How do you define God?

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Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on January 28, 2010 at 11:22pm

Scribe,

He is Transcendent to His creation.

1.superior in everythig to creation.

2.Exceeding the limits of experience, yet knowable and not just hypothetical as the philosopher Kant would suggest.

3.above, inside and outside all known categories.

4.existing outside the material universe and so not limited by it, yet sustaing the same.

:) dv

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Permalink Reply by Thomas L J Faulkner on February 11, 2010 at 2:25am

If there's anything I've learned, it's that God is subtle, and the one obvious direction He gave is the greatest controvery in history: the Messiah. Yet, rather than showing us something that points directly to Him, He reveals clues, and even they can seem obscure. Apparently, it can be interpreted that Jesus fulfilled all of Messianic prophecy, or that He didn't fulfill a single one. Indeed, there are some prophecies that are anything but direct. It's not because God is trying to be deceptive--God wants us to seek Him with all our being, right? So, He's left subtlties for us to realize and figure for ourselves. So, yes, I suppose I define God as subtle.

I also define God as the Ultimate Horticulturist. I'm taking such a class, so, maybe I'm biased, but, there is such an emphasis on plants in the Bible--the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life, and Jesus Himself used plants of some form in His parables, especially when teaching about the Kingdom of God.

God is gracious for creating us, for giving us His Word to know Him, and for giving us His Son for our salvation. God is loving in that He gives us the choice to obey Him or reject Him. God is just in rewarding those who obey and punishing those who rebel. God is omnipotent. How do I define "omnipotence?" God can't do everything--He can't compromise His gracious, loving, and righteous Character, yet that is my definition of "omnipotence"--He can do anything according to His will. God is omniscient, because God is eternal, and He has seen all that was, is, and will be.

Yet, God does indeed transcend our understanding. What we "know" of Him is just a scratch on a dent. I await the day when we will comprehend His full glory, if indeed we will even then.

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Permalink Reply by ScribeD on July 15, 2010 at 7:06pm

Thomas, I had missed this contribution. Thank you: you understood what I meant and took the tach of your personal experience. Kudos for the interesting narrative.

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Permalink Reply by ScribeD on July 16, 2010 at 7:04pm

Jeremaih, I would say you are half right:

Everything that one need to know about is in the bible. Seek and you shall find.

Not to undermine what you have said, but it is only part of the equation. One thing that I know God has been showing me for a long time is that it is when we apply the truth, that is when we do what Jesus has commanded, that we discover the fullness of life.

Simply reading the truth and having a factual memory of that information is not the same as knowing our savior. Truly, living the Christian life is when we take the most impossible thing that Jesus has said and do it by faith in Him; then the Spirit empowers that truth and it becomes more than words - it becomes the living and flowing spirit of God within us and then we know Him.

This is where most of us stop, as we wander this journey of "Christianity": we get lost in the desert and never take hold of the promised land - because we only see the giants and not the God who delivers us from all our troubles.

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Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on July 16, 2010 at 12:01pm

This short article goes well in this discussion.

10/1/2007
by Kenneth Samples

If God Created All Things, Then Who Created God?

This question is posed by small children, by college students, and by leaders of atheist societies. It is essentially an interrogative about the nature of causality. To answer this common query effectively requires both a philosophical and a theological response.

Philosophical Answer
Some atheists argue that if the universe needs a cause (namely God), then why doesn't God need a cause? And if not everything needs a cause, then maybe the universe is one of those things that doesn't need a cause. This reasoning is an attempt to sidestep the basic cosmological argument (see sidebar) that has been around for centuries (at least since Aristotle, 384-322 BC).

Here are two forms of the cosmological argument.

Kalam Cosmological Argument:

Whatever begins to exist has a cause for its coming into being.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause for its coming into being.

Contingency Cosmological Argument:

All contingent realities depend for their existence upon a non-contingent or necessary reality.
The universe is a contingent reality.
Therefore, the universe depends for its existence on a non-contingent or necessary reality.

Christian theists, however, don’t argue that everything needs a cause. Rather, they argue that anything that begins must have a cause. The argument involves a distinction between a contingent reality and a necessary reality. A contingent reality is something that is caused (begins), is dependent (an effect), and lacks an explanation in itself (unexplained). A contingent reality could either exist or not exist, but it certainly could not bring itself into existence from nothing.

A necessary reality, on the other hand, is uncaused, independent, and self-explanatory. A necessary reality cannot not exist (or must exist). So how does this distinction help in answering the question about God and causality?

Consider the universe. Big bang cosmology provides powerful evidence that the universe is contingent. According to the prevailing scientific view of cosmology, the space-time-matter-energy universe had a distinct and singular beginning about 14 billion years ago. The universe, therefore, appears to be an effect and, thus, is seemingly dependent upon something outside of and beyond itself (a transcendent causal agent).

Remember, a contingent reality by definition cannot bring itself into existence. But since the universe came into existence (had a singular beginning), then some other reality must have caused or created it from nonexistence.

Also, a contingent reality cannot be explained by appealing to another contingent reality. For example, it isn’t coherent to argue that the universe was created by God, but God was in turn created by God to the second power, who was in turn created by God to the third power, and so on. As Aristotle cogently argued, there must be a reality that causes but is itself uncaused (or, a being that moves but is itself unmoved). Why? Because if there is an infinite regression of causes, then by definition the whole process could never begin. And nothing is explained. Many Christian thinkers view Aristotle's reasoning on this point as probative.

In summary, then, the universe appears to be a contingent entity and, therefore, cannot stand on its own without a causal explanation. For many Christian scholars through the centuries, the contingent universe (a creation) requires a necessary reality (an eternally existent Creator) that by definition needs no causal explanation.

Theological Answer
A theological understanding of God's nature can help address the question as well. According to the Bible, God is self-existent. Theologians refer to this trait as God’s attribute of aseity. God does not need, nor does he depend upon, anything outside himself (such as the creation) for his continued existence. Unlike all creatures, the source of God's eternal or everlasting existence is found within himself (self-sufficiency). As the only uncreated and uncaused being, everything else (the entire created order) depends upon his creative and sustaining power. This absolute independence places God in a different category of being than that of man.

The Creator is qualitatively different than the creature and is a necessary being (God must exist or cannot not exist). Theologian J. I. Packer contrasts God's existence with that of man: "He [God] exists in a different way from us: we, his creatures, exist in a dependent, derived, finite, fragile way, but our Maker exists in an eternal, self-sustaining, necessary way."1

Scripture reveals God's attribute of self-existence or aseity (Isaiah 40:13-14; John 5:26; Romans 11:34-35). As the Apostle Paul proclaimed in his speech before the Greek philosophers: "And he [God] is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else" (Acts 17:25).

Therefore the God of the Bible reveals himself to be an eternal and self-sufficient being without beginning or end.2 God is the logically necessary being that explains why all the contingent realities of the universe have actual existence.

Perhaps the Who created God? question can be condensed to this answer: nobody did because nobody could.

References
J. I. Packer, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1993), 26.
For more on the Christian view of God, see Kenneth Richard Samples, A World of Difference: Putting Christian Truth-Claims to the Worldview Test (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007).

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Permalink Reply by ScribeD on July 20, 2010 at 8:46pm

David, I have had this discussion with the atheists and you have provided a very succinct review of the arguments - thanks.

The Atheist must run or obfuscate the basic Cosmological argument and usually come back with the "who created God" question as a way of obfuscating the argument. Rarely will they ever face the implications of this challenge - but many Christians don't face it either.

I kind of look at the Cosmological Argument vs. the Infinite Contingency Thesis this way: To me I don't ever have to define "God" from a point of origin - simply because the Bible tells us that he is outside the universe, or transcendent to the universe. That means he is not subject to any known laws or rules of what I may consider logical.

So, if I look at the universe as a giant box - filled with all of the laws and limitations of science; and I know that God is outside of that box - then I know he is not subject to the obvious laws and limitations. He is superior to them.

So, since I cannot even understand or comprehend anything beyond that box and it's laws and limitations, then I am unable to fully understand anything which is not subject to those limitations.

In other words, my mind is unable to comprehend that anything could come from outside the box, and therefore I cannot understand how many ways it would be different or greater than the laws of limitations that I know.

So, God could have one attribute greater than the limitations of my box and he instantaneously has a factor of infinite superiority. That fact, of God being beyond my known universe, does in fact make him superior to the universe in every way - since he demonstrates that He is greater than the known and knowable universe.

The unknowable and infinite factor of God's nature is what makes God amazing, mysterious and also frustrating; since He defies my understanding. My finite mind wants to know and yet never fully can know what is beyond my own limitations.

Now, where we make the mistake in the modern world is this: we assume that since we have understanding of the physical world that is far superior what people knew as recently as just 400 years ago, that somehow we have an ability to comprehend or explain away what the Bible writers taught and understood.

But nothing could be further from the truth. For most people, all of this is theoretical and therefore insignificant. It's not until you have experienced God's miraculous intervention in your life that you can begin to grasp this idea of God transcending the universe and it's laws.

This is why I am on this continuous effort to remind people to follow what Jesus commanded. Because Jesus taught an experience, not theory. He led people to walk in a process of an amazingly powerful life-altering belief system that contradicts almost every point of human-based understanding.

In other words, Jesus calls us to defy the laws of the world that we all think we know for certain.

Here are a few ways Jesus asks us to defy conventional wisdom, to believe that:
1) Mercy triumphs over judgment
2) the Just shall live by faith
3) The greatest are those who serve the lowest
4) we overcome the world, by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony

From a purely human point of view - none of those ideas makes a bit of sense. Right? Because everyone knows that judgment crushes mercy, faith loses to the self-righteous, great people defeat the little guy and only suckers think they can defeat the world by believing in and talking about a dead guy.

But, in God's view - human wisdom is hopelessly flawed and broken.

Our problem as believers today is that we only believe half the message. We have become so "smart" that we have lost the wisdom and power of God. We have missed that to know God, to define God is to experience Him by trusting his Word and following Jesus the way he originally called the first believers.

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Permalink Reply by Leonard T on July 20, 2010 at 8:52pm

Hey Scribe,

Good word.

As A.W. Tozer put it, many have lost the awe of God. (Not an exact quote, but in essencethe same)

Lord Bless,
LT

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Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on July 20, 2010 at 9:45pm

Exactly Scribe-

The thing about defining God to a blind world is that God must be experienced and not simply intellectually grasp. We are not capable to fully understand him even once we been enlighten, much less before that.

Even Christians have adopted the saying "that God does not break the laws He has placed". But He is above the laws He has set for His creation. “Nothing” cannot resist our God, He speaks it, law or no law and the effectual command becomes a thing of the past. Our God is the source of all. He TRANSCENDS HIS CREATION AND HE IS NOT SUBJEBTED TO IT, AS WE ARE.

>>In other words, Jesus calls us to defy the laws of the world that we all think we know for certain.

I love that statement Right on! But that is what makes it so hard. We have lived a life serving "Self" and "life" and when we are in Christ we are given a whole new way of life. A life style often in collision with a lot of what we have learned. It is better to give than to receive our Lord tells us. What? But I love receiving and it's all about me, I am number one etc. To be the greatest you must serve. What? But I am successful when I have others serving me I thought and the list of truths that go against the philosophies of the world go on and on.

Beautiful reminder bro.

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