The Unchangeableness of God, and additional attributes

The Unchangeableness of God, and additional attributes

Thomas Watson wrote; “God's unchangeableness. ‘I am Jehovah, I change not.' Mal 3:3. I. God is unchangeable in his nature. II. In his decree. I. Unchangeable in his nature. 1. There is no eclipse of his brightness. 2. No period put to his being. [1] No eclipse of his brightness. His essence shines with a fixed lustre. ‘With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.' James 1:17. ‘Thou art the same.' Psa 102:27.”-page 66

That Spirit does not change is consistent with the idea of omniscience, prescience and so forth. God already embodies all things that could be or that will be or become in some way-what is there to change?

Parmenides and Heraclitus-two pre-Socratic philosophers in Greece had different opinions on what actually changes, or if anything actually changes, if everything is in motion or if nothing is in motion, then of course, Einstein provided relativity theory.

Relativity theory apparently allows gravity to provide negative pressure to the Universe while mass and energy have a kind of positive pressure. Because of the conservation of energy where the net value for the Universe remains constant-it might be that as mass and energy lose value with mass and energy running down that energy is conserved by the acceleration of space speeding up as some sort of reciprocal of gravity. I believe that the total amount of energy in the Universe equals mass x speed of light squared + the force of spatial expansion. Alan Guth made a new video recently on the inflationary era of the Universe (1) providing things to think about on cosmology and of course what occurred before the hypothetical inflation era.

Often when people are talking about a singularity in the beginning of the Universe they assume it was a very small thing packed tight with mass and energy under the force of gravity. Yet some have speculated that gravity switches off at a certain small scale to let the inflation recur. There are innumerable ways to consider configurations of a potential singularity or small patch of a larger field from which the mass-energy, space and time of the Universe extruded or leaked-perhaps like a jet of water shooting out of a hole in a dam under great pressure.

The cosmic microwave background temperature may means that there was a fast inflation (10-35th second) to distribute and equal temperature, yet it could mean something else such as that an infinitely high temperature was a characteristic of the space that expanded and that did not dissipate until later after being cut off from the umbilical jet of expanding mass-space-time or after a collision of membranes let the reverberations tone down a little.

What came before the inflation or singularity is challenging to think of. It is a greatly interesting topic however. The word of God uttered a word to start; an instruction to a quantum computer, a part of Spirit letting a relativistic mass arise from nothing to be and become through a singularity, bubble spherical membrane or ? It is interesting to speculate about and correlate a little to Genesis paradigmata.

The Unity of God

Watson; “There is but one only, the living and true God. That there is a God has been proved; and those that will not believe the verity of his essence, shall feel the severity of his wrath. ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.' Deut 6:4. He is ‘the only God.' Deut 4:39. ‘Know therefore this day, and consider it in thy heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath, there is none else.' ‘A just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.' Isa 45:21.”-page 100

I like these points that Watson made about God's unity;

Watson-“II. There is but one infinite Being, therefore there is but one God. There cannot be two infinites. ‘Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord?' Jer 23:24. If there be one infinite, filling all places at once, how can there be any room for another infinite to subsist?

III. There is but one Omnipotent Power. If there be two Omnipotents, then we must always suppose a contest between these two: that which one would do, the other power, being equal, would oppose, and so all things would be brought into confusion.”-page 100

Of course there are innumerable mathematical infinities-perhaps an infinite number of infinities logically enough. It is challenging to say that every mathematical concept or configuration of infinites must have a corresponding actual physical universe infinity in a multiverse setting-probably not. Obviously Watson probably means that there is only one infinite omniscient, omnipotent being as one sees must be implied from his second point.

Watson wrote about an “infinite being” however. That is different from an infinite set that is implicitly finite in all dimensions besides those elements in which it is contained or entails. I suppose that every infinite set is finite in an infinity of other definitions and sets of infinities in which it does not fit. God however transcends or comprehends all possible infinites and finite infinite sets (i.e. the infinite set of even numbers does not include odd numbers). His Spirit transcend mass, energy, space-time and sets finite, infinite or actual.

Cantor's discovery of trans-finite series and ordinality of infinite series must apply to the mathematical set of all possible infinite series and a corresponding representative set of all possible actual Universes.

The infinite set of all sets including itself must be an incomplete set I think, according to Godel's incompleteness theorem. God has the certain answer to that sort of thing and probably a calculator and program to compute it correctly if he had a need to do so however improbable that would be.

The Eternity of God

Watson-”Study eternity. Our thoughts should chiefly run upon eternity.

We all wish for the present, something that may delight the senses. If we could have lived, as Augustine says, a cunabulis mundi, from the infancy of the world to the world's old age, what were this? What is time, measured with eternity? As the earth is but a small point to the heaven, so time is but, nay scarce a minute to eternity! And then, what is this poor life which crumbles away so fast? Oh, think of eternity! Annos aeternos in mente habe. Brethren, we are every day travelling to eternity; and whether we wake or sleep, we are going our journey. Some of us are upon the borders of eternity. Oh study the shortness of life and length of eternity!

More particularly think of God's eternity and the soul's eternity. Think of God's eternity. He is the Ancient of Days, who was before all time. There is a figurative description of God in Dan 7:7. ‘The Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool.' His white garment, wherewith he was clothed, signified his majesty; his hair, like the pure wool, his holiness; and the Ancient of Days, his eternity. The thought of God's eternity should make us have high adoring thoughts of God. We are apt to have mean, irreverent thoughts of him. Psa 50:0I. ‘Thou thoughtest I was such an one as thyself,' weak and mortal, but if we would think of God's eternity, when all our power ceases, he is King eternal, his crown flourishes for ever, he can make us happy or miserable for ever, this would make us have adoring thoughts of God. Rev 4:40. ‘The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat upon the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever; and cast their crowns before the throne.' The saints fall down, to signify by that humble posture that they are not worthy to sit in God's presence.”-page 64

People today don't take this seriously as often as they should. With the rise of modern science and medicine and longer average life spans along with reinforcing Darwinian evolution insights the brief minute of human existence became magnified in importance to people. Instead of life being inevitably nasty, brutish and short full of pain as a poor shadow walks about strutting and fretting its hour upon the stage (this paragraph had more than one paraphrase in it (Hobson and Shakespeare) the pleasures of life and the prospects for a meaningless afterlife of nothing-a kind of Buddhist utopia of nothingness have become popular.

Nevertheless human life is less significant in the context of eternity than a shadow ghost blip on a radar screen disappeared into the past. God as an eternal being has eternity to punish his enemies. Watson uses much of this section to remind the reader or listener to his sermons of the horrible, unmixed nature of eternal punishment.

Watson-”We must hold with Augustine, ‘that God's judgements on the wicked, occultu esse possum, injusta esse non possum, may be secret, but never unjust.' The reason why sin committed in a short time is eternally punished, is, because every sin is committed against an infinite essence, and no less than eternity of punishment can satisfy. Why is treason punished with confiscation and death, but because it is against the king's person, which is sacred; much more that offence which is against God's crown and dignity is of a heinous and infinite nature, and cannot be satisfied with less than eternal punishment.”-page 63

Post-Millennialism & Israel

The Post-Millennial Hope...

Matthew 28-”18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

19 ¶ Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”

Psalm 102

“15 So the heathen shall fear the name of the LORD, and all the kings of the earth thy glory.

16 When the LORD shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory.

17 He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.

18 This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the LORD.

19 For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the LORD behold the earth;

20 To hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death;

21 To declare the name of the LORD in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem;

22 When the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve the LORD.

23 He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days.

24 I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are throughout all generations.

25 Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands.

26 They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed:

27 But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.

28 The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FddMMDF0Q_4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_UyGnfBhOI

Development of Sustainable Terrorism A By-product of Obama Foreign Policy

Since President Obama's Cairo speech threw gas on the insurrectionist Arab Spring movement a development of sustainable terrorism has become a new phenomenal expression of the reciprocal of a vacuum of good policy.

Since the Benghazi torture and slaughter of the U.S. ambassador to Libya development of a policy of sustainable terrorism has actualized to harm U.S. interests abroad.

http://www.cbsnews.com/feature/us-consulate-attack-in-benghazi/

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/15/asia/pakistan-violence/

http://morningstarnews.org/2014/10/muslim-extremists-kill-31-christians-in-taraba-state-nigeria/

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2015/03/14/Middle-Eastern-Christians-death-exodus-betrayal-and-silence-.html

http://pamelageller.com/2014/09/muslims-slice-off-the-breasts-of-kidnapped-christian-girls-in-syria-and-iraq.html/

http://www.catholic.org/news/international/middle_east/story.php?id=56481

Priesthood of Believer's paradigmata

A priesthood of believers would have elders-yet they would be elders that have actually been checked off on objective education in Christianity rather than just being older than others. Why call someone a church elder that has been recently converted at age 60?

Church elders can be corrupt without objective standards and with peers participating in objective church roles. There have been serial killers that were church elders (e.g. Rader) or church deacons that were just prosperous and effectively bought influence.

Beginners would be of age infant to 70, intermediates between 18 and death and elders between age 40 and death. One could advance to a higher level quicker with attendance, participation and meeting objective and stadardized educational materials. Objective records in the Christian community would be kept locally and available nationally or even internationally-as would work credit and emergency savings banks. Imagine if graduate schools had no objective standards and one could attend for years and get no credit or too much credit or if only school staff actually could advance and all the students could do was contribute tithes?

A priesthood of believers with objective standards would allow a greater Christian community to act, and with far more participation from Christians instead of retarding Christian growth to mostly spectator status. As it is with Christianity in America based around an anachronistic ecclesiology for people that are not persecuted and are preponderantly comfortable materially there is little provision for persecuted Christians unwelcome by worldly political vicissitudes for whatever reason. American Christians are expected to be materially successful in-the-worldly context and there is no safety net in case the individual Christian is marginalized. It is possible that reformers would be the first marginalized (an example from the secular world would be Verblein and his 'Theory of the Leisure Class'-with a Harvard PhD he had to get shelter in the basement of a professor friend at Berkeley). It is inevitable that world standards and values egress church moral leadership and church leadership. Star Christians like star basketball-player's incomes cannot compensate for the insecurity or poverty of ordinary people- The Church should be brought to life in fact as well as in theory without star Christians substituting for ordinary Christian responsibilities. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Class

Acceleration in Global Warming Expected

Much global warming and perhaps more Canadian access to the Pacific. I read elsewhere that 75% of the Antarctic ice where penguins live may be gone by 2040.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-warming-could-hit-rates-unseen-in-1-000-years/

On the Need for Church Reform

When Jesus visited Nazareth and read in the synagogue the response of the Jews was a summary of how the Jewish nation would receive the message Jesus brought. Jews lived by the letter of the law and could not hear God speaking to them for-himself. They were bureaucratic and hierarchically inclined- fundamentally worldly in myopic dutifulness though set apart originally as a people from the pagan nations about them.

In the day social-economic and communications required a tight social cohesion to disseminate a message and way of life that was the word of God. People needed to be under the supervision of elders experienced in the word for a variety of practical reasons, yet that dogmatic pedagogical method changed with the arrival and liberation of the Lord. The Lord and the Spirit transcended worldly organizational forms though they continued to serve while the kingdom of God increased and technology evolved over millennia.

Recently the socio-economy of the U.S.A. and Europe has changed. No longer is the venerable hierarchical method of ecclesiastical organization terribly relevant to church and social organization. It has become maladaptive, egoistic and cultist. Can a televangelist be said to be a local church elder meaningfully?

Americans are very mobile people at least laterally. Consider the former Crystal Cathedral where automobiles from all over California would arrive to hear pastor Fuller talk then dissipate into the distance. A homeless guy in the parking lot might have wondered where all the SUVs went or where the houses of the holy were located.

Those were not local elders in a pedestrian community working and supporting each other locally in work. Neither were they all illiterates with rare sheep skin Torah scrolls to carefully hand down information from. Those Californians and the Fulleran Cathedral had Blackberry P.D.A.'s and would now be wired to the Internet if that church still was in business.

In order for contemporary churches to serve not just the pastor and his family on practical living facts of life an objective ecclesiastical structure that works independent of the personal-era formalism of the 1st century B.C. needs to be developed. Three ranks of beginner, intermediate and elder (with two forms of elder equivalent to officers and warrant officers) should exist with objective standards and testing for each that are reasonably easy to progress through.

Consider the lack of transparency and community support services of churches that use the 1st century B.C. hierarchical structure. If banks and colleges had such lack of transparent accounting and equalization of services as churches they would be regarded as entirely corrupt. If is also difficult for the majority to advance in church structure, elders may be incompetent and have little actual knowledge of the Bible. Financial and job support, medical and counseling support structures are generally ad hoc and inefficient-there are no Priesthood of Believers job or services credit banks with a nationwide infrastructure available to all members of the church association. There is a great need for modernization in order that better evangelization may arise and to defend the defeat in detail of Christian Churches by corrupt elites that can infiltrate and take over Church leadership thereafter ordering 'underlings' to comply with the dominating will of 'elders' even if they have been if have been in the church two weeks.

There would be a continuing role for Theologians to construct liturgical materials and edifying writings for the Priesthood of Believers Church locals that might be selected for use by local elders. And their could be a continuing role for hired guns of exceptional evangelistic speakers visiting churches. It should be stressed however that the star Christian and contract Christian singer is working for himself and family without necessarily serving local church members at all beyond spiritual reinforcement. One cannot just say 'live plentifully' and not help to provide help -uncomprehending like Marie Antoinette.

Church leaders today tend to view social and economic reality with their own interests clouding their vision of the need for ecclesiological reform. Objective church support structures that are efficient and honest should replace ad hoc methods that don't work in banking, social security or security in either a worldly or ecclesiastical setting. Nationwide work credit banks and attendance credit for advancing through the ranks of beginner, intermediate and elder should arise. Christians could deposit as much as $5000 dollars to their work credit and emergency funds accounts, and more advantaged Christians could contribute more. Referrals for services-repairing a roof, painting a house, could arise in fair trade work banks that would let Priesthood of Believers group help themselves and other members so that none are left out or compelled to look for help to elders with deep pockets and little Bible knowledge that may run a local hierarchical church.

“Luke:16 ¶ And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.

17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,

18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.

21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.

22 And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?

23 And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.

24 And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.

25 But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land;

26 But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.

27 And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.

28 And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,

29 And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.”

Microphone Aggression Stimulates Conflict, Corruption and Social Unrest

When Hutu broadcasters stimulated impulsive genocide against Tutsi tribes persons in Rwanda in 1994 they were continuing a policy of microphone aggression against group and individual others-as themselves developed by Mussolini-a micro-aggressor inventor before the Second World War as a radio talk broadcaster designer of fascism. New lexical innovations for microphone aggression proceeded over the decades even unto subjective rave demotic with discrete reflections of micro-aggressive use-truths from myriad mouths. Media's massively corrupt communications let ignorant elites broadcast a dominant, non-representative opinion as a populist opinion attracting thoughtless followers toward doom.

Social determinism by the rich implicitly opposes democracy and strengths of democracy such as arise with the competition of ideas to best determine social political policy through advice and election consent. Because micro-aggression is fundamentally sponsored by the rich-except for Pravda-like musical doper-homo partisans of all things micro-soft through power of micro-aggressive National Public Radio, the alcoholic style big-headed usurpation of democracy by elites able to preempt actual independent political formation in the states is nearly complete. Micro-aggressors that should be replaced by a better, modern allocation of broadcast wavelengths to individual local citizens in time slice shares to express citizen points of view instead of that of serialized micro-aggressor 'journalist' dogs having their day dominating airwaves.

Bloggers provide a written record and plain words that may be understood by any interested individual. Unlike the top-dog power on stilts of microphone aggressors socially contributing massive quantities of metaphorical dog turds to the world, bloggers cannot dump their product to the masses. Blogs are rather hard to locate-there are millions and millions of them with vague alpha-numeric addresses that readers must work to find. Blogs prosper in numbers through quality competition yet even Internet blogging may go to those able to afford search engine optimization for preferred listing. The wealthy and sycophants of the wealthy have a vast left and right wing advantage in the Internet as well as the broadcast realm, though in the broadcast realm ordinary opinion is non-existent. Only the swell pros and the corrupt program designers (such as the Lenin like leaders of N.P.R.) develop suitable brainwashing content to dump in the path of potential listeners and those that have already lost critical, independent, undoped reason.

In order to dominate a polity it is useful to own a powerful and non-democratic broadcast media where micro-aggression is the rule rather than the exception. That situation enables another support for the horseshoe toss social control of society dedicated to the proposition that all wealth should be concentrated to networks controlled by the largest shareholding global investors. Bling, dope and a micro-queer social environment for the masses have become enforced with microphone aggression defining dissent as hate speech to be ruthlessly financially suppressed.

-a note on why concentrating wealth is dangerous

In 1935 if an average American earned 1 dollar a day while a rich American earned $10 that isn't too bad. A rich man could say that with his greater wealth he created jobs that employed the poor. He could say that's how capitalism works. O.K. The poor can vote to change things if he don't like them.

So in 1980 an average American earns 10 dollars a day (these are just representative values) while a rich American earns $300, the difference between rich and poor have increased yet the poor can still vote to change things if he don't like-em, maybe.

In 2020 an average American earns 9 dollars a day after adjustment for inflation while a rich American earns $30,000 compounding annually with interest from his banks and zero interest loans issued from the Federal Reserve so he can loan out $5 for every 1 dollar loaned from the Federal Reserve so he can keep the four dollars he mints from the dollar deposited plus interest on the four dollars. The bad investment debts of the rich American are bought up by the U.S. Government and taken by the Federal Reserve with quantitative easing.

If the poor and middle class don't like that policy or the gap between the rich and poor they can suck. The Government and business elites have made homosexual marriage the law in all 50 states. Money is the equivalent of political power. Elites advise; smoke some legal dope-and fuggetaboutit.

Metaset's Algorithm (poem)

Metasets' Algorithms

When no one existed

shadows had no eyes to fall upon

where coolness might have been a relief

to anyone that was

walking across plain time towards a star

where no hearts beat

when dryness had turned to dust all of the memories

that might have been

stillness waited to be stirred

something waited to be formed

as if every algorithm was a form

given parameters never to become a forbidden shape

though counter-instructions placed deceptive mirrors

presenting iterations that assembled like cherubim guarding Eden

sets circumventing sets of all sets maliciously

like reptiles cornering the market for apples

aborting echos of hopes that die before beginning

as if to make one wonder if one ever was

something like a fragment of parchment

spectral lines etched in quartz

waves entangled as point particle crests stopped dead.

On Proofs for God's Existence

On Proofs and Being of God

In this section of 'A Body of Divinity' Watson offers six proofs for the existence of God. Personally I feel this is the most dated of Watson's sections. Since it is more than 400 years old that isn't too surprising. Arguments from design, the ontological argument and more can use some updates. I have worked on creating a few theological arguments for the existence of God yet those are novelties more or less. Ultimately one has faith or not and uses one's reason or not in choosing to believe that the first particle or waveform that collapsed into an eigenvalue formed as a field phenomena given to exist by God.

I especially like Watson's fifth 'proof' for the existence of God.

[5] That there is a God, appears by his prediction of future things. He who can foretell things which shall surely come to pass is the true God. God foretold, that a virgin should conceive; he prefixed the time when the Messias should be cut off. Dan 9:96. He foretold the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, and who should be their deliverer. Isa 45:5: God himself uses this argument to prove he is the true God, and that all the gods of the heathens are fictions and nullities. Isa 41:13. Testimonium divinitatis est veritas divinationis. Tertullian. To foretell things contingent, which depend upon no natural causes, is peculiar to Deity.”

I'll innovate some modern proof criteria. There are newer and numerous proofs efforts I would guess. Here is my 'Blue Balloon Argument'.

02:07pm Feb 22, 2002 EDT

The Ontological Argument and The Argument from Design are well known. Of the numerous others that provide analogies regarding the absurd in attempting to disprove the existence of God, one of mine is the Blue Balloon Argument...

The Blue Balloonist point of view is up and away from the ordinary self-originating inflationary universe models. The universe is like a balloon in rapid growth of expansion from singularity to omega. The hot big bang is the force that contained all the inertial/momentum force mass necessary for the composition of the entire universe. The clumps of coalescing mass such as galaxies are on the balloons walls. From its humble yet radical beginning the future of the balloon was pre-designed/determined.

Some of the balloon's 'intelligent' phenomenalities are not sure if the balloon will expand forever, blow up, dissolve or collapse under its own stretched elastic strength/gravity back down to a humble singularity, and perhaps inverse right on through to expand in the opposite direction as an anti-matter balloon. Radicals have proposed that the balloon came into being by crashing into another balloon (ballooning membrane theory).

The riders of the balloon theorize a reversible-direction universal balloon going back and forth like a pendulum from anti-matter universe to matter-universe may obviate the need for a designer as the balloon has existed eternally-from the beginning. Some riders have commented that the air bag space is expanding quicker with space from an unknown source. Isn't it absurd for the balloonists to conjecture that no intelligent designer of the balloon could exist?

One discerns that philosophical arguments and first cause and the existence of God differ somewhat from arguments about the mechanics of creation and of arguments that the mechanics of creation require a designer. The philosophical methods are easier to reduce to yes-no propositions that must ultimately be decided with faith. It is difficult for finite beings with finite minds to comprehend the infinite. At best one might understand abbreviations of infinite things or perhaps classify trans-finite infinities along the mathematical set paradigmata of the mathematician Grigory Cantor. Yet one returns to the parameters of an initial non-temporal being always existing whom foreknows all things to be created or phenomenally appear within creation.

Watson writes-

“God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power,

holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

Here is, 1: Something implied. That there is a God. 2: Expressed. That he is a Spirit. 3: What kind of Spirit?

I. Implied. That there is a God. The question, What is God? takes for granted that thereis a God. The belief of God's essence is the foundation of all religious worship. Heb 11:1.

‘He that comes to God must believe that he is.' There must be a first cause, which gives being to all things besides. We know that there is a God.

[1] By the book of nature. The notion of a Deity is engraven on man's heart; it is

demonstrable by the light of nature. I think it hard for a man to be a natural atheist; he may wish there were no God, he may dispute against a Deity, but he cannot in his judgement believe there is no God, unless by accumulated sin his conscience be seared, and he has such a lethargy upon him, that he has sinned away his very sense and reason.

[2] We know that there is a God by his works, and this is so evident a demonstration of a Godhead,”-page 42

“Psa 14:1. ‘The fool has said in his heart, There is no God.'

He durst not speak it with his tongue, but says it in his heart: he wishes it. Sure none can be speculative atheists.”-page 45

“[3] We may prove a Deity by our conscience. Conscience is God's deputy or vicegerent. Conscience is a witness of a Deity. If there were no Bible to tell us there is a God, yet conscience might. Conscience, as the apostle says, ‘either accuseth' or ‘excuseth.' Rom 2:15. It acts in order to a higher judicatory. Natural conscience, being kept free from gross sin, excuses. When a man does virtuous actions, lives soberly and righteously, observes the golden maxim, doing to others as he would have them do to him, then conscience approves, and says, Well done. Like a bee it gives honey. Natural conscience in the wicked accuses. When men go against its light they feel the worm of conscience. Eheu! quis intus scorpio? [Alas! What scorpion lurks within?] Seneca.”-pages 43-44

“6] That there is a God, appears by his unlimited power and sovereignty. He who can work, and none can hinder, is the true God; but God can do so. Isa 43:13. ‘I will work, and who shall let it?' Nothing can hinder action but some superior power; but there is no power above God: all power that is, is by him, therefore all power is under him; he has a ‘mighty arm.' Psa 89:13. He sees the designs men drive at against him, and plucks off their chariot wheels; he makes the diviners mad. Isa 44:45. He cutteth off the spirit of princes; he bridleth the sea, gives check to the leviathan, binds the devil in chains; he acts according to his pleasure, he doth what he will. ‘I will work, and who shall let it?'”-page 44

The omniscience and omnipotence of God-of an eternal being allowing a Universe to be and become has innumerable parameters and/or models, potential configurations and relationships to contingent, sen tient life within. I described a little of that a comment about Brian Josephson/G.W.F. Hegel Evolution of Spirit misc. (below). Much of contemporary discussion might use computer algorithms as formalisms and models for designing artificial intelligence. Kurt Godel's works about abstract sets comprising incompleteness (one cannot create an accurate finite description of the unbound infinite) exemplify the problems that not only computer programmers have searching for a way to make lines of computer code become a living mind as smart as they are perhaps, or able to understand the aesthetic difference between light and darkness, but physicists have in constructing a complete account metaphysics of the phenomenal Universe.

Recently I watched a video of the physicist Roger Penrose named :The Emperor's New Mind, Quantum Mind, Quantum Consciousness, The Laws of Physics” at Youtube. In the video he relates the reasons why he thinks a computer cannot be given an actual mind with lines of programmatic logic. Essentially he thinks that the cytoskeleton, or the infrastructure that make up the brain neurons and synapses functions at the quantum level (with all of the issues of quantum super-positioning, quantum uncertainty and so forth) and thus cannot be modeled in programmatic logic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVq39QbFQXE

Of course it might be possible to design an automatic operating quantum computer one day with its own brand of artificial intelligence with real-world integration able to randomly reconfigure material reality according to its own inscrutable will without any sort of moral reservations-yet I think that wouldn't be a very good idea. That would be something like designing a robotic arsonist with its own will to set as a security guard in a fireworks factory. At any rate it would take quite a long time for the clever writers of computer code and physical designers of quantum computers to evolve that sort of technology... a century or two at least. So it isn't much of a clear and present danger.

Brian Josephson/G.W.F. Hegel Evolution of Spirit misc.

Recently I encountered a philosophical and cosmological worldview of Brian Josephson-I believe the eponymous inventor of Josephson junctions (for quantum tunneling)- a Nobel laureate, that resembles G.W.F. Hegel's idea about God realizing himself in history (described in The Phenomenology of Mind). The idea transcends the boundaries of naive evolution vs. creationism quite a bit. Josephson believes that quantum mechanics can evolve its own complexity inclusive of mind, yet his theory stipulates an initial observer starting the development or evolution of a system of evolving quanta that becomes sentient biologically. I want to expand the parameters of the Josephson theoria to extrapolate and explain theological implications.

The physics and what is known of biological systems of aggregating change and increasing complexity and complex structures appear to support Josephson's thesis that is comparable to a neo-Hegelian evolution of spirit realizing itself in history. Josephson's theory obviates the need for the extra dimensions of M and String theories. In those theories there is a vast number(10 to the 500th power?) of ways of putting dimensions together to form a Universe such as this and hence equally as many mathematical forms to describe it. Finding the right formula and dimensional model to account for the nature of this Universe would be rather challenging. Instead of a virtually infinite number of dimensions that with randomness or perhaps logical permutation experiment (an anthropomorphism) with the generation of a Universe capable of supporting life-an approach often used by atheists to negate the anthropic principle/Goldilocks 'just rightness' physical constants of this Universe such that it supports life, and observer initiates or primes the initial quanta to be and become.

Such an observer could be hypothesized to have evolved for-himself in some way before the Universe existed, although Christians stipulate that God existed from eternity rather than having a beginning. One might consider that the 'ancient of days' did not simply evolve mind as the first created Person and become God to all subsequent Universes. In a way that is incomprehensible to the human mind, God always was. God was and is prior to the existence of the first virtual particle, erg of energy or dimension of possible space-time. In any event once God was, and as God was, with omnipotence and omnipotence all potential creations, Universes and evolutions were with God and for-God.

At any rate though, since God existed He would be able to jump-start any number of possible Universes though they could be designed to evolve like a growing, branching tree. Because God is a sentient mind who may evolve sentient minds in contingent Universes it is likely that as an omniscient mind he foreknows all contingent minds that exist or would exist in any possible Universe. God's being transcends and encompasses all temporal space-time and contingent sentient beings within a given universe.

Though this is a scholastic sort of theological speculation rather than scriptural it is useful to show that evolution theory is not incompatible with God creating the Universe, with physical determinism nor with God continuing a sustaining role knowing the content of all sentient thought within a physically evolving Universe. Alpha through Omega.