The problems of God | INFJ Forum

The problems of God

Spiritual Leo

Spiritual Leo

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Apr 14, 2011
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After studying endless hours on the subject of Philosophy of Religion, I have just came to the conclusion that God either does not exist or God is unknowable to human-beings. Let me begin with the first problem: The omnipotence of God. Now if God were all powerful, would he have the ability to create a boulder too heavy for him to lift? Either he has the power to create the boulder and not lift it or he can create a boulder which is liftable; therefore not unliftable. In both cases he has a great limitation. so in my view, it is logically impossible for god to be omnipotent.

Is it possible for God to be omniscient? Yes. Omniscience doesn't contradict itself, but when combined with omnipotence, it creates limitations.

For instance, would God have the power to change his all-knowing mind? If he had the power to change his mind, he would not be omniscient because he would have to change his divine plan. If he lacked the ability to change his mind, then he would not be omnipotent.

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The God of Abraham: If the God of Abraham was omniscient, then he would have a past, present, and future mind; therefore he knew that Satin would have gone against him before it happened. Also, he would have known that Adam and Eve would eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge before they did it. Now if he knew all this was going to occur, would he do anything to prevent it?

This was all one Divine plan. If this was one divine plan, then he must have planned to fail humanity.

Either we have an indifferent creator who looks at human nature without a concern or a creator who lacks the ability to help us, however I don't believe he exists at all. That's the last option.

Imagine an all loving creator who had the ability to help humanity. . . would the world be the way it is now if we had such a creator?

Often in the Bible, Quran, and Torah, God says, "wait for me and I will come." --- If God was omnipresent, then wouldn't he exist everywhere and in everything? Why would we have to wait for him?

If God was good-willed and loving, then why did he damn the nations or flood the world?
 
or its all a paradox.
 
The view that omnipotence is the power to do absolutely anything is a very recent one. Omnipotence has traditionally been limited to doing only that which is logically possible. God has also traditionally been conceived as incapable of doing anything against his fundamental nature, such as lie. The identification of Christ with the Logos and with God would make that which is not logical be contrary to the nature of God, thus combining these two restrictions.

The church fathers often explained God's omnipotence as having an infinite degree of all positive characteristics. Negative characteristics were considered to be only the absence of positive characteristics, and thus totally absent from God.


God is traditionally conceived as not only unchanging but existing outside of time itself. The idea of changing one's mind makes no logical sense for an atemporal being, and so it beyond the traditional scope of omnipotence. On the other hand, the bible seems to portray God as changing his mind based on choices humans made (such as not choosing not to punish a king who repented after being told he would be destroyed).


In the original languages the bible never actually claims God to be omnipotent or omniscient, only that there is nothing more powerful than God and that we cannot hide anything from God. (Where many translations follow the Vulgate and have God refer to himself as "God Omnipotent," the Hebrew is more literally "the mighty one, my own teat" meaning that He does not depend on external nourishment but is self sustaining.) It does not conflict with scriptures for God to choose to limit His own knowledge or abilities.
 
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[video=youtube;8imtDTVRrDg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8imtDTVRrDg[/video]
 
Matthew 4:

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
 
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we will never understand God. . human logic and thought is too small to comprehend. . add to that the fact that our knwoledge of God comes from minds to samll to understand in the first place. .
 
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Religion is a subject of hidden mystery and a trap for the INFJ. We are drawn to it, but yet as much as we can pick it apart we will never fully know the answer. You can run around in circles forever if you like, but doesn't that seem unproductive for the INFJ?

I enjoy exploring religion and different theories. My favorite is the introduction of science to explain religious phenomena such as neurotheology, except that in neurotheology religion is excluded. It shows the healing power meditation/prayer has on the brain.

My only firm opinion on spirituality/religion is: everything is made of energy, whether it be positive or negative. The words that flow from your mouth, the thoughts you have in your brain, your prayers, the impact you have on the world, the impact you have passing a stranger, the compassion you have for others, etc, etc = intent. Are there explicit definitions of what is positive and what is negative (since there are many conflicting perspectives)? I don't know and I don't need to know. I can only have faith that I am doing the right thing and not judge how others choose to lead their lives.

(if you wanted, you can explain the above with scripture or quotations from all religions)
 
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I don't spend a lot of time thinking about semantical paradoxes, as I kind of view them as artificial problems. However, if you want to read more, it's called the omniscience paradox -- a simple google should bring up the history of ways philosophers have responded to it.

As to the problem of suffering, the saying goes “The believer in God has to account for the existence of unjust suffering; the atheist has to account for the existence of everything else.” (Rabbi Milton Steinberg)
 
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i think the problem is that we imagine god as a 'person'.
this statement is a good indicator of that, and i've heard it said many times.

Now if God were all powerful, would he have the ability to create a boulder too heavy for him to lift?
Click to expand...

god does not have arms. he does not lift or hold or grab or hug or pick his nose.
god has no human parts or thoughts. we do. so we try to fit god into our image.
 
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JGirl said:
i think the problem is that we imagine god as a 'person'.
this statement is a good indicator of that, and i've heard it said many times
god does not have arms. he does not lift or hold or grab or hug or pick his nose.
god has no human parts or thoughts. we do. so we try to fit god into our image.
Click to expand...
Where the Bible says we're made in his image, it's not the human-animal image. It's the conscious image.
 
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Try watching "The Universe" and then explain God as the Bible would have us believe he exists. Thee are things in this universe that have no consciousness, no feelings, no thoughts, or any thought process and can end life on our planet and trillions of others like it without the slightest bit of remorse. Black holes, gamma ray bursts, supernovas, blazars, etc.

It's not a matter of being in the right place at the right time or praying really hard. With everything out there, we as people, a species, a planet and solar system are destined to die without so much as an afterthought from what does us in.

If God does exist, then he set this up ahead of time with the intent of us dying. Thinking he's sitting there, watching and caring for us, while science and math proves that we're destined for extinction by forces well beyond our control has to be one of the most foolish things I can think of. It's about as useful as praying to the bullet that's being fired at your head a split second before it hits.

There are more useful ways to spend your time and energy for the (relatively) short time we have in life.
 
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"Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but when that which is perfect is come I shall know even as I am also known."

Can we truly know another person in perfection?
 
My position is that it is more likely that there is a purpose/reason for existence than that there isn't, therefore it is more likely that there is a God than that there isn't. This God would not be the Christian God, but rather an undefined Creator whose purpose for existence we do not know yet. And, guess what, humans probably aren't a main character in this story. We might even just be scenery.
 
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The god of the bible 'Yahweh' was found by Moses when he fled Egypt and hung out with the Midianites. Moses had been part of the Egyptian royal court and was educated in its mysteries

He knew that to bring disparate people together the best way to do this was to unite them behind a god and a set of laws (which he provided at Sinai). The tribes united by moses then built an ark to keep the storm god Yahweh in. Eventually they built him a home in the temple in Jerusalem

These tribes had used many other gods and baal was a popular one. It took a while to convert the majority of people to a single god, a process that was taken further by the elites who had been taken from jerusalem by the invading Babylonians and whisked off to Babylon, where the prophet Ezekiel told them that they had suffered because they had been focussing too much on Egyptian mysteries based around the worship of the sun and had been unfaithful to yahweh.

If they were to unify and return to jerusalem they must turn the mysteries towards rebuilding Solomon's temple and to worshipping Yahweh

From Jerusalem the ideas spread through the Greek empire and were eventually adopted by Roman Emporer Constantine as a state sanctioned religion (now developed into a sub cult called christianity built on the foundational belief that a god/man had died a torturous death but in the process had paid for their sins).

Despite making this new religion the state religion to unify his empire and holding councils such as at Nicea to codify the new religion and to iron out any differences in doctrine, Constantine remained a member of the Sol Invictus Cult (the invincible sun) until his death bed when he was baptised, possibly as insurance!

Yahweh was a regional god and every region had their own god(s)

Perhaps whats more interesting than this tempramental god that moses picked up in the desert and sold to the masses is the more esoteric teachings that have been reserved for elites from before the jewish people became a people right down to the current day.

These teachings have survived and are still being used and have affected architecture around the world, A prominant example is the Washington Monument in the USA, which is a giant obelisk representing a solar phallic

Many people get to hung up on the literal readings of religions and fail to realise that the people who wrote these doctrines down were doing so in order to package a religion for the masses while they themselves reserved a different interpretation for themselves.....this esoteric knowledge ensured their higher status in society as it does today
 
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