Musings on the Nature of God and the Universe

[Mopsus]

This is the fist time that I've attempted this sort of thing, and it might be better suited for Political Essays & Deliberation (as if I would voluntarily submit something to that graveyard...). Nevertheless, h-here I go...!:

     Imagine a table. What does it look like? I want you to be thorough here. What shape is the body? How long are the legs? What kind of wood is it made of? What color is the wood? Is it made out of wood at all? What does does it feel like? Smooth or knotty? And where is this table located? In a restaurant? In someone's house? Perhaps in the vacuum of space...?
     
If you're someone who happens to be gifted with above-average imaginative faculties, the argument might be made that the table that you just imagined exists in a subjective, personal sense. After all, the table is "real" to you, is it not? However, most of us can agree that the table does not exist in the objective sense. I cannot see or interact with your table, just as you cannot see or interact with mine (that is, unless you describe your table to me, in which case my mental picture might still be different from yours). Such are the limitations of life in the material plane.
     
However, God - who does not exist strictly within the physical sphere - is subject to no such limitations. Therefore, God can create a universe of matter, time, energy, and laws in the same way that we can "create" a table in our mind - and he can also people his universe with sentient beings, to whom said universe is perceived as "objective reality". In this way, our universe was both created by the Mind of God and is the Mind of God.
   
 "That's all well and good", you might think, "but it doesn't explain what created God". To which I would reply that God has both always existed and never existed. Let me explain: When we think of something as having a beginning - such as this universe, or God - we are thinking in terms of time. However, we must remember that time is a property of our universe, and thus does not apply to God. The same is true of material existence, which is why I say that God "never existed" - because this universe's notion of "existence" in the material sense does not apply to God.
     
This is the explanation of the origin and nature of God and our universe that seems to me to be the most plausible. In fact, I've even almost convinced myself of its assertions!

Now I'm sure that I'm not the first person to theorize along these lines. Still, I'm interested in hearing what you all have to say about this particular line of reasoning.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I refer you to Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica if you have the patience to wade through his Scholastic philosophy.  If particular in Part I, Question 7 on the infinity of God and Question 10 on the eternity of God seem relevant to your musings, with Article 4 of Question 10, "Whether eternity differs from time?" being particularly apt.

I started to wade thru Summa Theologica a couple months age, but abandoned the attempt because I became convinced I was using an atrocious translation.  I've since come across what seems to be a better one, but have not yet had time to restart my inquiry. (It is doubtful whether it could be a worse translation than what I first consulted, but I am unsure if it is good enough for my purposes.)

[afleitch]

I can theorise a table because I have seen one. If I had never seen one nor had the concept explained to me then I could not theorise it. Your argument also, a priori, assumes the existance of a god that violates the laws of the universe so you need not bother yourself with trying to 'prove' it because you are not relying on that.

However you suggest time is a product of our universe that doesn't apply to god and that god has both 'always existed and never existed'; 'always' and 'never' are in themselves concepts of time and matter and are constrained by it. If you are deciding that certain concepts don't apply to god then you should be honest as to what that implies by extension. For example thought and conscious awareness is the end process of electrochemical stimuli in the brain. The brain is matter. There is no evidence that thought and by extension intent, can exist outside of matter. There is no evidence that matter exists outside of the model of the universe. How can a god that exists outside of the universe 'think' if there is no matter or no energy?

[Mopsus]

afleitch, you might not be able to theorize a table unless you had seen one first, but that is because you have and I have brains of matter, which are subject to limits. God, not having a brain of matter, would have no limits to what he could think or do with his mind. Of course, this demands that you believe that such a thing as a mind without matter is possible at all, which could very well be a bridge too far for some people (and might I point out that it is, in fact, a bridge too far for me).

Another counter-argument involves abandoning the part about God transcending material existence and having God be a material being whose "super-mind" allows him to create a universe out of thought in the way that I postulated. Of course, this just pushes the question of origins one layer back, but speculation on the nature of the universe that this god might inhabit would be entirely baseless, so that point could be safely ignored by whoever subscribes to this theory (besides, I'm only trying to explain the origin of this universe).

This admittedly flawed theory was just my attempt to address the reservations that I have with the self-creating universe that a strict materialist would be required to believe in. It's the only theistic cosmology that I could conceivably subscribe to.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Andrew, while there is no evidence that thought can exist independent of the physical modality we experience, we also have no evidence thought cannot exist outside those constraints.  Frankly, I certainly have every reason to hope it does and not because of any hope of an eternal afterlife.  Rather it is because given what we do understand about the physical universe, if that is all there is, then free will is an illusion.

[John Dibble]

Andrew, while there is no evidence that thought can exist independent of the physical modality we experience, we also have no evidence thought cannot exist outside those constraints.

This is not a good argument - there's also no evidence that gravity isn't actually the result of an infinite number of incorporeal fairies pulling objects towards one another proportional to their mass in an intelligent fashion. I call it my Theory of Intelligent Falling. Of course, nobody seriously argues for this theory, and arguing for it based on the lack of evidence against it would be absurd.

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I wouldn't mind some types of eternal life as well, but unfortunately 'hope' is not a good argument either.

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Free will as an illusion isn't exclusive to a godless one. A creator god could exist external to the universe, and that universe could have been created to still have a predetermined outcome. Even the creator deity itself could still be subject to rules where that being's actions are set in stone. As far as I'm concerned though it doesn't matter much - the human mind is complex to the point that it is unpredictable enough that distinguishing between the illusion of free will and the real thing is thus far impossible, which keeps life interesting.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I suppose it is inevitable, given that this is the age where literally everything must be symbolized or conceptualized in order for it to bear any meaning whatsoever, that this discourse will take place, but here's something to consider: Why are we wasting our time trying to prove, let alone define, God?  Instead of pointing beyond ourselves to an ineffable reality when faced with the God question, why must we insist on living by this ideology that implies that the humanly conceived construct of "God" is the end of the story?  Indeed, who are we to say that God needs x, y, z to "think" or perform other actions that only we as humans are familiar with because we experience them?

Discussions like this are why I lack faith in religious discourse.  Apologists and atheists who argue for their position seldom agree on a sufficient definition of God, yet both are guilty of reducing Him to a mere deva, or a member of the cosmos with a precise function.  This is not only blasphemous and idolatrous, but this practice completely deprives the conversation of meaning.  "Hope" and "faith" are not arguments because they were never meant to be arguments, yet they are essentially all what humans have to connect with that which cannot be dictated or observed.  Things like theism and atheism are only valid propositions when God is considered something that one takes a position on instead of a symbol that we engage with imaginatively and allow to have a profound effect on us.

We simply do not know how God created the universe, whether we are products of imagination or of a giant bearded guy playing with his Lego blocks.  Indeed, there is no evidence one way or the other.  But why does it matter?  We can be almost certain that humans came to be through evolutionary means, and we know there was probably a bang that set everything off, but beyond that it is impossible to fully conceive the ineffable.

I guess that's my rant for the day.  Nothing in this thread hasn't been argued before and I doubt there will be anything groundbreaking in the posts below mine.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Indeed, who are we to say that God needs x, y, z to "think" or perform other actions that only we as humans are familiar with because we experience them?

As an aside, it is my understanding that in Eastern Orthodox theology, they generally refuse to engage in statements of God is, but rather what God cannot be and leaving unresolved which of the possibilities that have not been eliminate is the "truth".

[afleitch]

We simply do not know how God created the universe, whether we are products of imagination or of a giant bearded guy playing with his Lego blocks.  Indeed, there is no evidence one way or the other.  But why does it matter?  We can be almost certain that humans came to be through evolutionary means, and we know there was probably a bang that set everything off, but beyond that it is impossible to fully conceive the ineffable.

Yet as a Christian you do try to conceive what he is. You've determined that there is a god and you've determined that Christianity is the best expression of that (nor given any argument agaist the validity of all other claims) If you want to be as specifically vague and as open as you claim to be about the nature of god, you should be a deist I've never had a problem with people believing in god; it's just when they try to define it that I become skeptical.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

We simply do not know how God created the universe, whether we are products of imagination or of a giant bearded guy playing with his Lego blocks.  Indeed, there is no evidence one way or the other.  But why does it matter?  We can be almost certain that humans came to be through evolutionary means, and we know there was probably a bang that set everything off, but beyond that it is impossible to fully conceive the ineffable.

Yet as a Christian you do try to conceive what he is. You've determined that there is a god and you've determined that Christianity is the best expression of that (nor given any argument agaist the validity of all other claims) If you want to be as specifically vague and as open as you claim to be about the nature of god, you should be a deist I've never had a problem with people believing in god; it's just when they try to define it that I become skeptical.

I'm not trying to be intentionally vague on God, but I acknowledge that the unknowable can never be known in a literal sense.  Religion allows us to connect with God imaginatively and in the way most humanely possible.  I believe (and hope) that God is loving, but that's through my belief in Christ as God's word (and nature) in flesh.  I am merely entertaining what I hope to be true as a theory of what is true, and indeed that is what faith is.  At the end of the day, I fully acknowledge that I might be factually wrong, but I have no qualms for lacking absolute certainty since attaining that is not the role of religion.  If life is just a guessing game and whoever guesses right gets "heaven," then life itself is totally deprived of meaning, and I refuse to embrace any philosophy that deprives life of meaning.  I could be on the totally wrong path as far as orthodoxy is concerned, but all my beliefs have worked for me since I've held them and that's why I continue to.