It is not a problem that God could be concerned with human life on Earth in a vast Universe or that evil thought can exist in human society. God evidently has plans to correct the latter at the Day of Judgment if not earlier.
Aren't computer programmers concerned with a few bits that don't function rightly in the context of millions of lines of computer code-or even billions? God with omniscient power can concern himself with the higher forms of being-. People aren't soley inanimate or unthinking objects, human minds are essentially spiritual experiencing matter rather than being only an expression of matter that does not think of itelf as perhaps helium atoms.
It is possible to ask with the psalmist; 'God, what is man that thou art mindful of him' and understand that Jesus Christ has brought humanity the gracee for an even closer personal realationship with The One God.
God creating a universe of universes perhaps simply cancels out sections of alternate potential to allow particular potential to emerge and form within a given spatio-temporal context. If The One issues an emergent pre-Universal field of vitual uncertainty to permit contingent axis of freedom of motion and potential it is posible that The One is interested in mind and spirit more so than inert matter that is not so interesting.
The One may be like a playwright issuing characters more interested in them than in the stage props. In the midst of nowhere, Utopia is a potential ever receeding beyond a horizon of temporal change that even the characters of evil chase after if only for the chance to control beingness.
God is good.
If the faithless lack insight into spiritual things,and pursue the best-case temporal island -hopping of matter as if they were diminishing pieces of ice at sea drfitng south it is yet necesary to learn of what one has faith in or about.
The analogy by computer programming has limits obviously. For one thing humanity doesn't perhaps know what the purpose(s) of the program are, nor what is set to be accomplished (character development?) anything. Some physicists have speculated that the universe is like a hologram (information), and of course it could be more than a reflection of human tecnology analogies of the era.
I think it interesting that the human mind experience occurs at just the right scale and space-time hitory for philosophical speculation-without challenges it might be like a state of entropy existnetially experienced as economic and ecospheric malaise.
There are cosmological theories of the Universe (1) being rebooted periodically since you suggest that point-membrane gong theory, the big crunch, hyper-expansion and a Big Rip etc. It is possible that the teleology of the Universe isn't static like cosmological constants may or may not be. Moving target in space-time, form and purpose could coincide.
It is somewhat undesirable to address several points simultaneously that are worthy of quite a bit more time than I presently have to reply. Many of the questions presented are classic points well written to by many scholars through history. I would like to say here that the use of YHWH as a name for God is of its day. There are additional names such as ‘The God of Abraham’ or ‘The God of Isaac’, Elohim and so forth- the last name probably arising during a redaction by the court in Northern Israel.
Psalm 139:1-12 relates…
"1O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.
2Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.
3Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
4For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
5Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
7Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
8If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
9If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
10Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
11If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.
12Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee."
The idea that God is omniscient and omnipotent is ubiquitous in the Old Testament-consider God’s personal conversation with Job. We are naturally brought to consider the nature of God from the many references in the small books of the Bible.
Reason and logic too bring the philosophically inclined to consider the attributes of God as Creator. Consider the neo-Platonist philosopher Plotinus’ Enneads and his ideas about The One. In this context one is being philosophically rather than legalistically minded. Instead of searching for anecdotal or even physical evidence one is exploiting the powers of reason to consider the Universe and the concept of the nature of its creator. One is considering the nature of God and of the acts of God in shaping existence, and considering the nature of God as an omnipotent, non-contingent being with humanity and the Universe exiting perhaps within a project area set aside by God for actualization.
One may consider the universe as a kind of modal logic paradigm with set theoretical attributes and generate myriad logics of necessity of those Universes. With Quine’s 'Ontological Relativity' in mind we may be aware that our subject idea-lexicons comprise respective conceptual ontologies in our subjective psychological outlook, and again following Quine we are aware that some of these lexical ontologies cannot immediately be translated into other ontologies by each user of the Universe.
People aren't soley inanimate or unthinking objects, human minds are essentially spiritual experiencing matter rather than being only an expression of matter that does not think of itself as perhaps helium atoms.
Sure- I will let spiritual be an open parameter defined by God rather than myself, yet my usage of the term means the conceptual rather than the material aspect of human life. In effect I am calling human experience ‘spiritual’ and something like glacial ice material. It is common these day to describe the functions of human minds biochemically-with more axon connection and different thought configurations possible than there may be individual atom in the Universe (well its ten trillion or whatever multiplied)-yet the experience is fundamentally different-self consciousness-than the insentient life of matter (unless matter is made of one-dimensional spiritual monads as Leibnitz thought).
It is possible to ask with the psalmist; 'God, what is man that thou art mindful of him' and understand that Jesus Christ has brought humanity the gracee for an even closer personal realationship with The One God.
From a human point of view I don’t know what happened to Neanderthal or Homo erectus regarding eternal life. You know some Jews did not believe in resurrection. Presumably they had trust that God’s conducting of experience was good enough-that he had his own plan for everything and would use everything in his omnipotent plan rightly-you know the potter and the clay…
On the point about Jesus-some believe the Gospel and some don’t-predestination of the elect and the damned?
Jesus the Christ is Savior rather than a trap. God became man in the flesh is as personal. That may be as personal as it is likely to get in this existence. One may conjecture about the reality of the historical Caesar or of Jesus Christ. Many believers including myself conclude that he was who He said he was.
God is good.
Jesus is quoted as saying in…
Mark 10:18
King James Version (KJV)
…"18And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God."
The Apostle Paul wrote that none are good (except God). The nature of mankind is fallen, and unacceptable to the perfection of God. Only through the intervention of the blood of Jesus Christ in His atoning sacrifice can man reach heaven. The doctrine of grace lets us be aware that the human paradigm isn’t capable of comprehending the nature of The One. Even the grace is donated and hence the doctrine of election.
The word ‘good’ has copious use in the Bible-people were not trying to give it a platonic form kind of realism meaning for most of that period.
http://www.biblegateway.com/keywor...sion1=9&searchtype=all
If the faithless lack insight into spiritual things,and pursue the best-case temporal island -hopping of matter as if they were diminishing pieces of ice at sea drfitng south it is yet necessary to learn of what one has faith in or about.
I have faith that knowledge besides that brought through scientific method is functional, purposeful and etc. Consider for example history texts that were compiled unscientifically perhaps-yet perhaps not. Science means knowledge-no more, and there are many means of getting knowledge including that of ancient history and inductive reasoning, construction of set theoretic all-possible worlds paradigms and even faith that cannot be precluded from having an actual transcending real object of reference.
American issues of Christianity, cosmology, politics, ecosphere, philosophy, contemporary history etc
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Imperfect Character is Universal
The question of why anything exists rather than nothing was a question that Plotinus considered in The Enneads. Why would The One order anyt...
-
Here and there pointillist continua build rowing the skiff clambering over the road staying in shadows until spring insouciant compact snow ...
-
Alaskan officials have cut down or banned King Salmon fishing in much of Alaska because so few of the large fish are returning. The Ancho...
-
Why do F-22 pilots lose consciousness and let their planes crash and burn? The air superiority fighters are designed to survive oppositio...
No comments:
Post a Comment