Yes, yes it is.
There seems to be some insistence on a sort of physical continuity associated with the resurrection. Paul is at pains to highlight distinctions between before and after, of course - “putting off the old self”, or “now clothed in the imperishable” and that might be because there was already the easy presumption in place that of course we would fully retain our earthly identities and be able to continue to know loved ones. So while flesh may be mysteriously clothed with spirit at that point, the continuity (or renewed life after a deathly hiatus) is still there to be had. Not believing in reincarnation or in the pre-existence of human souls, I don’t think my time extends back before my infancy … hence our universal need of that childhood, during which we are privileged to (obliged to) learn right from wrong. It is what I share with Adam … and Christ too. Unless either of those parties was not truly part of our universal human experience … a theological conjecture that I do not believe any sound Christian doctrine can wisely try to embrace.
Well, that response is a bit unfulfilling. I raised (what I think to be) a significant objection. Am I just… wrong, full stop? (You will perhaps pardon me if I find your unanchored certainty uncompelling…)
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Let us suppose that that a person invented a new vehicle that ran on solar energy and was beautiful in every way. The only problems with the vehicle was 1. If used unsafely it could result in the death or maiming of the driver and others. 2. Even if used safely there was no guarantee that its systems might break down with similar consequences.
Would people say that the inventor was vicious and cruel because she invented something that she know would have these consequences? I doubt it. But maybe we need to hold God to a higher standard. Maybe life that includes pain and suffering is evil and not worth living. Guess what ? God gives us an out. We do not have to do anything that we really do not want to do.
However if we really appreciate life and its goodness, even though it is finite and thus imperfect, God gives full, perfect, eternal live. Sounds like a good deal to me.
God createsour world and us as finite beings. Sould God have made everyting infinite without beginning or end. Maybe, but I don’t think so. Would that be a better existence without sin, death, love, and freedom. Maybe, but I don’t think so.
Darwin claimed that evolution is based on conflict and war for survival with every being for itself. He did not believe that life was good, because it has an end. I disagree. Death does not negate life.
Life is not defined by its length, but by its quality. Yes, it is hard to lose a loved one, but is better to love and lose that loved one rather than to have never have loved at all. Besides love overcomes the limits of death.
Hard as it might be to believe real evolution is not based on conflict and greed This not the basic motivation of life, as cynics suppose. Evolution just everything else in life is based on the Logos, Jesus Christ, which in evolution takes the form of symbiosis… This how and why Darwin was wrong. . .
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There is no real loss. Souls are eternal. And those who have love have an eternal connection. The loss is temporary.
The presumption there is that the result is independent of the means and that is the sort of magical thinking I do not believe in. It is the difference between reality and a dream. For a creation to be real there has to be a rational connection between cause and effect. Magical thinking is frankly a product of our experience of infancy where we cry and people with the know-how respond to make our discomfort go away. But obviously God is not crying to some higher power to do things for Him – thus the idea of magic is incoherent when it comes to God. This is precisely why we live in a universe with natural laws – because they are necessary for what God has accomplished, necessary for life, necessary for an existence which is real rather than a dream.
Indeed! There is no life stuff which can be added to non-living materials to make them alive. Life is a self-organizing process. Thus this popping into existence is a contradiction in terms – it is logically incoherent.
The divine breath is inspiration so that passage just means God spoke to Adam and Eve and provide the crucial ideas which brought the human mind to life, because it is a meme life not a gene life with its own needs, desires, and method of passing on an inheritance to the next generation.
The key point being that there is something to continue and not the necessity of space-time physical connectedness. And that is the problem with the magical A&E golem scenario of popping into existence without a context of growing up – it is so incredibly alien to our existence. It doesn’t sound real, let alone human.
Um, yes.
I could go into great detail, and respond point by point, but it seemed to me a bit, ahem, unfulfilling.
You are essentially suggesting that God could not simply create, de Novo, a human person, with whom he could interact, that could interact with the world… , that God is somehow bound and limited by the various obstacles that we human would encounter if we attempted something similar. As if God in his infinite wisdom, power and knowledge would in actual not be able to organically, naturally, and freely create a human with full knowledge, interaction, freedom, and everything there is to be human.
Put simply, and as respectfully as I can… if you actually cannot conceive that it is a logical possibility that an actually omnipotent, omniscient being could accomplish such a feat, there would be little more to discuss.
With deepest respect and kindness, but this objection seems to me similar to the objection that I have heard from people about the “difficulty”’ that God would have encountered had he actually attempted to stop the sun in the sky as recorded in Joshua 10… I have had people go to great lengths to tell me all of the difficulties God might have encountered if he had ever tried to do that. If he had frozen the earth’s rotation instantly then every human would have gone flying through the air due to inertia, or what would have happened and all of the energy involved in instantly accelerating the earth again later to get it back to its normal course.
As if, when we are talking about the infinite God of scripture, that he somehow would have not foreseen these difficulties, and/or would not have come up with strategies to deal with them, using the same miraculous power that he utilized in stopping the earth… as if the same God who had the power to stop the inertia of the earth’s rotation would have forgotten, or been powerless, to stop the inertia of all beings and objects inhabiting the same earth.
So yes, quite simply, my response is simply to observe that an infinite, omnipotent, omniscient God could easily create a human, de novo, able to interact and engage with the world just like you and me, and no, I don’t think that a logical impossibility.
In a dream world, things don’t have to make sense or follow any rules. Some people prefer to live in a dream world where the only rules are the ones you decide to believe in. And the “all powerful” God is just the dreamer. But since everybody dreams, this doesn’t seem like much cause to be impressed to me. This so-called God doesn’t need to know a thing – could be the kid down the block who just has a rather vivid imagination. Why believe in such a god? It makes you god vicariously since you can dictate what that god says as well as what is real. That way science is just trash and you can declare all those pesky scientist are going to hell for daring to disagree with your holy opinion.
I certainly believe in an infinite God but that is no empty “number” but one with content of actual knowledge about how to accomplish things, so He can go beyond dreaming and mere imagination to create something real. And for that reason He has omnipotence beyond the superficial one of the dreamer over his dream.
This question is for everyone. Please keep in mind I’m just curious and not implying anything.
Do you believe/think God created space-time and all matter which includes atomic structure? They did not exist before they were created and their creator obviously existed before they existed.
Yes. Indeed I do so believe. Anything else, strictly speaking, would not be defined as “theism”, classically defined, at least.
Fair enough, and I appreciate both your elaboration of your previous answer and the tone of your reply. I think there might be a little more space for discussion, but if you aren’t of the same mind I won’t hold it against you.
Well, God is incapable of things that are logically impossible. That’s the whole point. God can’t make a triangle with four sides. God can’t make flammable water or gold that melts at room temperature, because that would contradict the very natures of water and gold. These are only limitations on God because he’s chosen certain parameters for this universe that preclude those things from making sense. I can choose to play either poker or chess, but I can’t choose to win a chess game with a straight flush.
Time and experience over time are essential to the very nature of what a human consciousness is. Creating a being which has no timeline, no memory, no past, no interactions with any other beings, no social context, is certainly something, but I fail to see how that could be called “creating a human”. (And, on Christianity, God certainly created beings like that. We call them angels or demons or elohim or whatever. But they ain’t human.) If I try to picture what that being would be like… how I could have a conversation or relationship with it… I just draw a blank. You don’t explain how you think this would work, but simply claim that God could of course do it regardless because he’s omnipotent. I would respectfully suggest that if you can’t imagine how a human could work with no history in time, that might be because it’s actually a self-contradictory notion, like flammable water. And not even God can create self-contradictory things. And if it is the case that a process of evolution is the only way to get human beings in our material universe… well… that introduces a whole new angle on the idea of pain and suffering in creation.
I’m not sure what you’re intending by invoking Joshua… The text says nothing about God stopping the earth’s rotation. All it says is that the sun didn’t go down. I have no idea what happened there, much less how it happened. Regardless, I don’t object to the idea of miracles. God of course can do things we cannot do. But it doesn’t follow that God can do everything we cannot do. Some things are just impossible because they’re nonsensical.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.
(I also think that a word like “before” when talking about the creation of the universe has no meaning.)
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@Daniel_Fisher
(Having experienced God’s miraculous timing and placing in his providence, it is quite conceivable to me that with a massive thermal inversion extending over one or both horizons and consequential superior mirage, events could have transpired exactly as recorded for Joshua’s long day.)
There I believe is the crux of our disagreement… and if I may be so bold, of your logical error: flammable water and liquid gold are physically impossible, not logically impossible.
Now, if you insist on defining water as “that which does not burn”, then strictly speaking, you would be correct, and it would be a logical impossibility…
… but then I could equally define the sun as “that which rises in the east”, and then claim it is logically impossible for God to create a sun that rises in the west.
But if so, I think you would then recognize that I was playing fast and loose with definitions, rather than recognizing the real difference between logical and physical impossibilities. it is impossible, given current laws of physics, etc., for the sun to rise in the west, but by any reasonable understanding, it is not logically impossible. Similarly, I fail to see why it is logically impossible for God to do adjust the physical properties of the very matter that he created in such a way that water could burn, or gold melt at room temperature, unless we insist on defining gold as “that which does not melt room temperature” or water as “that which does not burn”, not unlike we define a triangle as that with no more or less than three sides.
(After all, to my understanding, it is physically impossible for liquid water to support the weight and mass of an adult human body,… but Jesus seemed to have had the miraculous ability to walk on it regardless… hence i regard walking on water as a physical impossibility, not a logical impossibility.)
Similarly, if you wish to deifne a human as “that which has developed its abilities through experience,” then, sure, God logically could not “create” such a being de novo. But then i think it would be obvious to all involved that you are “winning the argument”, so to speak, simply by defining the terms.
But I would simply reject your definitions. I have no issue imagining a real human, completely ignorant and without any previous experiences, but gifted by God with all the basic gifts of human language, knowledge, logic, and insight that the rest of us have received through growth, knowledge, and experience. This is the very aspect of being made in “God’s image”, after all… so I for one don’t conceive why it would be logically (or in any other way) impossible for God to simply make a being “in his image” whether made of angelic substance, or of the physical substance that we are. The fact that this being’s progeny would inherit those qualities through the process of experience does not to me somehow require that this be the only way that such attributes be received.
so respectfully, i fear you are confusing the logically impossible_ with the physically possible.
not to mention, I respectfully find this absurd on its face… logically, if God can create matter, then by any logical conception, he could de novo instantaneously create any conceivable arrangement of such matter… including a human being in the exact form, with the very identical arrangement of atoms and energy that I have at this very moment. We may argue about whether he would do such a thing, but i think it absurd to suggest he could not do such a thing… If he can create or rearrange matter in any form that he so chooses, then he logically can create a functioning human being. This is inescapable.
similarly, you might believe that atoms of gold only arose in this universe by certain physical processes subsequent to the big bang… but how would it follow that God is incapable, logically, of creating de novo a pound of gold? Would it make sense for me to argue that “if it is the case that a process of energy and physics is the only way to get gold in our material universe…”?
even if i granted that this were the way that gold did arise, how would it follow that this is logically the only way that God could create gold??
there seems to me to be no logical restriction in God’s creating de novo any certain arrangement of molecules… whether that is a water molecule, an atom of gold, or a fully functioning adult human being with no memories or experiences.
And to invoke Lewis as I do far too often…
many people confuse the laws of nature with the laws of thought and imagine that their reversal or suspension would be a contradiction in terms—as if the resurrection of the dead [or instantaneous creation of a human being?] were the same sort of thing as two and two making five.
I’m not defining water as “that which does not burn”. I’m defining water as H2O, because that’s what water is. And water isn’t flammable because burning requires oxidization and water is already oxidized. God simply can’t make water “burnable” without making it “not water” first. This is by his own rules. It is the essence if you will of water to not be burnable. Jesus walking on water does not require a change in the nature of water… Water doesn’t have to become able to support the weight of a human in order for Jesus to walk on it. You’re making the same category error as you did with Joshua’s day, in which you assumed the earth’s rotation had to change. Similarly, your illustration about gold is also not analogous. I don’t think it’s logically impossible for God to create gold de novo. Gold isn’t conscious and it’s not in the essential nature of gold to have memory and experience
I think you have the crux of our argument wrong. As I see it, we have different assumptions about what the nature of a human being is:
A human being isn’t simply an arrangement of molecules. That’s the materialist view. A human being is also memories and experiences. As I see it, a “fully functioning adult human being with no memories or experiences” is an oxymoron… an entirely mythical, nonsensical construct. We have a word for “water” which hasn’t been oxidized – we call it hydrogen (and it is flammable). We have a word for a “fully-functioning adult human” which has no memory and experience – we call it a golem (HT: @mitchellmckain).
Neither of us are making errors in logic that I can see. We have different understandings of what the nature of being human means.
Shifting direction a bit… I frequently hear an atheist objection that goes something like this: Christians typically hold that creation was good (universal state A), that humans sinned and introduced pain and suffering into creation (universal state B), God restores creation through Jesus, and one day we all end up in an eternal state of perfection (universal state C). So why doesn’t God just create everything at state C, without everyone actually having to go through the pain and suffering? It seems that on your view, an infinite omnipotent God could do precisely that. There’s no reason for the pain and suffering in the meantime… God could simply create humans in the state they would be in had they come through all the suffering, without the actual suffering. So… why didn’t he?
I think this is a fairly potent challenge. I thought about it for a while, and couldn’t avoid the conclusion that passing through state B must simply have been necessary to get to state C, otherwise God is responsible for inflicting gratuitous (i.e. unnecessary) suffering on creation. That cannot be true of the Christian God. So either he doesn’t exist, or the suffering at state B isn’t gratuitous. Which means God can’t get the beings he wants at state C without them passing through the temporal experience of state B. But this means temporal experience is an essential part of human nature, and that even God can’t simply create human beings fully formed in whatever state he wishes. Once that sank in, a lot of other things made sense… Like why Jesus had to be born as a baby, rather than God just creating him from nothing. Or why the arduous process of evolution can be justified, if it’s the only way for God to make what he’s wanting to make.
How would you answer the atheist’s challenge?
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Absolutely! But I think God did it for a reason and it’s not some whimsical artistic dab of paint which doesn’t really matter. In particular, I think it is all a necessary part of His creation of life and free will.
All the evidence from the earth and sky tells us that the universe developed over 13.8 billion and life on Earth over the last 4.5 billion years not because God is a liar and trickster but because what really happened. And that is what happened because that is what it take to create living things and free will, because life and free will things are not magical ingredients in some kind of divine necromancy. They are a product of a self-organizing process because participating in our own creation is what life and free will means.
But an evil generation looks for magic in signs of wonder because they don’t want there to be any rules. They want it all and they want it now – they want the dream world. They want the magic man and the do-it-all-for-you bobble-head Jesus.
Yep. And God cannot make a self-organizing process without self-organization – life without life. Characters in novels, npc’s in games, and the appearance of people in dreams are not living conscious persons – for that is all you will get when you pop them into existence without the context of growing up as a child.
So the impossibility of a triangle with four sides is just winning the argument by defining terms??? LOL That is the problem with creationist religion mongers – it is all pure rhetoric without substance, refusing to acknowledge there is anything but rhetoric.
No. It means that the real substance is understanding what triangles are, and what people are, and what life is, and what God is. I have always thought in such terms, from all the way back in elementary school when kids asked me if I believe God exists, my reply was that the question is not whether God exists but what is God.
so respectfully, i fear you are confusing reality with a dream world. Just because it is possible in a dream world doesn’t mean it is logically possible because dream worlds do not have to be logically coherent and usually are not.
Yes it is. And it is one we who were not raised Christian have to answer before we find value in Christianity. But perhaps those raised in the religion don’t have a reason to bother with such things.
I can avoid that conclusion. My conclusion is that possibility of state B is inherent in state A and that state A is necessary in order to get to state C.
The more general principle is that God’s omnipotence does not mean He can do whatever you say by whatever means you care to dictate and the results are not independent of the means.
Indeed! This is the thinking process we who are not raised Christian must go through before we can find any value in Christianity.
P.S. Here is my answer to the challenge before I read your conclusions above… and while there are points of similarity there are differences too…
I respond that humans didn’t introduce pain and suffering into creation. Evolution demonstrates that those are a necessary part of life itself without which life would not exist. A&E introduced self-destructive habits (sin) into the memetic inheritance (inspiration) which God gave them to be passed on from them to all of mankind. God restores that memetic inheritance through Jesus and the perfection which Jesus spoke of means to be without these self-destructive habits, not that we will not make any mistakes whatsoever, because mistakes is part of how we learn.
The ultimate goal is not a static state because life is not a static existence. Life is growth and learning so “eternal life” means growth and learning without end in an eternal relationship with an infinite God. God did create things in this dynamic state, for A&E were without sin. But an inherent part of the self-organizing process of life is that we can make irrational choices against life itself to do things which are self-destructive.
Power and responsibility goes hand in hand. With more life we have more power and thus there is the challenge to embrace the responsibility which goes with it. But embracing the challenges of life is a good habit which guards against the possibility of self-destructive habits. We often see in nature points of instability where things can go in more than one direction. So why doesn’t God skip such instabilities and go directly to the end result? Because the omnipotence of God does not mean God can do whatever we say by whatever means we dictate and the result is not independent of the means. Skipping our choices and the possibility of evil is to skip life and free will itself and what you have is not a real relationship of love but dreamworld imitation like a novel or computer game where the characters are not conscious living beings at all.
I’d be curious then at what age, specifically, homo sapiens becomes a “human being”, then?
There is certainly such a thing as amnesia, and however rare in reality, it shows up in fictional accounts often enough. Point being, that even if you cannot conceive of a fully functioning adult human being with no memories, lots and lots of other people certainly seem to have no issue conceiving of such.
the bold part is my only significant disagreement. i entirely agree that part of what I understand that God wants to accomplish in terms of our final state requires certain temporal experience(s) or memories, and cannot be done otherwise (short of giving us false memories, which on the other hand would contradict his character).
But while I agree that God could not accomplish our final glorified nature as it seems he intends without certain temporal experiences, i dispute that human nature in itself, as such, requires this.
Otherwise, I return to my earlier question… at what age, specifically, does a specimen of homo sapiens acquire a “human nature”? Exactly how many memories or experiences must an individual experience or remember before you would would grant him the title “human”?
(N.B., please read my description carefully… this is not my assumption. I was describing how I have responded to skeptics that have raised this particular objection. I have no idea how he did it. but i have interacted with numerous skeptics who assume it must have been done by instantly stopping the earth’s rotation, who then go on to mock such a thing by pointing out that everything on the earth would go flying, etc. this i find a ludicrous criticism. If God had stopped the sun in the sky by stopping the inertia of the earth’s rotation, then a God of such power could well have figured out how to stop the inertia of everything on the earth as well.)