Ways of knowing God

[Zimm3r]

Thinking about God I have had several disjointed thoughts come together and I figure I would post it here for commentary.

There are three ways people can understand another being spiritual, emotional, and logical.

Logical I think is the most obvious there is something or there isn’t something you can know logical facts about something. You know Sarah has red hair, the Bob has blue hair, that Bob is taller than Sarah, that Sarah is faster than Bob, you know Sarah is often happy, Bob is often cynical, etc. You can know facts and figures about someone.

Then there is emotional (and I know realize I am going backwards and I am guessing that is to avoid spiritual which I am foreseeing is harder to describe etc). Bob can make you mad, Sarah can make you happy, Bob can make you happy, Sarah can make you mad (so as to avoid any claims of sexism ), You can make them mad, or happy, or sad, etc. This is the emotional component too any relationship.

Then there is finally the spiritual (which I have been avoiding). This I am not real sure how to describe for a relationship between God and a human it is simpler but it fails on my test dummies for examples in Bob and Sarah (they are both dumb, no sexism :ducks). I mean I figure there has to be a spiritual sphere otherwise does it fall under emotional, or is it only between God and humans and not humans and humans (in which case I would find it to be a failure as the aim of this was to put relationships in description and then between humanity and God (course it first started with the specific then worked out to the general and now is trying to go back to the specific)).

Thoughts, opinions, scathing retorts, shouts of your wrong?

Also I could have sworn I heard this earlier but maybe my brain is just applying the origin ex posto facto to something else and it is probably easy considering reading on these subjects is many maybe just not in this specific niche.

 

[Drinkgasoline]

I think you’ve compiled some great ideas there

My take on it would be similar, however I think it’s important to expand on your ideas you’ve already set out.

Spirituality - The knowledge you get from prayer, meditation, study and things of that nature (A very personal way of knowing God, in my view.)

Knowledge from learning - A good example of this would be scripture, or what others have taught you or written down about God.

Reason - So as you said the use of logic, reason and philosophy leads to a very pure form of knowledge in my opinion, being rather mathematical and throught your own use of thought and your mind. (Another personal way.)

Experience - Rather disputed, and could easily fall under the spiritual category, but when people claim of religious experiences, visions or near-death experiences… things like that.

Revelation - Again this could fall under spiritual along with experience, but a different kind of revelation in that you fall in key with God and believe you understand some aspects of the world and meaning around you…

Just my thoughts, interesting topic though.

 

[mgoforth]

This will be the third time today that I’ve posted a link to the Summa Theologica.

Check out Part 1, Question 12.

 

[danserr]

Thinking about God I have had several disjointed thoughts come together and I figure I would post it here for commentary.

There are three ways people can understand another being spiritual, emotional, and logical.

Logical I think is the most obvious there is something or there isn’t something you can know logical facts about something. You know Sarah has red hair, the Bob has blue hair, that Bob is taller than Sarah, that Sarah is faster than Bob, you know Sarah is often happy, Bob is often cynical, etc. You can know facts and figures about someone.

Then there is emotional (and I know realize I am going backwards and I am guessing that is to avoid spiritual which I am foreseeing is harder to describe etc). Bob can make you mad, Sarah can make you happy, Bob can make you happy, Sarah can make you mad (so as to avoid any claims of sexism ), You can make them mad, or happy, or sad, etc. This is the emotional component too any relationship.

Then there is finally the spiritual (which I have been avoiding). This I am not real sure how to describe for a relationship between God and a human it is simpler but it fails on my test dummies for examples in Bob and Sarah (they are both dumb, no sexism :ducks). I mean I figure there has to be a spiritual sphere otherwise does it fall under emotional, or is it only between God and humans and not humans and humans (in which case I would find it to be a failure as the aim of this was to put relationships in description and then between humanity and God (course it first started with the specific then worked out to the general and now is trying to go back to the specific)).

Thoughts, opinions, scathing retorts, shouts of your wrong?

Also I could have sworn I heard this earlier but maybe my brain is just applying the origin ex posto facto to something else and it is probably easy considering reading on these subjects is many maybe just not in this specific niche.

Good point about different senses of the word “to know” and different kinds of knowledge.

Another possible division is between the intellectual and the personal, or knowing someone as a fact and knowing them as a person.

For example, most romance languages have two words for “to know.” In French “savoir” means to know a fact, as in, I know that Albany is the capital of New York. “connaitre” means to know, as in to know a person. For example, I know Bob. You can know Bob (or God) just as an intellectual proposition. I know that Bob exists, I know who he is. But you can also know him personally or as a friend.

 

[Zimm3r]

I think you’ve compiled some great ideas there

My take on it would be similar, however I think it’s important to expand on your ideas you’ve already set out.

Spirituality - The knowledge you get from prayer, meditation, study and things of that nature (A very personal way of knowing God, in my view.)

Knowledge from learning - A good example of this would be scripture, or what others have taught you or written down about God.

Reason - So as you said the use of logic, reason and philosophy leads to a very pure form of knowledge in my opinion, being rather mathematical and throught your own use of thought and your mind. (Another personal way.)

Experience - Rather disputed, and could easily fall under the spiritual category, but when people claim of religious experiences, visions or near-death experiences… things like that.

Revelation - Again this could fall under spiritual along with experience, but a different kind of revelation in that you fall in key with God and believe you understand some aspects of the world and meaning around you…

Just my thoughts, interesting topic though.

Interesting, however I would say that knowledge and reason fall under the logical idea of understanding god through your mind, yes they are two branches of logical knowing but my purpose is to establish those ways of knowing others and having relationship with them that are distinct in their nature.

As for spirituality I struggle with this idea for if it applies to relationships, as it does with god, than how does it apply with other relationships just like logical and emotional parts do.

Revelation I would say is a mix of spiritual in the way it is potentially delivered, but in its knowledge it is generally logical as it is statements of fact about theology.

Experience I would say is like revelation in it delivered spirituality. But unlike revelation it does not pursuant to the facts of theology but I would then believe it to be emotional, or maybe spiritual and so I think that experience is composed of more than just one thing cause than it is split into two ways of knowing.

I must say interesting thoughts, thank you for your addition on these ideas.

 

[Zimm3r]

Good point about different senses of the word “to know” and different kinds of knowledge.

Another possible division is between the intellectual and the personal, or knowing someone as a fact and knowing them as a person.

For example, most romance languages have two words for “to know.” In French “savoir” means to know a fact, as in, I know that Albany is the capital of New York. “connaitre” means to know, as in to know a person. For example, I know Bob. You can know Bob (or God) just as an intellectual proposition. I know that Bob exists, I know who he is. But you can also know him personally or as a friend.

Yes the same distinction is made in Spanish with the words saber and conocer.

This will be the third time today that I’ve posted a link to the Summa Theologica.

Check out Part 1, Question 12.

Currently doing that.

 

[jochoa]

Thinking about God I have had several disjointed thoughts come together and I figure I would post it here for commentary.

There are three ways people can understand another being spiritual, emotional, and logical.

Excellent thoughts, my friend! I look forward to discussion.

Logical I think is the most obvious there is something or there isn’t something you can know logical facts about something. You know Sarah has red hair, the Bob has blue hair, that Bob is taller than Sarah, that Sarah is faster than Bob, you know Sarah is often happy, Bob is often cynical, etc. You can know facts and figures about someone.

Would you consider knowing why Sarah is often happy, and why Bob is often cynical as logical, since it is something you can know? For example, Sarah is happy because she often wants what she gets. Bob is cynical because he distrusts the sincerity of kindness because a really good friend was once kind out of self-interest and in doing so really hurt Bob.

Then there is emotional (and I know realize I am going backwards and I am guessing that is to avoid spiritual which I am foreseeing is harder to describe etc). Bob can make you mad, Sarah can make you happy, Bob can make you happy, Sarah can make you mad (so as to avoid any claims of sexism ), You can make them mad, or happy, or sad, etc. This is the emotional component too any relationship.

Please consider greater self-control. Although Bob and Sarah can make you happy, mad, and sad, you can also make yourself happy, mad, or sad. Since you have the option to make your emotions, shouldn’t we strive to always be the ones to determine our emotions, in which the solution is to learn to change our wants and needs to be what we get and what is available to us.

Then there is finally the spiritual (which I have been avoiding). This I am not real sure how to describe for a relationship between God and a human it is simpler but it fails on my test dummies for examples in Bob and Sarah (they are both dumb, no sexism :ducks). I mean I figure there has to be a spiritual sphere otherwise does it fall under emotional, or is it only between God and humans and not humans and humans (in which case I would find it to be a failure as the aim of this was to put relationships in description and then between humanity and God (course it first started with the specific then worked out to the general and now is trying to go back to the specific)).

The spirit is essentially the memory of a person. When you think of a person’s image, knowledge, or actions from the past, you are technically interacting with his/her spirit. Sometimes when you think of past interactions with people, emotions will be generated in yourself. The same generation of emotions happens when others think about past interactions with you. So the challenge in growing spiritually is to act in ways which makes others and yourself generate emotions of greater peace and happiness when thinking about you and what you did.

Thoughts, opinions, scathing retorts, shouts of your wrong?

Please share the same regarding my understandings!

 

[Linusthe2nd]

This will be the third time today that I’ve posted a link to the Summa Theologica.

Check out Part 1, Question 12.

Ouch! Now I have a headache!uch:uch:

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Thinking about God I have had several disjointed thoughts come together and I figure I would post it here for commentary.

There are three ways people can understand another being spiritual, emotional, and logical.

Logical I think is the most obvious there is something or there isn’t something you can know logical facts about something. You know Sarah has red hair, the Bob has blue hair, that Bob is taller than Sarah, that Sarah is faster than Bob, you know Sarah is often happy, Bob is often cynical, etc. You can know facts and figures about someone.

Then there is emotional (and I know realize I am going backwards and I am guessing that is to avoid spiritual which I am foreseeing is harder to describe etc). Bob can make you mad, Sarah can make you happy, Bob can make you happy, Sarah can make you mad (so as to avoid any claims of sexism ), You can make them mad, or happy, or sad, etc. This is the emotional component too any relationship.

Then there is finally the spiritual (which I have been avoiding). This I am not real sure how to describe for a relationship between God and a human it is simpler but it fails on my test dummies for examples in Bob and Sarah (they are both dumb, no sexism :ducks). I mean I figure there has to be a spiritual sphere otherwise does it fall under emotional, or is it only between God and humans and not humans and humans (in which case I would find it to be a failure as the aim of this was to put relationships in description and then between humanity and God (course it first started with the specific then worked out to the general and now is trying to go back to the specific)).

Thoughts, opinions, scathing retorts, shouts of your wrong?

Also I could have sworn I heard this earlier but maybe my brain is just applying the origin ex posto facto to something else and it is probably easy considering reading on these subjects is many maybe just not in this specific niche.

If your question is "…how do we know anything… " you are asking for a theory of human knowledge? Is that what you are wanting to know? Or, are you asking how we know a certain thing? For example, how do we know " something " is there? Or. how do we know a tree from a horse? Or, how do we know that God exists? Or, can we know God’s nature? Or, can we know God as He is in Himself? Or, how can we know ourselves? You have to be more specific. And realize that to answer any of these is complex. So be more specific.

 

[Zimm3r]

Excellent thoughts, my friend! I look forward to discussion.

Thank you I do too.

Would you consider knowing why Sarah is often happy, and why Bob is often cynical as logical, since it is something you can know? For example, Sarah is happy because she often wants what she gets. Bob is cynical because he distrusts the sincerity of kindness because a really good friend was once kind out of self-interest and in doing so really hurt Bob.

Yes because think about it how do you know them, well if that is all you know you just know a list of facts. Now yes those facts do point to you having an emotional relationship with them because they make you angry, say, etc.

Please consider greater self-control.

Not really sure what you mean by that, please understand that the people of Bob and Sarah only serve as examples, I actually don’t know anyone named Bob or Sarah.

Although Bob and Sarah can make you happy, mad, and sad, you can also make yourself happy, mad, or sad. Since you have the option to make your emotions, shouldn’t we strive to always be the ones to determine our emotions, in which the solution is to learn to change our wants and needs to be what we get and what is available to us.

Yes that is perfectly valid for you yourself to effect yourself. I guess you should be able to control what emotions you present, but I would say that in many circumstances you can’t control your emotions, in this sense I mean the word emotion as what you feel internally, this is necessarily to say that you can’t look at someone that just punched you with love and forgiveness for them and in your head you could feel love and forgiveness for them but you are also going to feel anger (which isn’t bad, they just punched you it is a natural reaction).

So I guess yes you can control emotions in how you let them manifest and you can hold several emotions, but emotions are our reactions to certain situations and the chemical receptors that are fired off. You can’t really control that you are angry at someone that punches you, but please not that is all I am saying that part of your brain will have a feeling that is called angry, that is it, I am not saying you will respond angrily or anything else.

The spirit is essentially the memory of a person. When you think of a person’s image, knowledge, or actions from the past, you are technically interacting with his/her spirit. Sometimes when you think of past interactions with people, emotions will be generated in yourself. The same generation of emotions happens when others think about past interactions with you. So the challenge in growing spiritually is to act in ways which makes others and yourself generate emotions of greater peace and happiness when thinking about you and what you did.

I am not sure what you are getting at here but what I am trying to address is the spiritual realm of a relationship it is obvious with god in several examples, but what about other relationships.

Please share the same regarding my understandings!

Just did

Ouch! Now I have a headache!

Agreed! , mgoforth care to expand as to why you linked to that cause my head just hurts .

If your question is "…how do we know anything… " you are asking for a theory of human knowledge? Is that what you are wanting to know? Or, are you asking how we know a certain thing? For example, how do we know " something " is there? Or. how do we know a tree from a horse? Or, how do we know that God exists? Or, can we know God’s nature? Or, can we know God as He is in Himself? Or, how can we know ourselves? You have to be more specific. And realize that to answer any of these is complex. So be more specific.

There really wasn’t a question, the only thing I guess I was asking about was general thoughts on comments and on expanding on the spiritual realm of relationships as they relate to the logical and emotional ones.

 

[jochoa]

Not really sure what you mean by that, please understand that the people of Bob and Sarah only serve as examples, I actually don’t know anyone named Bob or Sarah.

I am under the understanding that Bob and Sarah are only generic names. I am saying we could use Friend #1 and Friend #2 in the scenarios.

Yes that is perfectly valid for you yourself to effect yourself. I guess you should be able to control what emotions you present, but I would say that in many circumstances you can’t control your emotions, in this sense I mean the word emotion as what you feel internally, this is necessarily to say that you can’t look at someone that just punched you with love and forgiveness for them and in your head you could feel love and forgiveness for them but you are also going to feel anger (which isn’t bad, they just punched you it is a natural reaction).

Your understandings of emotions sheds light on the brilliance of Jesus Christ embracing the cross. Jesus shows us that it is possible to not only be loving and forgiving in thought, as well as loving and forgiving in feeling, but also loving and forgiving in presentation in the experience of unjust meanness and cruelty. If you would like to free yourself of being bound to negative emotions from the way others treat you, then study Jesus’ actions and desires in embracing the cross. In particular, study and practice wanting to be more patient and kind, even in the face of unjust impatience and meanness, for the experiences of greater happiness and unbreakable peace in yourself and relationships.

So I guess yes you can control emotions in how you let them manifest and you can hold several emotions, but emotions are our reactions to certain situations and the chemical receptors that are fired off. You can’t really control that you are angry at someone that punches you, but please not that is all I am saying that part of your brain will have a feeling that is called angry, that is it, I am not saying you will respond angrily or anything else.

Please consider the following:
Although an emotion arises in situations, it is not the situations alone which make the emotion. It is the desires in combination with the situation that make the emotion. In other words, if you want a person to punch you, and the person punches you, then not only is there no negative emotion generated, but also joy from the experience. Example, my children sometimes play fight with me. They are punching me, and at times I feel some pain, but it is extremely playful and enjoyable because I want the experience. Since it is possible to enjoy the experience of being punched, the challenge is questioning, is it possible to not experience any negative emotions in any situation of being punched? The answer is yes, it is possible to never lose peace again, never experience disturbance again, or never experience any negative emotion again. And the solution lies in following Jesus in embracing the cross.

I am not sure what you are getting at here but what I am trying to address is the spiritual realm of a relationship it is obvious with god in several examples, but what about other relationships.

I am stating that by keeping it simple: Spirit is basically the memory of a person, then the spiritual realm is evident in any relationship. Simply think about your relative. In other words, when you read this post, you are interacting with my spirit because these words are the knowledge of my past.

 

[Zimm3r]

I am under the understanding that Bob and Sarah are only generic names. I am saying we could use Friend #1 and Friend #2 in the scenarios.

Your understandings of emotions sheds light on the brilliance of Jesus Christ embracing the cross. Jesus shows us that it is possible to not only be loving and forgiving in thought, as well as loving and forgiving in feeling, but also loving and forgiving in presentation in the experience of unjust meanness and cruelty. If you would like to free yourself of being bound to negative emotions from the way others treat you, then study Jesus’ actions and desires in embracing the cross. In particular, study and practice wanting to be more patient and kind, even in the face of unjust impatience and meanness, for the experiences of greater happiness and unbreakable peace in yourself and relationships.

Please consider the following:
Although an emotion arises in situations, it is not the situations alone which make the emotion. It is the desires in combination with the situation that make the emotion. In other words, if you want a person to punch you, and the person punches you, then not only is there no negative emotion generated, but also joy from the experience. Example, my children sometimes play fight with me. They are punching me, and at times I feel some pain, but it is extremely playful and enjoyable because I want the experience. Since it is possible to enjoy the experience of being punched, the challenge is questioning, is it possible to not experience any negative emotions in any situation of being punched? The answer is yes, it is possible to never lose peace again, never experience disturbance again, or never experience any negative emotion again. And the solution lies in following Jesus in embracing the cross.

I’m not sure you understand I am not asking for emotional advice about a situation and using bob and sarah as pseudonyms; the point of this thread is to discussing the ways of knowing a god.

I am stating that by keeping it simple: Spirit is basically the memory of a person, then the spiritual realm is evident in any relationship. Simply think about your relative. In other words, when you read this post, you are interacting with my spirit because these words are the knowledge of my past.

Ok I understand that, I guess I just disagree, seems thinking of memories is more logical, in the fact they happened, and emotional, for example reminiscing about things

Any more comments greatly welcomed, hope for more (name removed by moderator)ut and more development of ideas.

 

[mgoforth]

Agreed! , mgoforth care to expand as to why you linked to that cause my head just hurts .

Well…I linked to it because the thread is discussing the different ways we can know God. Question 12 is titled “How God Is Known By Us” and it’s written by St. Thomas Acquinas…as in Doctor of the Church. I thought you wanted to have a philosophical discussion about the subject…and St. Thomas is pretty much THE trusted source within the Church for philosophical and theological discussions.

Did I miss something?

 

[jochoa]

I’m not sure you understand I am not asking for emotional advice about a situation and using bob and sarah as pseudonyms; the point of this thread is to discussing the ways of knowing a god.

Ok I understand that, I guess I just disagree, seems thinking of memories is more logical, in the fact they happened, and emotional, for example reminiscing about things.

Thank you very much for the extended discussion! I am thoroughly enjoying learning from you.

Please know, my intention is not to offer emotional advice. Instead, since logical is the most obvious ways of understanding and knowing a being, my intention is to demonstrate how to make emotional and spiritual methods, logical methods to understanding and knowing God.

We can make emotional methods, logical methods to understanding God by recognizing:
-Emotions are generated from the combination of what we want/need and what we get.
-Recognize that we have the capability of changing what we want/need and what we get.
-The pinnacle of living for any society is everyone being able to experience limitless happiness without anyone losing peace, therefore this is what we should make ourselves want.
-The basic means to achieve the pinnacle society is freely perfecting patience and kindness within every individual of the society, therefore we should make this how we will get what we want.
-The pinnacle means is always freely being and spreading the means to freely be perfectly patient, kind, and motivated with all the body, spirit, thoughts, and will equally towards others and the self.
From this, we can understand that The Holy Bible is God’s Word because it was the Bible that first declared:
-Love is patient, is kind.
-Patience and Kindness are the greatest actions
-You should love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and Love others as yourself are the greatest means to living.

We can make spiritual methods, logical methods to understanding God by recognizing:
-Spirit is the memory of a person.
-The memory of Jesus, in particular Him embracing the cross, is the first complete revelation of the pinnacle means to the pinnacle livelihood.
Therefore, the Spirit of Jesus is my God, because I want to live the pinnacle livelihood, and I want to use the pinnacle means to get there.

One other method to make spiritual methods, logical methods to knowing God is by:
Mentally placing yourself in God’s being, prior to creation, and determining: How would you create an everlasting society of true friends, in which you get to participate as a friend, and you are the only being, living or non-living, to exist?
Once you determine how to fulfill this purpose, then find which religious texts (memories of gods) align with your method.
In my analysis, these are the following alignments I have found:
-The Story of the events which happen in the process of creating the society is in alignment with The Holy Bible.
-The actions the Creator must do is in alignment with Catholic Theology, in particular, the Holy Trinity.
-The rules of the Ever-lasting Society of True Friends is in alignment with the Greatest Commandments.
-The rules of living to the fullest in the earthly society is alignment with the Sacraments of Catholicism.
I have also found a countless number of teachings and texts from a variety of religions and philosophies to be in alignment with various aspects of the method to fulfill the purpose.

 

[fred_conty]

I think you’ve compiled some great ideas there

My take on it would be similar, however I think it’s important to expand on your ideas you’ve already set out.

Spirituality - The knowledge you get from prayer, meditation, study and things of that nature (A very personal way of knowing God, in my view.)

Knowledge from learning - A good example of this would be scripture, or what others have taught you or written down about God.

Reason - So as you said the use of logic, reason and philosophy leads to a very pure form of knowledge in my opinion, being rather mathematical and throught your own use of thought and your mind. (Another personal way.)

Experience - Rather disputed, and could easily fall under the spiritual category, but when people claim of religious experiences, visions or near-death experiences… things like that.

Revelation - Again this could fall under spiritual along with experience, but a different kind of revelation in that you fall in key with God and believe you understand some aspects of the world and meaning around you…

Just my thoughts, interesting topic though.

There are two ways: touching God with faith, and knowing of God without faith.

With faith, God is seen as he has explained himself to us. Then reason looks for further answers in theology. And reason seeing God, begins to speak to God which is prayer. And once this knowing and talking takes place, we grow in our appreciation of him, which then can draw our emotions into play. This is all on a different level having faith and is called the spiritual life, growing in knowledge, love, and life in Jesus Christ, on a supernatural plane of intimacy with God.

Without faith, we are very limited in our knowledge(logic) of him and our spiritual contact with him. Usually man will contact God to request his basic needs to live in this world, and to offer God pleasing gifts to obtain necessities. Intimacy is replaced with fear.

St. Paul addresses this idea with the following.

“The language of the cross may be illogical to those who are not on the way to salvation, but those of us who are on the way see it as God’s power to save. … And so while the Jews demand miracles, and the Greeks look for wisdom, here we are preaching a crucified Christ; to the Jews an obstacle they cannot get over, and to the pegans madness…” I Cor. 1;18-24

“An unspiritual person is one who does not accept anything of the Spirit of God: he see it all as nonsense; it is beyond his understanding because it can only be understood by means of the Spirit.”
I Cor 2;14-15

Just a thought.

 

[Zimm3r]

Well…I linked to it because the thread is discussing the different ways we can know God. Question 12 is titled “How God Is Known By Us” and it’s written by St. Thomas Acquinas…as in Doctor of the Church. I thought you wanted to have a philosophical discussion about the subject…and St. Thomas is pretty much THE trusted source within the Church for philosophical and theological discussions.

Did I miss something?

Ok my point in asking that is Thomas Acquinas is not the most easy to read philosopher, were there anything specifically that you wanted to point out. I understand who Thomas Acquinas is thank you.

Thank you very much for the extended discussion! I am thoroughly enjoying learning from you.

Me too.

Please know, my intention is not to offer emotional advice. Instead, since logical is the most obvious ways of understanding and knowing a being, my intention is to demonstrate how to make emotional and spiritual methods, logical methods to understanding and knowing God.

Ok I thought you were trying to offer it as emotional advise. However I think trying to take spiritual and emotional and put them in logical ideas while is able to be done I would say that it misses what each is, they are differentiated because they are dissimilar and that is what makes them what they are. To put them in terms of another takes how they are similar and puts them together but throws away most of it as they are so dissimilar that they can’t be put into each other. To demonstrate this I’ll give you an example, if someone is very emotional and say is crying after their parent died presenting them a logical syllogism is not going to help. Why? Because they need something that is emotional, not logical. However the person who is searching for logical truth emotional advice won’t help at all (unless of course their are deeper emotional issues at play but that isn’t the case in this example).

We can make emotional methods, logical methods to understanding God by recognizing:
-Emotions are generated from the combination of what we want/need and what we get.
-Recognize that we have the capability of changing what we want/need and what we get.
-The pinnacle of living for any society is everyone being able to experience limitless happiness without anyone losing peace, therefore this is what we should make ourselves want.
-The basic means to achieve the pinnacle society is freely perfecting patience and kindness within every individual of the society, therefore we should make this how we will get what we want.
-The pinnacle means is always freely being and spreading the means to freely be perfectly patient, kind, and motivated with all the body, spirit, thoughts, and will equally towards others and the self.
From this, we can understand that The Holy Bible is God’s Word because it was the Bible that first declared:
-Love is patient, is kind.
-Patience and Kindness are the greatest actions
-You should love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and Love others as yourself are the greatest means to living.

I think in then end though presenting emotional issues through logical ideas, while able to maybe quantify them it still misses the deeper aspects of emotions then just their logical underpinnings.

We can make spiritual methods, logical methods to understanding God by recognizing:
-Spirit is the memory of a person.
-The memory of Jesus, in particular Him embracing the cross, is the first complete revelation of the pinnacle means to the pinnacle livelihood.
Therefore, the Spirit of Jesus is my God, because I want to live the pinnacle livelihood, and I want to use the pinnacle means to get there.

Sure we can however it takes away any deeper value, their is a difference between the person who does this for logical reasons and then the person who actually has a spiritual prayer life and spiritual connection to their beliefs and God.

One other method to make spiritual methods, logical methods to knowing God is by:
Mentally placing yourself in God’s being, prior to creation, and determining: How would you create an everlasting society of true friends, in which you get to participate as a friend, and you are the only being, living or non-living, to exist?
Once you determine how to fulfill this purpose, then find which religious texts (memories of gods) align with your method.
In my analysis, these are the following alignments I have found:
-The Story of the events which happen in the process of creating the society is in alignment with The Holy Bible.
-The actions the Creator must do is in alignment with Catholic Theology, in particular, the Holy Trinity.
-The rules of the Ever-lasting Society of True Friends is in alignment with the Greatest Commandments.
-The rules of living to the fullest in the earthly society is alignment with the Sacraments of Catholicism.
I have also found a countless number of teachings and texts from a variety of religions and philosophies to be in alignment with various aspects of the method to fulfill the purpose.

Again I am not denying that it is possible to logify spiritual ideas and the spirtual realm but it destroys most of the meaning and I would say makes it far less effective.

The reason I put the idea of knowing and relationship in these three sections is because you CANNOT group them together anymore without taking away most of what they are and damaging what their effectiveness.

There are two ways: touching God with faith, and knowing of God without faith.

With faith, God is seen as he has explained himself to us. Then reason looks for further answers in theology. And reason seeing God, begins to speak to God which is prayer. And once this knowing and talking takes place, we grow in our appreciation of him, which then can draw our emotions into play. This is all on a different level having faith and is called the spiritual life, growing in knowledge, love, and life in Jesus Christ, on a supernatural plane of intimacy with God.

Without faith, we are very limited in our knowledge(logic) of him and our spiritual contact with him. Usually man will contact God to request his basic needs to live in this world, and to offer God pleasing gifts to obtain necessities. Intimacy is replaced with fear.

St. Paul addresses this idea with the following.

“The language of the cross may be illogical to those who are not on the way to salvation, but those of us who are on the way see it as God’s power to save. … And so while the Jews demand miracles, and the Greeks look for wisdom, here we are preaching a crucified Christ; to the Jews an obstacle they cannot get over, and to the pegans madness…” I Cor. 1;18-24

“An unspiritual person is one who does not accept anything of the Spirit of God: he see it all as nonsense; it is beyond his understanding because it can only be understood by means of the Spirit.”
I Cor 2;14-15

Just a thought.

Interesting but you can know logically of God just as much no matter if you have faith or not. Also I think the division between faith and not faith ignores peoples different relationships with God for those who have faith and also those who don’t. Two people who have faith can have very different connections through logic, emotional, and spiritual relationships. One can rely heavily on logical ideas but another can rely heavily on spiritual (a sort of I don’t care about logical proofs I have experience something that proves it to me).

Again my purpose in this is the idea of relationships with God and the ways you can know of and know God. You can know logically of God but so does the Devil in Hell. You can pray to God and have spiritual belief but if someone comes along asking for logical reasons behind that there isn’t much.

In the end the idea came from this, if you have logical proof good enough for you to believe there is a God there still isn’t much there it is just logical reasoning and ideas it is still not much.

 

[jochoa]

…if someone is very emotional and say is crying after their parent died presenting them a logical syllogism is not going to help. Why? Because they need something that is emotional, not logical.

My friend, please know that as we discuss, I try to keep in mind three main factors: 1. You stated that logic is known. 2. We are discussing ways of knowing God. 3. You are “Searching for Truth” and in order to find the Truth, we must use ways of knowing.

Regarding the example:
You are definitely correct in your analysis, and my analysis will conclude in the same actions and lack thereof, however, please consider the following method of making this scenario more logical, for the purposes of growing in knowing God.
Presenting a logical syllogism is not going to help in the scenario presented because the emotionally distressed person is not requesting a logical syllogism to help. In other words, s/he is not wanting and is not open to hear logical syllogisms to aid in the removal of distress. This is exactly why God of the Holy Bible declared “Ask and you shall receive.” He is educating us in the fact that when a person wants and requests help, it is the greatest opportunity to educate because they are open to receiving the help.
And to claim that the person needs an emotional response is an assumption, which may or may not be valid. The person could instead be solely wanting their parent back, and nothing else will help in the instance.

However the person who is searching for logical truth emotional advice won’t help at all (unless of course their are deeper emotional issues at play but that isn’t the case in this example).

Definitely agreed in simplicity.

I think in then end though presenting emotional issues through logical ideas, while able to maybe quantify them it still misses the deeper aspects of emotions then just their logical underpinnings.

You are definitely correct. I personally perceive this concept: logical is knowledge, whereas emotional is action, emotional logic is quantifying emotions, and logical emotion is effective experience-based action.
The tremendous value I have found in being able to quantify emotional issues is determining how and where I fail society in terms of spreading greater happiness and peace through the personal actions of impatience, meanness, and even unkindness. Then I try to become more patient and kind, which yields greater happiness and peace in society.

Sure we can however it takes away any deeper value, their is a difference between the person who does this for logical reasons and then the person who actually has a spiritual prayer life and spiritual connection to their beliefs and God.

Once again, you are definitely correct. And my goal is definitely to become the greatest logically-founded spiritually emotional person, which means becoming the most effective knowledge-based God-Loving lover. For if I am not a lover, I am nothing, and if I do not Love God, I am selfish, and if I do not know God, then I have yet to Love Him enough.

Again I am not denying that it is possible to logify spiritual ideas and the spirtual realm but it destroys most of the meaning and I would say makes it far less effective.

If making spirituality logical is the sole goal, then you are 100% correct, and you are in agreement with the Holy Bible-“One can have all-knowledge, but without love, is nothing.”

The reason I put the idea of knowing and relationship in these three sections is because you CANNOT group them together anymore without taking away most of what they are and damaging what their effectiveness.

Fair enough. However, given this understanding in alignment with your initial declaration (paraphrased) “Logical is known, Emotional is unchangeable instinctive reactions to another’s action (…make you…), and Spiritual, in itself, is hard to describe” it will be impossible to know God because God is logical, emotional, and spiritual oneness.

 

[Zimm3r]

You are definitely correct. I personally perceive this concept: logical is knowledge, whereas emotional is action, emotional logic is quantifying emotions, and logical emotion is effective experience-based action.

I don’t believe I ever said that emotion is action, it is shown in action but it isn’t the action, you can know someone is angry at you if they go up and punch you however they can be angry and not punch you, in both cases they are still angry at you. For example a ball isn’t what you see it isn’t just the light bouncing off of it into your eyes it is the object itself.

The tremendous value I have found in being able to quantify emotional issues is determining how and where I fail society in terms of spreading greater happiness and peace through the personal actions of impatience, meanness, and even unkindness. Then I try to become more patient and kind, which yields greater happiness and peace in society.

There is definitely value in quantifying emotion in logic, but describing joy in logical terms and then following that logical description isn’t joy. Just like knowing God logically isn’t knowing God.That is one of my main points with this thread, what are the steps beyond knowing God logically, to a spiritual and emotional knowledge (what is known as relationships)

Once again, you are definitely correct. And my goal is definitely to become the greatest logically-founded spiritually emotional person, which means becoming the most effective knowledge-based God-Loving lover. For if I am not a lover, I am nothing, and if I do not Love God, I am selfish, and if I do not know God, then I have yet to Love Him enough.

emphasis mine

Ok but that is the point of the thread their are three ways of knowing God, how do you move from logical to the other two. I think it is easier to go from emotional and spiritual and vica-versa as I think those two are much “closer” in their nature. Logical is off to the side much farther from the other two.

If making spirituality logical is the sole goal, then you are 100% correct, and you are in agreement with the Holy Bible-“One can have all-knowledge, but without love, is nothing.”

That was my point of dividing the knowing of God or anyone (as with Sarah and Bob) into three realms now how do you develop the further two (spiritual and emotional).

Fair enough. However, given this understanding in alignment with your initial declaration (paraphrased) “Logical is known, Emotional is unchangeable instinctive reactions to another’s action (…make you…), and Spiritual, in itself, is hard to describe” it will be impossible to know God because God is logical, emotional, and spiritual oneness.

I would disagree enotional is unchangealble but again i will leave with this as i have to go how do you go from logical to emotional and spiritual in a relation ship with god.

 

[jochoa]

There is definitely value in quantifying emotion in logic, but describing joy in logical terms and then following that logical description isn’t joy. Just like knowing God logically isn’t knowing God.That is one of my main points with this thread, what are the steps beyond knowing God logically, to a spiritual and emotional knowledge (what is known as relationships)

Ok but that is the point of the thread their are three ways of knowing God, how do you move from logical to the other two.

That was my point of dividing the knowing of God or anyone (as with Sarah and Bob) into three realms now how do you develop the further two (spiritual and emotional).

I would disagree enotional is unchangealble but again i will leave with this as i have to go how do you go from logical to emotional and spiritual in a relation ship with god.

You have excellent points throughout the post, my friend! I would like to focus on one method on how to know God emotionally, spiritually, and logically.

1. To emotionally know God: Passionately want everyone to be able experience great happiness without anyone losing peace. In which happiness comes from the fulfillment of wants and peace comes from no one being disturbed.
2. To spiritually know God: Become perfectly patient and kind for the sake of happiness and unbreakable peace in all your relationships, including the self. Major growth in spiritually knowing God comes from wanting to be and being extra patient and kind in the face of unjust meanness.
3. To logically know God: Determine how to create an everlasting society of limitless true friends, in which the Creator gets to participate as a friend, and the Creator initially exists as the only being, living or non-living, in existence.
   From my personal determination:
   -The story of the events from the beginning to the end of Creation is in alignment with the Holy Bible.
   -The actions of the Creator, regarding His person, is in alignment with Catholic Theology.
   -The rules of the True Friends’ Society is in alignment with the Greatest Commandments.
   -The rules of being a True Friend in the earthly society is in alignment with the Greatest Commandments and the Sacraments of the Catholic Church.
   -There is great validity in all religious, philosophical, and scientific texts and practices, but the Fullness of Truth is in Catholicism.

Thank you tremendously for the continued discussion! I greatly look forward to more!

 

[Zimm3r]

You have excellent points throughout the post, my friend! I would like to focus on one method on how to know God emotionally, spiritually, and logically.

1. To emotionally know God: Passionately want everyone to be able experience great happiness without anyone losing peace. In which happiness comes from the fulfillment of wants and peace comes from no one being disturbed.
2. To spiritually know God: Become perfectly patient and kind for the sake of happiness and unbreakable peace in all your relationships, including the self. Major growth in spiritually knowing God comes from wanting to be and being extra patient and kind in the face of unjust meanness.
3. To logically know God: Determine how to create an everlasting society of limitless true friends, in which the Creator gets to participate as a friend, and the Creator initially exists as the only being, living or non-living, in existence.

I think there is some confusion here on the goal I set for this thread. These may be perfectly valid paths to knowing God in the three senses but while it tells you the path to travel it isn’t how you get there for example do you walk on the path, run, crawl, etc.

From my personal determination:
-The story of the events from the beginning to the end of Creation is in alignment with the Holy Bible.
-The actions of the Creator, regarding His person, is in alignment with Catholic Theology.
-The rules of the True Friends’ Society is in alignment with the Greatest Commandments.
-The rules of being a True Friend in the earthly society is in alignment with the Greatest Commandments and the Sacraments of the Catholic Church.
-There is great validity in all religious, philosophical, and scientific texts and practices, but the Fullness of Truth is in Catholicism.

Thank you tremendously for the continued discussion! I greatly look forward to more!

Ok may I ask why you included these I don’t see how they relate, I probably am missing something, also if I am not mistaken True Friends’ Society refers to Quakers I believe. Anyways could you perhaps explain your point here?

I will try to reiterate my goal here…

When you say you know someone you refer to several things, you can refer to them being a friend, or that you know of them, etc. Just like you can do this with humans you can do this with God, in thinking about the ways your can relate (as in a relationship) with God I cam up with three distinct realms the logical and emotional where rather evident as they are applicable in human relationships (which is why I gave the examples of Bob and Sarah in the OP) however I wasn’t sure about spiritual, I was sure it existed for God but then why not in human relationships (or did it and if so how). Anyways my goal was to extend these ideas of realms and how they can be developed as well as discussion on the validity of these being three realms of relationships with God (and perhaps humans maybe with exception to the spiritual (maybe because of temporal aspects here it isn’t applicable but is for God ) ).