What is the Christian definition of God according to the bible?

[Vilferatus]

This is a question about definition, not denomination.

When I ask, “What is the Christian definition of God according to the Bible?”, I am not asking:

- What does your church say God is?
- What does the Nicene Creed say God is?
- What does a particular theologian say God is?
- What definition have you personally been taught?

I am asking:

If we take the Bible as a whole, what does the biblical text itself establish that “God” is?

And by “definition,” I mean more than simply listing attributes such as omnipotent, eternal, loving, holy, etc. Those describe God, but they do not necessarily tell us what God is.

So I think the question should be approached by examining the biblical data as a whole:

1. How does the Bible use the word “God” (God/Elohim/Theos)?
2. Who or what does the Bible explicitly identify as God?
3. What distinctions does the Bible make between God, the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit?
4. Does the Bible define God as a being, a person, a nature, a substance, a relationship, or something else?
5. What does “one God” mean within the biblical text?
6. How does the definition account for passages that distinguish the Father from the Son while also calling both “God”?
7. How does it account for passages concerning the Holy Spirit?
8. How does the definition fit with the broader message of the Gospel rather than being constructed from a few isolated verses?
9. Does the proposed definition remain logically coherent when all the relevant passages are considered together?

I am especially interested in a definition that satisfies three conditions:

1. Biblical: It should be grounded in the actual biblical text.

2. Holistic: It should account for the relevant passages across the Bible rather than selecting only those that support a predetermined theological system.

3. Rationally coherent: The resulting definition should not require us to redefine ordinary terms or accept contradictions simply because a particular theological tradition requires it.

I am not asking anyone to abandon their theological tradition. I am asking something more fundamental:

«Before we appeal to a theological system to explain the Bible, what definition of “God” can we actually derive from the Bible itself?»

If someone believes the biblical definition is consistent with Nicene Trinitarianism, Unitarianism, LDS theology, or another Christian model, that's fine.

But then the important question is:

Can you demonstrate that definition from the biblical text as a whole, and explain how the relevant passages fit together?

That is the discussion I am interested in.

[Vilferatus]

I have defined you God as an ineffective punishing God and evidenced this by referencing Biblical stories.
What are your thoughts on my take about the Bible God being an ineffective punishing God? Do you acknowledge the stories I brought up? Do you agree that they show what I claim or do you have a different explanation?

Thats not a definition of God... thats a emotional description of what you think about that word.

I defined the god concept of the Bible using the Bible to describe the behavior of said god of the Bible. There were no emotions involved. All your doing is dodging an argument that you know you can't win by accusing me of having an emotional reaction instead of a rational criticism.

"And by “definition,” I mean more than simply listing attributes such as omnipotent, eternal, loving, holy, etc. Those describe God, but they do not necessarily tell us what God is.

God IS an ineffective punishing God if the stories are to be believed. I feel like you agree with me, but you just don't like it.

So I think the question should be approached by examining the biblical data as a whole:

Can you define biblical data and then explain how I failed to use biblical data in my examples?

1. How does the Bible use the word “God” (God/Elohim/Theos)?

Probably similar to how you use the word 'tree' (Pine/birch/maple). What does that have to do with my observations from the Bible?

2. Who or what does the Bible explicitly identify as God?

Baal and Chemosh to name a couple.

3. What distinctions does the Bible make between God, the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit?

Even Christians cannot agree about this one.

4. Does the Bible define God as a being, a person, a nature, a substance, a relationship, or something else?

Yes.

5. What does “one God” mean within the biblical text?

Provide the text and perhaps I can define what 'one' means for you.

6. How does the definition account for passages that distinguish the Father from the Son while also calling both “God”?

Very poorly.

7. How does it account for passages concerning the Holy Spirit?

Very poorly.

8. How does the definition fit with the broader message of the Gospel rather than being constructed from a few isolated verses?

Poorly.

9. Does the proposed definition remain logically coherent when all the relevant passages are considered together?"

You forgot to propose a definition of your own. I provided one about it being an ineffective punishing God. What are your thoughts on that? Do you acknowledge the tails in the Bible that I provided?

One more time you failed in step 1: providing a definition of God that makes logical sense with the bible. Everything else derives from your failed step one. So it is invalid. As suggested by the moderators, im just gonna ignore you from now on, until you start reasoning properly.

You said this is you "definition" of God: "an ineffective punishing God and evidenced this by referencing Biblical stories"

Do you know what circular definition is?

[Clownboat]

One more time you failed in step 1: providing a definition of God that makes logical sense with the bible.

The Bible god is an ineffective punishing god concept. I supplied many examples from the Bible that make this logical. You continue to fail to address my examples.

To illustrate this for our readers, I claim that giving women pain during childbirth was a vile, ignorant, ineffective punishment that fixed nothing.
What is your take on this example?
Do you find it just?
Logical?
Effective?

If not, see my definition.

Do you know what circular definition is?

Yes. Why are you asking?

[Vilferatus]

One more time you failed in step 1: providing a definition of God that makes logical sense with the bible.

The Bible god is an ineffective punishing god concept. I supplied many examples from the Bible that make this logical. You continue to fail to address my examples.

To illustrate this for our readers, I claim that giving women pain during childbirth was a vile, ignorant, ineffective punishment that fixed nothing.
What is your take on this example?
Do you find it just?
Logical?
Effective?

If not, see my definition.

Do you know what circular definition is?

Yes. Why are you asking?

You still wonder why im asking?

"To illustrate this for our readers, I claim that giving women pain during childbirth was a vile, ignorant, ineffective punishment that fixed nothing."

you think men are perfect? if not, then thats what needs to be fixed... pain is one of the million of things that God allowed in this world to fix that.

If you have a son, would you prevent him from all suffering? or would you teach him to handle disconfort?

You dont see the point, because you are not looking for answers, you are looking to prove your own conclusions... dogma.

[Clownboat]

you think men are perfect?

Nope, but I think you are not paying attention and not following along well enough because you somehow are questioning if I think men are perfect, when I have said nothing of the sort.

"I claim that giving women pain during childbirth was a vile, ignorant, ineffective punishment that fixed nothing.
What is your take on this example?
Do you find it just?
Logical?
Effective?"

if not, then thats what needs to be fixed...

I acknowledge that you feel we need to fix men by making them perfect. I find this position unobtainable. If I did not steel man this correctly, please clarify.

pain is one of the million of things that God allowed in this world to fix that.

I assume you are talking about pain during child birth.
What specifically did it fix? I am asking because I claim it fixed nothing. It was cruel and ineffective.
Now is your time to show that it did fix something, that it wasn't cruel and ineffective to put me in my place.

If you have a son, would you prevent him from all suffering?

If I was all powerful, yes, but alas, I am not, therefore my son would have suffering in his life.
If you had a son and you had the power to prevent suffering in his life, would you not do so?

suffering
1 of 2
noun
suf·​fer·​ing ˈsə-f(ə-)riŋ
1
: the state or experience of one that suffers
2
: pain
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/suffering

or would you teach him to handle disconfort?

I would teach this since I cannot ensure my son would never experience pain (again, I would prevent pain/suffering if I could).
Would you prevent pain/suffering in your child if you could?

You dont see the point, because you are not looking for answers, you are looking to prove your own conclusions... dogma.

When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser. - Socrates

(I bolded the debate questions for you this time)

[Vilferatus]

you think men are perfect?

Nope, but I think you are not paying attention and not following along well enough because you somehow are questioning if I think men are perfect, when I have said nothing of the sort.

"I claim that giving women pain during childbirth was a vile, ignorant, ineffective punishment that fixed nothing.
What is your take on this example?
Do you find it just?
Logical?
Effective?"

if not, then thats what needs to be fixed...

I acknowledge that you feel we need to fix men by making them perfect. I find this position unobtainable. If I did not steel man this correctly, please clarify.

pain is one of the million of things that God allowed in this world to fix that.

I assume you are talking about pain during child birth.
What specifically did it fix? I am asking because I claim it fixed nothing. It was cruel and ineffective.
Now is your time to show that it did fix something, that it wasn't cruel and ineffective to put me in my place.

If you have a son, would you prevent him from all suffering?

If I was all powerful, yes, but alas, I am not, therefore my son would have suffering in his life.
If you had a son and you had the power to prevent suffering in his life, would you not do so?

suffering
1 of 2
noun
suf·​fer·​ing ˈsə-f(ə-)riŋ
1
: the state or experience of one that suffers
2
: pain
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/suffering

or would you teach him to handle disconfort?

I would teach this since I cannot ensure my son would never experience pain (again, I would prevent pain/suffering if I could).
Would you prevent pain/suffering in your child if you could?

You dont see the point, because you are not looking for answers, you are looking to prove your own conclusions... dogma.

When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser. - Socrates

(I bolded the debate questions for you this time)

You dont even see that you are forcing your atheist framework to prove the theism wrong. Thats your dogma you cant get rid of.

It is not valid to use an opposing framework to test the consistency of the another one.

Thats what you are doing:

"I claim that giving women pain during childbirth was a vile, ignorant, ineffective punishment that fixed nothing.
What is your take on this example?
Do you find it just?
Logical?
Effective?"

The answer to all those questions is yes, in a theistic framework, and it is logically correct.

God is the standard of morality and the source of Logic, so whatever God does would be Just, Logical and of course, effective to whatever the purpose of God is.

Im not even getting into the details because you can not overcome your dogmas to start the excercise of testing internal coherence of my framework.

[Clownboat]

"I claim that giving women pain during childbirth was a vile, ignorant, ineffective punishment that fixed nothing.
What is your take on this example?
Do you find it just?
Logical?
Effective?"

The answer to all those questions is yes, in a theistic framework, and it is logically correct.

Trying to slay me with irony I see! You just asked me if I knew what circular reasoning was!

Ladies and gentleman, in my opinion this is how we arrive at sayings like this:
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

Vilferatus: Genocide is bad! Well.... unless my God orders it and I get to keep the virgin girls for myself. Then, genocide is good.
Clownboat: Bad is bad and genocide is bad. Claiming a God told you or you read it in a book is not justification for being bad.
Vilferatus: Oh ya! See my circular reasoning above!

But I digress...
I acknowledge that you find it just, logical and effective for a god concept to force suffering on women in order to procreate. We clearly disagree, but in order to move the debate forward, please answer the question: 'What did it accomplish'? Remember, my charge is that this god concept is defined as an ineffective punishing god. You find the punishment of all women to be just (our readers may not agree), this is acknowledge, but how can you argue for it to be logical and what did it accomplish?

God is the standard of morality and the source of Logic, so whatever God does would be Just, Logical and of course, effective to whatever the purpose of God is.

Your premise has not been evidenced and is just a religious platitude. Feel free to show that my words are untrue if you are able. If you cannot:
"If you are unable to demonstrate that what you believe is true and you absolve yourself of the burden of proof, then what is the purpose of your arguments?"

Im not even getting into the details because you can not overcome your dogmas to start the excercise of testing internal coherence of my framework.

In place of you debating, all I see is a religious defense mechanism at play. Sticking the head in the sand so to speak.
I'm not wrong, you're just an ideologue.
I'm not wrong, you just can't overcome your dogmas.
I'm not wrong, you're just unable to test the internal coherence of my framework.
I'm not wrong, you just don't see the point, because you are not looking for answers.
I'm not wrong, you are just looking to prove your own conclusions... dogma.

If only you understood how meaningless and ineffective such claims are when it comes to debating adults. Sure, such platitudes will be praised when said to the proverbial choir, but here we are not the choir, we are thinking adults and will require more before you can just say words and have them be believed.

[Vilferatus]

"I claim that giving women pain during childbirth was a vile, ignorant, ineffective punishment that fixed nothing.
What is your take on this example?
Do you find it just?
Logical?
Effective?"

The answer to all those questions is yes, in a theistic framework, and it is logically correct.

Trying to slay me with irony I see! You just asked me if I knew what circular reasoning was!

Ladies and gentleman, in my opinion this is how we arrive at sayings like this:
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

Vilferatus: Genocide is bad! Well.... unless my God orders it and I get to keep the virgin girls for myself. Then, genocide is good.
Clownboat: Bad is bad and genocide is bad. Claiming a God told you or you read it in a book is not justification for being bad.
Vilferatus: Oh ya! See my circular reasoning above!

But I digress...
I acknowledge that you find it just, logical and effective for a god concept to force suffering on women in order to procreate. We clearly disagree, but in order to move the debate forward, please answer the question: 'What did it accomplish'? Remember, my charge is that this god concept is defined as an ineffective punishing god. You find the punishment of all women to be just (our readers may not agree), this is acknowledge, but how can you argue for it to be logical and what did it accomplish?

God is the standard of morality and the source of Logic, so whatever God does would be Just, Logical and of course, effective to whatever the purpose of God is.

Your premise has not been evidenced and is just a religious platitude. Feel free to show that my words are untrue if you are able. If you cannot:
"If you are unable to demonstrate that what you believe is true and you absolve yourself of the burden of proof, then what is the purpose of your arguments?"

Im not even getting into the details because you can not overcome your dogmas to start the excercise of testing internal coherence of my framework.

In place of you debating, all I see is a religious defense mechanism at play. Sticking the head in the sand so to speak.
I'm not wrong, you're just an ideologue.
I'm not wrong, you just can't overcome your dogmas.
I'm not wrong, you're just unable to test the internal coherence of my framework.
I'm not wrong, you just don't see the point, because you are not looking for answers.
I'm not wrong, you are just looking to prove your own conclusions... dogma.

If only you understood how meaningless and ineffective such claims are when it comes to debating adults. Sure, such platitudes will be praised when said to the proverbial choir, but here we are not the choir, we are thinking adults and will require more before you can just say words and have them be believed.

Sorry bro, I didnt mean to cause an emotional meltdown, I was just explaining how a hypothethical framework should be evaluated.

But you dont have to do that, you can just keep imposing your dogmatic framework on other's if that helps you keep your composture.

[Clownboat]

Sorry bro, I didnt mean to cause an emotional meltdown, I was just explaining how a hypothethical framework should be evaluated.

But you dont have to do that, you can just keep imposing your dogmatic framework on other's if that helps you keep your composture.

Once again, all you are doing is dodging an argument you know you can't win by accusing me of having an emotional reaction to it instead of a rational criticism of it.
You have been made known by your fruits.

The claim that the God of the Bible is an ineffective punishing god concept has yet to be disputed.
To provide some perspective... I find The Joker from the Batman series to be evil. Does this make me an idealogue? Does this mean I have dogmas to overcome? Does it mean I am unable to test some internal framework? Does it mean I'm not looking for answers or that I'm just looking to prove my own conclusions about The Joker?

Perhaps, could it mean that I'm familiar with the Batman story and that I have found The Joker to be evil because of claimed actions this fictional character is claimed to have done in stories?
If Vilferatus worship The Joker like he does his god concept, would that have any bearing on my take about the actions of this Joker character?

[Vilferatus]

Sorry bro, I didnt mean to cause an emotional meltdown, I was just explaining how a hypothethical framework should be evaluated.

But you dont have to do that, you can just keep imposing your dogmatic framework on other's if that helps you keep your composture.

Once again, all you are doing is dodging an argument you know you can't win by accusing me of having an emotional reaction to it instead of a rational criticism of it.
You have been made known by your fruits.

The claim that the God of the Bible is an ineffective punishing god concept has yet to be disputed.
To provide some perspective... I find The Joker from the Batman series to be evil. Does this make me an idealogue? Does this mean I have dogmas to overcome? Does it mean I am unable to test some internal framework? Does it mean I'm not looking for answers or that I'm just looking to prove my own conclusions about The Joker?

Perhaps, could it mean that I'm familiar with the Batman story and that I have found The Joker to be evil because of claimed actions this fictional character is claimed to have done in stories?
If Vilferatus worship The Joker like he does his god concept, would that have any bearing on my take about the actions of this Joker character?

I love to see how you jump from one framework to another to try to make sense of your opinions (I cannot conisder them arguments at this point, you have no posture to defend).

The Joker analogy has no weight in the real world, nobody would claim that a fictional character would define whats objectively good or evil in our reality. But thats your opinion because you have no framework to base your opinions and you are just trying to prove my framework wrong.

The problem is your methodology: You can not evalueate a framework, using the premises of a competing framework... thats useless.

[Clownboat]

I love to see how you jump from one framework to another to try to make sense of your opinions (I cannot conisder them arguments at this point, you have no posture to defend).

Where did I do this? Copy/paste please or kindly retract this accusation for being false. This is debate after all and claims should be expected to be challenged. I challenge this claim.