The Problem of Imperfect Revelation: Your Thoughts?

[genkaus]

The Problem of Imperfect Revelation:


P1) God (Yahweh) is an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent being (the Greatest Conceivable Being or GCB) that exists in the actual world and is the perfect & uncaused creator of the universe.


P2) God's actions are, by necessity, consistent with his holy and perfect nature as the GCB.

I see these two premises as contradictory to each other. You've defined god as the greatest conceivable being. However, you also require him to act in a particular manner by necessity. I'd say that doesn't have to act in a specific manner by necessity is conceivably greater than this one. A god who acts holy and perfect because he chooses to would be greater than one who does so because he has to.

P3) God desires (or intends that) that we - his special creations - join him in Heaven by accepting certain propositions as being true and living in a certain way, which are enumerated in holy texts that God directly inspired to would be prophets and followers.


P4) There have been - and still are - denominational disputes amongst God's followers - with said disputes often having to do with differing interpretations of the holy texts - and these disputes have included even what is necessary to achieve [P3] (saved by faith, saved by works, having special knowledge (ancient Gnostic Christians)).


P5) Given [P1 - 3], it follows from [P4] that it must be consistent with God's nature to allow denominational disputes to exist, even though they conflict with one of God's desires ([P4]), i.e entrance to heaven.


P6) However, given [P1 - 3] it also follows that God has both the power and motive to have prevented [P4], and - given [P2] & [P3] specifically - it is consistent with God's nature to reveal himself to members of his human creation, so that [P3] can come to fruition without fail, given [P1].

P3 and P4 are not as contradictory as you'd like. It is possible for him to desire that different people should consider different things as true and live according to different interpretations. It is possible that he considers that any interpretation would result in an acceptable way of life which would result in us joining him in heaven.

C) Therefore it follows that a being fitting the description of Yahweh ([P1 - 3]) cannot exist.

OR

C) Therefore [P1, 2 or 3] must be false, either in whole or in part.

One issue with defining god as you have is that either such a being must be beyond all logic or it must be subject to independent laws of reason and morality. For example, you are assuming some kind of morality if you conclude that as a result of being omni-benevolent he also must desire everyone to join him in heaven or that despite being omnipotent, he can't simply disregard how people have lived and have them join him in heaven anyway. Both of your conclusions here are effectively the same and therefore, redundant. If [P1, 2 or 3] have to be false even in part then it implies that a being fitting that description cannot exist.

What do you think, does it work? My intention was to show that it seems contradictory to claim God's 3 'omni-' traits and intention for we humans to join him in heaven, with the fact that the apparent revelation detailing the method for this can even be interpreted in different ways, such that even the method can be disagreed upon.

Otherwise, it would seem that a Christian or Muslim would have to - if accepting the argument - come to one or more of these conclusions:

*God can violate free will.

*God doesn't posses one or more of His 'omni-' attributes.

*God doesn't intend for us to go to heaven.

*God's actions are not - or do not have to be - consistent with his nature.

I've often wondered why more Christians and Muslims do not choose to go with the fourth argument. It'd solve all their problems and leave their opponent without any refutation.

"My god is not subject to any rules of logic or reason. He doesn't have to act or be in any particular manner. Whatever characteristics or intentions you posit as a result of rational conclusions are invalid. He defines what benevolence or potence is and by his definitions he is omni-benevolent and omnipotent. Your concepts do not apply."

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God is not omnibenevolent, where did you get that idea from, I know it wasn't from scriptures.

We get it from all the other "not-true-Christians" who keep touting the horn of god's omni-benevolence.

God will not violate the free will He's given us, your problem is you believe god gave free will in the whole of our lives, this is no scriptural. God gave us free will to chose Him or to reject Him, outside of that the amount of free will God allows you to have depends on His will.

Free-will is not something "given". If it exists, then it'd be a natural aspect of a rational mind. Therefore, any imposition or limitation on it is a violation of free-will.

With these two points wrong all of it fails.

God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, the scriptures never hint at God being omnibenevolent. Omnibenevolent is not part of Christianity, you will not find it in any Christian doctrine, it is a word made up by nonbelievers to try and gain an edge in an argument. The use of omnibenevolent is a dishonest way to support a dead argument.

Clearly, a lot of other Christians disagree with your interpretation of the scriptures.

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Hm, I don't think you quite got what I was getting at. My point was that assume Premises 1) & 2) are a correct picture of the god Yahweh (and they're used by major apologists). If premise 3) is true - that God wants for his human creations to go to heaven, and God is capable of revealing himself to people without eliminating there free will - then there is no impediment to God revealing himself to people as he did with, say, his prophets, and clearly their free will couldn't have been broken.

More to the point, assuming God instead chose scriptures as his means of disseminating information on how to achieve premise 3), given premise 1), God should have the ability to make revelation not truly possible to having interpretations, at the very least, of the means of salvation being wrong.

Am I wrong in this?

You are not wrong in the sense that that is how a lot of believers define god. However, you are wrong in assuming that having posited such an illogical being to begin with, they'd then be willing consider logical refutations for it.

[fr0d0]

"all-loving"

I think the Christian belief is that God is love. All loving makes no sense to me. Love and just also tie together... Some people confuse justice with unloving/ use that to demonstrate the problem with omnibenevolence.

[genkaus]

I think the Christian belief is that God is love. All loving makes no sense to me. Love and just also tie together... Some people confuse justice with unloving/ use that to demonstrate the problem with omnibenevolence.

Then that is a nonsensical proposition. Love is an emotion - not an intelligent entity. It'd make no sense to ascribe other qualities like just or benevolent to it.

[fr0d0]

If you want to call gnostic Christians and non trinitarian Christians "denominations" then you have a serious misunderstanding of what denomination means.

Actually, not quite. What I'm referring to is differing soteriological beliefs from differing interpretations of the same wellspring. Gnostics would have been a different denomination of Christian in their own time, hence why some early church fathers felt the need to try and demonstrate that they (the Gnostics, etc.) were not of the "true" Christian faith.. But if there really is in fact a problem with using Gnostics as an example, I could simpy swap it with, say, Marcionite Christians -as their soteriology was quite different despite using most of Paul's letters and one of the Gospels- could I not?

And when did I refer to non-Trinitarians? And what in my usage of denominations here is incorrect?

Yes there were many offspring's, all of which have been assessed/ challenged, and in the bible too. The error of their interpretation was explained. Faulty interpretation abounds, but I don't think we should blame the source for that. Sometimes humans get it wrong. All we can do is test and question ourselves honestly.

My use of non trinitarian was to illustrate a type of deviation that sets that interpretation beyond the label 'denomination'. A denomination is an acceptable variation by the group. The Christian church accepts some 30,000 denominations. Some churches /beliefs fall outside of the mainstream classification even though by dictionary definition those churches /beliefs are christian.

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Secondly, the Christian God never forces belief upon us. We are free agents to choose what we want/are free to act as our wills dictate. Love is not love without the freedom to choose it.

I said nothing about "forcing" belief on anyone. Well, lemme rephrase that. What is the difference between God revealing himself to a would-be prophet, and revealing himself to anyone else in a similar way. This is the crux of the argument. It obviously couldn't be "forcing" them to believe, so clearly it must be the case that God clearly revealing himself to people is not contrary to his nature and capability, yes?

The recipient has to discern the source is all. What the biblical record contains is verified cross reference establishing source. Without the check we shouldn't assume source/ we follow a process to ascertain it.

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I think the Christian belief is that God is love. All loving makes no sense to me. Love and just also tie together... Some people confuse justice with unloving/ use that to demonstrate the problem with omnibenevolence.

Then that is a nonsensical proposition. Love is an emotion - not an intelligent entity. It'd make no sense to ascribe other qualities like just or benevolent to it.

Justice is a subset of love. It doesn't contradict it. Christians and Jews are saying this is the essence of this entity.

[Dionysius]

I think the Christian belief is that God is love. All loving makes no sense to me. Love and just also tie together... Some people confuse justice with unloving/ use that to demonstrate the problem with omnibenevolence.

Then that is a nonsensical proposition. Love is an emotion - not an intelligent entity. It'd make no sense to ascribe other qualities like just or benevolent to it.

I think a great deal of exegetical confusion arises when the believer fails (understandably so) to acknowledge the possibility of a mystical (suprarational?) meaning which is often ambiguously overlayed within the text. To be clear I'm not speaking of bible code mumbo jumbo or the like but rather a meaning that takes on a translucent appearance - not readily noticeable and thus plausibly deniable but still relevant and contextually meaningful. For example (Pro 27:26) which ostensibly seems related to the valuation of livestock whilst simultaneously addressing the PoE.

In terms of the statement God is Love this has more to do with a state of consciousness; mental disposition, similar to the Buddhist notion of Samādhi where the mind, freed from the limitations of socio/environmental conditioning is afforded a momentary glimpse of the true self.

[genkaus]

Justice is a subset of love. It doesn't contradict it. Christians and Jews are saying this is the essence of this entity.

Wrong. Justice is a concept independent and qualitatively different from love. Justice is not an emotion and therefore cannot be a subset of love. The question of whether it contradicts or not doesn't even apply here.

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I think a great deal of exegetical confusion arises when the believer fails (understandably so) to acknowledge the possibility of a mystical (suprarational?) meaning which is often ambiguously overlayed within the text. To be clear I'm not speaking of bible code mumbo jumbo or the like but rather a meaning that takes on a translucent appearance - not readily noticeable and thus plausibly deniable but still relevant and contextually meaningful. For example (Pro 27:26) which ostensibly seems related to the valuation of livestock whilst simultaneously addressing the PoE.

In terms of the statement God is Love this has more to do with a state of consciousness; mental disposition, similar to the Buddhist notion of Samādhi where the mind, freed from the limitations of socio/environmental conditioning is afforded a momentary glimpse of the true self.

Is there a point somewhere in there?

[Dionysius]

Justice is a subset of love. It doesn't contradict it. Christians and Jews are saying this is the essence of this entity.

Wrong. Justice is a concept independent and qualitatively different from love. Justice is not an emotion and therefore cannot be a subset of love. The question of whether it contradicts or not doesn't even apply here.

---

I think a great deal of exegetical confusion arises when the believer fails (understandably so) to acknowledge the possibility of a mystical (suprarational?) meaning which is often ambiguously overlayed within the text. To be clear I'm not speaking of bible code mumbo jumbo or the like but rather a meaning that takes on a translucent appearance - not readily noticeable and thus plausibly deniable but still relevant and contextually meaningful. For example (Pro 27:26) which ostensibly seems related to the valuation of livestock whilst simultaneously addressing the PoE.

In terms of the statement God is Love this has more to do with a state of consciousness; mental disposition, similar to the Buddhist notion of Samādhi where the mind, freed from the limitations of socio/environmental conditioning is afforded a momentary glimpse of the true self.

Is there a point somewhere in there?

Yes. You wrote,

Love is an emotion - not an intelligent entity. It'd make no sense to ascribe other qualities like just or benevolent to it.

And I addressed.

[fr0d0]

Justice is a subset of love. It doesn't contradict it. Christians and Jews are saying this is the essence of this entity.

Wrong. Justice is a concept independent and qualitatively different from love. Justice is not an emotion and therefore cannot be a subset of love. The question of whether it contradicts or not doesn't even apply here.

I think you're being too rigid on that definition of love. I like your challenge tho and I'd like to see you develop it further.

[genkaus]

Wrong. Justice is a concept independent and qualitatively different from love. Justice is not an emotion and therefore cannot be a subset of love. The question of whether it contradicts or not doesn't even apply here.

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Is there a point somewhere in there?

Yes. You wrote,

Love is an emotion - not an intelligent entity. It'd make no sense to ascribe other qualities like just or benevolent to it.

And I addressed.

And I fail to see the relevance.

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I think you're being too rigid on that definition of love. I like your challenge tho and I'd like to see you develop it further.

Develop what? The concept of love refers to a set of emotional states. Flexibility of definition would be applying in to certain other emotional states that it doesn't normally apply to. Applying to to something fundamentally different is not being "flexible" its being foolish. There is nothing else to develop.

[Dionysius]

Yes. You wrote,


And I addressed.

And I fail to see the relevance.

It addressed the Christian exegetical concept, God is Love, which you said was an irrational attribute. The Love of God is a psychological disposition which is experienced by the believer when they are freed (free themselves) from the structural (socio/environmental) limitations of conditioned thinking. The idea is encapsulated in the statement "Perfect love casts out fear." That is to say when a person is freed from the illusory constraints attendent to personality (values; social etiquettes) which are maintained by fear of one sort or another then the resulting consciousness is similar to that described by Buddhism as Samādhi. A compassionate, yet detached feeling of bliss or serenity.

I suggested that a great deal of confusion arises from extracting this meaning in the text because a mystical or suprarational dimension is not figured into contemporary Christian or secular exegesis. Rabbinical Judaism, however, acknowledges this latent potential in Pardes