Some disorganized thoughts and questions. Help please!

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I have some jumbled thoughts I am hoping to get down and see what insight others may have. It involves several different questions involving a couple different sources. Sorry if this seems completely disorganized and rambling:

My friend and I were having a discussion today that left me, at least, a little troubled and in need of some answers. We basically came to the conclusion that God is not a person like us, simply w/o all our limitations and imperfections. This seemed in line with most of the philosophical greats of the Church such as Aquinas, Augustine, Anselm, Bonaventure, etc. I also have been looking into a book by Thomistic Philosopher Brian Davies called “The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil.” I will be drawing on some of what I’ve heard about this book (mainly one seemingly thorough review on Amazon, which is probably unwise). Firstly, in Thomistic fashion, it comes to the conclusion that God is not a moral agent, hence it is incoherent to apply moral standards to Him. Most of what the reviewer said sat well with me until he talked about chapter eight:

"Chapter Eight is “Goodness, Love and Reasons.” For me this was the most emotionally difficult and philosophically wrenching chapter of the book. Davies argues from the “radical otherness” of God that our talk of God’s love and God’s reasons are nothing more than a kind of category error. As humans, we can speak of human love and reason, but human love and reason are known to us from our humanity, which is limited and dependent. We love because we have wants and needs we want and need to satisfy. We reason in order to fill those wants and need.

God, however, has no needs or wants or desires. He has everything in himself. God does not even reason. God knows and His knowledge creates reality. How then can we speak of God having a reason to permit evil? Likewise, how can we speak of God loving anybody, aside from “loving” as an intellectual exercise of willing the goof of the other, and it seems painfully obvious that God does not will everyone’s good completely all the time. The image of God as Father is a woeful misstatement of God’s relationship to man in terms of reality and philosophical argument.

Quite simply, Wow! At this point, what more would an atheist be looking for in order to validate their (dis)belief?"

Its conclusion appears that while God may will the good of others, He cannot be said to actually love us. Furthermore, this would seem to imply a whole lack of anything like emotions. The latter part I can swallow, but not the former.

Then, one also gets into a different issue, and one I am not sure if it is based on a misunderstanding or can be resolved if it is not. Christ has a human nature, which includes feeling emotion and love towards others. Is this nature incompatible with God’s when we look at God and Christ in the context of the Trinity, or is this alright?

Last issue has to do with Heaven and Hell. I was wondering if we would feel anguish for those in hell should we make it to Heaven? If so, does this mean Heaven, is not, in fact, devoid of suffering? An obvious answer would be that through the process of deification, we would be joined to God and thus feel what He feels. However, the same problem arises. We would then ask what God feels (and what we would subsequently feel). I’ve heard it said before that while God, since His will is always geared toward the good, will do all He can to get us to Heaven, He no longer cares about us when if we go to hell. This seems wrong since it seems like God would still love (I use the term loosely) us. However, from earlier conclusions, God doesn’t “feel” anything. Furthermore, if He cared and was upset by people going to hell, wouldn’t we, by default, also be hurt and thus suffer pain in Heaven?

As it stands, I reject theistic personalism on philosophical grounds as well as the fact that divine simplicity is Church teaching (I think). However, this strikes me as both somewhat philosophically troublesome as well as emotionally and intuitionally unappealing. This is why I am so concerned.

I hope I made at least some sense. Disregarding the book, I still think at least a couple concerns may still be applicable. Thanks in advance.
 
God does love; He is Love and He is Loving.
God does reason; He is Reason and He is Reasoning.

When it comes to God eternal, to be is to do is to make; there’s not really much difference.

We only are able to love and reason because He loves and reasons within us. Our capacity to love and reason, and our doing of both, increases as we become more like Him.

If you do not believe that God loves, you do not believe that the Trinity exists or that you yourself are able to love.

Seriously, I think you are either misunderstanding the book, or the writer of the book has a chapter full of idiocy. (And of course, the latter is likely. A lot of modern writers and “thinkers” are basically jerks or idiots.)

Personally, I’m a great believer in putting stuff aside that confuses me, and then waiting until I find data that works better for me or a better explanation. But I’m the kind of person who learns from context best; I don’t know what works for you.

The other thing that helps is to ask God to help you understand Him. Obviously He’s the one to put first, as you can get it straight from the horse’s mouth. He also understands your mind and learning patterns, whereas I don’t.

However, you (or that Davies fellow) may also be confusing “different from human” with “not real.” Our emotions are something like a sensory mechanism, if our eyes and ears told us about inner sights and sounds, or about reactions to events and people. Our passions are something like the same thing for telling us about various things we could will. God the Father doesn’t “feel” or have “passions” because He doesn’t need to “sense” how He should react. His will is not just stronger than ours, but more exact. His acts and thoughts express all of Him perfectly, unlike ours. He truly loves every little bit of us. God is more real than we are, more vivid, more oomph-y.

Saying God doesn’t love or will or reason is like saying the ocean doesn’t move. The ocean practically is movement, and it moves so much that we can hardly understand all the various ways it does move. The ocean is always the same and always different; thinking it’s boring and motionless is missing the point.

Moving along, however, God doesn’t “forget” or “hate” people in Hell. If He did, the denizens of Hell would cease to exist in any way. Hell is often described as the absence of God, but obviously that’s not a complete absence; because all beings only exist because God exists in us.

One venerable way to describe Hell is being a very wicked person in the continual presence of God; because being very wicked is to drive out most of what is like God in oneself, and being deliberately not very present in the Presence of God would be very painful indeed. Basically, it’d be someone who hates love sitting right next to Love and feeling His love, and deliberately not responding lovingly. God’s activeness and lovingness and reasonableness are probably what is most hated by the demons and the self-damned.
 
Mintaka said:
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One venerable way to describe Hell is being a very wicked person in the continual presence of God; because being very wicked is to drive out most of what is like God in oneself, and being deliberately not very present in the Presence of God would be very painful indeed. Basically, it’d be someone who hates love sitting right next to Love and feeling His love, and deliberately not responding lovingly. God’s activeness and lovingness and reasonableness are probably what is most hated by the demons and the self-damned.
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The military is a famous institution in the minds of many people not only for their sacrifices but the way they take boys and create men. I had a nephew that was headed down a terrible road in many ways. His live seemed destined to turn out bad by his late teens.

He joined the Marines. He came out a different person. Responsible and a new found respect for his family and for life itself.

For the truly wicked, even in God’s presence, it is hard to imagine any sort of intervention, training, punishment or love that could change anyone truly evil or hateful in one lifetime. But a 1000 years in hell? I think that would do it. Eternity seems a bit excessive. However, I question the idea, I do not question God. I put conundrums like this in a box on the shelf. Something I don’t understand, not sure how at the moment this was passed down, but for right now, all I have to do it keep in step with the Holy trinity. That indeed, is good enough!
 
I just read over the section in Chapter 8 where Davies discusses love. I do not think that the reviewer has given an accurate account of Davies’ argument. For example:
Davies argues from the “radical otherness” of God that our talk of God’s love and God’s reasons are nothing more than a kind of category error.
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I am not sure how he got this from Davies’ argument. Davies refers to the Thomistic doctrines of analogy and negative theology, in which anything that is predicated of God must be predicated analogically. This is true of omnipotence. This is true of goodness. This is true of love. To shoehorn analogy into a “category error” seems rather crude (I don’t believe Davies uses the term). It would be one thing to dispute the doctrine, but it’s another to ignore the distinction and claim that Davies is denying love of God, while he actually goes through a few of the reasons why we should predicate love of God. He is, for instance, the cause of all creaturely goodness. He sustains creation in existence in complete gratuity - here, the remotion of reasons from God’s seems to favor a predication of love, since whatever goodness willed is for the creature’s sake, God being unable to benefit from what He does.

Davies’ book is overtly philosophical and intellectual. It is not really a good book if one is facing personal struggles and is looking for emotional guidance. It does, however, answer nonetheless important questions on God’s goodness (the role of analogy, the causation of evil, the privation view, etc.). A lot of theodicy is also genuinely bad. I’d say his argument is much more nuanced than any of the reviewers give him credit.
Mintaka said:
However, you (or that Davies fellow) may also be confusing “different from human” with “not real.”
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This seems to be the root of the issue. Davies is attentive to the ways that God must love differently from humans. He specifically argues that God is essentially loving, as well. The reviewer seems to ignore his arguments, though.
 
Before anything else, I like to define God in relation to man and the physical universe, thus:

God in relation to man and the physical universe is the creator of everything that is not God Himself.

That concept of God is known by man on man’s thinking on reason and intelligence.

The Catholic Church teaches that man can and does know God even without revelation from God.

That man’s knowledge of the existence of God without revelation from God is as I said,
God in relation to man and the physical universe is the creator of everything that is not God Himself.

From that concept of God man relates to God as man relates to fellow humans, and thinks that God also relates to man as humans relate to one another.

But only God is the creator of man and the physical universe, meaning everything that is not God Himself, while man and the physical universe depend on God for existence and operation.

Religions which recognize God’s existence advance the idea that man’s behavior in regard to God is intended by man to gain God’s favorable actuation toward man; how? in the manner that man behaves in regard to fellowmen as to gain fellowmen’s favorable actuation toward himself.

Wherefore man behaves toward God like in accordance with the socalled Golden Rule in its positive formulation:

Do unto others what you want others to do unto you.

And in its negative formulation:

Do not unto others what you don’t want others to do unto you.

That is why man does to God the creator, specially as God is the creator, everything that he thinks pleases God, and abstains from doing everything which he thinks displeases God – in the same manner but to a much greater degree similarly in regard to fellowmen.

In the case of the Christian religion, God reveals Himself to man on what and how He wants man to behave as to please Him, and to not behave as to not displease Him.

And God does not reveal to man His commandments except as to cover acts which man can enact the human performance of acts covered in these commandments, or abstain from acts prohibited in these commandments, i.e., as his human nature can execute acts commanded and abstain from acts prohibited by God.

That is why we humans always regard God on human terms, and it cannot be otherwise, so also God toward man.

That is what we call the essentially anthropormophism in man’s relation to God and God to man – because it cannot be otherwise.

So, I don’t see why we should have any trouble about our human ways and means by which we relate to and with God, and God to and with us.

KingCoil
 
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