Tuesday, 22 February 2022

The Big Problem about the whole business of Omni-God

In a sense the Big Problem about the whole business of God's supposed omniscience and omnipotence is Christians defining God in terms that contradict the basic stance of Christianity.


The Omni-God arises from defining God in terms of divine attributes; and then this is compounded by these attributes being abstractions. 

But this is a strangely unnatural thing to do in the first place! For Christians, God is a person - primarily. 

To know God is to know that person - not to know his philosophical attributes!


Christians glibly pay lip-service to the Christian God being 'a personal god' - and indeed this corresponds to the sequence my own adult conversion (and that of CS Lewis); where I began as an atheist, then believed in a deity (philosophically understood - a deity of attributes), then finally a god who loved me and with whom I could have a personal relationship. 

But having arrived-at belief in a personal god, and arrived-at being-a-Christian, surely we ought then to realize that the 'person' aspect should come first

With the example of Jesus Christ (a Man, and divine) before us - and the way that Jesus speaks-with and refers-to his Father, repeatedly (especially in the Fourth Gospel); it seems plain and irrefutable common sense to recognize that the personal understanding of God ought-to-be primary!  


God is primarily a person, a particular individual* - God is a person who has-done and is-doing particular things; of which the most significant is creation. 

For Christians: God is the-creator; and the-creator is a person. 

Belief in God entails belief in that person


Only then may we move-on to discuss this God-person's attributes, powers and limitations etc - but these attributions are secondary and optional - and ought not to be made primary and defining. 

That God's attributes have-been and are, made primary and defining, is a deep and significant error; an error that leads to insoluble philosophical problems such as those relating to free agency and the origins of evil

...Then these insoluble problems serve to drive people away from Christianity; because belief in the attributes of God that lead to these problems is asserted to be mandatory for all Christians.


The fact that the divine attributes are doubled-down and insisted-upon despite all, implies that for such people God is not really being regarded as personal - but that, at best, philosophical abstractions are being dressed-up in a superficial personality. 

For such self-identified Christians, when the chips are down, God's personality is up for debate... but God's Omni-qualities are not negotiable but instead a dogmatic requirement. 

This is revealed by the insistence that Omni-God does not really have 'passions' or desires, that Omni-God does not hope, or suffer; that God does not change and is eternally, always 'the same'. So that Omni-God's love for his children (Men) is said to be of some qualitatively-different kind than the desiring and transforming love of persons for persons, beings for beings... 


Before long on this path, we may observe Omni-God's love is being regarded as so alien and incomprehensible a concept to our understanding, that the Christian is being pushed towards an attitude of 'oriental fatalism', obedience, and submission; and Omni-God is being attributed with a nature and motivations that - in a Man - would be regarded as evil - cold, un-loving, indifferent, heart-less... 
 
Continuing down this Omni-God path can easily take Christians away from being rooted in a relationship with the person of our loving-Father; and propel the Christian towards an attitude of unquestioning and uncomprehending obedience to an absolute judge and ruler...

And, potentially, then beyond that into oneness spiritualties of abstract universal deity, where 'love' has become so diffuse and depersonalized as to resemble an infinite force field or energetic vibrational frequency.


In conclusion; for Christians - taking the example of Jesus Christ - God the creator is a person; knowing God is to know that person - and loving God is to love that person. 

And the business of listing and defining the abstract attributes of that loved creator-God is no more necessary than it would be to list and define the attributes of Jesus Christ; or the attributes of our own parents, siblings or children...

Certainly, the loving does not wait-upon the listing! 



Adapted from a comment at WmJas Tychonievich's blog

*Note. In fact I personally believe God the creator is two persons, a dyad; but the above argument works the same whether the ultimate creator-God is one Heavenly Father or two Heavenly Parents.