Quote:

Who says God isn't physical?



Well let's assume He is for the moment. That causes a glaring paradox, because God already exists as a physical being, but He created the universe. Well how can He create the universe if it must already exist for Him to be physical?

Quote:

I heard people say they thought God is in all and everything (it's a possibility),



He is in a sense, (don't take this the wrong way) but common sense dictates that he isn't physically in all things. We don't find God in the 'cracks' of the universe.

" Look at the birds in the sky. They do not toil or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them."

Matthew 6:26

I think this can help shed some light on it. Certainly we know that God doesn't physically hand food to the birds. But the point is that God creates and sustains the universe. If God wanted it, the universe would disappear without a trace. He can change the nature of the universe, too. Imagine telling Adam (before sin) that pain and suffering are natural and he might tell you that it simply isn't physically possible.

The bible doesn't say that God maintains things in a physical way, but we know that "With God, all things are possible." Matthew 19:26.

He clothes the flowers, and feeds the birds. Without God, the physical act of nature replenishing itself, of birds finding food, wouldn't even be possible, its all done by His will. But obviously not in a physical way. It would be contradictory to say God is physical, but without Him sustaining the universe, there is no universe.

Quote:

or maybe bounded to the physical



The creation must always be lesser than the creator. If God is less than the universe, we would scientifically know that He didn't create it.

Quote:

How do we know this? Or better, what reasons are there to believe this to be true?



I'm going to put the bible down now and go into logic mode. I'm going to assume you agree with my premise that the universe must have a beginning, and that it must have been created out of nothing by an eternally powerful, supernatural cause. If you don't then we can return to those points.

However, starting from that premise we can learn several things about this Creator without looking at the bible or using faith.

Number one, this uncaused supernatural cause is not physical. For the reasons stated earlier. The physical cannot create itself, because it would already exist before creating itself. This rings true in the bible (okay I guess I'm not putting it down) which says, "In Christ were created all things in heaven and on earth everything visible and everything invisible.... Before anything was created, he existed, and he holds all things in unity." Colossians 1:16-17

Here, my faith that the bible is true is confirmed through logic and reason.

Number two, this creator exists 'before time', 'outside of time', 'and beyond time'.

For instance, naturally speaking any creation of the universe must have a beginning. There cannot be an infinite regress of causes, so there must be an uncaused cause. However, this uncaused cause must exist outside of time. That said, any natural cause that exists outside of time will never create the universe, because the universe will not exist for an eternity. Therefore, this Creator is above and beyond time in the sense that time never affects the Creator, unless the Creator manifests itself in a physical way (burning bush, etc).

The bible is consistent with this logic. 2 Peter 3:8 says, "One day is a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is as one day."

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End." Revelation 1:8

Well, I can't remember all of the verses that talk about that, but the 2 Peter verse should suffice for now.

So just using logic, and ignoring the bible we can know a few things about God. He isn't physical, and He isn't affected by time. The bible backs this up.

Quote:

We simple can not know this, just like the nature of any God and any of it's habits, influence or shape, unless we get some clear evidence about any of this.



Quote:

Since science didn't find anything pointing towards a God,



Well then, I hope I cleared that up for you.

Quote:

Some consider God to be impossible to prove because he supposedly is outside of the physical



I think its quite possible, and rather easy to prove. When you combine what we know about the universe, and compare it to what's written in the bible, it all pans out quite nicely.

Quote:

not that we could even know this off course when true.



I think you're looking at this the wrong way. This isn't about waiting for God to perform some unquestionable miracle every generation so that people never stop believing in Him. This is a question over the validity of what the bible says about Him, and what we know about the natural universe. Its just a matter of getting all the clutter out of the way. You said yourself that you don't have an example, so its hard to make my point, but I don't think there's anything written in the bible that can be called contradictory.

"The heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him." 2 Chronicles 2:6

Does this reveal God? No, but it tells us something about His nature. It is possible for us, lesser beings, to understand some things about things that can't be completely understood.

We may not know exactly what God is? But does that stop us from knowing that He wants salvation for us? Does that stop us from understanding His will in sacrificing His son just so that we could have eternal life?

What we can't understand doesn't prevent us from understanding what we can, and what we can understand is more important than what we can't.

To put it in an analogy, consider the atom. We don't know exactly what its like, we don't know what it looks like (or we didn't anyway). But we come up with diagrams, and we watch the way it affects the physical universe so we can grasp some of it. We don't dismiss the notion of an atom just because we can't completely comprehend it. We study what we can, and we notice that the natural universe tells us it must exist. Knowing what we do about the atom, we can make all sorts of useful theories, predictions, etc, all without every truly comprehending the atom. What we do know about the atom, is always more important than what we don't know.

Quote:

we haven't witnissed him. And my conclusion would be, then why believe



We have witnessed Him. Through His creation. Through His physical manifestation as Christ. I think we should believe because its reasonable, rational, and logical to believe. His word affirms itself, and nature screams 'design.'

More importantly, we should believe because its the only way to salvation. "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." John 8:12 In a universe that appears to have been created by a Creator, its best to heed that Creator's word. If God is powerful enough to create the universe, then one of the smallest challenges for Him is telling the truth about how to be saved, and what it means to be saved.

You can spend the rest of your life wondering how you could ever possibly comprehend God, when you don't need to. All you have to do is put your faith in Christ, and accept His sacrifice for you.

Quote:

Partly it's not about the part he does mention about himself, but the part he doesn't or didn't explain.



How can the bible contradict itself on what it doesn't say?

Quote:

People state God doesn't lie, God supposedly gave information about who or what he is like and this was written down in the bible, right?



Yup.

Quote:

God supposedly is greater than any set of human definitions could possibly describe him by, that's also straight out of the bible, which makes his own explanation about himself incomplete at least, and in error in my opinion.



Ok, I might not see where you're coming from. But let me ask you this. There are a lot of people 'attacking' the bible right now. Why is it that the best they can do is claim that Jesus said the end times were soon (which He explicitly did not), and minor contradictions like that? Why can't anyone point out any falsehood about God Himself. One area in which the bible claims something about God that is completely impossible? Don't you think this would have happened by now?

Any 'description' of God is incomplete, but it reflects the incomplete nature of our intelligence, not a lack of God's existence.

Quote:

It may sound as a difference of interpretation of the bible, but remember I'm reading the same words in the book you are



I know, and I'm listening to what you have to say. I think we're not entirely on the same page, but this is an interesting discussion, and we'll probably come to a better understanding.

Last edited by Irish_Farmer; 07/09/06 07:05.
"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."