Is God a logical contradiction?

[Belacqua]

There can be nothing prior to God and God is made of nothing. 

That's what they say.

But nothing just means something meaningless. 

Well, I think that the word "nothing" has a meaning. Am I wrong? 

I can't see how he can't be made of anything at all, if that's what you mean by nothing. 

If you want to posit a God that is made of something you could, I guess. It might be interesting to imagine something new and then argue why we should call it God. It would be entirely different from the God of Christianity. 

This is the key point they talk about when they cite the difference between, say, Zeus and the Christian God. Zeus is a contingent being with limited extension. If he stopped existing, the universe could still exist. The God of the theists, on the other hand is non-contingent, non-material, non-extended, etc. 

Our entire experience of science is that something always comes from something.

Science works so well because it doesn't try to do metaphysics. 

Theistic metaphysics agrees that all contingent somethings come from somethings.

[The Grand Nudger]

Zues -is- a theist’s god, you cretin.

Meanwhile, the Christian god is said to be made of many things. Will, potency, force, magic....lol, just like any other theist’s god. All of which are made of something’s, and all of those somethings can interact with our somethings. That’s definitional for a theistic god.

The difference between the two are their backstories, not the genre.

[GrandizerII]

They always seem to assume on the fly there is a God that isn't anything like that, 

Given the thousands of pages they wrote to figure out what God is, and why it's necessary, I don't think "on the fly" is a fair characterization. 

yet even the philosophical God originates in human thinking rather than demonstrating itself to us.

This is our modern feeling. 

The arguments of the people you dismiss are based on obvious facts about the universe which, they feel very sincerely, point to a God when properly analyzed. God, in their view, "demonstrate[s] itself to us" by being the logical conclusion of questions we ask about existence.

I know you don't think their conclusions are correct, so you don't have to remind me of that.

Fair enough, putting aside the strictly philosophical God ...

You have the theologian God that is nevertheless linked to the God of the Bible/Christian Tradition. Do you think it's over the top to say that it's a little sketchy when theists try to argue for a very intellectual type of god that possesses characteristics that are exclusively based on Christian scripture/tradition?

[Belacqua]

[...] it's a little sketchy when theists try to argue for a very intellectual type of god that possesses characteristics that are exclusively based on Christian scripture/tradition?

I don't know the arguments by which people combine, say, impassibility with the three persons of the Trinity. I think good theologians are very careful in discerning "natural theology" -- that which can be logicked out -- from revelation. Christianity as I understand it always has an element of faith or mystery, and a felt need to be compatible with the Bible. (Though we've seen that different readings of the Bible make a lot of different things compatible with it.)

As long as they don't pretend their revelation is proven or provable, I don't see why it's dishonest.

[The Grand Nudger]

If they argue from something other than special revelation then they aren’t arguing for that god of the philosophers at all.

It’s a bait and switch.

Not that Good Theologians ™ won’t do that. It’s a job, not an honorific. Good Theology is self defining by the criteria of that theology. Internal consistency is the metric....and consistency with absurd assumptions is still consistency.

That’s how guys like St Tom ended up wasting their lives trying to count angels on the head of a pin.

[Tom Fearnley]

There can be nothing prior to God and God is made of nothing. 

That's what they say.

But nothing just means something meaningless. 

Well, I think that the word "nothing" has a meaning. Am I wrong? 

I can't see how he can't be made of anything at all, if that's what you mean by nothing. 

If you want to posit a God that is made of something you could, I guess. It might be interesting to imagine something new and then argue why we should call it God. It would be entirely different from the God of Christianity. 

This is the key point they talk about when they cite the difference between, say, Zeus and the Christian God. Zeus is a contingent being with limited extension. If he stopped existing, the universe could still exist. The God of the theists, on the other hand is non-contingent, non-material, non-extended, etc. 

Our entire experience of science is that something always comes from something.

Science works so well because it doesn't try to do metaphysics. 

Theistic metaphysics agrees that all contingent somethings come from somethings.

What does the word nothing mean? I always thought it was meaningless: It can't be seen, imagined or hasn't been measured hence meaningless.

Yes but non-material (immaterial) just means "nothing/something meaningless" or made of non-matter (things like energy and thoughts.) If you say it means neither I'd ask you what it means and I'm confident I wouldn't get a coherent answer: You might say something like immaterial means "spirit" but then I'd ask you to define spirit and we would go in circles I'd bet.

If theistic metaphysics says something comes from something then God isn't nothing as in made of nothing at all. And as nothing is a meaningless word "made of nothing" is a meaningless sentence. Unless we're talking about nothing meaning "something we have no understanding of".

[Belacqua]

What does the word nothing mean? I always thought it was meaningless: 

Google gives me this:

[*]not anything; no single thing.
"I said nothing"
synonyms:
not a thing, not a single thing, not anything, nothing at all, nil, zero;
[/list]

But it sounds as if, oddly, you are talking about nothing as if it were something. 

It can't be seen, imagined or hasn't been measured hence meaningless.

If nothing is there, then it can't be seen. You can't see something that doesn't exist. etc.

Yes but non-material (immaterial) just means "nothing/something meaningless" or made of non-matter (things like energy and thoughts.)
If theistic metaphysics says something comes from something then God isn't nothing as in made of nothing at all. 

One of the earliest ways of talking about it in philosophy was to say that the Forms (where God is the Form of the Good) are something like numbers. They have no material existence, just as the number two has no material existence. 

If you want to say that numbers are "made out of thoughts" I guess that makes sense. I hadn't thought of them as being made out of anything, so it sounds funny to me. But if you insist that everything has to be made out of something then I guess that's the closest I can come. 

What about a fictional character who has never really existed? Let's say Sherlock Holmes. We all know something about him, though he has no material existence. Would you say then that he is made out of thoughts? Again, I had never thought of it that way but I guess it makes sense. 

And as nothing is a meaningless word "made of nothing" is a meaningless sentence. Unless we're talking about nothing meaning "something we have no understanding of".

OK, there are traditions in which God is called noetic, or otherwise pure thought. So I guess "made out of thought" might be close. So long as we specify that thought isn't like some raw material that was floating around and then fashioned into God. 

Still, I think this idea that everything -- even numbers -- has to have a raw material may be misleading.

[Prycejosh1987]

Is God a logical contradiction? Is saying an [all-powerful] immaterial intelligence [God] like saying a square circle or married bachelor? To the best of my knowledge there are no immaterial things, such as energy waves, that exhibit intelligence. I need help with this. Anyone?

Can you give me a list of all immaterial things known to us? Do any of them exhibit intelligence? Are all immaterial things known to us (as in there can't be anymore)?

The problem with the above: Is it possible there could be something immaterial which is intelligent? Maybe, maybe not imo. This could be like asking "is it possible that a bachelor could be married?" No, it's not possible. But then maybe I'm wrong.

Thanks.

REMEMBER GOD IS BEYOND AND ABOVE US IN EVERY WAY. IT MAKES SENSE FOR HIM TO BE NOT UNDERSTANDABLE. IT PROVES HES NOT MAN MADE. EVERYTHING SPIRITUAL (THE HUMAN SOUL, DEMONS AND ANGELS AND GOD, ETC) IS IMMATERIAL WE CANT EXPLAIN WHAT IS ABOVE US. IF WE COULD THEN THEY WOULDNT BE ABOVE US. WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENS AFTER DEATH?

[Duty]

You stop SHOUTING?! BTW, I am in awe of the creative flare you've shown in your choice of username.

[Prycejosh1987]

They always seem to assume on the fly there is a God that isn't anything like that, 

Given the thousands of pages they wrote to figure out what God is, and why it's necessary, I don't think "on the fly" is a fair characterization. 

yet even the philosophical God originates in human thinking rather than demonstrating itself to us.

This is our modern feeling. 

The arguments of the people you dismiss are based on obvious facts about the universe which, they feel very sincerely, point to a God when properly analyzed. God, in their view, "demonstrate[s] itself to us" by being the logical conclusion of questions we ask about existence.

I know you don't think their conclusions are correct, so you don't have to remind me of that.

I DISAGREE. IT ISNT MODERN OUR THINKING HAS LASTED SINCE THE BEGINNING. MONKEYS DONT HAVE A CONSCIENCE.