Is God's job description plausible?

[marco]

We learn biblically that God is clever and acts to punish bad people, even paying attention to local pockets of badness, such as in Sodom and Gomorrah That was then. He is intimately linked with the Jewish disturbance involving the preacher Jesus, some suggesting that because God was offended, he had Jesus bring about closure by his torture and death. So God seems to function like a prison warden, keeping order - except he doesn't keep order. When atrocities occur on a big scale, he lets them happen - no Sodom involvement at all. There is nothing that happens now, good or bad, that would seem to involve God's action.


Does this picture of God give any reassurance?

Or does this picture suggest the biblical God is a fabrication?

[Tcg]

I can affirm that God is no fabrication.

Sure you can. It would probably be more believable however, if you didn't follow this affirmation with your recipe for the fabrication of God.



Tcg

[2ndRateMind]

I can affirm that God is no fabrication.

Sure you can. It would probably be more believable however, if you didn't follow this affirmation with your recipe for the fabrication of God.

Interesting Tcg. We all have our own conceptions of God. Doubtless they are all inadequate. So what is your objection to people believing or disbelieving in their conceptions, so far as they go?

Best wishes, 2RM.

[Tcg]

There is a danger that my overall position may be seen as circular; it is necessary to love God to know Him, and to know Him one must love Him. On needs to love to know; one needs to know to love. But that is the way of the Christian faith; it is a thoroughly circular 'closed' philosophical system.

That danger exists due to the fact that your argument is circular and thus logically flawed.

And it makes no sense to those outside it, but to those inside the circle, it is completely satisfactory.

Of course it's satisfactory. Belief alone provides comfort. There is no need for the object of belief to exist for belief to function as designed.



Tcg

[marco]

Ah! That's the point. God does not conceal His existence from those who love Him, and for those who need Him, He is there to provide the spiritual strength to endure whatever needs be endured.

I am pleased you see you are conceding circularity. In mathematics, especially in Euclidean proofs, one is taught that this is a flaw. It seems to me that pious Christians take anything and turn it, miraculously, into praise of God. Even death! I do not for a moment believe that some people who profess to love God receive the beatific vision. They may think they do. Wishing is fulfilment.

it is a thoroughly circular 'closed' philosophical system. And it makes no sense to those outside it, but to those inside the circle, it is completely satisfactory.

It makes perfect sense to me since I once accepted the notion. I believe there is no point in submitting oneself to onerous mathematical proofs that fail for the most minute reason, and then accepting facts about God that are nowhere verifiable. When old theologians say they believe because it is impossible, there is an element of conceit in this. When my early tutors told me that only those who truly love, truly receive I wondered, then, where my boyhood love had failed. But then I was unfamiliar with the concept of belated donations, rewards in heaven rather than on earth and suffering being an introduction to piety. How appallingly some saints have been treated.

My earthly colleagues receive my love. A God who has thought up the eccentricity of the ellipses of the planets is not a being concerned with hymns of praise. That would be a very shallow god indeed. A mother is given love because it is simply the reciprocation of the love she has first offered. I'm sure God is aware of all this. If God exists, I fear we have done him a great injustice in our texts.

[2ndRateMind]

There is a danger that my overall position may be seen as circular; it is necessary to love God to know Him, and to know Him one must love Him. On needs to love to know; one needs to know to love. But that is the way of the Christian faith; it is a thoroughly circular 'closed' philosophical system.

That danger exists due to the fact that your argument is circular and thus logically flawed.

On the contrary, there is no necessity that a circular argument is logically flawed.

eg; P1) I carry an umbrella when it rains; P2) When it rains, I carry an umbrella.

Where's the logical flaw?

Best wishes, 2RM.

[marco]

There is a danger that my overall position may be seen as circular; it is necessary to love God to know Him, and to know Him one must love Him. On needs to love to know; one needs to know to love. But that is the way of the Christian faith; it is a thoroughly circular 'closed' philosophical system.

That danger exists due to the fact that your argument is circular and thus logically flawed.

On the contrary, there is no necessity that a circular argument is logically flawed.

eg; P1) I carry an umbrella when it rains; P2) When it rains, I carry an umbrella.

Where's the logical flaw?

This isn't an argument but a single statement . One is the same as the other. The position of the subordinate adverbial clause (when it rains) is irrelevant. The sentence means the same either way. This isn't circularity, which can involve "proving" a statement by accepting it as true.

Antoninus in Spartacus recites a song:

When the blazing sun hangs low in the western sky, I turn home.

And this would be the same as:

I turn home when the blazing sun hangs low on the western sky.

There's beauty but no circularity.

[2ndRateMind]

OK. Try this, perhaps more pertinent example:

The Bible says Jesus founded the church. And because Jesus founded the church, it must be the 'one true way'. The church, the 'one true way' says the Bible is true. And the Bible says... etc.

I still don't see any logical flaw. If we reject the reasoning, it is not because of some inherent failure of or lack of logic.

Best wishes, 2RM

[marco]

OK. Try this, perhaps more pertinent example:

The Bible says Jesus founded the church. And because Jesus founded the church, it must be the 'one true way'. The church, the 'one true way' says the Bible is true. And the Bible says... etc.

I still don't see any logical flaw. If we reject the reasoning, it is not because of some inherent failure of or lack of logic.

The "church" Jesus founded and the "church that says" are not necessarily the same thing. Technically a church cannot say anything. If we mean by "ecclesia" an institution, then which one of the many Christian churches are we talking about? Christ may have founded the abstract notion of a church, and again this abstraction doesn't speak.

In RC terms of course "aedificabo ecclesiam meam" (I will build my church) refers to the RC church. Papal infallibility is based on the statement that Christ would not let hell prevail against his church. But the question is: was that what Jesus founded?


The basic idea in circularity is that the starting premise makes an assumption and the later statement takes this as true. If the Bible does not always say the truth then the entire edifice falls flat.

If you are simply looking for logic, you've issued statements that may or may not be true but the final one does logically follow, though that means nothing in reality.

All elephants are monkeys; all monkeys are tree dwellers; therefore elephants are tree dwellers is logically true. I don't know where that gets us.

[2ndRateMind]

OK. Try this, perhaps more pertinent example:

The Bible says Jesus founded the church. And because Jesus founded the church, it must be the 'one true way'. The church, the 'one true way' says the Bible is true. And the Bible says... etc.

I still don't see any logical flaw. If we reject the reasoning, it is not because of some inherent failure of or lack of logic.

Technically a church cannot say anything.

Churches, actually, in my experience, have quite a considerable amount to say. Check out the doctrine and dogma forum on this site.

So, to phrase a common general attitude in an even more vicious way: 'The Bible says what the Church says is true; the Church says what the Bible says is true.' I am not arguing, here, that either Church or Bible is either right or wrong, only that the position is not inherently illogical.

As regards what constitutes the Church, for reference, I am referring to the entire Christian communion. And thank you for helping me clarify my thoughts on this topic.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[marco]

Churches, actually, in my experience, have quite a considerable amount to say.

Figuratively. And some say one thing, others another. Where is truth?

'The Bible says what the Church says is true; the Church says what the Bible says is true.' I am not arguing, here, that either Church or Bible is either right or wrong, only that the position is not inherently illogical.

As far as logic goes one statement follows the other. But it would be a lunatic world if we abandoned truth in favour of some logical correctness.

The Church is a lion. Lions bite. Therefore the Church bites - has comparable logic. The purpose is surely to take discussion forward by examining the TRUTH of statements and dismissing suppositions.


We are looking at God's job description in the Bible. My view is that God's painters paint what they see inside themselves; truth is localised to what is seen by an individual writer or artist. Michelangelo's imagined God is wonderful, though just a fiction. The OT God is horrendous, and thankfully just a fiction.

As regards what constitutes the Church, for reference, I am referring to the entire Christian communion. And thank you for helping me clarify my thoughts on this topic.

Well it would be nice if such a thing existed - a uniform Christian community that would never kill each other or burn each other. Sadly "the Church" is usually taken as the institution that saw political upheavals through the centuries, suffered the Great Schism, had a residence at Avignon and produced the Borgia Popes, as well as the present kindly Francis. If this "ecclesia" says the Bible is true, we can afford a small smile.

Lovely to discuss with you, 2ndRateMind.