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imcarol
Guest
of course, god can think…He can forsee our every move, and if he could not think, how could he guide and protect us.???
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Augustinson
Guest
Dear Greylorn,
God *cannot *think according to the definition that you have constructed. This is not because of a defect in His knowledge or being but because of His perfection. Your definition of thought necessarily includes the limitation of time and finitude of knowledge.
You reject the conclusion that God cannot think (as you define it) because the theistic alternative seems to make God static or the existence of temporal beings like us kind of meaningless. I suspect that this is largely a psychological objection; you don’t like to think of God as lacking the dynamism of creative thought.
Perhaps it would be useful to look at another attribute of God where His fullness might seem at first like a limitation. God cannot move. If moving is leaving one place and going to another place, God’s omnipresence means that He cannot move. He is not thereby static; he is, so to speak, bigger than space and infintely active.
Likewise God’s knowlege encompasses this and all possible unviverses. He has freely chosen to create this universe in this way. He need not have done so. He may or may not have created any others of the infinitely many possible unverses.
He has shared with us a reflection of His creative power in our ability to conceive new ideas and even to cooperate with Him in creating new life. It is a bit upside down to consider it a defect of the divine nature that He lacks our limitations in its exercise.
God *cannot *think according to the definition that you have constructed. This is not because of a defect in His knowledge or being but because of His perfection. Your definition of thought necessarily includes the limitation of time and finitude of knowledge.
You reject the conclusion that God cannot think (as you define it) because the theistic alternative seems to make God static or the existence of temporal beings like us kind of meaningless. I suspect that this is largely a psychological objection; you don’t like to think of God as lacking the dynamism of creative thought.
Perhaps it would be useful to look at another attribute of God where His fullness might seem at first like a limitation. God cannot move. If moving is leaving one place and going to another place, God’s omnipresence means that He cannot move. He is not thereby static; he is, so to speak, bigger than space and infintely active.
Likewise God’s knowlege encompasses this and all possible unviverses. He has freely chosen to create this universe in this way. He need not have done so. He may or may not have created any others of the infinitely many possible unverses.
He has shared with us a reflection of His creative power in our ability to conceive new ideas and even to cooperate with Him in creating new life. It is a bit upside down to consider it a defect of the divine nature that He lacks our limitations in its exercise.
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greylorn
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IMO you are correct, that God can think (i.e. have unique ideas), but if you think this to be an atheist topic, you were correct more from luck than from thoughtful consideration.
I recommend that you examine the entire thread, and related threads.
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greylorn
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Your second paragraph illustrates your problem, which is only ignorance. Luckily that can be corrected with a perusal of the relevant material within this thread. This will disclose that I’ve opted for the conclusion that God must be able to think, and is therefore not omnipotent.
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greylorn
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Dchsknight
Guest
Yes God can, Who are we to say what God can and can not do. God Cant think God cant move, that is Dangerous talk. Can God Make 2+2=5 Yes can, will he? that is another question. Can God make A rock so big he cant lift it, Yes, Will he? God did say dont test me. God can do what ever he wants. WE however can not, we are limited God is not. God could make our sky red or change how Gravity works if he wanted to. God can invent a new creature on this planet just to mess with us. Can he do anything? yes because he is God this world and universe belong to him and he can do what ever pleases… Will he do anything, No i dont think he will do anything willy nilly, i dont think God is Chaotic, but to say he can’t, well God might just look at us and say “Really Now?”
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kimmielittle
Guest
IMHO, this is simple.
God is far from simple or definable
God is far from simple or definable
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Augustinson
Guest
Dear Greylorn,
I apologize for wasting more of your time. You are correct, I skipped reading the last couple pages of the thread before responding.
You are also quite right that positing a limited god who is less than omniscient and not eternal does solve your problem of wanting a god who can think in your sense.
Finally, you are right that the Christian God cannot make two plus two equal five. Sometimes pious people fall into that trap because they are anxious to preserve the notion that God can do anything. This is true. God CAN do any thing. But “a rock so heavy that an omnipotent being cannot lift it” or " a square circle" or “2+2=5” is not any thing. It is just an internally contradictory meaningless string of words. Putting “God can” in front of nonsense does not change it into a meaningful statement.
Thanks again for the correction. I will pray for you to Dominus Deus Omnipotens, Whose creative thought conceived you from before the foundation of the world, Who loved you into existence through His creative Word, and endowed you with intelligence and freedom in His own image that you might know, love, and enjoy Him forever. With hope that we will meet in heaven (Luke 11:9-10) when all will be clear and our faith turned to sight, I am,
Respectfully Yours,
Rob
I apologize for wasting more of your time. You are correct, I skipped reading the last couple pages of the thread before responding.
You are also quite right that positing a limited god who is less than omniscient and not eternal does solve your problem of wanting a god who can think in your sense.
Finally, you are right that the Christian God cannot make two plus two equal five. Sometimes pious people fall into that trap because they are anxious to preserve the notion that God can do anything. This is true. God CAN do any thing. But “a rock so heavy that an omnipotent being cannot lift it” or " a square circle" or “2+2=5” is not any thing. It is just an internally contradictory meaningless string of words. Putting “God can” in front of nonsense does not change it into a meaningful statement.
Thanks again for the correction. I will pray for you to Dominus Deus Omnipotens, Whose creative thought conceived you from before the foundation of the world, Who loved you into existence through His creative Word, and endowed you with intelligence and freedom in His own image that you might know, love, and enjoy Him forever. With hope that we will meet in heaven (Luke 11:9-10) when all will be clear and our faith turned to sight, I am,
Respectfully Yours,
Rob
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Dchsknight
Guest
And people who try to justify why they believe in some parts of God and not all seem to forget that God is also All Powerful. Have people never read the book of Joshua? Joshua Told God to Hold the sun in the sky when he was Fighting a particular People group(i don’t remember who)He did not ask he did not request he told, And the bible said it was the only time when Inclined his ear to God, which means he listened to us, which according science would mean that Everyone on the earth would fly off cause that means that the Earth stood still. OR do we forget that God changed the Molecules of water Twice, the first time he changed into B.l.o.o.d ( i find it really funny i cant write B.L.O.O.D with out the peroids on this forum.) , the second time he changed into water. He also covered Egypt in darkness, but he did not cover where the Hebrews lived, so that means there was this giant beam of light in the middle of Egypt. He guided over 2,000,000 people through the desert for 40 years, pillar of cloud by day, fire by night, Every day every night for 40 years. He instills a soul in a developing fetus. He created air, He made an octopus know the difference between red and blue and how to change its skin to match. and the biggest one, something no one else can do. Nothing in this world and reproduce, He rose Jesus from the three days after he had died. So can God make 2+2=5 yes, will he, Probably not. People who try to so Intellectual try to close God in a box and limit him and forget that he is All powerful, and can do what ever he pleases.
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driscll_books
Guest
Sure He can. Scripture states clearly, “Come, let us reason together.” How could He say this and not have the power of thought.
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Augustinson
Guest
Dear Dchsknight,
Nothing is impossible to God.
The Biblical miracles that you mention (including the miracle of Joshua commanding the sun and moon to stand still so that the battle against the five kings of the Amorites could continue) are no trouble at all to the God who spoke all things into existence and sustains them in existence. They are exercises of His power over creation.
The wonders of nature (like your example of the octopus changing its coloring) are not, strictly speaking, miracles at all though I agree that they do display God’s glory as creator.
You don’t mention it, but God performs a much greater miracle than any of these when He turns a sinner into a saint. Inanimate matter does not resist. We do.
But your conclusion that God can make 2+2=5 does not follow. That would not be an exercise of God’s power. It is simply an exercise in incoherence. It is literally nothing. And nothing is impossible with God.
Let me add another category of things that are impossible for God. He cannot contradict His word or change His mind, nominalists and Muslims to the contrary notwithstanding.
All blessings,
Rob
Nothing is impossible to God.
The Biblical miracles that you mention (including the miracle of Joshua commanding the sun and moon to stand still so that the battle against the five kings of the Amorites could continue) are no trouble at all to the God who spoke all things into existence and sustains them in existence. They are exercises of His power over creation.
The wonders of nature (like your example of the octopus changing its coloring) are not, strictly speaking, miracles at all though I agree that they do display God’s glory as creator.
You don’t mention it, but God performs a much greater miracle than any of these when He turns a sinner into a saint. Inanimate matter does not resist. We do.
But your conclusion that God can make 2+2=5 does not follow. That would not be an exercise of God’s power. It is simply an exercise in incoherence. It is literally nothing. And nothing is impossible with God.
Let me add another category of things that are impossible for God. He cannot contradict His word or change His mind, nominalists and Muslims to the contrary notwithstanding.
All blessings,
Rob
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luckysample
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define think? or better define infinite? God thinks in an infinite way which is not the same way we do. like, every time i think about Him i find Him thinking about me!
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luckysample
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i really love this
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greylorn
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Thank you for your thoughtful, erudite, insights. Really. Now, I must move onto other more important things, like chopping more firewood.
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greylorn
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You have a generous mental mirror. Do you really imagine that God thinks about you? What do you think he thinks? Do you think that he admires your cleverness in torquing conventional religious beliefs, using a word like “infiniite” which you are probably unable to define, in a sentence? Using the word “think,” which was defined for the purpose of this thread, in a manner that suits you, without taking the trouble to first peruse the thread?
I’m sure that God thinks about you every moment and thinks to himself, “that’s my guy! What a follower of dogma he is! How I love him. That’s exactly who I want by my side, some dor— oops, I mean, brilliant philosopher who will parrot every word he thinks I spake.”
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greylorn
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Would you kindly organize your comments into paragraphs. In case you had an illness which kept you out of 5th grade, paragraphs are groups of sentences which express a coherent thought.
Doing so would make it easier to determine if you were expressing thoughts, or something else.
With all due respect, thank you for your comments.
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greylorn
Guest
Imagine, if you are capable of doing so, yourself as a Christian in Iran, or Iraq, or in any other Islamic state, tortured, raped, and ultimately butchered for your beliefs.of course, god can think…He can forsee our every move, and if he could not think, how could he guide and protect us.???
If that doesn’t work for you because it is too contemporary, how about the millions of Catholics murdered by Soviet communists?
If that is still too contemporary, turn your mind back to the history of your own religion. Pretend that you were one of the Christians eaten alive by Roman lions, and share with us your version of God’s “protection” plan.
Next assignment— detail exactly how God has guided “us”, which presumably means all human beings, into our optimal lives? Explain how God has carefully kept us from killing one another by the multi-millions,
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greylorn
Guest
Because religious beliefs depend upon agreement rather than intelligence, you will find cabbage choppers passing themselves off as gourmet chefs, garbage man calling themselves sanitation engineers, and people like my brother-in-law working his way into a lucrative government pension by spending a few thousand bucks for a mail-order Ph.d.
There will always be people assuming titles, pretending to something they’ve not earned. I believe that J.C. addressed this in a parable about some “master” holding a dinner party.
The people to whom you refer are mere camp followers, agreement-mongers who understand perhaps a micropercent of human knowledge, but are willing to stand in agreement with others who understand even less.
Upon that sorry state, civilizations are built. But they are not long sustained.
You say that those who are capable of chopping cabbages and who pretend to a higher level of understanding are trusted, and in that you are correct. They are trusted by others who believe the same things within very narrow parameters of belief. (Muslims and Christians do not trust one another unless they are extremely stupid.)
But believers who are content to remain as ignorant as possible and still get a G.E.D. are not trusted by those who take the universe seriously enough to study it. Modern scientists know the lessons of Bruno and Galileo. They get regular reminders to the point that if religions ever regain exclusive control over human affairs, scientists will be first into the biffy.
The number of believers is growing, yes, but not in terms of percentage. It is not numbers, but relative numbers, which count.
I do not know the number of communists who managed the conversion of Russia from a Catholic, Tzarist country into the first Communist state, whose leaders murdered more Catholics, Jews, whatevers than can be numbered. I believe that the number is very small, no more than a tenth of a percent of the entire population, and I know that the serious leaders were numbered in the handful. They took advantage of ignorance and naivety,
Count the annual increase of believers. Compare it to the increase of non-believers. You will find that the ratio is changing in the favor of atheists.
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PJM
Guest
Of course God “can,” He is God! All everything GOOD."
Perhaps a more profound way of asking is: “Does God have to think?” No, He does not to think for the following reasons.
Time does not exist for God, everything is in the present moment.
“To think” implies “to have doubts.” Not possible for God.
Everything no matter how BIG, or how small (insignifiant) is either Caused By God ot Permitted by God for our possible sactification and God’s greater Glory.
God is both Cause and Effect!
God is the Creator of everything Good. God also sustains all of His Created. In that sense God can have a “creative thought.” His thought, so long as it conforms to “His Will” is instantly accomplished.
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