is the Christian concept of the One from a philosophical point of view true?

[Janoah]

So a man could never become HaShem. Fair enough. But could HaShem become a Man?

the One - is not changed, c'est la vie. He can't turn into either a frog or a princess.
And in general, the One cannot do anything, because He is only actual and not potential.

I come from an absolutely non-religious family, but it was a matter of course for me that to deify the material, this is wild rudeness.
But those who enjoy it, come up with schemes for themselves to deify the carnal.

[Janoah]

"Materiality" isn't inherently a bad thing; and what would one expect in the case of the "Incarnation," if one even understands the theological claim behind it?

God is the First Cause, and the First Cause is not material and immutable.

That's only one theory among many which seem more mutable.

Suggest your sane theory!

[Dubious]

God is the First Cause, and the First Cause is not material and immutable.

That's only one theory among many which seem more mutable.

Suggest your sane theory!

Consider the scientific models which are much more up to date than your ancient Aristotelian or biblical ones both of which amount to nothing and explain nothing.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Consider the scientific models which are much more up to date than your ancient Aristotelian or biblical ones both of which amount to nothing and explain nothing.

Those science-based models are now unraveling. (If the talks by physicists I watch on YouTube are reliable). Not so much unraveling but “reality” is even weirder that their own model.

We have no idea what *it* is nor what we are.

The former (religious) models do not coincide with actuality (what is) and yet they do explain a great deal. But you would say those explanations are made up and imposed.

It’s the science-models that offer no meta-explanation content except to undermine the former explanatory models.

How do the present models (science models) help you in your organization of a sense of *the world*? I do mean *cosmos* of course.

I am amazed by what is revealed (by that new telescope) but nothing seems explained through what is seen. Or is it that all explanation hits a brick wall? And is that its value?

[Immanuel Can]

So a man could never become HaShem. Fair enough. But could HaShem become a Man?

the One - is not changed, c'est la vie. He can't turn into either a frog or a princess.

He doesn't, because those are not in the nature of how HaShem wishes to reveal Himself, being incompatible with that. But Torah says there is not such an inconsistency between God and various male figures, such as "shepherd," "king," and "father." So if we believe Torah...

[Dubious]

Consider the scientific models which are much more up to date than your ancient Aristotelian or biblical ones both of which amount to nothing and explain nothing.

Those science-based models are now unraveling. (If the talks by physicists I watch on YouTube are reliable). Not so much unraveling but “reality” is even weirder that their own model.

Yes! And so! Physicists acknowledge that and the attempt to understand it is ongoing. It's not as if it's all "unraveling". What is the domain referred to? Is it in the "classical" domain of physics in which case it's all perfectly understood or the quantum level where mysteries and abstractions abound but still at a "surface" level understood well enough otherwise modern technology would be impossible. The effort to understand reality remains in spite of never being completely understood no matter how far the advancement.

The former (religious) models do not coincide with actuality (what is) and yet they do explain a great deal. But you would say those explanations are made up and imposed.

Yes, they explain ancient psychology. What else do they explain? Easy enough to say they explain a great deal without offering a single iota of data as to what that could be.

It’s the science-models that offer no meta-explanation content except to undermine the former explanatory models.

This is one of the most common types of ignorance and stupidity which always prevails among theists and half theists! Meta explanations are strictly outside the domain of science models and of zero concern. They don't factor in at any level. It can however be discussed philosophically as can anything under the sun. Models replace models without attempting to "undermine" anything; it's the wrong word to use having the connotation of "intentionality". In short, science models don't deny or confirm anything except its own theories.

Why does this perennially remain such a mystery to those of your ilk?

How do the present models (science models) help you in your organization of a sense of *the world*? I do mean *cosmos* of course.

By allowing my perceptions to yield and incorporate that which lies wholly beyond to merge into my sense and locus in the world. I don't require it to become in any way personal as you and others here seemingly do.

I am amazed by what is revealed (by that new telescope) but nothing seems explained through what is seen. Or is it that all explanation hits a brick wall? And is that its value?

It depends on what kind of explanation you're willing to accept. Much can be explained through physics. But besides acknowledgement of its near incomprehensible grandeur, my relation to it in terms of value is simply an all encompassing I am because IT IS among all that was or ever will be.

Does anyone need a higher metaphysic than that because I can't think of one!

[Janoah]

But Torah says there is not such an inconsistency between God and various male figures, such as "shepherd," "king," and "father." So if we believe Torah...

in this topic, the argument is not blind faith in what someone said, but the argument is scientific evidence, not so important by whom proven.

Much of the Torah cannot be taken literally. The ability to understand literally is determined by the scientific evidence that it literally could be.
The Torah is important in upbringing the people, but a person, a people, is brought up by fables, parables, legends, more than with a history textbook.

[Immanuel Can]

But Torah says there is not such an inconsistency between God and various male figures, such as "shepherd," "king," and "father." So if we believe Torah...

in this topic, the argument is not blind faith in what someone said,

Someone? You mean you think the Author of Torah is just "someone"? That's a thing I would certainly think twice before saying...

Much of the Torah cannot be taken literally. The ability to understand literally is determined by the scientific evidence that it literally could be.

"Determined by the scientific evidence that it literally could be"? I don't understand your phrasing here.

The Torah is important in upbringing the people, but a person, a people, is brought up by fables, parables, legends, more than with a history textbook.

Torah isn't merely a "history textbook," it's true. It's actually a sort of library, especially when you consider the whole Tanakh. But the history it affirms is history, of course. Among other things, it's also poetry, prophecy, law, ethics, and a guide to knowing HaShem. But every Torah scholar knows that.

It's not "science" that determines Torah, because science and Torah are not at war. In fact, one could easily make the case that science itself depended for its origin on Torah, since it's Torah (and not polytheism or Atheism) that taught people that the universe is the product of the work of a law-giver God, so that law-like principles can be expected within it. And without that expectation, Baconian science would never have even gotten started (as a devout Christian, Bacon himself was strongly influenced by Torah).

When God says, "Thou shalt not commit murder," that's not a principle about which science has anything to say. Science can tell you how to cause or prevent death; it can't tell you whether you're right or wrong to do so in a given case. When Torah records that God divided the Red Sea, that's not something science can contradict, for two other reasons: firstly, that it's in the past, so not amenable to testing by way of science, and secondly, because the claimed event is a miraculous intervention by God Himself -- and science does not tell us whether or not the Supreme Being can intervene in scientific regularities. But it would be very strange to call Him the "Supreme Being" if your claim was that he couldn't.

So what is the level of your respect for Torah? You're Jewish, no? Do you really think Torah is just a collection of cultural fables?

[puto]

Nihilism is not a philosophical point of view, nor is the science. (P1) If [H & A1) & … An], then P. (P2) P is true. (⸪) [(H & A1) & … An] are true. Assumed to be true in the context of a test hypothesis. (1) Observations are normal. (2) Theoretical auxiliaries assume truth of background theories. The Process: A best-guess explanation for some phenomenon. This is debatable (1) Purpose. (2) Value. Work Cited Boss, Judith. “Study of Ethics,” Ethics for Life, McGraw Hill 2001. Freeland, Jeff PHD, “Limitations of Science,” Logical Arguments, 2005 CE.

[Janoah]

You mean you think the Author of Torah is just "someone"? That's a thing I would certainly think twice before saying...

Yes, the Torah is sacred, therefore it is important not to discredit it, God forbid, with a stupid understanding. After all, it is known that Hell is paved with good intentions.

In philosophy, the concept of matter and Form stands out, the unchanging non-material Form is the One. Matter is subject to Form, just as matter is subject to the laws of nature. I like that Francis Bacon in this context defines Form as the laws of nature. That is, the Regularity of nature is the One, unchanging and non-material.

I am a Jew, and it is important for me that the Torah does not bring up idolatry, but turns away from it. If a person, for example, reads about the "finger of God", and decides that God literally has a "finger", then, in fact, this is the deification of the material, that is, idolatry.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Torah isn't merely a "history textbook," it's true. It's actually a sort of library, especially when you consider the whole Tanakh. But the history it affirms is history, of course. Among other things, it's also poetry, prophecy, law, ethics, and a guide to knowing HaShem. But every Torah scholar knows that.

There is another aspect about what Torah, Tanach and Talmud are which one would also have to mention in order to arrive at clarity.

I grant that it is a hard fact to face, but that fact is that Torah, Tanach and Talmud also contain a record of a massive, and very harmful, manipulation of an entire people, perpetrated over centuries and millennia, carried out through transparent guilt-slinging and threats on the part of this *Voice* that is said to be the Universe's true voice, that Jews are distinct, special, must never mix with other people, and must hold other people to be lesser forms of human beings, and their religious forms and ideas contemptible.

If you think about it this has always operated extremely badly for Jewry and yet it is *HaShem* himself who threatens dire consequences for *infidelity* to the core identification. Even to be a Jew and to identify with one's being in this sense always involves accepting the underlying commitment. To stop identifying oneself in this way, and affirming that this is one's destiny, is to stop being a Jew.

In a sense Jewish identity is a trap. However, most Jews are sort-of Jews in the sense that they live outside of Orthodoxy in a strange liminal identification-land.

It has certainly seemed true in Immanuel Can's case that he believes that this imago of God really does *say* such things whereas it is more sensible to recognize a Priest-class that ventriloquizes through this rather forbidding figure.

Immanuel often seems to out-Jew the Jew if I can mischievously amend Hamlet. But this is a strange characteristic of English and American Evangelical doctrine.

Bless the Jew and God the ur-Jew will certainly bless you . . . but to those who do not . . . you'd better run.

[Immanuel Can]

You mean you think the Author of Torah is just "someone"? That's a thing I would certainly think twice before saying...

Yes, the Torah is sacred,

Good. We agree.

But then, if God has spoken, who dares say, "He's spoken amiss"?

That is, the Regularity of nature is the One, unchanging and non-material.

That's clearly not the case. Torah itself denies that, in the very first chapter of Genesis. Nature is a contingent and created thing, made out of the tohu va bohu {תהו ובהו} of the infinite, by HaShem.

I am a Jew, and it is important for me that the Torah does not bring up idolatry, but turns away from it.

I am a Christian, and I think the same.

If a person, for example, reads about the "finger of God", and decides that God literally has a "finger", then, in fact, this is the deification of the material, that is, idolatry.

Actually, it's not. It's just a metaphor. And HaShem himself uses such expressions: "For My hand made all these things, So all these things came into being,” declares the Lord. “But I will look to this one, At one who is humble and contrite in spirit, and who trembles at My word." (so says the prophet Isaiah, in 66:2)

Now, we won't accuse HaShem of encouraging idolatry, will we? But we don't have to. For the fact of the case is the opposite of what you suppose: God doesn't have a "hand" because men do; men have hands because God gave them such, in pale testament to His far greater power, but in veiled likeness of that, too. And while man's hands are physical, God's are immaterial and vastly more powerful: but what man's hands and God's "hands" have in common is only this -- that "hand" is a metaphor for the deliberate application of power.

When we speak of a pair of shoes, perhaps we say these are "handmade." What do we mean? Do we mean that no tools were used? Do we mean that the shoemaker's arms and knees and eyes and mind were not invovled in the making? Of course not. All we mean is that they were not manufactured artificially, but by the deliberate crafting of one skilled in shoemaking, who gave attention to each detal and stands behind his work.

We mean the same when we (or Isaiah) say, "God's hand made all things." We don't mean we are anthropomorphizing God. We mean that the things that were made by his own skill and deliberate attention, and through the application of His power. That's all.

[Immanuel Can]

Torah isn't merely a "history textbook," it's true. It's actually a sort of library, especially when you consider the whole Tanakh. But the history it affirms is history, of course. Among other things, it's also poetry, prophecy, law, ethics, and a guide to knowing HaShem. But every Torah scholar knows that.

There is another aspect about what Torah, Tanach and Talmud are which one would also have to mention in order to arrive at clarity.

Talmud is a rabbinic commentary, the Tanakh is Scripture. Any Jewish person knows that.

Even to be a Jew and to identify with one's being in this sense always involves accepting the underlying commitment. To stop identifying oneself in this way, and affirming that this is one's destiny, is to stop being a Jew.

The Nazis didn't think that. They thought being a Jew was permanent, regardless of what one "affirmed." And one can no more "stop" being a Jew than one can "stop" being a man or woman.

Immanuel often seems to out-Jew the Jew

I'm thoroughly flattered. That's one of the nicest things you've said to me.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Talmud is a rabbinic commentary, the Tanakh is Scripture. Any Jewish person knows that.

And what is your point? Talmud, for Orthodox observant Jewish religious culture, supersedes isolated study of those texts that you (as a Christian) read. I don’t think you could even remotely approach Orthodox Jewish belief. It is a cipher for you.

And you are actually quite wrong: most Jewish persons are highly ignorant about the actual content and material the Haredi religiously study. All of it is often quite a mystery. That’s because most Jews are post-Jews in the most significant senses.

The Nazis didn't think that. They thought being a Jew was permanent, regardless of what one "affirmed." And one can no more "stop" being a Jew than one can "stop" being a man or woman.

And unless I am very very mistaken they were not merely wrong but extremely wrong. Or is “being Jewish” for you an issue of genetics? Is what the Nazis believed or did not believe your yardstick of measurement?

I'm thoroughly flattered. That's one of the nicest things you've said to me.

Yes, because you have a very strong sycophantic tendency.

It is not so much that I judge you nor that I hold it against you, but only that I think your actual affiliations can be brought out into the light for examination. Evangelical Protestantism sometimes seems to desire to re-emerge with Judaism.

[Immanuel Can]

...is “being Jewish” for you an issue of genetics?

It was for the Nazis. And it is according to Judaism. Why it's not for you, I guess you'll have to say. As for "me," what have I got to do with it? Nobody's asking me who's a Jew and who's not: I'm just pointing out that it's one of the few areas where there seems to be general agreement among total enemies.

Evangelical Protestantism sometimes seems to desire to re-emerge with Judaism.

Well, wait and see what happens.