Is belief in the Christian God a rational belief?

[harvey1]

From my understanding it seems some atheists might think that theism is a rational belief, but they reject that a belief in a Christian God is a rational belief. So, I'd like to open this up for discussion here on the Christianity subforum. Is belief in the Christian God a rational belief?

(Edited: A specific example was taken out because it was disputed as being a fair example on my part.)

[Dilettante]

Tilia,
what's illogical about saying that God became a man is that it implies that the infinite became finite, and since finite and infinite are opposites, it would be a contradiction (i.e., God incarnate being at the same time finite and infinite).

It is sufficient to say that God does not exist in space/time.

But if God doesn't exist in space/time, how can any sort of power be meaningfully ascribed to him?

A dictionary will suffice here. 'Intelligent or immaterial part of man, soul' (OED) is a start.

A dictionary explains what we commonly mean by "spirit" (which is a number of different things), but it doesn't tell us much more. It isn't surprising, since no one has ever seen a spirit or a soul, and those who believe in them have different concepts of what they might be.

Why should there be any contradiction in that? Is it a logical impossibility that the immaterial cannot produce the material? Is it not possible that the immaterial is actually much more real than the material?

It is such an extraordinary claim that it calls for extraordinary evidence.

I think it has to be proved that it is impossible before the existence of a deity can be disproved.

Unfortunately, it seems that the existence of a deity cannot be proved or disproved rationally.

I think there is one right above. Love cannot exist without free will; free will allows for lack of love and thus evil.

I'm not so sure. Unless you equate free will with randomness, I don't see why God could not have created beings who always freely chose to love each other and do good. It's not a logical impossibility.

Either it is there or it is not.

This might be a false dichotomy, and in any case it depends on interpretation.
harvey1 wrote:

So, God could be said to be a "Be" aspect, "Becoming" aspect, and "Become" aspect.

That sounds like a form of modalism. That is not the common interpretation of the Trinity. It's supposed to be made up of three different things, not three aspects of one thing.

[Cathar1950]

As near as I remember the trinity was largely trying to explain Jesus in God's work in history. Where did he fit in.
Two ideal were considered nessessary and indisposable one His Divinity. the other is his Humanity. How was this related to a Monotheist stance that they got from the Hebrews although it is in others philosophies. The Hebrews committed to it with the Deuteronomist and later Josiah reforms.
But God wore masks persons or personas. That is how we saw God. One mask was the Father, one was Jesus the Son and the other was the Spirit
which at times could be expressed as the Word(written) or Church(Jesus and God's bride) in the OT Israel is the bride and of course Spirit or Wind, the invisable activity of God. I don't think Jesus say it any different. So given the restiants and the limited intelligence the early church fathers some times displayed the desire for power and that Contstaintine was paying them and in a hurry. Coupled with the guy that opposed the trinitarian concept was poisoned. It was the best they could come up with and it didn't make sense so they called it a mystery. And to make matters worse they were using Greek concepts for a Hebrew history and Theology.

[Tilia]

Tilia,

what's illogical about saying that God became a man is that it implies that the infinite became finite, and since finite and infinite are opposites, it would be a contradiction (i.e., God incarnate being at the same time finite and infinite).

But all of humanity is infinite in the sense that all are immortal, i.e. will go to infinite heaven or infinite hell. There is a sense in which all are incarnated into space/time.

It is sufficient to say that God does not exist in space/time.

But if God doesn't exist in space/time, how can any sort of power be meaningfully ascribed to him?

Nothing can be said about what may be outside space/time, as nothing is known about it. There is no reason in logic to discount the existence of a powerful agent outside space/time.

A dictionary will suffice here. 'Intelligent or immaterial part of man, soul' (OED) is a start.

A dictionary explains what we commonly mean by "spirit" (which is a number of different things), but it doesn't tell us much more. It isn't surprising, since no one has ever seen a spirit or a soul, and those who believe in them have different concepts of what they might be.

That is true, but human 'guesses' do not preclude the existence of spirit(s).

Why should there be any contradiction in that? Is it a logical impossibility that the immaterial cannot produce the material? Is it not possible that the immaterial is actually much more real than the material?

It is such an extraordinary claim that it calls for extraordinary evidence.

It is not a claim, though. It is a feasible possibility. But there is anyway no logical impossibility in the concept of the immaterial producing the material.

I think it has to be proved that it is impossible before the existence of a deity can be disproved.

Unfortunately, it seems that the existence of a deity cannot be proved or disproved rationally.

That impossibility is generally agreed.

I think there is one right above. Love cannot exist without free will; free will allows for lack of love and thus evil.

I'm not so sure. Unless you equate free will with randomness, I don't see why God could not have created beings who always freely chose to love each other and do good. It's not a logical impossibility

.
True, but that does not appear to have been his choice.

Either it is there or it is not.

This might be a false dichotomy,

Either a Trinity can be proved from the Bible, or it can't. There are no possible alternatives.

and in any case it depends on interpretation.

It depends on convincing interpretation, i.e. proof, and it is for those who propose Trintarianism to be an inherent part of Christian belief to provide proof that it is. The number of believers who have abandoned Trinitarianism is steadily increasing, and this objection to Christian faith is decreasingly likely to be sustained.

[Cathar1950]

Tilia wrote:

Nothing can be said about what may be outside space/time, as nothing is known about it. There is no reason in logic to discount the existence of a powerful agent outside space/time.

I don't know what this would be or how it could affect us. How would we know about this? It it is outside space/time that we could recognize it or how it could possibly communicate with us.

Either a Trinity can be proved from the Bible, or it can't. There are no possible alternatives.

I don't think you can prove anything from the bible unless you both agree it is your only source and how could God ever get it to you being he is beyond time/space.

The number of believers who have abandoned Trinitarianism is steadily increasing, and this objection to Christian faith is decreasingly likely to be sustained.

This maybe it's eventual path. It might be outdated and as inadequate today as it was then.

[Lotan]

This has been a busy thread...

The Christian God is not everywhere in a locational sense, and the belief that he exists in any locality is not Christian.

That didn't stop Jesus from referring to the Temple of Jerusalem as "my Father's house". What do you suppose the "Holy of Holies" was for?

I think it has to be proved that it is impossible before the existence of a deity can be disproved.

This tautology can be applied with equal effect to unicorns, or bigfoot, or just about anything. Some possibilities are better than others.

Augustine, in my view, provided an excellent analogy of the trinity…

I don't find this analogy particularly apt, unless its purpose is to suggest that the trinity represents three aspects of god, just as "memory, understanding, will" are three aspects of consciousness. Individually they are not equal to the totality.

So, in logical terms, God is being itself (e.g., Tao), God is a mental process working in the world (e.g., Logos), and God is that which becomes by binding together those things which are in opposition (e.g., Force).

Is that the definition of "the Christian God" that I have been asking for? It seems vaguely familiar to me in a Platonic kind of way. It definitely doesn't resemble the rough and tumble war god of the OT (whose name BTW is best translated as "mind your own business").

The number of believers who have abandoned Trinitarianism is steadily increasing, and this objection to Christian faith is decreasingly likely to be sustained.

Hey, I'm with you all the way Tilia. The trinity is unbiblical, hellenistic polytheism. It's also by far the majority view of Christian believers.
Isn't it funny that Jesus' so-called divinity had to be explained by a "trinity"? It implies that prior to Jesus there existed a "duality" (YHWH and his old lady?).

[Cathar1950]

Lotan wrote:

That didn't stop Jesus from referring to the Temple of Jerusalem as "my Father's house". What do you suppose the "Holy of Holies" was for?

The Holy of Holies was to house the box they kept God in Lotan.
Some have argued that it was to hold him so he didn't kill everyone.
I am not impressed with Augustine either and he does sound Platonic.

Hey, I'm with you all the way Tilia. The trinity is unbiblical, hellenistic polytheism. It's also by far the majority view of Christian believers.
Isn't it funny that Jesus' so-called divinity had to be explained by a "trinity"? It implies that prior to Jesus there existed a "duality" (YHWH and his old lady?).

I agree with the first part but I think there were a few gods prior to Jesus' time.
And That is no way to talk about His cohorts.

It definitely doesn't resemble the rough and tumble war god of the OT (whose name BTW is best translated as "mind your own business").

I have been arguing that for years. I thought YHWH meant, besides 4 gods coming together in an anagram, "I will become what I will become". Wait , I guess that is the same thing as mind your own business.

[harvey1]

So, God could be said to be a "Be" aspect, "Becoming" aspect, and "Become" aspect.

That sounds like a form of modalism. That is not the common interpretation of the Trinity. It's supposed to be made up of three different things, not three aspects of one thing.

It is three different substances. Three entirely different substances. Let me give you an analogy that I think is better than Augustine's analogy:

Another thing, a very strange one, that is interesting in the relation of mathematics to physics is the fact that by mathematical arguments you can show that it is possible to start from many apparently different starting points, and yet come to the same thing [...] This is an example of the wide range of beautiful ways of describing nature. When people say that nature must have causality, you can use Newton's law; or if they say that nature must be stated in terms of a minimum principle, you can talk about it this last way; or if they insist that nature must have a local field - sure, you can do that. The question is: which one is right? ... One just has to work out all the possibilities, and try all the alternatives. But in the particular case I am talking about the theories are exactly equivalent. Mathematically each of the three different formulations, Newton's law, the local field method and the minimum principle, gives exactly the same consequences... As long as physics is incomplete, and we are trying to understand the other laws, then the different possible formulations may give clues about what might happen in other circumstances [...] One of the amazing characteristics of nature is the variety of interpretational schemes which is possible. It turns out that it is only possible because the laws are just so, special and delicate. For instance, that the law is the inverse square is what permits it to become local; if it were the inverse cube it could not be done that way. At the other end of the equation, the fact that the force is related to the rate of change of velocity is what permits the minimum principle way of writing the laws. If, for instance, the force were proportional to the rate of change of position instead of velocity, then you could not write it that way. If you modify the laws much you find that you can only write them in fewer ways. I always find that mysterious, and I do not understand the reason why it is the correct laws of physics seem to be expressible in such a tremendous variety of ways. They seem to be able to get through several wickets at the same time.

So, here you have a trinity in the laws of physics. It's not modalism because the substance of each law is not just restating the same substance in a different way. They are, I think, an extension of God's divine nature exemplified in the laws of physics.

[QED]

It's always a pleasure to read Mr. Feymans words . Of course it's pure coincidence that he happened to mention three approaches -- we wouldn't want anyone thinking that it was anything other than an analogy! I wonder if the various interpretations of quantum mechanics also qualify for this sort of analogy:

1. Copenhagen-I Interpretation
2. Copenhagen-II Interpretation
3. Bohm Whole Interpretation
4. Many Worlds Interpretation
5. Quantum Logic Interpretation
6. Neorealism Interpretation
7. Conscious Creation of Reality
8. Heisenberg’s Duplex World
9. Cramer's Transaction
10. Stein's New Ontology
11. Anton Zeilinger's Intepretation
12. Renselle's Quantum Heuristic

All explain the phenomena equally well but ultimately reveal nothing to distinguish themselves as being the correct interpretation. Or am I missing something?

[harvey1]

It's always a pleasure to read Mr. Feymans words . Of course it's pure coincidence that he happened to mention three approaches -- we wouldn't want anyone thinking that it was anything other than an analogy! I wonder if the various interpretations of quantum mechanics also qualify for this sort of analogy:

1. Copenhagen-I Interpretation
2. Copenhagen-II Interpretation
3. Bohm Whole Interpretation
4. Many Worlds Interpretation
5. Quantum Logic Interpretation
6. Neorealism Interpretation
7. Conscious Creation of Reality
8. Heisenberg’s Duplex World
9. Cramer's Transaction
10. Stein's New Ontology
11. Anton Zeilinger's Intepretation
12. Renselle's Quantum Heuristic

All explain the phenomena equally well but ultimately reveal nothing to distinguish themselves as being the correct interpretation. Or am I missing something?

Feynman wasn't talking about quantum interpretations in that section. He was referring to the Newtonian (dynamic forces), Lagrangian (minimum principle), and Hamiltonian (field equation) formulations of the laws of nature. For quantum interpetations, mostly Hamiltonian and Lagrangian methods are used.

[QED]

Feynman wasn't talking about quantum interpretations in that section. He was referring to the Newtonian (dynamic forces), Lagrangian (minimum principle), and Hamiltonian (field equation) formulations of the laws of nature. For quantum interpetations, mostly Hamiltonian and Lagrangian methods are used.

I was only asking if you felt that the various QM interpretations were also a good analogy to the trinity.