What best describes your belief about God?

[CurtSibling]

Indeed - Something being old does not mean it is truthful or correct.

 

[Plotinus]

Where is this taught though? My denomination of Christianity doesn't teach this!

If you'd read my post you'd see that I mentioned the Orthodox Church and Calvinism (although it is much less explicit in Calvinism).

Fundamentalist Protestantism doesn't teach it, but that's because fundamentalist Protestants are typically fairly ignorant about the historic teachings of Christianity.

Also, what does Christ coming down as a man have to do with Human Beings becomming Divine? Christ has existed eternally with the Father.

According to traditional, orthodox Christianity, the fact that God became man divinises human nature. The orthodox view is that the Son was united not merely to a human individual but to human nature as a whole. That means that human nature is divinised. If you really care about this, see what Irenaeus of Lyons said about it in the second century here.

Also, John 3:16 knits the Universalism heresy in the bud.

Nonsense; John 3:16 states that salvation comes through Christ; it leaves it perfectly open that everyone will be saved through Christ - as 1 Corinthians 15:22 clearly states. This was the view of ancient universalists such as St Gregory of Nyssa, that ultimately everyone would come to faith in Christ and salvation through him, and that God's universal saving will would not be thwarted.

There are also Christian universalists who think that everyone will be saved, but not through Christ. That involves disagreeing with the New Testament, but since these people are not fundamentalists, that is not a problem for them. So they would not agree that John 3:16 disproves their views; they would just say that John 3:16 is wrong.

Catholics think that Jesus was 100% deity, 100% man, and yet was not a demigod, nor 2 people. How is this possible?

There are many possible ways to explain this, with varying success. As it happens, I have not only written a number of papers on this topic but have just co-edited a book dealing with it in some considerable detail (although it's not out yet - but you can read some of my introduction to the book if look "inside the book" on Amazon).

I'll be very brief because this is off-topic, but historically speaking, by far the most common way of explaining Christ's full divinity and full humanity is by appealing to parts. Christ, it is said, is a composite, consisting of the divine Son (i.e. the second person of the Trinity), united to a human body and a human soul. The whole Christ is legitimately said to be fully divine in virtue of the fact that he has a divine part (the Son) and fully human in virtue of the fact that he has a human part (the human body and soul). Just as a zebra may be said to be black and to be white because it has parts of both of those colours. A slightly different version of this model holds that the Son acquires the human body and soul as parts of himself; on this view, Christ is divine because he simply is the Son, and he is human because the Son (who is Christ) has a human body and soul (although he does not have them in the same way that we have them, since we have them in the sense of being identical to them, whereas Christ is not identical to them). Needless to say, spelling out what all of this means and involves in detail, and explaining how it works, is a long business. My view is that the orthodox doctrine of Christ can indeed be explained along these lines in a way that makes sense, is consistent, and accords with orthodoxy, but which still seems somehow kind of odd.

Wasn't the issue resolved in the 1st Council of Nicea?

No, the Council of Nicaea was called to deal with Arianism, which had nothing to do with the relation of the human and divine in Christ. This was dealt with by the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, but not with any finality.

I'm confused... God, at least by the definition I use, could not be literally touched, but that doesn't mean he isn't real.

You deny the possibility of incarnation, then? Orthodox Christianity holds that God not only could be, but has been, literally touched.

 

[sophie]

I'm confused... God, at least by the definition I use, could not be literally touched, but that doesn't mean he isn't real.

orly?

 

[El_Machinae]

Really? Impressive reasoning. I was under the impression you were religious...

I certainly was religious, so I approach many of the questions with more empathy than others. Many atheists have never 'felt God' like the religionists describe, and so dismiss it without understanding it. I have 'felt God' during my youth as a Christian.

It was when I was older that I realised that this 'God' that I felt was incorrect often enough that it lost its right to the title. That said, I'll occasionally be empathic. I somewhat understand it as a psychological phenomenon and the motivations for wanting the feeling to 'be God' are (I think) fairly clear. Lots and lots of people nurture that feeling and tend to ignore when the feeling is no smarter than they are.

 

[CurtSibling]

I feel I can understand your philosophy better now - Cheers for sharing that.

 

[Ajidica]

Yes, Monoenergism. It was a decent idea, and I think that it failed more because of his loss of prestige and authority after 636 than because of any inherent flaws in the idea.

I was curious so I checked out the book I have dealing with that issue (Norwhich) and he seems to be of the opinion that Monoenergism was not theologicaly sound, as the Patriarch of Constantinople Ignatius(?) had started proving.

Is Norwhich completely wrong here?

 

[Plotinus]

Monergism doesn't generally get a very good press. It was a pretty arcane idea and basically had exactly the same problem as monothelitism, namely that it involved denying that Christ had some aspect of human nature that he ought to have had; but it lacked the advantage of monothelitism of being comprehensible. Energeia was a rather charged and technical theological term to start with, which didn't help, although I don't recall the details off-hand.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Standards of evidence depend, obviously, on the incredibility of the claim being made. If you claim you went to the store today, I'll take your word for it. If you claim that some Jewish carpenter 2000 years ago had magical powers, its gonna take a little bit more than "some people wrote it down in this book".

If you say "current scientific standards of evidence depend on the incredibility of the claim...." you might be correct. Standards of evidence are set by the "community" under consideration. Evangelicals have a different set of standards than most scientists and so what is "true" comes out different. Scientific standards of evidence have evolved to reinforce a particular way of thnking about the world and as such it has limited what is allowed to be true. Within that view, magic powers described in a book and attributed to a Jewish carpenter who lived 2000 years ago are not allowed to be true.

Both scientific and religious rules of evidence are very good at making sure that their core beliefs remain true at all times. IIRC, the Pope is identifying the miracles necessay to make his predecessor a saint.

 

[Cu Chulainn]

One standard of evidence has put men on the moon and nearly doubled the average human life span.

The other has... not. Which is the nicest thing that can be said about it.

The results speak for themselves.

 

[markantony]

Limits are fine, but who gets to decide? Independent verifcation is fine too, but you have to understand that it limits what you will see as truth and may cause you to overlook much of what is actually True. Independent verification does not determine truth, it just means someone else "saw it too". Then again, what does True mean?

No. Anecdotal evidence is not verified through more anecdotal evidence.

I`ll use an example originally used by Aronra:

If I saw a dinosaur in my backyard. I would be convinced it was real. I may even approach and touch the beast.

Now if this really had happened, we would expect to find further evidence of the sighting. We would expect to find footprints, damage to property, dung. We could also reasonably expect to find other witnesses and CCTV coverage of the animal.

If we find none of this, do we conclude that the animal existed? Or do we conclude I was mistaken?

 

[DroopyTofu]

And if many other people saw the dinosaur, and it left traces of it being there, but there was no camera present, would you believe it was there?

 

[Cu Chulainn]

And if many other people saw the dinosaur, and it left traces of it being there, but there was no camera present, would you believe it was there?

Eyewitness testimony, no matter by how many people, is not enough without some kind of physical evidence. See: The Emperor's New Clothes, UFO abduction stories.

 

[Birdjaguar]

One standard of evidence has put men on the moon and nearly doubled the average human life span.

The other has... not. Which is the nicest thing that can be said about it.

The results speak for themselves.

Without doubt, science has produced great strides in making stuff and creating improvements in everyone's lives, but that may not have anything to do with what is True.

Also keep in mind that the gains of scientific progress are "net gains". The hands of science are not entirely clean.

It is well and good to say that becasue we set clear and specific standards of evidence weh ave achieved such and such, but you should not ignore the fact that you have excluded much of potential value (and truth) by those same standards.

 

[DroopyTofu]

So if there is physical evidence along with the testimony of many, many people, would you believe the dinousaur was there?

 

[SG-17]

Man created god, and man can destroy god.

 

[Cu Chulainn]

Without doubt, science has produced great strides in making stuff and creating improvements in everyone's lives, but that may not have anything to do with what is True.

Not quite sure where you're going with this. Is this a solipsistic argument?

Also keep in mind that the gains of scientific progress are "net gains". The hands of science are not entirely clean.

The scientific method is a methodology, a tool. That people have misused it from time to time is no more a case against science than stabbings are a case against cutlery.

It is well and good to say that becasue we set clear and specific standards of evidence weh ave achieved such and such, but you should not ignore the fact that you have excluded much of potential value (and truth) by those same standards.

Like what?

So if there is physical evidence along with the testimony of many, many people, would you believe the dinousaur was there?

It would certainly be worth investigating. My first instinct would be hoax, but if it stood up to scrutiny, perhaps. Id have to wonder what happened to the Dino, somewhat hard for something that large to hide.

 

[El_Machinae]

Mass anecdotal evidence is certainly compelling. It's very different from mass individual testimonies of separate events.

 

[Dachs]

Man created god, and and man can destroy god.

God creates dinosaurs; God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man; man destroys God; man creates dinosaurs.

...dinosaurs eat man; woman inherits the earth.

 

[timtofly]

Man created god, and and man can destroy god.

Man invented science. Man has/can/will destroy science.

 

[Moss]

Man invented science. Man has/can/will destroy science.

Explain?

Man invented the word science to describe that which science is, yes.

Man did not create that which science is though Unless you're saying we created the universe and its laws.