Is the God of Christianity an Impersonal Being?

[harvey1]

It might strike some people as completely beyond question that the loving Father of Christianity can be an impersonal God, but I'm not convinced that this is the case. For definition purposes, let's say a personal God is a God that is a person and who watches over the universe with the same care and mindfulness as a caring human mother would watch over her children. And, let's say an impersonal God is a God that is not a person and whose divine actions are generally impersonal with regard to God's interaction with the world. By impersonal I don't mean that God doesn't act in a personal manner, or that one cannot have a relationship with God. I mean that God should be considered as predominantly an impersonal being with any personal interaction as the exception to the rule.

My contention is that God of Christianity is actually impersonal like the second definition and not to be understood as personal in the first sense of the term. Is this a correct understanding of Christianity?

[harvey1]

God is a very personal Being. No more different than a parent. think about it.

God can act in a personal way, and in that sense God is a personal Being. The thing that I would ask that you consider is that there are many people who suffer in the world. In my view, it's not fair to think of God as this all-kind, all-loving being who shows special favoritism to a few. God, to be a loving being, would have to have maximal love for all.

And, I believe God is all-loving. However, I don't believe that God is all-personal. That is, humans are made in God's image. And, human beings have a very complex neural architecture in our brains and nervous system where many impersonal facets of ourselves are hidden below our conscious minds. I would ask that you think of God as we, made in God's image, happen to be like. Most of God's interaction with this world is non-personable, non-conscious. Just like us (or, more appropriately, us just like God).

[QED]

Form another thread

For me, God just set it all in motion. That includes a huge intervening administrative corp to both take his plan and transform potential and energies into material realities. Then they help to in “turning the crank” to evolve mortals who, along the way, discover God, and share the journey with Him.

The difficulty for most of us, is we fuss over God’s direct involvement or lack thereof. For God, like any "playwrite" who has finished the script, “The play's it the thing”! But this "play" unfolds in a sort of self scripted way, while being fully supported by the “back-stage-crew”.

It may actually be more important in these early stages of our career, to reject the ridiculous images of God conjured up from our very finite and very corruptible backgrounds. That cleansing allows for a clearer, if still limited, view of God and His plan.

Harvey, your hypothesis seems to match the one published in the Book of Urantia. Perhaps you should become a Urantian!

The thing that I would ask that you consider is that there are many people who suffer in the world. In my view, it's not fair to think of God as this all-kind, all-loving being who shows special favoritism to a few. God, to be a loving being, would have to have maximal love for all.

You know that you're on the right tracks when you compare the predictions made of the world given a personal God in-charge of every detail, with what we actually find. But you continue to assert that God's will permeates every interaction in order to take the world form Alpha to Omega. Are you not just describing an unthinking, uncaring cosmic machine when you go down this route? If you argue that the beauty we see in the world is evidence of some sort of transcendent goodness, I would argue that it's nullified by equal (if not greater) ugliness. The inexorable march towards higher entropy states is clear scientific evidence of this.

[harvey1]

Harvey, your hypothesis seems to match the one published in the Book of Urantia. Perhaps you should become a Urantian!

Hmm... Well, it's very difficult for me to review every religious belief out there. However, keep in mind that I claim that we don't know the future evolutionary direction of the universe, life, intelligence, or religion. What we must do is immerse ourselves in the experience and let God work the divine will on earth by doing what we believe in sound judgement to be the will of God. Nothing in my research has turned up Urantian beliefs, but I confess complete ignorance as to what they believe. It's not inconceivable that they have some accurate beliefs, but I haven't seen anything even here which leads me to think that I ought to be reading their stuff. I did come upon neoplatonism as a result of my reading, and I've found that to be very helpful. In fact, in the 6th century Augustine came upon neoplatonism and it's how he was led to Christianity. So, a philosophy can lead even a great mind such as Augustine (although a little sexually repressed...) to a set of religious convictions.

you continue to assert that God's will permeates every interaction in order to take the world form Alpha to Omega. Are you not just describing an unthinking, uncaring cosmic machine when you go down this route?

On the lower layers of God's mind, I certainly am. And, I do think it is accurate that we evolved in God's image, so just like our lower brain functions and bodily functions take care many details without any cognitive-based consciousness whatsoever, so I think God's lower self rules in the universe as an unthinking, uncaring cosmic machine. This machine is what we call the laws of physics. Fortunately, this machine is just following through to accomplish the end will of God's higher self, and if we pray to God's higher self, those prayers can be heard and the actions of the lower self can be altered. Although, even this is not always possible since the lower self is mathematical-based in many respects, so it is useless to ask for the pull of gravity to be whisked away. There's no conditions in which the pull of gravity can be eliminated as long as there is nearby massive objects. However, many of the physical conditions which are a result of the laws do have boundary conditions which are not valid near critical points of those boundaries. God can intercede at critical points by introducing preferred symmetry breaking that favors those whose mindset is well pleasing to God. So, it is important to pray and have prayers said for you.

If you argue that the beauty we see in the world is evidence of some sort of transcendent goodness, I would argue that it's nullified by equal (if not greater) ugliness. The inexorable march towards higher entropy states is clear scientific evidence of this.

The evil in the world doesn't necessarily make it an ugly world once you coarse grain to the mountain top. There's a certain beauty in evolution, even though it is cruel. The problem, though, is that we do see the ugliness at these fine-grained levels (e.g., the pain & suffering of humanity). This is an on-going fix as of right now. Eventually the conditions will improve and God's ultimate will can be accomplished.

I think this explanation is more consistent than an atheist view since atheism is relying on the Big Casino in the Sky theory (BCS theory). There's a lot of good in the world too, and it is still in many respects a more compassionate world on a human level than it was eons ago, but atheism is hard pressed to answer why life in the universe seems to improve as conditions progress. Afterall, a universe is hard to explain with a BCS theory, much less a world where we have love, families, babies, warm Christmas nights, beautiful music, etc.. We have a great deal of evil, but we also have a great deal of good. It is much easier, in my view, to explain why it is we have evil with a good God than it is why we have good with a indifferent BCS universe.

[QED]

It is much easier, in my view, to explain why it is we have evil with a good God than it is why we have good with a indifferent BCS universe.

OK, I'll suggest why it is that we have good in the BCS;

BCS supports evolution, evolution 'discovers' goodness by virtue of badness being detrimental to survival in certain situations.

Now, can you offer me a simpler explanation of why it is we have evil with a good God? If you attempt to exchange the terms in the above you would get:

GOD supports evolution, evolution 'discovers' badness by virtue of goodness being detrimental to survival in certain situations.

So I think we can rule that one out.

[harvey1]

OK, I'll suggest why it is that we have good in the BCS;
BCS supports evolution, evolution 'discovers' goodness by virtue of badness being detrimental to survival in certain situations.

However, the BCS theory doesn't explain why it is that a random world should have any goodness at all in it. All that evolution does is explain why goodness can exist in a natural world if there is the kind of world that can make natural selection possible. It is much easier to imagine a BCS world behaving similar to some kind of beacon where it does nothing at all good. Afterall, it's easier to imagine a trip back from Vegas where we lost money versus one in which we come back with fame, riches, and happiness from 13.7 billion microseconds of gambling success.

Now, can you offer me a simpler explanation of why it is we have evil with a good God?

Sure...

"[The existence of God] supports [the principle of natural] evolution, [the principle of natural] evolution 'discovers' [badness] by virtue of [an all-good world] being detrimental to [paradoxial] survival [of the Universe] in certain situations [that would exist in an all-good world]."

[QED]

OK, I'll suggest why it is that we have good in the BCS;
BCS supports evolution, evolution 'discovers' goodness by virtue of badness being detrimental to survival in certain situations.

However, the BCS theory doesn't explain why it is that a random world should have any goodness at all in it. All that evolution does is explain why goodness can exist in a natural world if there is the kind of world that can make natural selection possible. It is much easier to imagine a BCS world behaving similar to some kind of beacon where it does nothing at all good. Afterall, it's easier to imagine a trip back from Vegas where we lost money versus one in which we come back with fame, riches, and happiness from 13.7 billion microseconds of gambling success.

Try a different frame of reference: If Vegas didn't have any winners it would return to the desert inside a year. But Vegas is still there and we must be one of those winners otherwise we wouldn't know that we gambled and lost all our chips. This comes up over and over again and you do not seem to accept it as a valid argument. Please explain why this is not a valid way of looking at the question of 'luck'. My guess is you'll talk about meta conditions, but there's always another meta just around the corner. If we get up-close to the root of this dispute I think we end up stumbling into the same 'thing'. You then interpret this 'thing' as being goodness incarnate, and I interpret it as indifference incarnate. I'm wondering how your reading of Davidson, Tarski and other philosophers leads you to the concept of all goodness for what Davidson later regretted labelling the 'Omniscient Interpreter'? Or have you simply mapped the popular concept of God onto this 'thing' we are discussing?

Now, can you offer me a [simpler ]explanation of why it is we have evil with a good God?

Sure...

"[The existence of God] supports [the principle of natural] evolution, [the principle of natural] evolution 'discovers' [badness] by virtue of [an all-good world] being detrimental to [paradoxial] survival [of the Universe] in certain situations [that would exist in an all-good world]."

And as an example of all-goodness being detrimental to 'paradoxial' (paradoxical?) survival of the universe we have what exactly? Don't tell me: the Garden of Eden was supposed to be Gods perfect plan for everything but it was just too perfect.

It really needs to be convincing here Harvey. I'm not ashamed by the amount of evil and general nastiness that is thrown up by evolution in a BCS world. Can you honestly and openly commit to an unabashed view of same in an all-good GOD world?

[harvey1]

Try a different frame of reference: If Vegas didn't have any winners it would return to the desert inside a year. But Vegas is still there and we must be one of those winners otherwise we wouldn't know that we gambled and lost all our chips. This comes up over and over again and you do not seem to accept it as a valid argument. Please explain why this is not a valid way of looking at the question of 'luck'. My guess is you'll talk about meta conditions, but there's always another meta just around the corner. If we get up-close to the root of this dispute I think we end up stumbling into the same 'thing'.

Well, we have to eventually reach the fundamental meta-universe. It cannot be turtles all the way down. Therefore, at some point, it's not winners that make the Vegas metastructure exist, it's the Vegas metastructure that exists which allows winners and losers to gather. Of course, we cannot build anything like this kind of Vegas which has no builder, and whose existence is completely brute fact. As I said, the complexity of this kind of Vegas is totally unexpected. Why not a beacon in the middle of the desert? Why do we have a major metastructure that happens to make for a multi-trillion dollar gambling industry over the course of it's lifetime? It's too far-fetched to be given heavy consideration. (I might add, many of the singularity theorems rule out this kind of Vegas over the course of time, so it isn't even apparent that this Vegas idea is in conformance with physics.)

You then interpret this 'thing' as being goodness incarnate, and I interpret it as indifference incarnate. I'm wondering how your reading of Davidson, Tarski and other philosophers leads you to the concept of all goodness for what Davidson later regretted labelling the 'Omniscient Interpreter'? Or have you simply mapped the popular concept of God onto this 'thing' we are discussing?

There's a paper called "Davidson's Theism?" which equates this omniscient interpreter (OI) with it matter of factly being equivalent to God. And, it is unlikely Davidson regretted mentioning the OI due to any disbelief in God on his part. Rather, the response was probably way overblown than what Davidson had expected, and it just probably wasn't worth it on his part to defend the existence of God. From what I can tell, Davidson stayed clear of the theist/atheist discussions.

As far as equating the OI with goodness, I think that is warranted since mathematics possesses great beauty, so any interpretation on the part of the OI would be filled with beauty. I think that goodness is a combination of beauty and truth with regards to morality.

It really needs to be convincing here Harvey. I'm not ashamed by the amount of evil and general nastiness that is thrown up by evolution in a BCS world. Can you honestly and openly commit to an unabashed view of same in an all-good GOD world?

Yes, because my view of an all-good God world is different than the person-driven world that you have conceived.