The Physical Nature of God Chapter 4 “Those who make religion their god will not have God for their religion” Thomas Eskine of Linlathen
If we have accepted the Judeo-Christian scriptures as the place to find the nature of God, then we can now ask, what is God like? We will now have a place to seek the answers.
The essence of the opening quote for this chapter is that most of us want a god that conforms to our conceptions of him and our desires for what his (or her) nature should be. If, for instance, we believed that homosexuality or abortion were not a sin, then we would imagine a god whose nature would be accepting
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If we can determine God’s nature, His essence, His predilections, attitudes, etc…, then we have nothing to fear from our level of morality as we have determined God’s reactions to our actions. It is like having our cake and eating it too – we can believe in God and still live as we desire to live.
People often refer to their conception of God as an essence, or that he is part of the universe, or throughout the universe. To hear the common descriptions for God one would think that God is the unexplained ‘dark matter’ in the universe. Dark matter is believed by scientists to be distributed throughout the universe, but no one can exactly identify its substance. If God is indeed “throughout the universe”, could this mysterious substance be the essence of God?
In searching for the truth we have to ask why such a god would make us like we are, when we are said to be made in His image (Genesis 1:26), instead of forming us into dark matter. If you did not believe the vision of Joseph Smith Jr. (founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), seeing God the father and Jesus Christ, His Son, together in the flesh (History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Chapter 1: “I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air”) you would still need to ask why God would give us bodies when He is some sort of inert
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He was resurrected with His flesh and bone. Why would the Father have less or be less than the Son? We have been given the promise of a resurrection (John 5:28-29 “For the hour is coming in the which all that are in the grave shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation” (See also Ezekiel 37:1-14 – God shows Ezekiel a valley of bones and allows him the opportunity to command the bones to form sinew and flesh and to bring the breath of life into the resurrected bodies. This is a representation of how God provides us an opportunity to create under His direction which we will look at in a later chapter). If a body is so important for us and for Jesus Christ, why would God the Father deny Himself what He finds important for us? If we are made in His image, how could we think He is less than we are? In Philippians 3:21 it says that Jesus Christ “shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body”. His resurrected body is incorruptible and
"Did God decide what goodness is? If so, then "good" is more or less the arbitrary decision of a frightening being to which we cannot relate, and that being could just as easily have made murder and stealing the ultimate moral actions without any contradictions. On the other hand, if God did not decide what goodness is, he cannot truly be omnipo...
There is evil. 3. So, God does not exist”. Since there is evil, then that means God does not exist. So there is no loving and powerful God. However, if there is a God then he is not all loving and powerful. Daniel Howard-Snyder states in his article “God, Evil, And Suffering,”: “We would have to say God lacks power and knowledge to such an extent that He can 't prevent evil. And there lies the trouble. For how could God have enough power and knowledge to create and sustain the physical universe if He can 't even prevent evil? How could He be the providential governor of the world if He is unable to do what even we frequently do, namely prevent evil?” (5). This statement argues that God is not all powerful because he is unable to prevent evil in the world. Daniel Howard-Snyder then argues that: “Would a perfectly good being always prevent evil as far as he can? Suppose he had a reason to permit evil, a reason that was compatible with his never doing wrong and his being perfect in love, what I 'll call a justifying reason. For example, suppose that if he prevented evil completely, then we would miss out on a greater good, a good whose goodness was so great that it far surpassed the badness of evil. In that case, he might not prevent evil as far as he can, for he would have a justifying reason to permit it” (5). Even if God had a reason to allow evil, he who is all loving and powerful would want the least amount of people to suffer and feel pain. Since God knows
If nothing greater than God can be conceived in anyone’s understanding, God is said to be humanly perfect. Since to be perfect, in part, is to exist; something that does not exist cannot be perf...
God is like a father and we, humanity are his children. He teaches us, prepares us, disciplines us, and punishes us for not obeying and following His commands. The attributes of God that belong distinctly to him are that
"And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth."(New Revised Standard Version, John 1:14) As the only son of God in the Christian theology, Jesus Christ was tasked with a multitude of trials, and horrors the common man would have rebuked and refused to undertake. However, as a demi-god born of the divine Christian deity and the mortal, virgin Mary, Jesus was not the average mortal man.
A wonderful description of the nature of God’s existence that includes the absolute possession of characteristics that have to be uniquely God was said, “First, God must exist necessarily, which means that God’s existence differs from ours by not being dependent on anything or anyone else, or such as to be taken from him or lost in any way. God has always existed, will always exist and could not do otherwise than to exist. Also, whatever attributes God possesses, he possesses necessarily” (Wood, J., 2010, p. 191).
If God exists and is all-knowing, then there is no evil that God does not know about. If God exists and is morally perfect, then there is no evil that God would permit that He cannot prevent.
The concept of the Deity of Christ is one of great complexity. Numerous students, scholars, theologians and philosophers have studied Christ and His attributes. One of the most asked questions and sought after answers has been thoroughly dissected and examined to be able to even begin comprehending such a mystery. Millions ask: “How can Jesus Christ, the Son of God be one-hundred percent man, and one-hundred percent God at the same time? Also, how is it even possible that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, can also be God Himself?”
God To truly understand the characteristics of God, we need to first look at the first four commandments of the ten commandments, which can be found in Exodus 20. The first four commandments, is
Taylor then describes God as soft, gentle, feminine and has an eye for beautiful things and great designs. Taylor imagines that God is both male and female, and that he or she resides in all human endeavors and not only found in heaven, but in all objects of nature and of human construction. This evidence shows of a twofold consciousness. Taylor sees God through the interplay of the masculine and the feminine, the sacred and the profane, the temporal and the eternal, and the conscious and the unconscious
God provides us with everything we need; we see this in Genesis where he provided Adam everything he needed. Jesus became a man by reincarnation a verse to support this is John 1:14 “The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory. The glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The concept of God can be a difficult one to grasp especially in today's world - a world in which anyone that believes in God is trying to define exactly what God is. To even attempt to grasp such a concept, one must first recognize his own beliefs in respect to the following questions: Is God our creator? Is God omnipotent (all-powerful) or omniscient (all-knowing) or both? Does God care? Is God with us? Does God interfere with life on earth? These questions should be asked and carefully answered if one should truly wish to identify his specific beliefs in God's existence and persistence.
In the book One the Incarnation by Saint Athanasius it talks about why Jesus became human for our salvation. Jesus had no reason not to enter into the world as a human, because “it was right that they should be thus attributed to his as man, in order to show that his body was a real one and not merely an appearance” (Athanasius 15). Showing that it was important for Jesus to be a human and spread his knowledge among us; to help us learn and be able to teach other through oral and written tradition. It was now necessary for Jesus to come for our salvation because “had he surrendered his body to death and then raised it at once…which showed him to be not only a man, but also a God the word” (Athanasius 14). This connects back to by why Jesus wants humans to believe that he died a human death.
One may ask what exactly does it mean to be made in God’s image. For someone not familiar with the Christian religion may find this as confusing. Living in God’s image does not exactly mean living as if you are God, which would blasphemy, but instead use our attributes that God has given us that are similar to His own. Christians are aware that God’s image is holy, merciful, benevolent, just, independent, and also rational since he has the ability to reason. Thus since humans were created in God’s image, we all encompass these characteristics.
The nature of God differs in every religion. Some religions have one, many, or even no God that they worship. However, no matter who or what they worship, there is always a spiritual aspect to their belief system. These spirits play a key role in influencing their actions in their everyday life.