What do you consider proof of God, if anything?

[Charlemagne_II]

JDaniel

Although I find it hard to conceive of it as something “preferentially” based.

Well, I guess preferred in the same sense that Satan preferred hell, since, being free, he *could have preferred *heaven. :harp: :bigyikes:

 

[DavidHume]

My hope is that you will choose to at least become an agnosti or a theist. Best Place to Start.

Theoretically speaking, I am an agnostic – in that I believe that the existence of God as typically described in the various “Great Religions” is ultimately unknowable. (But that’s certainly no surprise – what I had for breakfast is also ultimately unknowable.) I’m not an “agnostic” in the vernacular sense of “searching for an answer” – I’m an agnostic in the philosophical sense of “denies an answer is possible.”

But I am that pernicious practical atheist so derided by pontiffs – I live my life as if there were no God, and as if my life will not extend beyond my death. Being a pragmatist, I think that’s a good description of an atheist – one who lives their life as if there is no God.

I think most self-described agnostics are atheists in this sense, though I am pretty sure that an agnostic could be a theist if they e.g. took up Pascal on his wager and thought no more of the matter.

 

[DavidHume]

DavidHume

And given a choice between true oblivion and a God who damns people to hell, I would take oblivion. But of course true oblivion isn’t even an option – only heaven and hell are. I cannot reconcile the concept of a benevolent God with only those two options for an afterlife. I’d prefer a karmic cycle or nonexistence to either.

You would not prefer the option of heaven over a karmic cycle or nonexistence?

I would not, if this was the God of e.g. Deuteronomy 20:16’s idea of heaven.

Heaven is what you are offered, not hell. Hell is what the unrepentent sinner prefers.

My entire point is there shouldn’t be a hell in a universe with a benevolent creator. So either there is no hell, the creator is not benevolent, or there is no creator.

 

[IanGE]

When I went to University ( Lancaster, England) aged 58 (1994) to study RE, the very first question posed to us was “Is there a God”. At the symposium there were a variety of answers, but apparently the one acceptable by the groves of Academe was in a world-wide poll conducted by the New Scientist in 1970-something. I forget the actual figures but some 54% of the world’s population declared themselves Christian, then in declining percentages the other religions, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish etc etc. Some 6% were pagan and the lowest percentage, 4 or 5, atheist. Our Tutor reminded us that even pagans believed in god - a god in trees, rivers etc. Which meant that 95% of the world’s population belived, or purported to believe, in God.
Ergo, they said, there is a God, there must be a God - because most people in the world believe there is. Perhaps that’s a crud answer: a better rule of thumb was offered by Thomas Merton: for mature Christians prayer becomes a dialogue. Then you KNOW there is a God.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

*My entire point is there shouldn’t be a hell in a universe with a benevolent creator. So either there is no hell, the creator is not benevolent, or there is no creator. *

If the law is benevolent, should it never put anyone in prison for life?

If the law is benevolent, should it never put anyone in prison at all for anything?

I’m trying to find out if it’s just punishment you have a real problem with, or whether it is the idea of eternal punishment. Please answer specifically the two highlighted questions?

Thanks.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

*So either there is no hell, the creator is not benevolent, or there is no creator. *

Are you certain there is no other possibility?

I’m not sure how, in a Catholic forum, you can assert the Creator is not benevolent when he became man and suffered and died horribly for our sins on a cross. How does a God get more benevolent than that?

How does a God get more benevolent than offering us an eternity of happiness for a lifetime of faithful service?

I see the justice of God too, when God warns us that vicious actions have eternal dire consequences, and we accept those eternal consequences with an in-your-face attitude. We get what we ask for, as so many Catholics ceaselessly say in this forum … though it never seems to register with some.

 

[DavidHume]

*My entire point is there shouldn’t be a hell in a universe with a benevolent creator. So either there is no hell, the creator is not benevolent, or there is no creator. *

If the law is benevolent, should it never put anyone in prison for life?

If the law is benevolent, should it never put anyone in prison at all for anything?

I’m trying to find out if it’s just punishment you have a real problem with, or whether it is the idea of eternal punishment. Please answer specifically the two highlighted questions?

Thanks.

Eternal punishment is the issue. Governments can punish people to rehabilitate them, or to protect the public. Rehabilitative punishment ends and therefore cannot be eternal, and protection of the residents of Heaven would hopefully be a non-issue for an almighty God.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

DavidHume

Governments can punish people to rehabilitate them, or to protect the public.

Do you agree that a benevolent government could administer some punishments for life just because of the severity of the crime? (Never mind whether rehabilitation or protecting the public is the outcome.)

 

[DavidHume]

DavidHume

Governments can punish people to rehabilitate them, or to protect the public.

Do you agree that a benevolent government could administer some punishments for life just because of the severity of the crime? (Never mind whether rehabilitation or protecting the public is the outcome.)

No, I don’t agree, and I’m not alone, apparently.

But then a government need not be completely benevolent to be worth participating in. I feel that a God that is not completely benevolent is not worthy of being worshipped.

 

[liquidpele]

No, I don’t agree, and I’m not alone, apparently.

But then a government need not be completely benevolent to be worth participating in. I feel that a God that is not completely benevolent is not worthy of being worshipped.

Hmm… I personally think that life imprisonment, and the death penalty, are consequences of man, not God. I’m personally for both though.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

DavidHume

So let me get this right:

Under no circumstances would you allow the penalty of life in prison?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

DavidHume

I feel that a God that is not completely benevolent is not worthy of being worshipped.

How do you define completely benevolent? One who forgives all transgressions, even the ones we do not repent of?

I can see this as a *completely benevolent *God. I can’t see this as a *completely just *God.

The God Christians worship is completely benevolent and completely just. Why should those who lived by the rule of God be treated the same as those who spat in His face by denying He even exists?

 

[JDaniel]

There is a fundamental difference between punishment and eternal punishment. The first can rehabilitate; the second is mere retribution.

I don’t think all of the first can be rehabilitated. Perhaps if they were to be shown Hell. But, all men can do is re-tell of it as it was described to them in the compilation that we call the Bible.

But that’s your preference, just as it is my preference that everyone eventually make it to Heaven if it exists.

But, it’s a preference based upon the non-existence of any alternative. See below.

Well, that’s perfectly fair to say about your heaven, but not my heaven or their heaven or God’s heaven. I suppose a Heaven where you had to interact with people you just could not stand wouldn’t be much of a Heaven…

But, it’s not “my” heaven. It is the Heaven that God, through His prophets, and His Son, have defined to us. If it does not fit your requirements, so be it.

I’m not worried, just explaining why even if I were theist instead of atheist, it’s a bridge too far to orthodox Christianity, let alone Catholicism. So all of the cosmological proofs a few pages back – even if one were to convince me of a Creator’s existence – don’t really overcome these other obstacles to a Christian God.

OK, then, consider this: men have, and require laws. If all men were perfect in their belief in and respect for the Christian God, laws would not be necessary - at all. All men would do the right thing, as they say, at every turn. So, except for the purely accidental accident, where the purpose of laws is to put things back, as much as possible, to where they were before the accident, why are laws required?

Let’s go further. Why do men have laws that sometimes result in the ultimate punishment, that being, death? That’s very eternal, as far as the non-theist is concerned. Do you expect mankind to rehabilitate all offenders? How would we really know that they are rehabilitated? Would we bring forth the ultimate punishment only after so many additional crimes subsequent to rehabilitation? How many times should one be rehabilitated? And so on.

Now, of course, mankind is not God, nor is Earth Heaven. I know that mankind did not create mankind, but, why would, or, rather, why should, Heaven be so disparate from Earth? Do we think that every man that has been put to death has been wrongly put to death? Do we believe that none deserved death? Do we believe that in every case where we fail, God can do a better job? No matter how long it takes? No matter what He has to do? Or, does one believe that God should have done a better job?

The latter question is not the same as your query, as you no doubt know. On the one hand, one may believe that the errant soul should be rehabilitated; on the other, that God should have done a better job. If God had done a better job, there would be no reason for rehabilitation. Thus the two are contradictory when taken together.

All that is left is that there should be some system of rehabilitation. And, only God really knows our minds and souls. So, if God really knows that a man is not contrite, that he will not rehabilitate, what is He left to do? To have created him diferently, would have rendered his “love” for God absurd. It would be something totally distinct from Love.

I still don’t see how eternal punishment can coexist with ultimate mercy. It seems a quite simple contradiction.

Our existence is contradictory. Our very being is essentially an admixture of contraries. Why should, suddenly, contradiction be removed from the human equation? It exists at the very core of the nature of our being not-God. We are the the very essence of contrariety.

I’d like to explore this further, if you’re OK with that.

jd

 

[Charlemagne_II]

DavidHume

*I still don’t see how eternal punishment can coexist with ultimate mercy. It seems a quite simple contradiction. *

It can if eternal reward and eternal punishment are both freely chosen, which they are.

God is a great adocate of obliging our free will. First he tells us what to expect. Then he offers us the means to choose one (eternal salvation) or the other (eternal damnation).

Throughout your analysis you have been laying the blame on God for damnation, when God has been laying the blame on the soul who chooses damnation. God has also been laying the praise on the one who chooses salvation. God’s mercy is nowhere more apparent than in the Passion of Jesus. No matter what sins we commit in our lives, God is compassionate by offering us the out of confession and repentence. How many ways can God show us his compassion? By forgiving our sins even when we don’t acknowledge our sins, or by expressly saying we want no forgiveness, or by commiting the ultimate blasphemy of denying there is a God who took on our nature and suffered a horrible death to prove his compassion?

A price must be paid for spitting in God’s face. It will be paid. And the one paying it should remember that he was willing to take the chance that he would sooner or later have to pay it.

“Judge, where is your pity?” the convicted and sentenced man asked.

“It is where you threw it,” the judge replied.

 

[DavidHume]

OK, then, consider this: men have, and require laws. If all men were perfect in their belief in and respect for the Christian God, laws would not be necessary - at all. All men would do the right thing, as they say, at every turn. So, except for the purely accidental accident, where the purpose of laws is to put things back, as much as possible, to where they were before the accident, why are laws required?

If everyone “did the right thing” all the time, then naturally no laws would be required.

Let’s go further. Why do men have laws that sometimes result in the ultimate punishment, that being, death? That’s very eternal, as far as the non-theist is concerned. Do you expect mankind to rehabilitate all offenders? How would we really know that they are rehabilitated? Would we bring forth the ultimate punishment only after so many additional crimes subsequent to rehabilitation? How many times should one be rehabilitated? And so on.

These are questions about human laws. No one is claiming that humans have infinite mercy, nor infinite power to protect the public, so the questions seem rather irrelevant to me.

I know that mankind did not create mankind, but, why would, or, rather, why should, Heaven be so disparate from Earth?

Because it’s heaven? I mean, if I just wanted more Earth, I’d sign up to be reincarnated as a duck or whatever.

Do we believe that in every case where we fail, God can do a better job? No matter how long it takes? No matter what He has to do? Or, does one believe that God should have done a better job?

Yes to all of them. It is not outlandish to demand perfection from a being which is alleged to be perfect.

The latter question is not the same as your query, as you no doubt know. On the one hand, one may believe that the errant soul should be rehabilitated; on the other, that God should have done a better job. If God had done a better job, there would be no reason for rehabilitation. Thus the two are contradictory when taken together.

They are not contradictory. I could permit a benevolent God some wide latitude – including a need for rehabilitation – in the ultimate realization of perfection (after all, He would be perfect and would know better) and wide latitude in the length and means of rehabilitation, but eternal damnation is a non-starter. It would stand as an indictment against either God’s perfection or against God’s benevolence towards His creation.

Our existence is contradictory. Our very being is essentially an admixture of contraries. Why should, suddenly, contradiction be removed from the human equation? It exists at the very core of the nature of our being not-God. We are the the very essence of contrariety.
I’d like to explore this further, if you’re OK with that.

But I’m talking about the nature of God as evidenced through the totality of His creation, not human nature as we perceive it during our individual lifetimes.

My interpretation of Christian apologists of a scholastic bent gives me the impression that they argue God exists as a pure and clear counterweight to human contradiction and unreason. If God is Himself full of contradiction and fallibility, why wouldn’t we be just as well off with the Greek pantheon?

But Origen and Gregory of Nyssa “lost” this argument sixteen centuries ago…

 

[JDaniel]

If everyone “did the right thing” all the time, then naturally no laws would be required.

These are questions about human laws. No one is claiming that humans have infinite mercy, nor infinite power to protect the public, so the questions seem rather irrelevant to me.

Because it’s heaven? I mean, if I just wanted more Earth, I’d sign up to be reincarnated as a duck or whatever.

Yes to all of them. It is not outlandish to demand perfection from a being which is alleged to be perfect.

They are not contradictory. I could permit a benevolent God some wide latitude – including a need for rehabilitation – in the ultimate realization of perfection (after all, He would be perfect and would know better) and wide latitude in the length and means of rehabilitation, but eternal damnation is a non-starter. It would stand as an indictment against either God’s perfection or against God’s benevolence towards His creation.

But I’m talking about the nature of God as evidenced through the totality of His creation, not human nature as we perceive it during our individual lifetimes.

My interpretation of Christian apologists of a scholastic bent gives me the impression that they argue God exists as a pure and clear counterweight to human contradiction and unreason. If God is Himself full of contradiction and fallibility, why wouldn’t we be just as well off with the Greek pantheon?

But Origen and Gregory of Nyssa “lost” this argument sixteen centuries ago…

But, the requirement that God qua God must do a perfect job, in His creative activities, is absolutely a contradiction to the requirement that mankind needs to be rehabilitatable. If God, as Ultimate Perfection, creates man as perfectly as an Ultimately Perfect being can, then there is absolutely no need for rehabilitatability in man.

And, the other side of the concept, that if God, given some latitude, as you suggest, therefore, did not create man to the best of His Ultimately Perfect abilities, then man would necessarily have to have rehabilitatability. It is one or the other; it can’t be both. If you say man needs rehabilitatability, then God is imperfect.

I think that this contradiction is not extant. I think that God created man as perfectly as such a non-God, finite thing could be made, and, thus, there is no need for rehabilitatability in man. Man has but this gigantic opportunity to get it right, with incredible leeway - providing man does not, as Charles said, spit in His face - all the way to his grave.

jd

 

[4Horsemen]

We know that God makes everything perfectly. He made man to be perfect in His image and likeness, including having free will to accept love or reject it.

Catholic Catechism: 704 “God fashioned man with his own hands [that is, the Son and the Holy Spirit] and impressed his own form on the flesh he had fashioned, in such a way that even what was visible might bear the divine form.”

705 "Disfigured by sin and death, man remains “in the image of God,” in the image of the Son, but is deprived “of the glory of God,” of his “likeness.”

So what was intended by God as humanity in its perfection became sullied due to the tendency to concupicence–a human nature (perfect in its originality) but corrupted by sin. However, perfection was realized once again, when Christ became the “new Adam” and Mary the “new Eve.” They brought restoration to the human race. We still can’t go back to the time before the fall, however, restoring the “likeness” of God, for we remain subject to the punishment that came with sin. Although the world for Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden–Paradise on earth?- was perfect in its form and matter, the sin (turning away from Goodness, itself, by desiring to be independent of God) caused the loss of the connection between God and man, in part at least, so that the original concept was lost and the natural order of things was diminished.

 

[DavidHume]

But, the requirement that God qua God must do a perfect job, in His creative activities, is absolutely a contradiction to the requirement that mankind needs to be rehabilitatable. If God, as Ultimate Perfection, creates man as perfectly as an Ultimately Perfect being can, then there is absolutely no need for rehabilitatability in man.

And, the other side of the concept, that if God, given some latitude, as you suggest, therefore, did not create man to the best of His Ultimately Perfect abilities, then man would necessarily have to have rehabilitatability. It is one or the other; it can’t be both. If you say man needs rehabilitatability, then God is imperfect.

I don’t think so. Perhaps rehabilitation and apokatastasis is part of a perfect creation. It might contradict the dogmas of your particular religion, but I see no logical contradiction.

Eternal damnation does contradict the benevolence of an almighty God, though. If the concept “purgatory” were always meant by the word “hell” then this particular objection would evaporate.

 

[MindOverMatter]

Sorry Leela, i didn’t catch this post. I hope you don’t mind me answering it.

I don’t follow you. Lots of things can be attributed to the past that can no longer be achieved. For example, there will never be another first man on the moon. What does all this have to do with our conversation in this thread?

Well, i thought we were talking about “numbers”; rather then the first man on the moon. Obviously my rebuttal cannot be applied to that which is first. But it can be applied to an infinite regress.

If i cannot count to infinity, then i cannot reasonably or meaningfully apply it to the past. The point is, a true infinity cannot be achieved by placing one event after another. There is no point in bringing in abstract realities such as magic numbers, because they do not apply to a chain of real events. Objective numbers cannot achieve infinity, nor can they be apart of it. If you say that there is an infinite regress, then what you really mean is that there is an infinite number of something. Which means that there is an infinity made up of countable numbers, and is by its nature infinite because of the numbers it contains. That means that if i take one number away, it fails to be infinite. It has “achieved” infinity by the reality of one number proceeding another number. But there is no such thing as an infinite number. You cannot complete numbers; You cannot count to infinity.

Can you ever be wrong?

Yes. But i am certainly not wrong about the impossibility of an infinite regress. If you find me to be immoral, all i can say is that i am not a good Christian or a good example of one. I’m not going to make any excuses.

I’ve been known to be wrong on occasion, and I could be wrong here.
Leela

:bigyikes:You been known to be wrong…on occasions!!!

Perhaps people know when you are wrong. But do you know when you are wrong?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

DavidHume

Eternal damnation does contradict the benevolence of an almighty God, though.

No, eternal damnation only affirms the resolute pride and stupidity of men who desire to be eternally separated from God.

Hell is not eternal punishment.

Hell is an eternal choice freely entered into.

Heaven is an eternal choice freely entered into.

God does not force us either way, but invites us to choose in our own best interest. In his compassionate mercy he offers us forgiveness time and again, until we say at last: “Enough! I prefer eternal damnation to you!”

“Ask and you shall receive! Knock, and the gates of Hell will be opened to you!”