What if God exists?

[fluffy]

And it would not be an explosion.

ok, so you don't believe in the "big bang" ?

Scientists don't say it was a bang, that is a misnomer. It happened within a 4D or 5D object, maybe a black hole.

 

[LOGICZOMBIE]

Scientists don't say it was a bang, that is a misnomer. It happened within a 4D or 5D object, maybe a black hole.

it started out microscopic

and rapidly expanded

it was relatively uniform and energy dense at the beginning

and then cooled as it expanded and planets and stars began to condense and interact

the expansion is continuous and accelerating

sounds

a lot

like

an

explosion

 

[fluffy]

Scientists don't say it was a bang, that is a misnomer. It happened within a 4D or 5D object, maybe a black hole.

it started out microscopic

and rapidly expanded

it was relatively uniform and energy dense at the beginning

and then cooled as it expanded and planets and stars began to condense and interact

the expansion is continuous and accelerating

sounds

a lot

like

an

explosion

Have you considered that such an explosion would simply collapse back into itself?

The reason for the expansion is that it is expanding inward not outward in a higher dimension. At least that's what I learned from the documentaries I once saw.

 

[fluffy]

If space is being added then this leaves the possibility open that the way it is added can direct the indeterministic process as per where distribution occurs. God does not play dice, but he can set the field in which they role. This would be the landscape.

So space is added that where the particle can land given God wants and knows where they are most likely to get to with different landscapes available. It is the potential pathways that lead to the outcome desired.

 

[sushi]

If he exist, he wont be the moralistic god in judeo christian myth

i am guessing he would be a troll that is both good and evil

nature and the universe doesnt give a damn about morality

 

[fractalwalrus]

Temporal priority is only one kind. Another is logical: the premises of an argument are logically antecedent to its conclusion, but not necessarily chronologically antecedent.

Indeed. Though logic in reference to causal chains is usually temporal. Touche sir Grey.

why I have preferred to use the term 'cause' rather than 'mover' in discussing it.

An important distinction, wise.

in fact, the Church traditionally treats those who claim to have received a message directly from God but fail to produce miracles or gain the approval of a competent authority as impostors until proven otherwise.

This places a great deal of trust upon the relevant authorities.Hope yours are the "correct" authorities, as there are many who lay monopolistic claim to knowledge of the divine.

Have you read the Bible?

Yes, though, admittedly it has been many years. I have read the Bhagavad Gita, and selections of the Quran.

 

[fractalwalrus]

Can you guess who they are?

Depends on your Theocratic framework. Regardless of such specificities, they persist in spite of the existence of a creator.

So there's no point in removing all evils, not until the other beings that are not all-powerful and not always good, stop making more and more evils, and only when that happens, would it make sense for G-d to remove all the evils that already exist.

If they are not all-poweful, and God is, God could remove them.

 

[The Grey Man]

in fact, the Church traditionally treats those who claim to have received a message directly from God but fail to produce miracles or gain the approval of a competent authority as impostors until proven otherwise.

This places a great deal of trust upon the relevant authorities.Hope yours are the "correct" authorities, as there are many who lay monopolistic claim to knowledge of the divine.

This is why the Church demands miracles or the approval of a competent authority as proof of the authenticity of an alleged divine revelation: the credibility of the authority is itself at least partially based on miracles—not miracles worked privately or in secret, but the public miracles worked in full sight of all by the founder of the Church, Jesus Christ, who conferred his authority to the Apostles and the Apostles to their successors, who are today the ordinary judges of the authenticity of extraordinary events, including both private miracles and private revelations. That the miracles of Jesus actually happened, no one ever had the temerity to deny before modern rationalistic skeptic critics. Even those who wanted to see the new Christian religion snuffed out in the crib, the Jews and Pagans, did not deny the miracles but ascribed them to sorcery. Why? Because it would have been ridiculous to deny events for which there were hundreds of living witnesses, just as it would be ridiculous to deny 9/11 today.

If the miracles of Jesus actually happened and were witnessed by many people, why did many of these people not believe that he was the Christ and the Son of the living God (cf. Mathew 16:16)? To answer this question it is necessary to complement the Vatican Council definition I quoted earlier with the observation that, if it is true that, to make an act of theological faith, "we must examine the objective evidence", it is no less true that mere reasoning based on evidence cannot, of itself, produce an act of divine faith.

If anyone says that the assent to christian faith is not free, but is necessarily produced by arguments of human reason; or that the grace of God is necessary only for living faith which works by charity: let him be anathema.

As Fr. Hugh Pope explains in his no less excellent Catholic Encyclopedia article on "Faith",

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Faith

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word means essentially steadfastness. As signifying man's attitude towards God it means trustfulness or fiducia

www.newadvent.org

Divine faith is supernatural both in the principle which elicits the acts and in the objects or truths upon which it falls. The principle which elicits assent to a truth which is beyond the grasp of the human mind must be that same mind illumined by a light superior to the light of reason, viz. the light of faith, and since, even with this light of faith, the intellect remains human, and the truth to be believed remains still obscure, the final assent of the intellect must come from the will assisted by Divine grace, as seen above. But both this Divine light and this Divine grace are pure gifts of God, and are consequently only bestowed at His good pleasure. It is here that the heroism of faith comes in; our reason will lead us to the door of faith but there it leaves us; and God asks of us that earnest wish to believe for the sake of the reward — "I am thy reward exceeding great" — which will allow us to repress the misgivings of the intellect and say, "I believe, Lord, help Thou my unbelief." As St. Augustine expresses it, "Ubi defecit ratio, ibi est fidei aedificatio" (Sermo ccxlvii, P.L., V, 1157 — "Where reason fails there faith builds up").

To make an act of divine faith is to assent to a proposition that God has revealed because God has revealed it—and assent is an act of the will no less than of the intellect. To know "that God exists, that He reveals such and such a proposition, and that His teaching is worthy of assent" is therefore necessary to make an act of faith, but not sufficient. It is necessary also to, "with the grace of God inspiring and assisting us," freely accept the proposition on the strength of our trust in God's Testimony even though we do not "perceive its intrinsic truth by the natural light of reason" and, crucially, even though it convicts us of sin. It is this voluntary submission to divine Revelation that makes acts of faith meritorious. If the assent of faith were not free, but could be "necessarily produced by arguments of human reason," then faith would not be a virtue, let alone "the beginning of human salvation".

The answer, then, to the question of why many of the witnesses of the miracles of Jesus did not believe in him, is that, even if they were perfectly capable of understanding the significance of what they saw, they could not accept it because it accused them in their iniquity.

"And this is the judgment: because the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil. For every one that doth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved" (John 3:19-20; cf. Wisdom 2:12-20).

St. John expresses this truth most clearly when he recounts the end of Jesus's public ministry, when the accusing Light was about to be eclipsed by "the power of darkness" (Luke 22:53).

"Whilst you have the light, believe in the light, that you may be the children of light. These things Jesus spoke; and he went away, and hid himself from them. And whereas he had done so many miracles before them, they believed not in him: That the saying of Isaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he said: Lord, who hath believed our hearing? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe, because Isaias said again: He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them" (John 12:36-40; cf. Isaias 6:10, 53:1).

"They could not believe," St. Augustine explains, "because they would not" (tract. 53. in Joan.). Therefore miracles, even extremely numerous and impressive miracles, do not alone produce faith. On one hand, this means that it is possible to witness miracles without having faith; fortunately, it is also possible to make an act of theological faith without witnessing miracles, just as it is possible, and even necessary, to accept, on the strength of human testimony, historical facts, including the historical facts concerning Jesus of Nazareth.

 

[fractalwalrus]

Why? Because it would have been ridiculous to deny events for which there were hundreds of living witnesses, just as it would be ridiculous to deny 9/11 today.

It would be silly to deny events (though not necessarily explanations for events) that occurred in front of so many people. The problem today is, we are not able to witness these things. Where are the miracles of today?

 

[The Grey Man]

The miracles of yesterday are sufficient if we trust human testimony and reject the unwarranted assumption that miracles are not possible, but if we insist on accepting any and every explanation for events except the hypothesis that God is using them to communicate with us, then even today's miracles will not convince us that their message (I am thinking particularly of the message of Lourdes and Fatima) is true. It is not difficult to find reports of recent miracles if you are really interested, but they are always accompanied by the far-fetched conjectures of those who seek rather to 'explain away' than to explain the facts reported because of the moral commitment entailed by believing in Christianity. Of course, once we affirm that God exists (having been persuaded, perhaps, by St. Thomas Aquinas's first Way), it becomes easier to believe that miracles are possible and harder to avoid this moral commitment without being continually reproached by our consciences.

 

[fractalwalrus]

The miracles of yesterday are sufficient if we trust human testimony and reject the unwarranted assumption that miracles are not possible, but if we insist on accepting any and every explanation for events except the hypothesis that God is using them to communicate with us, then even today's miracles will not convince us that their message (I am thinking particularly of the message of Lourdes and Fatima) is true. It is not difficult to find reports of recent miracles if you are really interested, but they are always accompanied by the far-fetched conjectures of those who seek rather to 'explain away' than to explain the facts reported because of the moral commitment entailed by believing in Christianity. Of course, once we affirm that God exists (having been persuaded, perhaps, by St. Thomas Aquinas's first Way), it becomes easier to believe that miracles are possible and harder to avoid this moral commitment without being continually reproached by our consciences.

The sight of miracles, the insight of oracles,
All relayed for its believers to be belayed,
In the suspension of doubt,
Of which I am informed about.
Who am I to question the tune,
Of those who worship the Son instead of the moon?
But of their claims I cannot disprove,
Perhaps argumentation is what must improve.
What I can say, and without much dismay,
Is that my 5 or more senses have yet to convey,
A miracle at which my experiences can point to,
That would bridge the gap between myself and the fortunate few.

 

[The Grey Man]

Gospel from holy Mass this morning:

"He came again therefore into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain ruler, whose son was sick at Capharnaum. He having heard that Jesus was come from Judea into Galilee, went to him, and prayed him to come down, and heal his son; for he was at the point of death. Jesus therefore said to him: Unless you see signs and wonders, you believe not. The ruler saith to him: Lord, come down before that my son die. Jesus saith to him: Go thy way; thy son liveth. The man believed the word which Jesus said to him, and went his way.

"And as he was going down, his servants met him; and they brought word, saying, that his son lived. He asked therefore of them the hour wherein he grew better. And they said to him: Yesterday, at the seventh hour, the fever left him. The father therefore knew, that it was at the same hour that Jesus said to him, Thy son liveth; and himself believed, and his whole house" (John 4:46-53).