Why is God invisible?

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Wesrock said:
From the dictionary I just checked, no, it’s not the definition of nothing. But a more theological response might be “No… and yes.” It depends in what manner you speak of God and the approach you employ.

The “no” is because what i said in now way implies non-existence. You would be right in saying that something that has no impact on the world, no manner of interaction with it, would for all intents and purposes be non-being. However, that is certainly not the claim about God, who is the eternal cause of reality for all moments of reality. And, if we accept any form of divine revelation, we see a God who is not just a cause (which would be sufficient to deny non-being) but one who actively reveals himself to humanity and desires their cooperation with Him.

The “yes”, on the other hand, isn’t to deny His existence, but follows from His complete otherness to anything else that exists, such that it’s inappropriate to call Him a “thing” properly, such that He can be properly said to be “no thing” (two words) but not to imply He is non-existent (in the sense, anyway, of being the negation of existence; apophatic-only theology isn’t my strongest suit). So for a theist to say God is “no thing” would follow not from a denial of Him being but from a denial of Him being termed a thing.
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Could you imagine something which is knowledgeable, hold information, and is not physical, doesn’t have any form?
 
STT said:
Could you imagine something which is knowledgeable, hold information, and is not physical, doesn’t have any form?
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I can conceive that a non-corporeal being has knowledge, yes.
 
STT said:
Could you imagine something which is knowledgeable, hold information, and is not physical, doesn’t have any form?
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Yes. Information is not merely its representation (which, in our experience, has physical extension). Therefore, information is not implicitly physical; it doesn’t, by necessity, have physical extension or form.

As a materialist, you must necessarily reject that assertion. Nevertheless, “there are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
 
You can not see God because you are separated from him by your sins. Neither seeing or perceiving. You do not percieve him because of your fallen nature. A fallen nature that we all inherited from the fall of mankind due to original sin. The only way to remedy this is through sanctifying grace. If we die with this grace we will see God in the beatific vision where we will see God as he is and see what he knows as much as we can. I heard it described as like seeing a movie where the sides of the screen go on for infinity. In other words we will be able to see a lot of what God knows but because we are limited we will not be able to see it all.

On a natural level God is spirit and cannot be seen with physical eyes, but only perceived through the spirit. This, the natural man can not fathom. Scripture says the natural man is in enmity with God. Unable to comprehend the things of God. He needs the mind of Christ to perceive them.
 
All the most precious aspects of life are intangible: truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love.
 
Gorgias said:
Yes. Information is not merely its representation (which, in our experience, has physical extension). Therefore, information is not implicitly physical; it doesn’t, by necessity, have physical extension or form.
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So you are saying that you could hold information in something which has no form. Is that correct?
Gorgias said:
As a materialist, you must necessarily reject that assertion. Nevertheless, “there are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
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I am not materialist. Materialism just makes much sense to me. There is the problem of free will within materialism that I am not convinced that I have a solution for it.
 
STT said:
So you are saying that you could hold information in something which has no form. Is that correct?
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I am saying that information exists, aside from any physical representation that might store it.

For example, the Pythagorean Theorem (a[sup]2[/sup] + b[sup]2[/sup] = c[sup]2[/sup]) exists, whether or not it’s represented physically anywhere. The information instantiated in the theorem does not depend on me writing it in this thread, or on a piece of paper, or spelled out in pieces of pepperoni on my kitchen table.
 
Gorgias said:
I am saying that information exists, aside from any physical representation that might store it.
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From nothing comes nothing, no form no information (information is just formation of something).
Gorgias said:
For example, the Pythagorean Theorem (a[sup]2[/sup] + b[sup]2[/sup] = c[sup]2[/sup]) exists, whether or not it’s represented physically anywhere. The information instantiated in the theorem does not depend on me writing it in this thread, or on a piece of paper, or spelled out in pieces of pepperoni on my kitchen table.
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That just can exist as a mental state in a brain.
 
Wesrock said:
Why? Are truths just a “formation of something”?
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You need something to store information within, brain, DVD, hard disk, because you need form. The information then can be read and turn into a mental state, experiencing truth. I cannot conceive something which has no form but it can hold the information.
 
STT said:
You need something to store information within, brain, DVD, hard disk, because you need form. The information then can be read and turn into a mental state, experiencing truth. I cannot conceive something which has no form but it can hold the information.
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Why would you need some type of material form, though? You’re speaking as if there’s a need for physical processes (information needs to be read, for example) or changes. That wouldn’t apply here.
 
Wesrock said:
Why would you need some type of material form, though? You’re speaking as if there’s a need for physical processes (information needs to be read, for example) or changes. That wouldn’t apply here.
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As I said, I cannot conceive something which has no form but it can hold the information. Could you?
 
STT said:
As I said, I cannot conceive something which has no form but it can hold the information. Could you?
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As something that’s unchanging, doesn’t have any processes, is the knowledge of truths it has, etc… yes.
 
STT said:
From nothing comes nothing, no form no information (information is just formation of something).
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Are you claiming that there was never any ‘information’, prior to a physical encoding of the information?
That just can exist as a mental state in a brain.
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As you’re fond of claiming, that’s a physical representation – a “mental state in a brain” is a state of neurons, other matter, and electricity.

Whether or not information “can” exist in such a physical encoding is besides the point: the issue is whether it must be physically encoded in order to claim it exists. Are you claiming that information cannot exist outside of physical encodings?
 
STT said:
As I said, I cannot conceive something which has no form but it can hold the information. Could you?
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I’ve already demonstrated one such thing. The Pythagorean Theorem – that is, a particular piece of ‘information’ – exists, whether or not it has been physically encoded anywhere.

So, yes… we can conceive of information that “has no form” within which it “can [be] held”.
 
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