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

[Cheiron]

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.

If spiritusl beings exist in no space and no time, then they don’t exist either. I still can’t imagine something or someone existing outside a particular space.

 

[rossum]

It is your misconception of Christian theology which is strange…

Which of the following two statements is false:

• Jesus is eternal.
• Jesus is truly man.

If both statements are true, then there is at least one eternal man.

rossum

 

[inocente]

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).

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.

Are you describing the same god, since one is in every moment of time and the other outside space, time and matter?

In the OT, God walks in the Garden, Jacob dreams of a stairway to heaven, God speaks from heaven, etc. The OT writers didn’t know Aristotle’s metaphysics or the modern scientific conception of space and time, they wrote in terms more fundamental to humans, and God can be physically present at specific locations, and does have physical presence because, well, he’s God.

My experience is that most Christians see God that way, a God who cannot be rationally described in philosophical or scientific terms. Anselm might say He cannot be reduced to those terms. Paul goes hyperbolic on this: “Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.” - 1 Cor 1

 

[Tomdstone]

In the OT, God walks in the Garden,

I don’t see how God can be walking around in a garden and not be in time.

 

[tonyrey]

Which of the following two statements is false:

• Jesus is eternal.
• Jesus is truly man.

If both statements are true, then there is at least one eternal man.

Jesus is a man who didn’t exist physically before He was born in Nazareth but He has **always existed **as God:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it…
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.(“John 1 NKJV - The Eternal Word - In the beginning was - Bible Gateway”)]
10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own,c] and His ownd] did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
14And the Word became flesh** and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
15 John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’”
16 Ande] of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son,f] who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

John 1:1-16

 

[tonyrey]

I don’t see how God can be walking around in a garden and not be in time.

Only Fundamentalists interpret every statement in the Old Testament as literally true.

 

[tonyrey]

Please stop making these uncivil remarks to me and other posters.

Uncivil remark:

I said you were not making sense.

Due to your failure to understand the implications of the term “analogical”.

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.

How is “soul liberty” related to “what individuals want”? It sounds as if you believe in wishful thinking!

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

I have clearly stated that all our descriptions of God are analogical, i.e. not literal and therefore not included in any human set. “God exists” is a good example. Can we understand **how **God exists?

 

[tonyrey]

My experience is that most Christians see God that way, a God who cannot be rationally described in philosophical or scientific terms.

In that case the term “God” doesn’t belong to any human set…

 

[tonyrey]

If spiritual beings exist in no space and no time, then they don’t exist either. I still can’t imagine something or someone existing outside a particular space.

Reality need not correspond to what you can or cannot imagine. Where is your awareness and understanding of your brain located? In the brain?

If the brain can understand itself it is more powerful than the entire universe which understands nothing whatsoever!

 

[tonyrey]

God is both “outside” and also “intervening” - one aspect doesn’t exclude the other …

It seems that God is expected to conform to human categories…

 

[inocente]

I don’t see how God can be walking around in a garden and not be in time.

Same here. God is having a stroll “in the cool of the day”. In a foretaste of Jesus, he takes the form of a man, to be in direct communion with the humans. He is really present, just as Catholics today believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Ordinary people believe in that God of the bible, not in a God who has to be philosophically rationalized, not in God as a theory. We still ask God to walk beside us, and still meet with the person of God. Jesus teaches that God is our father, a living person. “For I am the Lord your God, who takes hold of your right hand, and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you”. Isaiah 41

Only Fundamentalists interpret every statement in the Old Testament as literally true.

Let’s hear what Pope Benedict has to say:

“For when we are told that we have to distinguish between the images themselves and what those images mean, then we can ask in turn: Why wasn’t that said earlier? Evidently it must have been taught differently at one time or else Galileo would never have been put on trial. And so the suspicion grows that ultimately perhaps this way of viewing things is only a trick of the church and of theologians who have run out of solutions but do not want to admit it, and now they are looking for something to hide behind. And on the whole the impression is given that the history of Christianity in the last 400 years has been a constant rearguard action as the assertions of the faith and of theology have been dismantled piece by piece.” - catholicbridge.com/catholic/ratzinger_creationism.php

(Worth reading all of it, as his understanding involves neither extreme literalism nor extreme allegory, but an honest attempt to read what is written.)

 

[STT]

If spiritusl beings exist in no space and no time, then they don’t exist either.

This really doesn’t follow. You need to provide a reason that why something which exists in no space (has no location) and no time (changeless) cannot exist. That could be only your intuition which tells you this. It is however hard to provide an argument against this.

I still can’t imagine something or someone existing outside a particular space.

I have problem imagining this either but again we need to provide a reason for that. I think the best way to attack such a concept is through concept of form. Things necessary should have form otherwise they don’t exist. But again it is hard to prove this either.

 

[STT]

Which of the following two statements is false:

• Jesus is eternal.
• Jesus is truly man.

If both statements are true, then there is at least one eternal man.

rossum

Jesus has two natures, God and Human.

 

[inocente]

Uncivil remark:

Due to your failure to understand the implications of the term “analogical”.

That was part of your conversation with someone else, it had no part in you telling me “What individuals want is irrelevant”.

How is “soul liberty” related to "what individuals want"? It sounds as if you believe in wishful thinking!

We already went over this.

You: What individuals want is irrelevant.
Me: With regard to the topic, no one may compel another to justify his beliefs.
You: In that case there is no point in participating in this thread.

It is a principle of my religion, and of human rights, that each person is absolutely free to believe what he wants without compulsion, yet you say “What individuals want is irrelevant”, and you now call it wishful thinking.

Can you not see that you’re not making sense? I asked you to explain yourself as one adult to another. Why not do so?

I have clearly stated that all our descriptions of God are analogical, i.e. not literal and therefore not included in any human set. “God exists” is a good example. Can we understand **how **God exists?

I’ve no idea what a “human set” is, there is no reference to “human set” in any literature.

Your Church does not agree with you that descriptions must be analogical:

CCC 36 “Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason.” Without this capacity, man would not be able to welcome God’s revelation. Man has this capacity because he is created “in the image of God”.

Rather than God “not included in any human set”, it says we are “in the image of God”.

 

[inocente]

In that case the term “God” doesn’t belong to any human set…

Christians do not belong to you or your strange vocabulary.

Please cite a link defining what in heaven’s name a “human set” might be, I’ve never seen the term and no search engine can find it anywhere.

 

[Aloysium]

It seems that God is expected to conform to human categories…

A teapot circling the globe and a spaghetti-monster are things, objects. Materialists and other fundamentalists believe there to be only things. It is as if nothing else exists, even existence itself. The spiritual is considered illusory at best, if not purely hallucinatory, thinking that the analogous objects, the description are the reality. Some people, like Rossum apparently, believe there to be no reality (The ultimate truth is that there is no Ultimate Truth) behind the analogies/descriptions.

A category that has more explanatory value would be of relationship. God is perfect relationality in itself - Love, an eternal act of giving itself to what is other, the Father begetting the Son, united in the Holy Spirit. The Triune Godhead is the Source and final destiny of creation, which in its totally awesome hugeness, power, intricacies, and infinite amazingness manifests God’s glory. This includes persons, beings who exist separate with the capacity to love.

 

[rossum]

Jesus is a man who didn’t exist physically before He was born in Nazareth but He has **always existed **as God:

Jesus-as-God is not the same as Jesus-as-man. Jesus-as-God existed in 500 BCE. Jesus-as-man did not exist in 500 BCE. The same single thing cannot both exist and not exist simultaneously.

We have at least two separate entities here.

rossum

 

[rossum]

Jesus has two natures, God and Human.

Define “human nature” in the context you are using it here. Did Jesus have His human nature in 500 BCE?

Does that mean that it is possible for human nature to exist without an act of conception and without a physical human body?

You are raising a great many difficult questions here.

rossum

 

[STT]

Define “human nature” in the context you are using it here.

We know what human is: Human has a body, certain needs and is intellectual with the power of free will.

Did Jesus have His human nature in 500 BCE?

It should, otherwise there is a change in Jesus after incarnation.

Does that mean that it is possible for human nature to exist without an act of conception and without a physical human body?

That would be simple for a God who created universe.

You are raising a great many difficult questions here.

rossum

I think they are simple. Nevertheless Christianity is not stranger than Buddhism if you think troughly. What is the truth? Who knows!

 

[Cheiron]

This really doesn’t follow. You need to provide a reason that why something which exists in no space (has no location) and no time (changeless) cannot exist. That could be only your intuition which tells you this. It is however hard to provide an argument against this.

I have problem imagining this either but again we need to provide a reason for that. I think the best way to attack such a concept is through concept of form. Things necessary should have form otherwise they don’t exist. But again it is hard to prove this either.

It is inherent in the word. Someone existing outside space and time seems to me as incomprehensible as saying someone can swim outside water. You need a space and time for existence, in the same way you need water for swimming.

And there is another problem. The god of the Bible does exist within space and time. I’ve given a few examples a few pages back of God intervening in this world. So even if a god exists outside space and time, it wouldn’t be the god of the Bible.