Can an a Christian God exist?

A better question would be is there any logic in this flaw! Just as a simple example a god could be all powerful and yet chose not to exercise that power. And of course a god could be all good with a definition of good totally different from that of man assuming of course there is an agreed upon human definition of good.

 

The earth is a testing ground, you might as well say a drill instructor is evil for giving you a hard time..

"I want your D.O.R. boy!



"Take the pain! TAKE THE PAIN!"

 

Going to need more simple examples. You see, it had to exercise that power at least once when it created the existence of suffering. And then again when it created the need for suffering. And can a god be good who is responsible for all that anyone considers evil? All suffering and evil has to be because god waned it to happen or else it is not all-powerful.

 

Well, first of all I'm pretty sure some of mine were.

But more importantly, you are thinking of a human, not an all-powerful being. An all powerful being doesn't have any need to test anything, it just does something. You don't mess up, you don't make mistakes, so you never need to test.

Now as for testing us, there is no need either, we are going to perform exactly the way it knows we are going to perform. We are going to be as evil on the whole as it made us, or as it allowed for in the fabric of existence. If it didn't want us to be evil, it wouldn't have made being evil a possibility. This also isn't a toggle box in a setup wizard asking 'do you want evil yes/no' this being had to out of whole cloth decide, 'hmm, I want there to be some thing for these beings to hate, and to suffer. I need to make sure they hurt.' And to be fair, it had to invent all of the concepts behind all of those words too.

 

Not really. A god could be all powerful and yet not be responsible for creation. Making the assumption there is a creator is exactly that, just an assumption.

And then you are making the assumption that what a god believes s good is what man believes is good.

And then there is your assumption that being all powerful requires using that power.

Too many assimptions do not make logical certainty.

 

You are right, that's true, in fact my real assumption is that there is not god at all. I come to that conclusion based on the idea that there is no need for a creator. And if that being is not a creator, then there is really no need for the being at all. That doesn't mean it can't exist, but the strongest argument for one existing is that the existence of a world tuned to our life requires an intelligent designer. But, I argue that world couldn't have been created by an all good all powerful being.

That makes ... some sense, but really, if a beings idea of good is cancer, holocaust, torture, rape, genocide, war ebola... etc etc, then it's sort of just semantics at that point.

As I mentioned above, if we need a god to create us, then of course it has to use that power. If these things existed even though it didn't create them, then things can exist without being created, and we don't need a creator. Or there is a more powerful god who created all of these things who is evil, and then we need to be polytheistic and focus on that god.

 

Good when it comes to something as unknown and not understandable as a possible god is obviously. semantics. In other words, applying our standards to a possible god is totally illogical.

 

Your argument is extremely limited and does not reflect the Christian view of God.

In Christianity, God is not just good and love, He is also holy, righteous, peaceful, judging, truthful (and other things). God cannot be those things and just excuse every misdeed a person does. Can a parent or a judge simply coddle, spoil and excuse the misdeeds of the people that come before them? Of course not, for a variety of reasons.

People were created with free will, and the universe was created without sin. Adam and Eve were meant to live forever. Satan by convincing Adam and Eve to disobey God, brought sin into the universe. "Sin" is not just a misdeed a person does, it corrupted the fabric of the universe, it brought in disease and conflict to the living creatures and people, it caused flaws in the workings of the planet earth. Adam and Eve's own physical bodies changed when they disobeyed God.

Once sin entered the universe, a plan of recovery (salvation) was created. At its completion, the universe will be on the proper track once again.

That's the Christian view.

The real questions that have to be answered (but cannot be answered) before your claim can be addressed are all related to Gods motivation - why did God create Adam and Eve? Why does God permit the world to exist in its sinful condition? Why didn't God just destroy the universe once it became sinful and start over?

Humans addressing God's motivation is like an ant trying to explain human behavior.

 

The biblical God is Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews and the God of the armies.

 

Ok, but the correct definition for something that creates all things evil is evil. Especially since it was under no obligation to do so. It may call it good, but, it is evil. Something that calls genocide good would have to be evil. It may have good aspects too, but it has just as many evil aspects.

Also, our standards would have to be defined by a god, if we were created by that god.

Now, I sort of understand the argument that it is beyond our understanding. The problem is that then envelopes and destroys all logic (which i think the existence of any omnipotent being does), and only shows that such a god might be possible. It however relegates it to the same status as ever other possibility. God might be shiva, or buddah, or thor, or zeus, or a blender, a titmouse, or the infamous flying spaghetti monster. All of those become equally probable when we say we simply don't have the brain to understand. It also places the probability way below something like we all live in a matrix like computer simulation created by super intelligent aliens, so we have much more reason to believe that.

 

I agree, but I intentionally limited it to this specific aspect of that complicated concept. The reason being that if this part can't stand, the rest can't either.

There are a lot of these analogies, but the problem is they break down at the point where a parent is a human, not a god. Almost all of that variety of reasons are due to things a parent cannot control. However a god can.

Ok, so sin came from satan and satan came from god. Why did god create satan? The problem also is, god created a flawed adam and eve. Why? Why did he mess that up? Why did god make something that would corrupt the fabric of the universe? Why did he make the universe corruptible? Why did he invent the concept of corruption? Why did he make it so that his two creations (well 3 counting satan) would bring pain and suffering to the creatures and people? Why make them suffer? Why start with the garden of eden at all? He knew what he had created and had to know it would bring evil. If he didn't know, why not? And then why change their bodies? He knew what they would do, why put them through a trial he knew they would fail? Again, if he didn't know, why not? why why why why.....

Again, the problem with expanding the discussion to these stories is that it expands too quickly, and the original issue I believe is sufficient as that is sort of the issue we keep running into as we consistently ask why.

Again, why wasn't there a plan to begin with? Why not just make the universe back 'on track', why bother with the plans and theatrics? More importantly, why make a broken evil universe to begin with? Why not just do it right the first time?

So I think I would be repeating myself too much if I kept going here, and probably already have. In the end, it all boils down to a fairly simple conundrum: If we are to assume that a creator is required, then all things must be attributable to it. Otherwise, we have to believe that something can come from nothing, and if anything can come from nothing, than really everything can. This applies to things like good and or evil, true and false. Never mind things like learning from ones mistakes and having fear and desire for freedom and free will. The part where we can't imagine a world without logic, or evil, or consequences is where our ant-brain comes in.

 

Research: The Demiurge.

 

Not accurate. You create a false foundation (God is only all good), which means all of your reasoning from that point forwards is faulty. Its even worse than that because you assume that a God who is all good will not allow any pain and suffering, and as many parents know is a recipe for disaster.

Again not accurate. You assume that because God can control it that He will control it because God is all good, and it is best for God to not permit any evil, pain and anguish. This is not different than the parent-child analogy, is it a good idea to always shield the child from all harm and mistakes? No.

Similar to my questions. They cannot be answered because we do not know God's motivation for any of this, all humanity sees is a tiny speck of the universal reality just like an ant only sees a tiny speck of the world.

The topic is by its very nature complex and by removing most of the facets you have so simplified the topic that the starting point itself is a misrepresentation. What you are really asking is along the lines of "why does God permit evil in the world?" There are many, many web sites discussion that question.

 

I just did, though I admit only just glanced at it. This seems to imply polytheism?

 

Evil exists so that you, my friend, can have a choice. Accept or reject the Creator that put you here. Evil will always blame God. That seems to be the purpose of this new thread. Anyway, it ALWAYS turns out that way. Those that want to either accuse God, or just claim He is a fairy tale, flock to these type threads like a moth to the flame.
That is why evil exists. If it didn't, there would be no contrast.....darkness and light.

 

I'm trying to think about how to keep this from going around and around in a circle. Lets try this. Explain to me how, or maybe one way in which it would be a bad idea to shield us from harm and mistakes..... and.. I can't help but also ask, why do harm and mistakes exist? Or why might they exist?

Let me just post the response I posted a little earlier to a similar point.

I disagree, I don't see how this one sticking point isn't an impassable crux.

Essentially, and that's a question that I don't believe has been answered satisfactorily. But, again, the question isn't why does he allow bad things to happen, or even exist, it's why did he create bad things to begin with? Why is bad a concept?

 

The OP question is Can a Christian God exist?, and my question is can ANY god exist ? However that is going off topic and wanted to keep it the OP context.

As I understand it, the Christian God is NOT the god of the Old Testatment, Yahwey. That god...not this is Gnostic teaching and is debunked by mainstream theologians here in the western tradition, but is still held to various degrees in Eastern Orthodoxy...

Yahwey is the fallen one. The god of THIS world, or the three dimensional reality we live in. Lucifer or Satan, different or one in the same... hmm..?

What Jesus describes as 'the Father' is that which is ABOVE this reality. The creator of the creator. The Alpha and Omega.

So, this begs the question: Why CAN'T a Christian god exist ?

Let's assume that the Christian God does exist. That means that this god has rulership of this reality. The LOGOS. Then there are the unbelievers, or those of anti-logos.

It is not provable, nor can it be disproved. One can only observe and make determinations by looking at social outcomes of belief, or disbelief.

Look around the world and see how people live in non Christian societies, or anti-logos cultures. Then look at how people live in cultures that have a Christian, or historically Christian majority. People of logos....and see how their cultures are.

Notice a difference ?

Spirituality, faith, philosophy, morals, law, politics... This all stems from the Logos. You are either in it, or outside of it.

 

Have an enlightening Sunday.

 

Why is that important?

This isn't really about blame, it's about the paradox of a perfect being that created so much chaos and imperfection. How could that happen? Why would that happen?

Again, why not? Why is a god limited in his power this way, and who limited it?

 

Let me try a more fitting analogy. Because a parent is tasked with taking care of a child in a world. That child has needs and desires, and vulnerabilities, that world has dangers and pitfalls, and as a parent you don't have control over any of that. So, you need to form that child's mind by selectively and gently introducing them to those dangers in such a way that it's biological brain can learn and form and evolve to cope with those dangers with the least amount of harm to that delicate body.

Now, here is a more accurate analogy: I build a robot, and lets say for arguments sake, i can make it sentient. Now, I build a set of train tracks, and place that robot on the tracks. I build a locomotive, and I build a switch to a different track. I then put the locomotive on one end and set it in motion towards that robot. Now, I programmed that robot with some small probability of moving off of the tracks. Now I say "Hey, I'm not doing anything, it is up to that robot. I can't be expected to intervene all the time in it's free choice. It isn't my fault what happens next." So, you have created every aspect of the situation with full knowledge of exactly what is going to happen, and everything was set up by you to make it happen. Even if you aren't smashing that robot yourself, you are still at fault, and you have a switch that can bail that robot out. It doesn't make any sense. You could have changed every single aspect of all of that, or changed things at the last minute to bail that little robot out. And why are we doing this? What is the motivation? It isn't an experiment, we know the outcome. None of it makes any sense.

 

I admit that was poor wording, my intention was to discuss the notion of the paradox between an all-good and all-powerful being (which I phrased the "christian" god)

I think at this point, we are talking about a god that is at least partly evil. Which is sort of off of what I wanted to talk about though it is an interesting conversation.

I think we can show at least that either a creator of everything has to be at least somewhat evil (and really probably quite evil), or all logic and view of reality is irrelevant.

This is getting pretty fuzzy, but as a counter to this idea, there are societies like Japan and South Korea. They are very modern societies with morals, laws, politics, philosophy etc., and no christian tradition. By contrast, medieval europe was very backwards. It seems more like the difference between modern and backward is how far away from religion a society gets. On the other hand, societies like nazi germany, or communist russia seem to belies the absolute truth of this definition. Regardless, that is all a complicated sociological argument that is not just outside of this discussion, but outside of my expertise. Except, to say that even if a religion served to create an ordered society, that would say nothing about the underlying reality of that religion.

 

Seems your basic arguement is that one must postulate a god created in man's image in order for that god to be comprehensible. I would agree with that logic but that in no way actually necessitates that constraint on god.

And once again the assumption that god must be the creator is only an assumption. An all powerful god could certainly make the decision not to be involved. Or to put it simply having power in no way requires that the power be exercised.

 

Try to use a little logic. What are the greatest blessings in life? Perhaps to be loved by others? If that is so, what makes that so intense? Is it because the opposite of that, to be loathed by others is so undesirable? Most of us know what that feels like. Jesus certainly did and for no reason. That is exactly why we feel so blessed when we are loved.
We, as humans are extremely attracted to light. Some may say, "well I prefer the night time". What makes the night time so attractive? I would venture to say the moon and the stars and the light which they give. Without them, I believe our vision would be a curse as well as the night. It's all about contrasts and as I said earlier, it's all about choice. Please help me here....could you create a better way?
As to your last question.Why is a god limited in his power this way, and who limited it? God put limits upon Himself. Love does that from time to time. Even humans do it. We sometimes sacrifice our own desires in order to help the needs of others. Here I would like to share a passage with you that describes how love puts limits on itself.

"Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death- even death on a cross!

The example has been set, and at an extreme cost. That is the nature of love and it's contrasts. It's all about choice and relationship.

 

Talk to someone that was on the Bataan Death March about the moral society of Japan! I have. The fact is, just like it says in the Bible. "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". That is why we needed a Savior.

 

If this God exists he or she or it is the most wretched being imaginable. Millions upon millions of people have died horrible deaths that could have been prevented by this mythical sociopath yet he, she or it did nothing. Not only did he do nothing but when he finally decided to do something, he killed every human being and animal on the planet but a pair of each through a flood. Then centuries later the best he could do was send his "son" down to a small part of the ancient world to convert illiterate peasants and then allow himself to be crucified as some sort of symbolic gesture of compassion. No, this God does not exist in any way at all.