I love the people have shifted the idea of what god is when earlier
interpretations turn out to be too easily disposed of. I can see why theology
never satisfactorily answered any questions! But I am impressed with the energy
people put in to weaving their way past the need for evidence into some sort of
logical cul de sac of him being unfathomable. God has always been
anthropomorphism, mankind's vanity and paranoia writ large.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <s3raphita@...> wrote:
Re "So the argument must be falling down somewhere, probably because I can
conceive of Him not existing.":
So the "Him" you can conceive as not existing is clearly NOT the Him whose
non-existence is inconceivable! The God you conceive might not exist is an
image that you've constructed in your imagination based on your Sunday School
lessons, so is essentially an *idol* - a false god. It is good news that you
see that idols can't exist. The more idols you dismiss the closer you come to
the real God that lies beyond your or anyone else's conceptions.
The 14th-century theologian Meister Eckhart made the same point: "The more
they curse God the more they praise Him!"
Re "Seems reasonable to me that God would have a strong moral sense, stronger
than mine even, and that he wouldn't like to see people suffer.":
The Godhead doesn't have a strong moral sense. It is the crassest
anthropomorphism to imagine otherwise. (It's another category error!) But we
humans have a moral sense ("The soul is naturally Christian" - Tertullian,
third century) so we should encourage that moral sense to flourish in the same
way that a gardener encourages a flower to bloom and emit its fragrance.
