Simple question about god-human relations

[Skwink]

"God's only defense is that he doesn't exist".

To be honest a God that allows me to put forth the idea of being tried in court has already failed. If I was God nobody would even be allowed to suggest the idea.

 

[Joij21]

Yes, that is correct lol. It is very strange to me. I can't understand what that's all about, why they would go towards that. It's just silly, and I would very much like to see what they believe supports their views.

They mostly believed that if you worked hard, and success constantly followed, then most likely you were predestined for heaven. If however bad luck seemed to follow, and you could never quite manage to work things out, then most likely hell was your final destination. This is known as the Protestant work ethic or Calvinist/Puritan work ethic.

It is because of this that both groups would labor tirelessly in life out of paranoia and fear of God's final predestination chosen for them. While working hard technically doesn't help your prospects, subconsciously they would try to seek out constant success for instant self gratification within the community (cause everyone would now know your most likely going to heaven) as well as self relief. Also funnily enough the Protestant work ethic is believed to be the origin of the classic capitalistic "work hard and you'll be successful" cultural attitude within the United States.

Now why did they start believing in this? It was mostly to explain the paradox of "if God is omniscient than how come he doesn't seem to know about the future?" Predestination says he does, and consequentially that would also mean he would have to know whether you go to heaven or hell. This then means your destination must already be known, otherwise this particular paradox would disprove God being omniscient. And if God is proven to be non omniscient (because it is stated within the bible that he possesses it) then it would mean the bible is wrong. If the bible is wrong than it can't possibly be the infallible word of God. And if the bible is proven to be fallible then it couldn't have been written be the saints through God's possession. If the saints weren't possessed by God then it means they made it all up, thus disproving God's existence as being nothing more than fantasy.

Other denominations don't believe in predestination, however that means that they usually have to contend with the omniscient paradox. They usually just ignore it and move on. But at least for the Calvinists and Puritans they have predestination as a means to push back at atheists trying to disprove the existence of their god.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Some do the opposite as well, also somewhat supported/"supported" by the bible. They claim that if you suffer all the time, it is a sign that god loves you (the world here is crap, but don't worry, after a crap life your rewards in heaven await- also, if you liked it here you'd became way too attached). This happens in parables like the one of Lazarus and the rich person, where Lazarus is a worm, but when he dies he rests on the shoulder of god while the rich person (for some reason) burns in hell.
Nietzsche used that to refer to the religion as one of envy, and "the revenge of the downtrodden".

 

[amadeus]

Is it necessarily so that omniscience implies that future outcomes are predetermined?

Why could an all-powerful God simply choose not to know, or determine, the outcomes of all things? If God is all-powerful, then surely this power can be used to that end.

My Bible wisdom is pretty much nil, but could it be that when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, they themselves discovered this?

I’m not trying to offend any real theologians or blaspheme; I take my views very seriously (though I choose not to proselytize, fearing that I may unintentionally lead those astray and I don’t have the capacity or authority to speak on behalf of my God.)

 

[Joij21]

Nietzsche used that to refer to the religion as one of envy, and "the revenge of the downtrodden".

Reminds me of the last paragraph of Civ IV's civlopedia entry on pacifism.

Pacifism seems to enjoy popularity among people or nations who have little power of their own, people who cannot physically resist their oppressors with any hope of success. Once such people gain power and gain some measure of control over their destinies, however, they often discard their pacifism for more militant beliefs.

https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Pacifism_(Civ4)

 

[Joij21]

Is it necessarily so that omniscience implies that future outcomes are predetermined?

Why could an all-powerful God simply choose not to know, or determine, the outcomes of all things? If God is all-powerful, then surely this power can be used to that end.

My Bible wisdom is pretty much nil, but could it be that when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, they themselves discovered this?

I’m not trying to offend any real theologians or blaspheme; I take my views very seriously (though I choose not to proselytize, fearing that I may unintentionally lead those astray and I don’t have the capacity or authority to speak on behalf of my God.)

Omniscience by definition means all seeing knowledge, including not just the present time, but the past and future as well. While omnipotence could nullify omniscience, it would create another paradox where God is only omnipotent. The bible suggests he has both, predestination rectifies this by claiming God never used his power in any such way that would handicap himself. Otherwise the bible would have to claim he's handicapped himself by inflicting wounds that would blind him from having all knowledge of past, present, and future.

 

[amadeus]

@Joij21

 

[cav scout]

Assuming a god exists, what is the point of salvation being gained by humans depending on some action, ethic, work or other part or even the whole of their life?

The Bible teaches the opposite actually- as humans we are spiritually dead in our sin and can do nothing to gain salvation. You should check out Ephesians 2.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

 

[Hrothbern]

If I was president I would put God on trial for everything that's happened thus far. God must face trial.

If you see God as the ultimate Reality.... resisting Reality means that you do not get what you want and ignoring Reality means that you will have surprises.
Putting Reality on trial ?

Here a nice quote of SF author Philip K.Dick: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”

The Bible teaches the opposite actually- as humans we are spiritually dead in our sin and can do nothing to gain salvation. You should check out Ephesians 2.

There are many Bible books.
Some are the Old Testament
Some deal with the life of Christ
Some deal with building up a Christian Community,
later institutionalised into Churches and most consolidated in the Constantine Church, later known as the Roman Catholic Church.

Many people do believe that the Church is based on the Bible.
This is however more true for Protestant than Roman Catholics.
The Roman Catholic Church has parallel to the Bible the Traditions as passed over from generation on generation by officials (like Bishops) within the Roman Catholic Church.
When the Protestants aiming to free themselves from the institute of the Roman Catholic Church as led by the Bishop of Rome also called the Pope... these Protestants re-rooted to the Bible.
Even when I was still a kid, being raised in such a Calvinist family and setting with half an hour Bible reading per day by my fathert + once or even twice to the church on sunday, the difference between the books dealing directly with the life of Jesus and all the letters of St Paul was just much too big to miss.

I’m not trying to offend any real theologians or blaspheme; I take my views very seriously (though I choose not to proselytize, fearing that I may unintentionally lead those astray......)

Well.... that is my problem as well here
My normal take is that most of the Bible does not really matter that much for Christians and it is really about Jesus. And there are enough texts that can be allocated to Jesus alone and are not or not that much edited.
All the rest, in order to stay not too controversial, I wrap up as a "mystery".

I am myself not confused with the strong influence on the message of Jesus by St Paul in his letters and how he cuts away as well all kinds of sharp edges to mitigate the risks of the community in a Roman empire.
I am also not confused with loads of additions and editing of the traditional four gospels.
Anyone with an open mind and enough memory capacity, or a pencil and paper, or opening the four gospels in four windows of your PC, can see how big the differences are between the gospels regarding the chronolgy of Jesus travels & events and differing accounts of the same event like for example the fishes and bread at the lake gathering.

One of the issues is the explanatory texts between the events.
Imagine you tell a story about your travels to a far away country on which your audience does not know much.
In that case you need to add all the time explanatory texts. And you can ofc add these texts as footnotes in your write up of a gospel, but that makes your story more bumpy and not easily flowing.
In the basic story during the first decades to contemporaries living in Israel not many of such explanations were needed. But in the bulk of the evangelising in other countries during early Christianity, mostly to low income groups in a Roman empire, more and more context had to be added. And the first batch of these ended up in written.

 

[Kyriakos]

The Bible teaches the opposite actually- as humans we are spiritually dead in our sin and can do nothing to gain salvation. You should check out Ephesians 2.

But this doesn't cancel the fact that not all are said to be saved, nor that god already knows who will be saved. It only makes it even more pointless to try (and be saved or not, regardless).
Gods favoring some humans isn't a new idea either - eg Athena and Odysseus.

 

[cardgame]

If I was president I would put God on trial for everything that's happened thus far. God must face trial.

#AttackAndDethroneGod

 

[Kyriakos]

Maybe what is going on is that there is only one actual human who must be saved, and all the rest up to that one human only exist to create a database of how to be saved, so that god can make sure the important one will.
In this way, those before who get saved are just guinea pigs and may be kept around for a while until they've served their purpose ^_^

Would be even better if that one person to be saved was saved, 2000 years ago. More futility= darker story.

 

[warpus]

There are no god-human relations ongoing, communications haven't been established yet. What we are discussing here is human - human relations.

 

[H4run]

Omniscience by definition means all seeing knowledge, including not just the present time, but the past and future as well. While omnipotence could nullify omniscience, it would create another paradox where God is only omnipotent. The bible suggests he has both, predestination rectifies this by claiming God never used his power in any such way that would handicap himself. Otherwise the bible would have to claim he's handicapped himself by inflicting wounds that would blind him from having all knowledge of past, present, and future.

God cannot do something ungodly, like creating a burden that He Himself unable to lifted. Or to create another god that is more powerful than that of Him. Does that deemed God not being omnipotent? That's depend on what you defined as omnipotent.

 

[Kyriakos]

God cannot do something ungodly, like creating a burden that He Himself unable to lifted. Or to create another god that is more powerful than that of Him. Does that deemed God not being omnipotent? That's depend on what you defined as omnipotent.

How are humans to say what is "ungodly"?

 

[H4run]

How are humans to say what is "ungodly"?

Your question remind me of this writing by Andre Gide about Theseus (IIRC). He said "how can I found God, if I start my search of God as a human?"

ungodly can be defined as something that negates God's attribute and trait. Lets said, if God is the beginning, or Alpha, He must be the prime cause of everything that has no cause before Him. If he is a result of something/someone, hence that's ungodly.

But this definition of God is a monotheistic one, it's certainly not fit with other concept of deities.

 

[Kyriakos]

Your question remind me of this writing by Andre Gide about Theseus (IIRC). He said "how can I found God, if I start my journey as human?"

ungodly is something that is something negates God's attribute and trait. Lets said, if God is the beginning, or Alpha, He must be the prime cause of everything that has no cause before Him. If he is a result of something/someone, hence that's ungodly.

But this definition of God is a monotheistic one, it's certainly not fit with other concept of deities.

I agree, but this way of thinking (and every other way of thinking we have) is by definition a human way. It can't be said that it has to do with a god, which is also why religious books (at least abrahamic religions) claim that they are written by people who are inspired directly by the divine. (then again that they claim so, doesn't mean it has to be real)

In some ancient greek philosophy, on the other hand, the view is that humans are not in touch with anything actually divine, even if it exists.

 

[H4run]

I agree, but this way of thinking (and every other way of thinking we have) is by definition a human way. It can't be said that it has to do with a god, which is also why religious books (at least abrahamic religions) claim that they are written by people who are inspired directly by the divine.

In some ancient greek philosophy, on the other hand, the view is that humans are not in touch with anything actually divine, even if it exists.

I think the concept of God in Aristotle's metaphysic (IIRC) are pretty much an idle God, that know not the particular and only able to comprehend thing as a whole. I think also the concept of God and heaven are separated in Aristotelian metaphysic, am I right? Read it long time ago.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think the concept of God in Aristotle metaphysic (IIRC) are pretty much an idle God, that know not the particular and only able to comprehend thing as a whole. I think also the concept of God and heaven are separated in Aristotelian metaphysic, am I right? Read it long time ago.

I don't know; I haven't read the parts about god. Only recall the tie to physics with god being the "prime immobile mover".
But other ancients, like Parmenides and Protagoras, argued that humans can't know the divine. Protagoras probably didn't think there exists a divine, but it is said he claimed (when asked why he wrote no book about god/gods) that humans live for too little time in the world and know too little to speak of such matters.

I think that if a god exists, it shouldn't be taken for granted that we would know of it.

 

[H4run]

I don't know; I haven't read the parts about god. Only recall the tie to physics with god being the "prime immobile mover".
But other ancients, like Parmenides and Protagoras, argued that humans can't know the divine. Protagoras probably didn't think there exists a divine, but it is said he claimed (when asked why he wrote no book about god/gods) that humans live for too little time in the world and know too little to speak of such matters.

I think that if a god exists, it shouldn't be taken for granted that we would know of it.

Well, I think this can be categorized between those who refused to busy themselves with God, or disbelieve in concept of God, like Democritos and Epicurus. With those who in search or believe in concept of God like Xenophanes or even Socrates.

But if we follow your conclusion, then this discussion are ended, unless we able to entertain ourselves and our thought on other perspective.