Someone posted recently that God and his divine nature must remain apart from us (with the exception of Jesus’ birth on Earth) to remain the Creator and not a component of creation. So this is the scenario I put together: Imagine God alone, by himself before angels or planets or space or time were created. There was nothing to attest to his greatness, nothing to declare his glory. In other words, nothing existed relative to his being, only in his “thoughts.” So even eternally, his thoughts of us before we came into physical existence must have been relative to his divine being. (Ouch! Something popped inside my head!)
So anyway, is it necessary for God to exist completely apart from his creation to remain divine? We certainly can’t exist without him (Acts 17:28).
Someone posted recently that God and his divine nature must remain apart from us (with the exception of Jesus’ birth on Earth) to remain the Creator and not a component of creation. So this is the scenario I put together: Imagine God alone, by himself before angels or planets or space or time were created. There was nothing to attest to his greatness, nothing to declare his glory. In other words, nothing existed relative to his being, only in his “thoughts.” So even eternally, his thoughts of us before we came into physical existence must have been relative to his divine being.
Maybe we are just thoughts in God's mind! Maybe this is all a dream He is having!
Quote:
(Ouch! Something popped inside my head!)
So anyway, is it necessary for God to exist completely apart from his creation to remain divine? We certainly can’t exist without him (Acts 17:28).
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Hebrews 13:23 Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty
Maybe we are just thoughts in God's mind! Maybe this is all a dream He is having!
Dude, that's funny!
I guess what I meant by my question...Is his divinity relative? The interdependent quality that for something to be, say, evil, must we define it by something good? To have big, you must have a small? To have light, you must first have darkness? To be divine, God must have...us?
Now I'm beginning to sound like that 1985 trailer for "Legend" with Tom Cruise and Tim Curry...
Last edited by noeticknight; 10-17-2009 at 08:42 PM.
If God had a group of peers, each with their own special universes that they created, then he definately wouldn't be divine in relation to them. So in some sense divine is a relational word. God is divine in relation to us. Does this mean that he needed to create us in order to actually be divine. I don't think so. But then again, I don't think anything is necessity when it comes to God, I think it's about observing what he has done and that gives insight into his character. I don't think the bible has to be trying to teach us about the most perfect imaginable God. I think the bible teaches us about the real God and whether he is the most perfect imaginable or not shouldn't really matter.
What your question boils down to is whether God would still have been God if he didn't create anything. He wouldn't have been creator, that is for sure. But, I think even if such a God existed, even though there would be nothing to think of him as divine, he would still be divine. If there was no good left in the world, would we not call it evil? If there was no light left, would we not still call it dark? Maybe if we had never seen good we couldn't call that world evil. Maybe if he had never seen light we could not call it dark. But somewhere the concepts of good and light exist. So even if we had never seen either, that world would still be evil and dark.
I think I'm just rambling, hope some of all this made sense... :/
What your question boils down to is whether God would still have been God if he didn't create anything. He wouldn't have been creator, that is for sure. But, I think even if such a God existed, even though there would be nothing to think of him as divine, he would still be divine. If there was no good left in the world, would we not call it evil? If there was no light left, would we not still call it dark? Maybe if we had never seen good we couldn't call that world evil. Maybe if he had never seen light we could not call it dark. But somewhere the concepts of good and light exist. So even if we had never seen either, that world would still be evil and dark.
Interesting. So, you're saying things may be relative to us, whether we know they exist or not?
If the thought "Logos" of God, (his divine manifestation in the form of Jesus Christ), was always eternal, have we always existed...in the form of his foreknowledge preceding our physical emergence (human birth)? By this definition, are one's children essentially the same age as the parents, since they have both existed eternally in the mind of God at the same time?
My friend says that we're just data in the mind of God.
Last edited by noeticknight; 10-17-2009 at 10:53 PM.
Interesting. So, you're saying things must be relative to us, whether we know they exist or not?
If the thought "Logos" of God, his divine manifestation in the form of Jesus Christ, was always eternal, have we always existed...in the form of his foreknowledge preceding our physical emergence (human birth)? By this definition, are one's children essentially the same age as the parents, since they have both existed eternally in the mind of God at the same time?
My friend says that we're just data in the mind of God.
Interesting! This isn't a very researched thought on my part but I'm going to throw it out there anyway. The bible says the "Logos" was in the beginning with God and was God. I wouldn't equate the divine manifestation in the form of Jesus Christ as the "Logos". The "Logos" was made flesh. This explicitly speaks that the divine manifestation in the flesh of Jesus Christ was not always existentin reality because the flesh of Jesus was not always existent. It's not what is in the thoughts of God that makes something existent, except as a thought. So, no we did not exist except as a thought in God's mind. Maybe an interesting question to ask on this would be, did the thought of you or your parents come into God's mind first... Age isn't just that a thought of you may have existed at the same time as them, but that thought also contained them coming into existence in reality before you. They are older than you whether the thought of them is older than you or not.
I'm saying that the term divine is a relative term. I'm saying that God is divine whether or not he created anything. If he didn't the simple concept that he could have is enough to assert his divinity. Just as the concept of good is enough to call something evil even if you have never experienced the good revealed through the concept.
Interesting! This isn't a very researched thought on my part but I'm going to throw it out there anyway. The bible says the "Logos" was in the beginning with God and was God. I wouldn't equate the divine manifestation in the form of Jesus Christ as the "Logos". The "Logos" was made flesh. This explicitly speaks that the divine manifestation in the flesh of Jesus Christ was not always existentin reality because the flesh of Jesus was not always existent. It's not what is in the thoughts of God that makes something existent, except as a thought. So, no we did not exist except as a thought in God's mind. Maybe an interesting question to ask on this would be, did the thought of you or your parents come into God's mind first... Age isn't just that a thought of you may have existed at the same time as them, but that thought also contained them coming into existence in reality before you. They are older than you whether the thought of them is older than you or not.
I'm saying that the term divine is a relative term. I'm saying that God is divine whether or not he created anything. If he didn't the simple concept that he could have is enough to assert his divinity. Just as the concept of good is enough to call something evil even if you have never experienced the good revealed through the concept.
I agree as well, I like Anaxagoras, and the Stoics concept of "logos". I am not a fan of Plato's, nor am I a fan of Aristotle's theorum. Philo made a good attempt to combine both rationals of Anaxagoras, and the Stoics concept of "logos" into "thought and speech".
In the Targums, which were popular interpretations or paraphrases of the Old Testament Scripture, there was a tendency to avoid anthropomorphic terms or such expressions as involved a too internal conception of God’s nature and manifestation.
In the Targums, the three doctrines of the Word, the Angel (message), and Wisdom are introduced as mediating factors between God and the world.
In particular the chasm between the Divine and human is bridged over by the use of such terms as me’mera’ ("word") and shekhinah ("glory").
The me’mera proceeds from God, and is His messenger in Nature and history.
In the Old Testament, and particularly, in the Targums or Jewish paraphrases, the "Word" is constantly spoken of as the efficient instrument of Divine action; and the "Word of God" had come to be used in a personal way as almost identical with God Himself.
Quote:
But against this it has been pointed out that the Word of God is not conceived in the Old Testament as an independent Being, still less as equivalent for the Messiah, and that the rabbinical doctrine which identifies the memra with God is of much later date. - Weizsacker (Apostolisches Zeitalter)
I like to view "Logos" as "Wisdom" or "Reason".
Just my opinion.
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Ye my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I [am] he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. Isaiah
LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? . . Backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour. A Psalm of David
I agree as well, I like Anaxagoras, and the Stoics concept of "logos". I am not a fan of Plato's, nor am I a fan of Aristotle's theorum. Philo made a good attempt to combine both rationals of Anaxagoras, and the Stoics concept of "logos" into "thought and speech".
In the Targums, which were popular interpretations or paraphrases of the Old Testament Scripture, there was a tendency to avoid anthropomorphic terms or such expressions as involved a too internal conception of God’s nature and manifestation.
In the Targums, the three doctrines of the Word, the Angel (message), and Wisdom are introduced as mediating factors between God and the world.
In particular the chasm between the Divine and human is bridged over by the use of such terms as me’mera’ ("word") and shekhinah ("glory").
The me’mera proceeds from God, and is His messenger in Nature and history.
In the Old Testament, and particularly, in the Targums or Jewish paraphrases, the "Word" is constantly spoken of as the efficient instrument of Divine action; and the "Word of God" had come to be used in a personal way as almost identical with God Himself.
I like to view "Logos" as "Wisdom" or "Reason".
Just my opinion.
Thanks! Considering that all of creation and the universe stands as a result of God's thoughts, I wonder if he still feels "alone" in a sense? Maybe the evolutionists who feel that God took a "passive" role in the creation of things have a point. Maybe the infinite number of possibilities that could have unfolded is the closest thing there is to "suprising" God? Or maybe, our power of choice and free will is what intrigues him the most?
And since I'm on this particular philosophical tangent, has anyone considered that we are all the same age? I'm thinking, there is "Our Time", and then, there is "God's Time." In "Our Time," Alexander the Great is 2,333 years older than me. But, in "God's Time," we are the same (if it could be theorized that we existed together simultaneously as forethoughts in the mind of God).
Or maybe I just like connecting myself to Alexander the Great in the same sentence.
Age isn't just that a thought of you may have existed at the same time as them, but that thought also contained them coming into existence in reality before you. They are older than you whether the thought of them is older than you or not.
Re: God alone?
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