(February 13, 2018 at 3:16 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote:(February 13, 2018 at 1:41 am)Godscreated Wrote: I scanned the thread and saw several good answers to your question and your follow ups were mostly why does a perfect God have wants/desires and I ask you why you think being perfect eliminates wants/desires. God has existed for an eternity already, meaning He has no beginning (try and get your head around that one) and He will exist for an eternity from now own, meaning He has no ending. God was perfect and is perfect and will always be perfect in all of His will and His nature. It is His nature to love without being limited so in that He has love to give abundantly. We and all His creation receives that love continually because He wants to do it, He never needed to do it and there lies the difference, He wanted to He did not need to. So God created a perfect universe and two perfect people to inhabit this perfect world only to have them screw up the relationship He had with them and then God cursed the rest of creation to match the lost relationship that He had with them before they sinned. There was something God couldn't do in all this, stop loving all people that would be outside His will and why because those who go to an eternal punishment will not receive love from God anymore, this is part of the punishment. Not one person before their death has ever experience a time without God's love, people may not realize it but God loves them no matter who or what they become and live to be. But as AM said only those who accept Christ as their savior become children of God, we are the only ones to experience the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit ie. the triune God. To experience God is to experience all three and the love each have for us. Love is the key to your question use it to unlock some of your questions about God.
GC
The problem that I see with this thread topic in hindsight, is that our resident theists are not in shared agreement on god’s attributes. If, according to some of you, god is perfectly whole and self-fulfilling, then the distinction between a want and a need is irrelevant. A whole, complete, perfect and self-fulfilling entity shouldn’t experience desire, because it should already have everything within itself.
On the other hand, (to bring you guys back to Jor’s thoughtful response that no Theist has taken a crack at yet) if god is NOT complete, whole and self-fulfilling, and can experience needs and wants the same as humans do, where do those desires come from, and why does he experience them? Of what value are they to a perfect god?
You ignored what I post, for I said God did not need to He wanted to.
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.
