SPLIT: God's being and implications

[Biggie]

Hi Eurcharisted,

The argument isn’t saying that God does not exist. It is rather saying that one conception of God is incompatible with what we see around us.

We have to admit that although we can say some things about God - eternal, good, perfect, the creator of all things. There are other things that we don’t know and cannot be demonstrated i.e. interventionist and personal.

I am curious - if God is not “interventionist” and “personal” how does one explain the Incarnation? Likewise, while Jesus did raise some from the dead, they later died. While he did heal some, he did not heal all. Is this to say he did not intend to “intervene” in a “personal” way? No one can seriously read the words of Our Lord, believe them, and hold that God, who we are instructed to call Papa, does not intervene in our lives in a most personal way.

Nor does suffering counter that. Suffering is not the design, desire or intention of God, but the condition created by the annihilation of the bond between God and man by man himself.

 

[Fran65]

Hi Biggie,

Christians, by definition, have to believe that Jesus is the incarnation and therefore this makes this ‘aspect’ of God personal and interventionist.

However, as you know, there are other faiths that do not take that position and rather see Jesus as prophet and role model, but not as God.

So you are right to ask.

Fran

 

[Biggie]

Hi Biggie,

Christians, by definition, have to believe that Jesus is the incarnation and therefore this makes this ‘aspect’ of God personal and interventionist.

However, as you know, there are other faiths that do not take that position and rather see Jesus as prophet and role model, but not as God.

So you are right to ask.

Fran

Sorry but you will have to explain to me what an “aspect” of God means.

We are apparently missing each other’s point. For Druids worship trees, and Vegans worship, well, I dunno - but I thought the OP’s point was that suffering seems inconsistent with an Almighty God. So I assumed we were discussing an Almighty God. And I thought you were advancing the proposition that theologians and others find a disinterested but Almighty God a viable concept and I thought you said that was in some way compatible with Catholic belief.

So it is exactly that I doubt and am disputing (1) that philosophically one can defend the concept of an Almighty God who is disinterested in his creation, and (2) that one can in any way present the concept of a disinterested God as consistent with Catholic belief. And I further offered that the existence of suffering does not make that case on either hand.

Now Druids, Vegans and Muslims will have to speak for themselves.

 

[Fran65]

Sorry but you will have to explain to me what an “aspect” of God means.

I just mean that Jesus is part of the Christian Trinity - I’m not up to explaining the Trinity, there are many existing threads discussing this.

And I thought you were advancing the proposition that theologians and others find a disinterested but Almighty God a viable concept and I thought you said that was in some way compatible with Catholic belief.

Many theologians do find that a viable concept. As for whether its compatible with Catholic belief, that depends upon how we define ‘personal’. God is not a person - that idea is incompatible with His nature as God.

In addition, Aquinas states that God does not ‘intervene’ in His creation as he is always totally present in everything. In other words he does not observe and then step in to tinker with what is happening (Davies, p173).

So it is exactly that I doubt and am disputing (1) that philosophically one can defend the concept of an Almighty God who is disinterested in his creation, and (2) that one can in any way present the concept of a disinterested God as consistent with Catholic belief. And I further offered that the existence of suffering does not make that case on either hand.

Saying that God does not intervene is not the same as saying that He is disinterested! Nor would that be consistent with Catholic teaching, so I agree with you here.

 

[Biggie]

Many theologians do find that a viable concept. As for whether its compatible with Catholic belief, that depends upon how we define ‘personal’. God is not a person - that idea is incompatible with His nature as God.

This is clearly wrong in any Christian theology. God is a person.

In addition, Aquinas states that God does not ‘intervene’ in His creation as he is always totally present in everything. In other words he does not observe and then step in to tinker with what is happening (Davies, p173).

To say God is totally present is to say that God intervenes. I think Acquinas is being misinterpreted here.

Saying that God does not intervene is not the same as saying that He is disinterested! Nor would that be consistent with Catholic teaching, so I agree with you here.

You will have to explain the difference.

 

[Fran65]

This is clearly wrong in any Christian theology. God is a person.

I’m sorry, but if God were a person He would not be eternal, He would have to have created Himself (logically inconstistent) and He would be an individual (which he isn’t as there is only God and not a class of ‘gods’), He would change and He would develop. None of these things are consistent with being God.

He incarnated as Jesus who was fully human and fully divine. Jesus is a person as part of the Trinity and we can relate him as such, but that does not mean that ‘God’ in His entirety incarnated - otherwise who was Jesus praying to and referring to as his Father?

To say God is totally present is to say that God intervenes. I think Acquinas is being misinterpreted here…

It depends how you define ‘intervene’. He doesn’t intervene in the sense already discussed. That does not mean however that God does not answer prayers - which may be what you mean?

You will have to explain the difference.

I love Tennis. I watch a lot of tournaments. One of my favourite players had a match a few weeks ago, I passionately wanted him to win, but could do nothing about it. I did not/could not intervene, but I was interested.

I do not mean to imply here by the way that God is not omnipotent!

 

[Biggie]

I’m sorry, but if God were a person He would not be eternal, He would have to have created Himself (logically inconstistent) and He would be an individual (which he isn’t as there is only God and not a class of ‘gods’), He would change and He would develop. None of these things are consistent with being God.

Here you are clearly wrong (unless of course you are again referring to some other than Christian belief). Sorry. You are confusing person with mortality. God is a special person, a prime being. He has no beginning nor end, therefore he is not created. He is certainly an individual. None of this implies transience. The Christian testimony of the Trinity in fact dictates that God is three persons (one God).

He incarnated as Jesus who was fully human and fully divine. Jesus is a person as part of the Trinity and we can relate him as such, but that does not mean that ‘God’ in His entirety incarnated - otherwise who was Jesus praying to and referring to as his Father?

Wrong again. Sorry again. Here you need to examine Catholic (and mainline Christian) teaching as to the difference between nature and person. Jesus is one person with two natures. He was speaking to his Father from his humanity. Refer to your friend St. Thomas:

Reply to Objection 2. A Divine Person is said to be incommunicable inasmuch as It cannot be predicated of several supposita, but nothing prevents several things being predicated of thePerson. Hence it is not contrary to the nature of person to be communicated so as to subsist in several natures, for even in a created person several natures may concur accidentally, as in the person of one man we find quantity and quality. But this is proper to a Divine Person, on account of its infinity, that there should be a concourse of natures in it, not accidentally, but in subsistence.

newadvent.org/summa/4003.htm

I love Tennis. I watch a lot of tournaments. One of my favourite players had a match a few weeks ago, I passionately wanted him to win, but could do nothing about it. I did not/could not intervene, but I was interested.

I do not mean to imply here by the way that God is not omnipotent!

And alas, neither are you God. To say that God is interested but unwilling to intervene is to say that he lacks charity, unable to intervene and he lacks omnipotence.

 

[Fran65]

God is a special person, a prime being. He has no beginning nor end, therefore he is not created. He is certainly an individual.

Unfortunately, here there are problems with your statements. God cannot be ‘a’ being, because He created the universe and cannot have created Himself. He is therefore ‘Being’ rather than ‘a being’.

Nor can God be an individual, as to be an individual, one has to be part of a class of things that are the same. There is plainly no other instance of God, therefore he is not an ‘individual’. He just is what he is.

Wrong again. Sorry again. Here you need to examine Catholic (and mainline Christian) teaching as to the difference between nature and person. Jesus is one person with two natures.

So you don’t believe the teaching of the Trinity there are three persons in one God. Jesus incarnated as one person - where are the other two at that point? It plainly implies that the other two are not incarnated which means that the one God has not incarnated in His entirety.

To say that God is interested but unwilling to intervene is to say that he lacks charity, unable to intervene and he lacks omnipotence.

That is assuming that we (humans) are able to judge what would constitute God’s charity and that we know when He should intervene and why. It does not imply a lack of omnipotence. It does not imply that He cannot intervene. It implies that God does not ‘disrupt’ and enter His creation to effect some change from His position outside creation. This is plainly inaccurate as God sustains creation and is integral to it.
As I stated earlier. There is a difference between answering prayers and intervening in the manner that I have just outlined.

All of this is subtle and challenging. I am constantly challenged and love learning and increasing my understanding. That’s why I’m here.

 

[Jean_Anthony]

aaa

 

[Biggie]

Unfortunately, here there are problems with your statements. God cannot be ‘a’ being, because He created the universe and cannot have created Himself. He is therefore ‘Being’ rather than ‘a being’.

Nor can God be an individual, as to be an individual, one has to be part of a class of things that are the same. There is plainly no other instance of God, therefore he is not an ‘individual’. He just is what he is.

Being signifies what it says - being. One is a being because one is (one "be’s, as it were.). It has nothing whatsoever to say as to how one came into being.

Individual exactly indicates a distinction from all others without reference to class.

So you don’t believe the teaching of the Trinity there are three persons in one God. Jesus incarnated as one person - where are the other two at that point? It plainly implies that the other two are not incarnated which means that the one God has not incarnated in His entirety.

No clue what you are arguing here, whether in your opinion God left heaven during the Incarnation or not. Catholic teaching on this is clear over the last two thousand years, and it is that teaching to which I adhere. Regardless, this does not bear on the dual nature of Our Lord, human and divine. He is God, the Second Person of the Trinity, and he has a dual nature, both human and divine. Here is a capsule of the Catholic teaching:

Jesus is the Eternal Word, the Eternal Logos, who is eternally begotten of the Father and equal to the Father. When he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit in the womb of his blessed Mother, he took on a human nature and entered time. His human nature had a beginning. We don’t want to create a problem where there is none. The fact that Jesus took on a human nature in no way diminishes the Holy Trinity. One of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, since the Incarnation, simply has a human nature as well as a divine one. If we said that his human nature supplanted his divine nature, we would have a problem. But such is not the case and could never be.

catholic.com/thisrock/quickquestions/keyword/Trinity

That is assuming that we (humans) are able to judge what would constitute God’s charity and that we know when He should intervene and why. It does not imply a lack of omnipotence. It does not imply that He cannot intervene. It implies that God does not ‘disrupt’ and enter His creation to effect some change from His position outside creation. This is plainly inaccurate as God sustains creation and is integral to it.
As I stated earlier. There is a difference between answering prayers and intervening in the manner that I have just outlined.

Ouch. Where to begin? Yes, caritas (love) is perfectly present in God. All that we know of love and can know of it is a reflection of its presence in him. Our understanding of love is imperfect, but we do know of it. For example:

1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

This is what must be squared with your interpretation of God’s activity.

God’s position is not outside creation. It is sustained precisely because of his presence in it.

All of this is subtle and challenging. I am constantly challenged and love learning and increasing my understanding. That’s why I’m here.

And at last we have arrived at the sweet unction of agreement.

 

[Fran65]

Being signifies what it says - being. One is a being because one is (one "be’s, as it were.). It has nothing whatsoever to say as to how one came into being.

There is a difference (according to Aquinas) between ‘a being’ signifying ‘a thing’, ‘an object’ and Being as in having the property of ‘existing’. I’m simply saying God is not a thing or an object. A being automatically has a beginning and an end, a temporal and spatial existence and this is not true of God. In addition, because of the fact that God is the cause of everything (other than Himself), if ‘a being’ exists it was created by Him. Therefore some theologians prefer to talk of God as Being rather than as ‘a being’.

Individual exactly indicates a distinction from all others without reference to class.

The common usage of the term individual is that it denotes one of a class. If you are using it to signify God as unique and as being the only God then we are in agreement.

No clue what you are arguing here, whether in your opinion God left heaven during the Incarnation or not. Catholic teaching on this is clear over the last two thousand years, and it is that teaching to which I adhere. Regardless, this does not bear on the dual nature of Our Lord, human and divine. He is God, the Second Person of the Trinity, and he has a dual nature, both human and divine. .

No, I don’t think God (*in his entirety *) left heaven. If He had we would not have the Trinity as an approximation of what He is to try and understand what happened and also to make sense of the gift of the Holy Spirit.

As I said earlier, if God had incarnated then the whole of creation would have collapsed as this would mean God’s withdrawal from the rest of creation into the body of Jesus. If it helps, maybe we could think about it as a ‘part’ of God incarnated (but as he’s not made up of parts we know that that is not how it works - hence the mystery of the Trinity).

Yes, caritas (love) is perfectly present in God. All that we know of love and can know of it is a reflection of its presence in him. Our understanding of love is imperfect, but we do know of it. For example:
1 Corinthians 13: 4-7
This is what must be squared with your interpretation of God’s activity.
God’s position is not outside creation. It is sustained precisely because of his presence in it. .

I agree entirely! In fact, if you read part of my last post this is what I have been saying - God is in His creation - therefore any of His activity takes place in it and not from outside it, which is what is implied by the term ‘intervention’!

 

[Biggie]

There is a difference (according to Aquinas) between ‘a being’ signifying ‘a thing’, ‘an object’ and Being as in having the property of ‘existing’. I’m simply saying God is not a thing or an object. A being automatically has a beginning and an end, a temporal and spatial existence and this is not true of God. In addition, because of the fact that God is the cause of everything (other than Himself), if ‘a being’ exists it was created by Him. Therefore some theologians prefer to talk of God as Being rather than as ‘a being’.

The common usage of the term individual is that it denotes one of a class. If you are using it to signify God as unique and as being the only God then we are in agreement.

I really think we are overworking this to no end, unless these distinctions are meaning something to you. I am by far no Summa expert, but I do not believe for a moment Thomas Aquinas would hold that God is not a being so again I would challenge whatever it is you found there that makes you believe he does. Likewise, one can find a theologian to taste. But good, God is a unique, prime, only, individual being. Agreed.

Now let’s take this to the next level, the actual meaning to be drawn from this agreement we reached, which is that as a being, God has the capacity to be personal, one to one with other beings, though he be uncreated and all others created by him. This stands in contrast to the notion that God is an “entity” or “essence” or similar nonsense.

No, I don’t think God (*in his entirety *) left heaven. If He had we would not have the Trinity as an approximation of what He is to try and understand what happened and also to make sense of the gift of the Holy Spirit.

As I said earlier, if God had incarnated then the whole of creation would have collapsed as this would mean God’s withdrawal from the rest of creation into the body of Jesus. If it helps, maybe we could think about it as a ‘part’ of God incarnated (but as he’s not made up of parts we know that that is not how it works - hence the mystery of the Trinity).

Well, Jesus is not a part of God. He is God, truly God and truly man. God is not divisible into parts, some here, some there as you noted. For if you may consider a part of something, then you may consider a whole as something separate, diminished by the separation of its part, and God cannot be diminished. And you are also correct that God did not leave heaven at the Incarnation.

Therefore we are faced with the mystery that God is fully present in the Divine Person, Jesus Christ, and fully present in the Divine Person of the Father, and fully present in the Divine Person of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ, present on earth, embodied in his Divine Nature the entirety of God, just as God the Father, then present in heaven, fully represented the entirety of God. Jesus Christ, when on earth, fully God and fully man, from his nature as man, addressed God the Father in heaven and spoke of God the Holy Spirit, though at that moment Jesus himself embodied the entirety of God in his Divine Nature.

I agree entirely! In fact, if you read part of my last post this is what I have been saying - God is in His creation - therefore any of His activity takes place in it and not from outside it, which is what is implied by the term ‘intervention’!

The term intervention does not imply that God is apart from his creation materially but merely that he is other than his creation.

 

[Fran65]

The difference between God as Being and God as ‘a being’ is important because a being is finite, particular and limited. I would hope that you don’t think that this is the case for God?

Aquinas asserts that God is not a sort of thing. Therefore he is not a being - in the sense of finite, particular and limited.

It is easier to think of God as ‘a being’, but it is not, in fact, true. In His own words “I am that I am” (Exodus 3:14) I believe that much of what God is ineffable, although we do have some ideas about His nature as it has been revealed through scripture and teaching.

 

[Biggie]

It is easier to think of God as ‘a being’, but it is not, in fact, true. In His own words “I am that I am” (Exodus 3:14) I believe that much of what God is ineffable, although we do have some ideas about His nature as it has been revealed through scripture and teaching.

Your friend St. Thomas would indicate that God is knowable by man through God’s creatures:

I respond that it should be said that since creatures exemplarily proceed from God Himself just as from a cause in someway similar by analogy, from creatures one is able to come upon God in those three ways that were said, sc. through causality, remotion and eminence.

To this one would only add that God is knowable because he wills to be knowable. It is preposterous to conceive that man could discover something of God that God did not intend man to know. He wants us to know as much of him as we can contain.

 

[Fran65]

It is preposterous to conceive that man could discover something of God that God did not intend man to know.

I never said that.

He wants us to know as much of him as we can contain.

Precisely - “as much as we can contain”. Unless you are suggesting that we have the same capacity as God, what we know will be necessarily limited.

 

[Fran65]

Unaided human reason is able to rise to the knowledge of God only by arguing from sensible effects (and rational principles derived therefrom) to God who is the cause of those effects (ST Ia, 2, 2). *We are not able to know God, or any immaterial thing, perfectly in this way,(*ST Ia, 88, 2)

However, Aquinas does also argue that if God chooses to unite Himself with a person, then they will ‘know’ God’s essence.

"Therefore the created intellect cannot see the essence of God, unless God by His grace unites Himself to the created intellect, as an object made intelligible to it."ST I Q.12 a.4

My understanding is that this can be achieved by seeking goodness and trying to become more and more like Jesus, for example, my uniting one’s will with God’s.