Philosophy Now Forum

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 2:59 am Nick,

Could you back up for a moment. Am I wrong to assume you are a Deist and as such do not see any personal Gods interacting with humanity. I am the same way and believe our source and the source of consciousness is beyond the limits of time and space and what creates the material contents of consciousness within time and space. The Son in the image of God is within creation serving as an intermediary between the father and Man. That is why the Son and the Cross are the essence of Christianity. What they have provided makes conscious evolution possible. But how is a personal God part Deism unless you believe the Father and the Son are the same?

So if you believe God is concerned with individuals, what is the deist God concept you refer to?

Yeah, let me explain...

Like any vanilla deist, I don't believe God is directly, personally, involved in Reality. I have a couple of reasons why I think this is the case (which we can talk about, if you like).

Unlike the vanilla deist: I don't believe God is disinterested. Man has reason, free will, and conscience. Conscience -- to be dramatic about it -- is God's will or purpose inscribed into our souls. We haven't been abandoned: we've been tasked. As free wills, we each can choose to ignore that task, but that's on us, as individuals, not Him.

So, God works in the world, thru each of us, as each of us agrees to let Him.

It's a peculiar take on deism, yeah.

The true study of Spinoza's ideas involves the study of our own particular nature, seeking to clarify the confusions and passive emotions brought about through our own imagination and, by using Reason and Intuition, to direct our mind toward union with our Eternal Essential Being.

The true study of Spinoza's ideas involves the study of our own particular nature, seeking to clarify the confusions and passive emotions brought about through our own imagination and, by using Reason and Intuition, to direct our mind toward union with our Eternal Essential Being.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 3:16 pm One question: What is the purpose of God's tasking? Why endure all the sufferings of the process of creation? If God had just created what he wanted from the beginning eliminating tasking it would have avoided a lot of suffering?

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 4:42 pm Nick quoted:

The true study of Spinoza's ideas involves the study of our own particular nature, seeking to clarify the confusions and passive emotions brought about through our own imagination and, by using Reason and Intuition, to direct our mind toward union with our Eternal Essential Being.

Our Eternal Essential Being is Nature. Deus Sive Natura.

Panentheism, meaning “all-in-God,” is situated somewhere between pantheism and classical theism. For pantheists, the world is identical to God, while for classical theists, the world is completely external to God. Panentheists believe three things: that the world is within God, that God is in all things, and that God is also supernaturally transcendent. To put it another way, God is ontologically at one with the universe and yet remains greater than the universe. The universe does not exhaust what it means to be God.

To use the terminology of mathematical set theory, the universe – the totality of facts, ideas and things – is a subset of God.

The Hindu trimurti collapses the three gods into a single form with three faces. Each god is in charge of one aspect of creation, with Brahma as creator, Vishnu as preserver, and Shiva as destroyer.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 4:45 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 3:16 pm One question: What is the purpose of God's tasking? Why endure all the sufferings of the process of creation? If God had just created what he wanted from the beginning eliminating tasking it would have avoided a lot of suffering?

Well, there's certainly an element of that question that's beyond all human understanding, admittedly. But there are things that also are not, and enough of them to give us reason to have a different view of suffering.

One is this: that suffering was not intended to be a feature of Creation at all. It was not part of the original design. Genesis says that in the beginning, God made the Earth "good." And there was no suffering in it. It says that suffering was a product of man's rebellion, the exercise of his ability to refuse relationship with God and to embrace the knowledge of evil -- with which came suffering.

So from a Genesis perspective, the right question would not be "Why did God intend suffering," because He didn't. It would be, "Why did mankind ever rebel against the goodness of God and bring about suffering?" It was man's fault, not God's. Free creatures can use their freedom well, or badly.

But we might still ask why God didn't intervene to prevent that. And the answer is that if God prevented mankind from having the power to choose their own loves and relationship, He would have had to suffocate their individuality. You can only keep a reluctant person near you by imprisoning them, not by honouring their choice. Theists think that human personality and individuality is a surpassingly good and important thing -- the prerequisite, in fact, to their being a thing called "love." (Henry would say, "Without free will, man would be a Roomba," which is a robotic vacuum cleaning drone; he'd be right.) Free individuals must be able to choose the objects of their love, or there is no love. There is only programming.

So man sinned, and suffering was the corollary of that, because "suffer" means "removed from the Source of an essential good," such as health, life, joy, peace, integrity, right-thinking, and so on: God is the Source of all good we have. Leave God, and a person also leaves well-being; that's just an automatic fact.

But God has acted to intervene. He has worked to save men from themselves, from their wretched choice. This is why we speak of God as having "salvation," and why the name "Jesus" means, "God saves." So He has made a way they can choose-back to return to Him. Still, He cannot force them to do so without destroying their individuality, of course. But He can invite them, provide for them, clear the way and make it possible to them...if they will choose it. So that's a second good that God has overruled to produce: not just love, now, but salvation as well.

But there are others. Without there ever having been a thing called "injustice," we would never know what "justice" is: and "justice" is a great good. And without suffering, we would never know what "mercy" is, or ever have the chance to become agents of mercy ourselves. And mercy is a great good. One form of suffering is deprivation; so God has overruled there again, and used deprivation as an occasion to teach us to know what "charity" means...and so on. (We could name others, such as "achievement," which only comes by overcoming obstacles, which then entails suffering.)

In short, suffering was not God's plan or intention for us. But when we rebelled, God intervened to bring truly spectacular goods out of our wretched situation. And we might well wonder if life would be worth living at all without them.

Freedom, love, relationship, gratitude, achievement, charity, mercy, justice, peace...all these things and many more have come to us only because God has gone to war against our suffering (consumately, by offering Himself in our place, and suffering for us) and has parried the blow by using it to create surpassingly great goods for us.

And the greatest of all is salvation: God wants his people back. And he's prepared to do everything to make it possible, and then to show them His salvation is open to them. It's up to us whether or not we believe that.

But we can't say God has not done everything He could about our suffering. He has.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 4:45 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 3:16 pm One question: What is the purpose of God's tasking? Why endure all the sufferings of the process of creation? If God had just created what he wanted from the beginning eliminating tasking it would have avoided a lot of suffering?

Well, there's certainly an element of that question that's beyond all human understanding, admittedly. But there are things that also are not, and enough of them to give us reason to have a different view of suffering.

One is this: that suffering was not intended to be a feature of Creation at all. It was not part of the original design. Genesis says that in the beginning, God made the Earth "good." And there was no suffering in it. It says that suffering was a product of man's rebellion, the exercise of his ability to refuse relationship with God and to embrace the knowledge of evil -- with which came suffering.

So from a Genesis perspective, the right question would not be "Why did God intend suffering," because He didn't. It would be, "Why did mankind ever rebel against the goodness of God and bring about suffering?" It was man's fault, not God's. Free creatures can use their freedom well, or badly.

But we might still ask why God didn't intervene to prevent that. And the answer is that if God prevented mankind from having the power to choose their own loves and relationship, He would have had to suffocate their individuality. You can only keep a reluctant person near you by imprisoning them, not by honouring their choice. Theists think that human personality and individuality is a surpassingly good and important thing -- the prerequisite, in fact, to their being a thing called "love." (Henry would say, "Without free will, man would be a Roomba," which is a robotic vacuum cleaning drone; he'd be right.) Free individuals must be able to choose the objects of their love, or there is no love. There is only programming.

So man sinned, and suffering was the corollary of that, because "suffer" means "removed from the Source of an essential good," such as health, life, joy, peace, integrity, right-thinking, and so on: God is the Source of all good we have. Leave God, and a person also leaves well-being; that's just an automatic fact.

But God has acted to intervene. He has worked to save men from themselves, from their wretched choice. This is why we speak of God as having "salvation," and why the name "Jesus" means, "God saves." So He has made a way they can choose-back to return to Him. Still, He cannot force them to do so without destroying their individuality, of course. But He can invite them, provide for them, clear the way and make it possible to them...if they will choose it. So that's a second good that God has overruled to produce: not just love, now, but salvation as well.

But there are others. Without there ever having been a thing called "injustice," we would never know what "justice" is: and "justice" is a great good. And without suffering, we would never know what "mercy" is, or ever have the chance to become agents of mercy ourselves. And mercy is a great good. One form of suffering is deprivation; so God has overruled there again, and used deprivation as an occasion to teach us to know what "charity" means...and so on. (We could name others, such as "achievement," which only comes by overcoming obstacles, which then entails suffering.)

In short, suffering was not God's plan or intention for us. But when we rebelled, God intervened to bring truly spectacular goods out of our wretched situation. And we might well wonder if life would be worth living at all without them.

Freedom, love, relationship, gratitude, achievement, charity, mercy, justice, peace...all these things and many more have come to us only because God has gone to war against our suffering (consumately, by offering Himself in our place, and suffering for us) and has parried the blow by using it to create surpassingly great goods for us.

And the greatest of all is salvation: God wants his people back. And he's prepared to do everything to make it possible, and then to show them His salvation is open to them. It's up to us whether or not we believe that.

But we can't say God has not done everything He could about our suffering. He has.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 7:21 pm ...why did God create the reality of physical suffering?

Is it really necessary for a personal God to watch humanity physically suffer.

A kid may ask this in Sunday school and just receive blank stares. My concern is for those who deserve better then blank stares.

jayjacobus wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 7:33 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 4:45 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 3:16 pm One question: What is the purpose of God's tasking? Why endure all the sufferings of the process of creation? If God had just created what he wanted from the beginning eliminating tasking it would have avoided a lot of suffering?

Well, there's certainly an element of that question that's beyond all human understanding, admittedly. But there are things that also are not, and enough of them to give us reason to have a different view of suffering.

One is this: that suffering was not intended to be a feature of Creation at all. It was not part of the original design. Genesis says that in the beginning, God made the Earth "good." And there was no suffering in it. It says that suffering was a product of man's rebellion, the exercise of his ability to refuse relationship with God and to embrace the knowledge of evil -- with which came suffering.

So from a Genesis perspective, the right question would not be "Why did God intend suffering," because He didn't. It would be, "Why did mankind ever rebel against the goodness of God and bring about suffering?" It was man's fault, not God's. Free creatures can use their freedom well, or badly.

But we might still ask why God didn't intervene to prevent that. And the answer is that if God prevented mankind from having the power to choose their own loves and relationship, He would have had to suffocate their individuality. You can only keep a reluctant person near you by imprisoning them, not by honouring their choice. Theists think that human personality and individuality is a surpassingly good and important thing -- the prerequisite, in fact, to their being a thing called "love." (Henry would say, "Without free will, man would be a Roomba," which is a robotic vacuum cleaning drone; he'd be right.) Free individuals must be able to choose the objects of their love, or there is no love. There is only programming.

So man sinned, and suffering was the corollary of that, because "suffer" means "removed from the Source of an essential good," such as health, life, joy, peace, integrity, right-thinking, and so on: God is the Source of all good we have. Leave God, and a person also leaves well-being; that's just an automatic fact.

But God has acted to intervene. He has worked to save men from themselves, from their wretched choice. This is why we speak of God as having "salvation," and why the name "Jesus" means, "God saves." So He has made a way they can choose-back to return to Him. Still, He cannot force them to do so without destroying their individuality, of course. But He can invite them, provide for them, clear the way and make it possible to them...if they will choose it. So that's a second good that God has overruled to produce: not just love, now, but salvation as well.

But there are others. Without there ever having been a thing called "injustice," we would never know what "justice" is: and "justice" is a great good. And without suffering, we would never know what "mercy" is, or ever have the chance to become agents of mercy ourselves. And mercy is a great good. One form of suffering is deprivation; so God has overruled there again, and used deprivation as an occasion to teach us to know what "charity" means...and so on. (We could name others, such as "achievement," which only comes by overcoming obstacles, which then entails suffering.)

In short, suffering was not God's plan or intention for us. But when we rebelled, God intervened to bring truly spectacular goods out of our wretched situation. And we might well wonder if life would be worth living at all without them.

Freedom, love, relationship, gratitude, achievement, charity, mercy, justice, peace...all these things and many more have come to us only because God has gone to war against our suffering (consumately, by offering Himself in our place, and suffering for us) and has parried the blow by using it to create surpassingly great goods for us.

And the greatest of all is salvation: God wants his people back. And he's prepared to do everything to make it possible, and then to show them His salvation is open to them. It's up to us whether or not we believe that.

But we can't say God has not done everything He could about our suffering. He has.

You are writing to a lot of closed minds on this forum. Have you even changed your own mind?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 7:34 pm

jayjacobus wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 7:33 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 4:45 pm
Well, there's certainly an element of that question that's beyond all human understanding, admittedly. But there are things that also are not, and enough of them to give us reason to have a different view of suffering.

One is this: that suffering was not intended to be a feature of Creation at all. It was not part of the original design. Genesis says that in the beginning, God made the Earth "good." And there was no suffering in it. It says that suffering was a product of man's rebellion, the exercise of his ability to refuse relationship with God and to embrace the knowledge of evil -- with which came suffering.

So from a Genesis perspective, the right question would not be "Why did God intend suffering," because He didn't. It would be, "Why did mankind ever rebel against the goodness of God and bring about suffering?" It was man's fault, not God's. Free creatures can use their freedom well, or badly.

But we might still ask why God didn't intervene to prevent that. And the answer is that if God prevented mankind from having the power to choose their own loves and relationship, He would have had to suffocate their individuality. You can only keep a reluctant person near you by imprisoning them, not by honouring their choice. Theists think that human personality and individuality is a surpassingly good and important thing -- the prerequisite, in fact, to their being a thing called "love." (Henry would say, "Without free will, man would be a Roomba," which is a robotic vacuum cleaning drone; he'd be right.) Free individuals must be able to choose the objects of their love, or there is no love. There is only programming.

So man sinned, and suffering was the corollary of that, because "suffer" means "removed from the Source of an essential good," such as health, life, joy, peace, integrity, right-thinking, and so on: God is the Source of all good we have. Leave God, and a person also leaves well-being; that's just an automatic fact.

But God has acted to intervene. He has worked to save men from themselves, from their wretched choice. This is why we speak of God as having "salvation," and why the name "Jesus" means, "God saves." So He has made a way they can choose-back to return to Him. Still, He cannot force them to do so without destroying their individuality, of course. But He can invite them, provide for them, clear the way and make it possible to them...if they will choose it. So that's a second good that God has overruled to produce: not just love, now, but salvation as well.

But there are others. Without there ever having been a thing called "injustice," we would never know what "justice" is: and "justice" is a great good. And without suffering, we would never know what "mercy" is, or ever have the chance to become agents of mercy ourselves. And mercy is a great good. One form of suffering is deprivation; so God has overruled there again, and used deprivation as an occasion to teach us to know what "charity" means...and so on. (We could name others, such as "achievement," which only comes by overcoming obstacles, which then entails suffering.)

In short, suffering was not God's plan or intention for us. But when we rebelled, God intervened to bring truly spectacular goods out of our wretched situation. And we might well wonder if life would be worth living at all without them.

Freedom, love, relationship, gratitude, achievement, charity, mercy, justice, peace...all these things and many more have come to us only because God has gone to war against our suffering (consumately, by offering Himself in our place, and suffering for us) and has parried the blow by using it to create surpassingly great goods for us.

And the greatest of all is salvation: God wants his people back. And he's prepared to do everything to make it possible, and then to show them His salvation is open to them. It's up to us whether or not we believe that.

But we can't say God has not done everything He could about our suffering. He has.

You are writing to a lot of closed minds on this forum. Have you even changed your own mind?

Yes.

But that matters little, because that's not a basis on which people ought to change theirs. They should only change their minds to what they realize is truth.

What is the purpose of God's tasking?

Hell if I know. What I do know: I'm being of creative and causal power livin' among nearly eight billion beings, each with his and her own creative and causal power. Like anyone, my choices have depth and consequence. I'm responsible for what I do.

So: I try to do right, as best as I understand right to be. I get it wrong, I'm sure, as often as I get it right.

jayjacobus wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 7:38 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 7:34 pm

jayjacobus wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 7:33 pm

You are writing to a lot of closed minds on this forum. Have you even changed your own mind?

Yes.

But that matters little, because that's not a basis on which people ought to change theirs. They should only change their minds to what they realize is truth.

Perhaps you are right. A changed mind without changed actions can matter little.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 8:26 pm

jayjacobus wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 7:38 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Feb 12, 2022 7:34 pm
Yes.

But that matters little, because that's not a basis on which people ought to change theirs. They should only change their minds to what they realize is truth.

Perhaps you are right. A changed mind without changed actions can matter little.

That's true.

You can tell what people believe by what they actually do. And often, it's different from what they say they believe. There's a kind of "belief" that involves no action: but it's confined to matters of statistic and fact. Our real beliefs are what we act upon.