Necessary being does not entail Metacrock's God

[Magritte]

Joe, your God is not simply necessary being - your God is an amalgam of attributes and qualities, over and above necessary being.

For example, you insist that your God is, following Tillich, "not less than personal". But this quality of being not less than personal does not follow from just necessary being. There is nothing about necessary being that requires us to consider it as something more than completely impersonal. And the same follows for all the other attributes of God - that God is loving, and caring, and is capable of having a relationship with man - that God intercedes in history in various ways, that God is just and merciful and so on.

Now you may of course say that necessary being is an essential property of God, and I'd agree, given my understanding of your conception of God. But while necessary being may be necessary to your conception of God, it is not sufficient to establish your God, unless you can specify how all the other myriad attributes, qualities and facets of your God follow from necessary being.

[Metacrock]

Joe, your God is not simply necessary being - your God is an amalgam of attributes and qualities, over and above necessary being.

For example, you insist that your God is, following Tillich, "not less than personal". But this quality of being not less than personal does not follow from just necessary being. There is nothing about necessary being that requires us to consider it as something more than completely impersonal. And the same follows for all the other attributes of God - that God is loving, and caring, and is capable of having a relationship with man - that God intercedes in history in various ways, that God is just and merciful and so on..

you are confused about the implications of necessity. in the sense i9n whi9ch I use it it means not contingent, it is not a limit on the nature of God.

through his energies (E Orthodox concept) God is immaent and can do contingent things. for example, God did not have to create the world. sure the divine would have a consciousness but he can manifest i9t to us in such a way that we feel we are communicating, whereas if we saw Gods consciousness truly we would not have a clue about it.

there are thinkers and scientists such as Gaswamy who see the basis of reality as mind. there is a connection between love and being. Balthasar says love = being.

that's enough to establish any attribute I see in God

Now you may of course say that necessary being is an essential property of God, and I'd agree, given my understanding of your conception of God. But while necessary being may be necessary to your conception of God, it is not sufficient to establish your God, unless you can specify how all the other myriad attributes, qualities and facets of your God follow from necessary being

(1) certainly is. the TS argument and the modal are based upon the concept.

(2) that's a different matter it does not support your original thesis. you said my God is made up of conti9ngencies, now this says can't prove
god. two different ideas.












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[Magritte]

you are confused about the implications of necessity. in the sense i9n whi9ch I use it it means not contingent, it is not a limit on the nature of God.

That's the problem! It's not restrictive enough! Necessary being does not entail God for the same reason that the existence of matter does not entail the Taj Mahal.

[Superfund]

Didn't the guy who built it do so for love?

[Magritte]

Didn't the guy who built it do so for love?

Haha, cute.

But did the guy who built God do it for love?

[Jim B.]

you are confused about the implications of necessity. in the sense i9n whi9ch I use it it means not contingent, it is not a limit on the nature of God.

That's the problem! It's not restrictive enough! Necessary being does not entail God for the same reason that the existence of matter does not entail the Taj Mahal.

Why do all of God's attributes have to be entailed by necessary being? That would reduce God to logical implication.

There seems to be a nexus between mind and reality, as Joe mentions, that we just don't get. Perhaps it's cognitively closed to human minds. If there is such a nexus, I don't think it would be a logical necessity but something more like water=H2O.

[KR Wordgazer]

Metacrock says necessary being is "not a limit on the nature of God." I don't think he was saying that necessary being implies all attributes of the God he and I believe in.

[Magritte]

Why do all of God's attributes have to be entailed by necessary being?

They don't have to be. That they are not, is my point. Which means that arguments from necessary being do not prove God.

There seems to be a nexus between mind and reality, as Joe mentions, that we just don't get. Perhaps it's cognitively closed to human minds. If there is such a nexus, I don't think it would be a logical necessity but something more like water=H2O.

But we know that being does not entail mind because some things are mindless.

[Magritte]

Metacrock says necessary being is "not a limit on the nature of God." I don't think he was saying that necessary being implies all attributes of the God he and I believe in.

I think he meant that God being necessary being does not limit God to merely necessary being and nothing more, and I agree. If Joe's feeling well enough perhaps he can elaborate.

[Jim B.]

They don't have to be. That they are not, is my point. Which means that arguments from necessary being do not prove God.

I think we agree. God cannot be logically demonstrated. It's a family of probabilistic arguments, although establishing necessary being may be an important first step.

But we know that being does not entail mind because some things are mindless.

Right. There's no logical entailment there. There may be an a posteriori truth that connects the first and third person perspectives.