The burden of proof is on believers to prove God exists (according to atheist philosphers)

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Tomdstone said:
Not true, because Jesus was in time and secondly, at each Mass, the Host becomes God and Catholics can receive Him in time.
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You’ve clearly remained unconvinced although there have been numerous rebuttals on previous threads. But, let’s take another ride on this merry-go-round; quite good fun actually.

God, who is at the Centre of every moment, each place and time, regardless of when and where it is, Now and infinite, cannot possibly change. As the eternal Cause of all changes, it is A contradiction to assert that He does so. We are in time and it is right here that He meets us, wherever and whenever that is.

This would have been very simple had we chosen at the beginning to place God at the centre of the garden which is human relationality, the connection we have with Him and our world. He is at the core of our being, in the wood of the cross and the Eucharist. With the incarnation, ontologically first in creation and at the centre of time, God Himself enters into the world and into humanity. Before the first moment and at the end of all this He is there, the Way for us in time, to become our true selves, Christ-like, the loving act of giving ourselves to what is other, to commune in eternity with Love itself.
 
Ben_Sinner said:
This is an article from Psychology Today written by Dr. David Kyle Johnson

psychologytoday.com/blog/logical-take/201402/why-62-philosophers-are-atheists-part-i

It is basically saying “Since theists demand the Big Bang needs an explanation, God would need an explanation as well. Saying he doesn’t need one is a double standard. Since he can’t be explained, there is no evidence that He exists, thus there is not logical reason to believe”

Here is a paragraph from the actual article:

**Of course, theists will likely reply that they are not just saying God doesn’t need an explanation, but that by definition he doesn’t because by definition he is the greatest being, and the greatest being can’t have an explanation. (Anything that explains God would be greater.) It’s not clear to me that this is the case; but even so, the basic rule of logic that, in debates on existential matters, the burden of proof lies on the one making the positive existential claim is true regardless of whether the entity in question is unexplained or self-explained. For example, if someone suggested the existence of an alien race that created itself through time travel (by traveling back in time and seeding its own race), I would still demand they provided evidence for such beings before I believed. In addition, I could maintain that there is an infinite number of universes, each of which exists inexplicably—without cause or explanation. Yet to rationally believe that any other such universe exists, I would demand evidence.

All in all, atheists are not being irrational by justifying their atheism simply in a lack of evidence for God’s existence, any more than I am being irrational in justifying “a-bigfootism” in a lack of evidence for Bigfoot.**

What is the rebuttal?
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Faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

Luke 18:26-27 And they that heard it, said: Who then can be saved? He said to them: The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God.
 
Aloysium said:
With the incarnation, ontologically first in creation and at the centre of time, God Himself enters into the world and into humanity…
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Yes. I agree. God has entered the world and time. At every Mass, God comes down from heaven and becomes present on the altar as the Bread and Wine are changed and become God, as they become the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus.
 
Cheiron said:
That’s because this transcendent God outside space and time is not the God of the Bible and Christianity. The Judeo-Christian God intervenes in the world. He talks directly to Moses and various other people, He sends plagues to Egypt, He splits the sea, He appears to Paul. He wrestles with Jacob and touches his hip. I can go on and on and on with examples of God intervening in this particular space and time.
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God is outside space and time; and also intervenes in history. It’s a question of “both and and” instead of “either or”.
 
Tomdstone said:
Not true, because Jesus was in time and secondly, at each Mass, the Host becomes God and Catholics can receive Him in time.
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God is both “outside” and also “intervening” - one aspect doesn’t exclude the other …
 
hu324b said:
Jesus has always been there - there is no change.
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Then God did not create man. Jesus (who is and always was a man) has always existed. Adam was only the second man. Man is not created, but is eternal.

This seems to be some very strange theological water.

rossum
 
rossum said:
God is immortal and cannot die.
Jesus died on the cross.
Jesus is God.
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Although I’ve already commented, I want to thank you again - your posting is thought-provoking.

“God is immortal” made me think of the Homeric gods who had immortal bodies and couldn’t die. They were a foil to the “mortals” who were always fighting to the death.

In the Old Testament, God in contrast to the Homeric gods does not have a body at all. Thus, His “immortality” is in a different register (for one thing, His “immortality” is based on the fact that He is completely “outside” of time and space, completely “immaterial”, absolutely without any “composition” of essence and esse).

Jesus is a paradigm buster - He is God with a body (but not one like Zeus’ immortal body). Jesus’ body died - and came into being at a specific time and place. 3000 years ago, Jesus did not exist. However, the person of Jesus has always existed as the Second Person of the Holy Trinity “outside” of space and time. - and cannot die (but not in the same sense used in speaking of Zeus as being unable to die). Once Jesus rose from the dead, His human body became “immortal” too (but with significant differences from Zeus’ immortal body).

I don’t think there is a contradiction here. There would be if Jesus had an Olympian immortal body like Zeus but that was not the case.

Again, all of this hinges on the Christian understanding that God is radically transcendent, is not a “part” of the universe (the way Zeus was). As such, God is “outside” the Aristotelian categories - what this means is that God is “outside” the realm of “being” where “being” is understood as the “being” of beings. God is not “a being” (in the Greek metaphysical sense). And this is what makes it possible for Him to “blend” with human nature without “disrupting” His divinity or human nature.
 
rossum said:
Which is exactly my problem with your earlier statement:
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In that case Buddhism is also irrational - in addition to being incoherent with its combination of atheism and in spiritual reality…
I am glad that you are coming to see your error.
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If it’s an error your ideology is also fatally flawed. The devas - amongst other Buddhist beings - do not fit into human sets…
 
inocente said:
Rossum has simply been reading back the implications of your “God certainly doesn’t exist in any human sets”. If that were true then even the very idea of God could never have occurred to any human. I already pointed out to you that Anselm’s argument relies on the concept of God existing in what you quaintly call a human set. Read the linked article:
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Read my response to rossum…

BTW The term “human set” isn’t mine but his…
 
rossum said:
Then God did not create man. Jesus (who is and always was a man) has always existed. Adam was only the second man. Man is not created, but is eternal.

This seems to be some very strange theological water.

rossum
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It is your misconception of Christian theology which is strange…
 
tonyrey said:
I shall not descend to your level…
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Please stop making these uncivil remarks to me and other posters.

I said you were not making sense. First you said “What individuals want is irrelevant” then you dismissed the main principle of my religion, soul liberty, by saying there is no point in me participating in this thread.

You are not making sense. Please explain yourself, as one adult to another adult.
tonyrey said:
Read my response to rossum…
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I quoted your response to him in my post!

Rossum is making perfect sense to me but you are not. You seem not to understand the concept of sets in logic, otherwise it’s hard to see why you’re saying things like “In that case Buddhism is also irrational”.
 
levinas12 said:
God is outside space and time; and also intervenes in history. It’s a question of “both and and” instead of “either or”.
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Two things:

1: That means God is sometimes outside space and time. That is an important nuance. I’d like to know how you know these things and how you can recognize when God intervenes and when He does not - even if it has been claimed as such.

2: Existence is necessarily within a particular space and time. Saying that God exists outside space and time is equivalent to saying that God exists in no time and no space - which is just a fancy way of saying that God does not exist.
 
Tomdstone said:
It is contradictory. God is always outside of time and God is not always outside of time?
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God is the Cause of all creation, every time and every place. He is Now, right here as your thoughts come into existence through the reading of these words. God is everywhere and beyond everything because He is the eternal Font from which it springs. Forget “always”; you are the one who stuck that word in there and it is causing you confusion. Perhaps it would help to replace it with “now”. God is now and in every other now. Because He creates all time from His eternal Now, He is at the same time not part of it. That’s the way it is. I’m wondering if you think that God is another thing. An unchanging thing in time is actually a description of hell. God is Life in its broadest sense, creating other life for whom He cares and seeks to bring into His communion. He does not change; His creation does and is moving in His direction. I’m starting to ramble.
 
Cheiron said:
Two things:

1: That means God is sometimes outside space and time. That is an important nuance. I’d like to know how you know these things and how you can recognize when God intervenes and when He does not - even if it has been claimed as such.

2: Existence is necessarily within a particular space and time. Saying that God exists outside space and time is equivalent to saying that God exists in no time and no space - which is just a fancy way of saying that God does not exist.
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God exists outside of time and space means that He is not subject to time, doesn’t change, and has no location which this is a property of all spiritual beings since they are not physical.
 
STT said:
God exists outside of time and space means that He is not subject to time, doesn’t change, and has no location which this is a property of all spiritual beings since they are not physical.
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In the Mass, God has location. The Host becomes God, does it not? The Host has a specific location.
 
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