I am an orthodox Christian, ask me a question!

[LukeMC]

You can't have it both ways.

Oh yes he can O.o

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You would have to point out in which sense God is complex; because this doctrine of a "complex" God is categorically rejected by the orthodox Christian understanding of God

And no, God is not "a mind at the beginning of the universe". You still haven't understood transcendence. God exists, wholly transcendent to the temporal dimension, and to any temporal designation.

That God is of an intellectual nature does not make him complex. Intellection really means apprehension; and apprehension is an abstract actualisation of an either abstract or material object, however incomplete we actualise our apprehensions as human intellects. God, being pure actuality, is the apprehender and followingly actualiser of all things; his act of intellection is thus identified with his real actualisation (divine simplicity).

We must distinguish between the potential intellect, also called the passive intellect, and the active intellect, to further demonstrate and understand the differentiation between a simple (divine) and a composite/complex (human) intellect. The active intellect is that by which we apprehend the essence of something, however incompletely; when I see a dog and think, “That’s a dog,” it is the active intellect at work. The passive, also called the possible/potential intellect, is like the intellect’s memory. If I see a dog, and I’ve never seen or heard of a dog before, I apprehend it with the active intellect as some kind of animal I’ve never seen before. Gradually, as I learn about dogs, all of the things that go along with being a dog accumulate in the passive/potential intellect and become available to be apprehended by the active intellect. Then, when I see a dog I can move quickly from “this animal before me” to “Man’s best friend.” Now, Gods intellect is one which we call purely active intellect, because whatever he actively apprehends (abstractly actualises) the essence of, he does so in a manner which is itself defining for that essence; and thus, he does not need a potential intellect, like humans, to inform him with the intelligible forms achieved through sensory faculties and sensory knowledge of the already-actualised world, that he himself has actualised by apprehension.

We can see that, there could be no potential or possible intellect in him, exactly because there is nothing potential with which to inform him, apart from his own actualisation of it which thus informs it, the actuality of that essence or thing, rather than the other way around. No potential knowledge for humans isn't ultimately a result of Gods actualising apprehension. He is not a human mind; he is not intellectual in the same sense as a human is intellectual.

It is rather the human intellect which is only analogous to the divine intellect. The human intellect is a complex intellect, composed of two parts, the active and the potential intellect; just like we exist in a realm composed in complexity of potentiality and actuality. Whereas God is complete non-composite; completely simple - in a term, purely actuality, and God has only the purely active intellect, and is not informed by potential intellect as he is transcendent to time and is himself the apprehensive actualiser of all things. In other words, the human intellect falls completely short of the divine simplicity in the divine intellect, and isn't comparable beyond the remote analogy of intellect that allows us to realise this great differentiation. The human intellect has thus been developed in the universe in complexity and composition between potentiality and actuality, a teleological fact of generation (final causality/natural selection), which God has ordained, in creating humanity in his likeness, with intellect; that humanity might be as gods.

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Are "active" and "potential" intellect psychological concepts or philosophical wankery? It seems all of your actuality/potentially concepts are merely mental self-fondling which have no relation to anything anybody claims true about the universe. That things can potentially happen does not necessitate a being which transcends this rule and is the source of all logic and truth. On an interesting note of curiosity, I wonder why the world hasn't latched onto your flawless logical progression...

Also, did God have a choice in creating the universe and did he mean for it to be the way that it is? If so, the way you altered the definition of "intellect" to suit your purpose was fallacious, as God would have to be intellectual in the sense that he can reason, plan, solve problems, handle abstract concepts, etc. If God already know everything he needed to know because he is "pure actuality" then why did he choose to make us? Boredom? For God to have made us either requires that God has desires or God had/has no choice. If it is that God has desires then you'll have to reason me this. If it is that God had no choice, this is not the murderous God of the OT who revealed himself to people and answers prayers and all the rest- he is a deistic God, basically the universe.