How can God be immaterial?

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It’s hard enough to grasp what immateriality is supposed to amount to, but throw in the idea that it’s causal and things get really confusing. Every time we observe x cause y, x causes y by influencing something else. e.g., I cause the ball to bounce by accelerating it towards the ground, etc. But, what could god have done to cause things ex nihilo? Nothing. He did something to nothing, and this produce everything.
 
Perplexity said:
It’s hard enough to grasp what immateriality is supposed to amount to, but throw in the idea that it’s causal and things get really confusing. Every time we observe x cause y, x causes y by influencing something else. e.g., I cause the ball to bounce by accelerating it towards the ground, etc. But, what could god have done to cause things ex nihilo? Nothing. He did something to nothing, and this produce everything.
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Well the atheist position is hardly different. Something did something to nothing, and this produced everything. Which is why I always maintain that atheists have such wonderful faith. 🙂
 
snarflemike said:
Well the atheist position is hardly different. Something did something to nothing, and this produced everything. Which is why I always maintain that atheists have such wonderful faith. 🙂
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Hm, I don’t think that’s the atheist position (as if atheism entailed it). For example, I believe in an eternal universe, even if the scientific evidence indicated the universe had a first event.
 
Julia_Mae said:
See, when we are here, we think this is the solid, “real” stuff. It’s actually what it is: nothing. You want science, go do the research yourself. By the time you follow all matter down to it’s most basic level, it is all the same thing: nothing at all.

God IS. Spiritual doesn’t mean less than; it’s all there really is.

God is more solid and real than the monitor you are staring into.
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Considering that real at its most basic means being in space and time, that is only partially true. God transcends reality and unreality.
 
Perplexity said:
Hm, I don’t think that’s the atheist position (as if atheism entailed it). For example, I believe in an eternal universe, even if the scientific evidence indicated the universe had a first event.
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Hmm, an atheist who ignores the evidence of science - a rather precarious position! 😃

I’m just having a bit of innocent fun, don’t take any offense. 👍
 
filter2700 said:
The only things that exist are those that are provable within this universe. .
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Nonsense, many things exist that cannot be proven by physical evidence. Relativistic quantum field theory may work very well to describe the observed behaviors and properties of elementary particles, but the theory itself only works well when gravity is so weak that it can be neglected. Particle theory only works when we pretend gravity doesn’t exist. Quantum field theory cannot be proven. Particle theory cannot be proven. Theoretical Physics, likewise, cannot be proven.

Any one who has any real knowledge of theoretical physics would not make such a broad and uninformed statement. I suggest that you do some elementary scholarship on the subject before embarrassing yourself with such statement. Assuming that you have at least undergraduate level education, a good starting point would be the book I referenced in my previous post.
 
filter2700 said:
So God isn’t physical, or material, and isn’t visible in the universe. He is an unseen spirit not made of matter. To me, that sounds like something that doesn’t exist.
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It’s a good description of dark matter. People never seem to have much trouble believing that exists. It is inferred from observable phenomena. So is God.
 
filter2700 said:
How can God be described if he isn’t physical and perceivable to us in a real way we can directly see and understand?
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God can only be described to a degree. We certainly can’t perceive him in his fullness.
filter2700 said:
The only things that exist are those that are provable within this universe. Claiming something exists outside of our physical, material reality sounds very wacky to me.
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Can this statement stand up to its own scrutiny? Can you prove that only that which can be proven is real?
If not, then the statement must be wrong.
 
Nine_Two said:
God can only be described to a degree. We certainly can’t perceive him in his fullness.

Can this statement stand up to its own scrutiny? Can you prove that only that which can be proven is real? It don’t matter. I know God exists because I can feel God when I am still and I don’t have to prove anything to anyone else but God. So who cares whether it stands up to scrutiny or not. 😃 😃
If not, then the statement must be wrong.
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I am not a physicist, so perhaps I shouldn’t speak at all.

However, not long ago, I watched a program in which it was posited that there’s really no such thing as “matter”. Supposedly, atomic particles are made up of nothing but strings of energy. If so, what is matter other than a particular arrangement of energy that gives us the impression that it’s somehow distinct from energy, without really being distinct?

But while that sort of answers the question “How can God be immaterial” (if He’s said to have created material); specifically by saying there is no such thing as “material”, exactly, it doesn’t answer the next expectable question “Is God, then, composed of energy, and, if so, how did He get it?”

A philosopher might say God is pure act (therefore energy?). But I’m not a philosopher, either.
 
Ridgerunner said:
I am not a physicist, so perhaps I shouldn’t speak at all.

However, not long ago, I watched a program in which it was posited that there’s really no such thing as “matter”. Supposedly, atomic particles are made up of nothing but strings of energy. If so, what is matter other than a particular arrangement of energy that gives us the impression that it’s somehow distinct from energy, without really being distinct?

But while that sort of answers the question “How can God be immaterial” (if He’s said to have created material); specifically by saying there is no such thing as “material”, exactly, it doesn’t answer the next expectable question “Is God, then, composed of energy, and, if so, how did He get it?”

A philosopher might say God is pure act (therefore energy?). But I’m not a philosopher, either.
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Yes, energy and matter are equivalent. That was one of Einstein’s great insights. 100 years later, and that is still held to be true.
 
englishredrose said:
It don’t matter. I know God exists because I can feel God when I am still and I don’t have to prove anything to anyone else but God. So who cares whether it stands up to scrutiny or not.
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I’m talking about the provability of the positivist statement that only that which is provable is real.
 
filter2700 said:
I’ve run into a problem when I think about who God is. How can God create a physical, material universe if he isn’t physical? The universe came into being from nothing, so what is God made of? If God isn’t material, then what is God? He is eternal, but what is he made of? How can a non-physical being like God create the universe? How can God be described if he isn’t physical and perceivable to us in a real way we can directly see and understand? How can God be immaterial and exist? How can God exist if he isn’t physical and material?

I’m looking for scientific answers, but feel free to back up your thoughts by using scripture. Thanks.
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A large part of your questioning is dependent on an idea called “framing.” It refers to the structure of a statement/question in terms of its assumptions. So first ask yourself what are your assumptions when you ask such a question. You know, the premises that you take for granted and don’t even think about when you think you think.

For instance,
How can God be described if he isn’t physical and perceivable to us in a real way we can directly see and understand?
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this statement tends to assume that God is describabile, something that assumes that the lesser (human or mortal mind) can contain the Greater.(God) That is a discursive impossibility. On the other hand, there are Contemplatives, Catho,lic and otherwise, who have transcendent expereinces. Their reports describe states, but as for God can only be pointers. Same goes for the described states, if you haven’t yourself expereinced what the author is talking about. Often the assumption is made that because one intellectually can follow the dictionary meaning of words and assume that there is a referent tot the staed idea, that that intellectual following constitutes actual understanding, It emphatically does not. Not any more thatn reading about swimming and never having been in the water constitutes competieng in a swim meet.

So the first thing to do in answering such questions as you have is to make sure that you examine your assumptions, know and use critical thinking and have at hand a number of vital discipliens such as epistemology and General Semantics, as well as such ideas, say as Korzybski’s structural differential and Wilber’s Four Qadrants as analytical tools, those being especially pertiinent to understandiong how you yourself think. Or as most people, think you think. The majority of us humans d that bout welll enough to not break a leg on the way to and from the corner store, unless we are highly trained in a speciallty. But even then tht strict discipline is usually not distributed over the resto of the thinkers thinking. So good luck. 🙂 But don’t be daunted. “Seek and ye shall find.”
 
How can existence itself be material?

That is the question you need to ask.
 
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