? If God might exist, God must exist? Wow… I must play with that some more. What I’m really interested in is deriving God’s attributes from first principles. Any pointers? eg. A good God would want the best for us, but since he is the best, he would give himself to us in love. ie. revelation, incarnation, and an indwelling presence. I wonder how far this can take us.

I prefer to say the fact THAT God loves us is unexplained by anything about us.

God cannot love nothing. Doesn’t love always need a lovable object? (Hence the Trinity.)

Cheers

[pilgrim]

Sorry if all this sounds terse. I’m a bit rushed this morning…

Cheers

Not at all. I appreciate your answers but I find the ideas rather disturbing and as it’s off topic, I may start a new thread to investigate these ideas.

Thanks.

TGB:

Allan: God has a perfect and eternal idea of each of us which he is actualizing in time and space. God loves the person we will become, and he loves us here and now inasmuch as we conform to that perfect idea.

So, He hardly loves me at all then! Just how I came to marry my wife - so that I could change her into something I could love. Nice.

[AllanS]

So, He hardly loves me at all then!

God loves that which is lovable.

Sally is gentle, but tends to gossip. Does God love both her gentleness and her tendency to gossip, or does God love the one and hate the other? What part of Sally will God save, and what part will he destroy?

Just how I came to marry my wife - so that I could change her into something I could love. Nice.

Not nice at all. Maybe it’s because you don’t have the authority to change your wife, or the wisdom, or the power.

You do have the authority to change clay into a pot, however, or a wolf into a dog, or words into a song. You take lesser things and make them greater. You turn something you love a little (or not at all) and transform it into something you love a lot.

[TGB]

Allan: If God might exist, God must exist?

Tom: Actually yes, IF the ‘might’ describes ontological possibility (as opposed to describing epistemic possibility).

If you take a multiple choice question, then “so far as you can tell” the answer “might” be a, b, c, or d. Here “might” expresses your limited knowledge. This is NOT ontological possibility. What Hartshorne is saying is that if it is true metaphysically speaking that God’s existence is possible (ontological possibility), then God does indeed exist, for the only way a supposedly necessary being does not exist is if his existence is IMPOSSIBLE. But his (metaphysical) possibility entails his actuality. Yes sir.

Alan: What I’m really interested in is deriving God’s attributes from first principles. Any pointers? eg. A good God would want the best for us, but since he is the best, he would give himself to us in love. ie. revelation, incarnation, and an indwelling presence. I wonder how far this can take us.

Tom: Read Greg Boyd’s Trinity and Process. It used to cost $60.00 on amazon but I think you can get it now for like $10. He does the best job I know of showing how far reason can take you.

Tom: I prefer to say the fact THAT God loves us is unexplained by anything about us.

Alan: God cannot love nothing. Doesn’t love always need a lovable object? (Hence the Trinity.)

The trinity aside for the moment (because that’s about ‘necessary’ being as opposed to ‘contingent’ being), yes, God doesn’t love ‘nothing’. We have to exist to be actual objects of love. But that doesn’t mean God’s love for us is grounded in what is lovable about us.

Allan: God loves that which is lovable.

If our “lovability” determines whether or not and how much God loves us, then we’re all in trouble. Does it not make more sense to say God’s creation of us makes us lovable; i.e., God’s love brings us into existence and then into relationship and fulfillment?

Tom

[AllanS]

Actually yes, IF the ‘might’ describes ontological possibility (as opposed to describing epistemic possibility).

Gotcha. The argument only works for a necessary being. “If Santa might exist, he must exist” is false, but “If God might exist, he must exist” is true. God, if he exists, is necessary by definition. The only way he wouldn’t exist is if he couldn’t exist. That is very neat.

Read Greg Boyd’s Trinity and Process. It used to cost $60.00 on amazon but I think you can get it now for like $10. He does the best job I know of showing how far reason can take you.

Just the ticket. Even if we can demonstrate God exists, we still have to determine what he’s like.

Does it not make more sense to say God’s creation of us makes us lovable; i.e., God’s love brings us into existence and then into relationship and fulfillment?

Tom

How about this? God creates only the lovable and loves only the lovable. It follows that the unlovable is uncreated. Evil is no-thing, just as darkness is nothing. Tohu and bohu, formless and void, primeval chaos, “the deep”. What is evil but formless emptiness? God hovers above it, gazes into it, fills it first with light, then with a new reality.

Cheers.

[AllanS]

How about this.

“I believe God is good because all other options are ugly.”

There are four bowls of soup on the table. You must eat one of them. Three of them smell like dog’s vomit. One of them smells like minestrone. Which one will you choose?

[TheBoxer]

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"What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to believe."

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[Paidion]

How did sex evolve?

If it weren’t pleasurable (or instinct driven) , would any species survive?

How about house flies? They mate in a split second, and there is no evidence of pleasure.

And let’s not forget the multitude of insentient life ---- the plants.

[AllanS]

Old habits are hard to break, and no one is easily weaned from his own opinions; but if you rely on your own reasoning and ability rather than on the virtue of submission to Jesus Christ, you will but seldom and slowly attain wisdom. For God wills that we become perfectly obedient to himself, and that we transcend mere reason on the wings of burning love for him.

– Thomas a Kempis

[TGB]

Allan: How about this? God creates only the lovable and loves only the lovable. It follows that the unlovable is uncreated.

Tom: How about this: God necessarly loves everythng that he creates. Whatever exists is loved by God. The notion of an existing entity that is not loveable is impossible, for God cannot fail to love what exists.

Tom

[AllanS]

Allan: How about this? God creates only the lovable and loves only the lovable. It follows that the unlovable is uncreated.

Tom: How about this: God necessarly loves everythng that he creates. Whatever exists is loved by God. The notion of an existing entity that is not loveable is impossible, for God cannot fail to love what exists.

Tom

If the mind of God is the set of all possible truths, everything that God loves necessarily exists. Whacha reckon?

[TGB]

Not sure what the connecting is to God’s knowledge of truths, but I agree that God loves all existing entities, so that it’s safe to conclude that if God loves X, X exists. I do think, however, that there’s a distinction to be made between the sense in which God loves the possibility of us before we exist and the sense in which God loves the actual us. I do think our becoming ‘actual’ adds something to the mix (and the sense in which God loves us) that’s not present when God contemplates our mere possibility.

Tom

[TheBoxer]

For anyone who would like to participate, please answer the following three questions:

1. What do you consider to be the best (most convincing) argument for the existence of God?

2. Why do you find this argument convincing?

3. What refutations have you considered, and why do you not find them convincing?

I don’t know a lot of philosophical jargon, so if you could answer in layman’s terms, that would be appreciated.

Many thanks,

Summary of responses as of 3/26/2011, 12:00pm CST:

(Paidion) – Based on the premise that the Universe is finite (plus the Laws of Entropy and Conservation of Matter), the Universe must have had a supernatural cause. God has existed since the beginning of time, and the begetting of the Son was the first event. Therefore, the Son has also existed since the beginning of time.

(AllanS) – Nothing can come from nothing. If any truth exists, all truth exists, and therefore the Mind of God exists. But since that statement is itself true, one truth does indeed exist. The Mind of God therefore exists.

(Michael) - We need a supernatural explanation for why any universe should exist, and for why there are minds contemplating a mindless Universe. Also, per Schroeder, the universe looks more like great thought than a great machine (James Jeans); and based on quantum mechanics, it appears that “mind” has always existed, and the smallest substance of the universe must be made up of ideas – not mattter (Wald, Heisenberg). Also, Natural Selection is not powerful enough to explain the complexity in the world, or to explain “why” anything exists.

(URPilgrim) – Irreducible complexity. Natural Selection is not powerful enough to explain the highly improbable complexity we see in the world.

(amy) – There is something to meet all of our needs; we all have a God-shaped hole; God is needed to explain morality and to give us some higher purpose than just pursuing our own happiness.

(JasonPratt) – Reason, True Love, and the Self could not exist without a supernatural cause.

(TGB) – Something must exist necessarily (Hartshorne), and this ‘something’ must be a personal/conscious sentient being, because mind cannot come from matter (must be the other way around).

[TGB]

(TGB) – Something must exist necessarily (Hartshorne), and this ‘something’ must be a personal/conscious sentient being, because mind cannot come from matter (must be the other way around).

Well, you extrapolated my post about Hartshorne to something about matter and consciousness, but that wasn’t my original point. With Hartshorne, I just think his modal-ontological argument is very helpful (if I had to choose a single argument, which I don’t think we need to do). But that argument isn’t about consciousness vs matter per se. It’s just about the nature of necessary vs contingent being (on the one hand) and possibility vs actuality (on the other).

Tom

[TheBoxer]

Well, you extrapolated my post about Hartshorne to something about matter and consciousness, but that wasn’t my original point. With Hartshorne, I just think his modal-ontological argument is very helpful (if I had to choose a single argument, which I don’t think we need to do). But that argument isn’t about consciousness vs matter per se. It’s just about the nature of necessary vs contingent being (on the one hand) and possibility vs actuality (on the other).

Tom

Sorry. I hope I did better on the others.

[roofus]

How about this.

“I believe God is good because all other options are ugly.”

There are four bowls of soup on the table. You must eat one of them. Three of them smell like dog’s vomit. One of them smells like minestrone. Which one will you choose?

I think like that. There is no alternative that even rivals our Lord

[AllanS]

Read Greg Boyd’s Trinity and Process. It used to cost $60.00 on amazon but I think you can get it now for like $10. He does the best job I know of showing how far reason can take you.

Hi Tom,

I just looked this book up on Amazon. You can get it 2nd hand from $60 to $478.20, plus $3.00 postage.

Might try the library…

[AllanS]

I just think his modal-ontological argument is very helpful (if I had to choose a single argument, which I don’t think we need to do). But that argument isn’t about consciousness vs matter per se. It’s just about the nature of necessary vs contingent being (on the one hand) and possibility vs actuality (on the other).

Tom

Hi Tom,

If God might exist, God must exist. Why isn’t the opposite also true: If God might not exist, God must not exist.

If doubt expressed by atheists is fatal to their argument, why isn’t doubt expressed by theists equally fatal?

[stellar_renegade]

[size=110]This is basically a summation of my thoughts (not written by me) on what God is through more of a scientific lens.
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I’d scroll down to the part entitled “Where God Sits” on right to the end. I think it does pretty well (the part before just seems to be a proof and I had trouble trudging through it).