Nature of a GOD?

I am bringing in this topic as an offshoot of "What is the I in ID" discussion as it will help flesh out some conceptions that I think need adressing.God is in the Christian sphere the motive force behind the creation of our world that we deal with around us and the universe that surrounds our world. Now it is often bantied around that God exists outside of time and space which is a statement that I think deserves some explanation since one wonders how God communicates with people in his creation and also supposedly enacts disasters or stops the Sun in its movement across the sky, you get the picture. These actions require the ability to manipulate the time and space that He is said to exist outside of.Now either He does not live outside of time and space or the material world necessarily operates on its own.You cannot have it both ways correct?Now please do not give the lame excuse that God can do whatever he wants since that has explanatory power at all.

jar I would not say that is the case,however,we are having difficulty here in our clarity of what constitutes God.In your second paragraph you write. In the first quote you are implying that God has no limitations but,in the second quote you tell me that you equate God as being time and space. That,my humble friend,is subject to limitaions that we observe in our investigations of the world.Nevertheless,God as an entity is,if we are stating that God is time and space, brings up the same question.How may God manipulate the time and space He supposedly is and simpler questions such as how does God think or anticipate or verbalize His instructions to humans? Some of these are easily dropped into the realm of faith but I personally find that to be inadequate. It is the very nature of proper inquiry not to allow that which is possible to investigate to simply slip into areas that insulate our need for comfort from what may be the harsh light of reality.

jar Ok.I do understand that. I am actually trying to come to grips with your impression of God as an entity that molds the universe as He sees fit while at the same time is seperate from it and therefore leaves no physical trace we can observe.What is the nature of the universe that you would require the extra addition of a God such that no amount of probing or investigation will reveal Him and yet at the same time inflict on a good number of people the serious insistence from them of Him being real and therefore affecting physical responses in them?

jar OK. This will need to dig in deeper.To create the "rules" {whatever those are!} what means would He use to implement them? As a belief in God must in some sense arouse in you an impression of His existence I am asking you to explain how the {bbodily[/b] sensation of the impression is instilled within yourself without physical means being implemented by God?This message has been edited by sidelined, 07-05-2004 12:46 AM

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You see a book lying on a table. You know there's a force due to gravity acting on that book. If you take that force (on the book and due to gravity) as the "action," what then is the "reaction" as required by Newton's third law?

jar I see that the confusion is mine in that I am relating the words such as "finger of God,"finer hand" and "He thought them" as being meant to say that you view God as actually having a hand or a finger or a thought which are all themselves manifestations of a physical reality,a material existence.I disagree simply because my impression shows me that without invoking God as a Prime mover we arrive at a greater sense of completion in the world.I find myself in agreement with Feynman on this when he said: And we now address this point. Again it is only,perhaps,that I am unable to share in the acceptance that the universe is,through observation and reason, evidence of a God without being able to explore the means by which a God would do these things.But that is just me. I think we are only differing in the sense that I do not have that internal impression.Anyway it is good jousting with you on this.Perhaps we might hear from others on their views of this.Have a good day.

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You see a book lying on a table. You know there's a force due to gravity acting on that book. If you take that force (on the book and due to gravity) as the "action," what then is the "reaction" as required by Newton's third law?