Hot answers tagged nature-of-god
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This is not necessarily a Catholic perspective, but I suspect the exegesis would pass muster. (Feel free to ignore if you wish)
Faulty Premise #1: God is lying
God did not lie. In the day she ate of it, she became subject to death. Her body (and Adams) began to decay, and went from immortality to mortality.
Additionally, she and Adam were, in fact, ...
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First of all, the assertion that "With God, all things are possible" is valid and scriptural.
Matthew 19:26 (NIV)
26 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
However, it would be a mistake to assume that God's omnipotence means he can act against his nature. Hebrews tells us:
...
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Mainstream Christianity - Catholicism, Orthodox, and the various Protestant denominations, God doesn't have a form. He is spirit, omnipresent, and not confined to a single place. He doesn't have a form. (Although He could manifest one and speak through it, such as a burning bush...)
Of course, when He came to earth as Christ (as mainstream Christianity ...
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A Heart Conducive to Understanding
Before addressing the question, it seems appropriate to address the proper spirit in which such answers should be sought. There is a very important principle in Scripture which we need to remember;
You will say to me then, “Why does [God] still find fault? For who resists His will?” On the contrary, who are you, O ...
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The term "only begotten" is a translation of the Greek word "monogenes". "Mono" indicates one and "genes" indicates kind. So, the very word itself indicates a meaning of "one of a kind".
In the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), the word was actually used of Isaac. It should be noted that Isaac was not, in fact, the only son of ...
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The Holy Spirit is not the Father of Jesus, God the Father is. What you are asking about is the nature of the Trinity.
Trinity
Christians have always believed the Son of God was preexisting before the creation of the world and is God who created the world. The Father spoke through the Son and the Spirit performed the actual creative events.
John 1:1-3
...
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If you're asking for an answer from a Christian perspective, which implies that you will accept, for the purposes of the answer, the presuppositions inherent in a "Christian answer" such as that God is who the Bible claims he is...
You're making a false assumption in the question. Good or evil are not concepts that man made up and applied to God. Good and ...
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The assertion that God's omniscience, omnipresence, and omnificence somehow means that God must be everything is false. God's omniscience means God knows all things. God's omnipresence means that God is everywhere present. God's omnificence means that He has all creative power. None of these mandate that God must be both love and evil.
God is ...
9
Oftentimes, the simplest answer is the correct one. So here's the obvious answer: He spoke and wrote in Hebrew because he was dealing with Hebrew-speaking people at the moment. Had God spoken to them in English, Latin, or Chinese, they would not have understood him!
God, being omniscient, knows all human languages. This means that he has no trouble ...
8
First a disclaimer –
Your question is another form of the renowned problem of evil. How can God be loving and kind in light of all the suffering that exists in the world?
It is easy to try to give over simplifying answers especially when I myself haven’t gone through the problems many other people have to face. I do not think I can fully answer your ...
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Firstly, the Trinity is not Tritheism. This is the classic argument of the Muslim against Christianity, but it is not valid. It is not valid, because the formulation of the Trinity specifically states that God is one being who exists in three persons.
The problem is not in the formulation, but rather in attempts to make an analogy to explain it. No analogy ...
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Does God have no shape or form?
Objection 1
The book of Genesis uses these words to describe man's creation
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. (Genesis 1:26 NIV)
therefore, God must look like man.
Objection 2
Throughout the Old Testament, the Spirit of God has appeared as moving flames, columns of fire and burning bushes. Columns ...
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The idea of a God that set things in motion but does not, and has not intervened since is a concept central to Deism.
The view has a long history, and has had a few supporters, but is not by any means the predominant view within Christianity. Deists also reject the notion of divine revelation, including Scripture. It's not necessarily a Christian concept, ...
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Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs) take Daniel 10:13,21; 12:1 to equate Michael to Christ. They believe that since it refers to Michael as "one of the foremost princes", and,
"Michael will stand up, the great prince who is standing in behalf of the sons of your people."
They also interpret "stand up" to be mean "take control and reign as king." From their ...
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Begotten = Same Nature
Think of what it means to be a begotten son. A begotten son of a human, is human by nature. A begotten son of God therefore, is God by nature. This is the key.
Nature of God
What is the nature of God? Let's take just one quality of God - eternity. God, by definition, is eternal by nature. He is timeless. He wasn't created, but he ...
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The following recent books are very popular and explore the topic. I have read the first two and heard some sermons from the third.
Books:
The Attributes of God by A. W. Tozer
Knowing God J.I Packer
The Attributes of God by A.W. Pink
Tozer's sermons are easily found, for example here.
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=8130752728
Common ideas ...
7
Methinks that the problem lies with this statement:
I stated that He entered into the physical world in His incarnation.
Your multiple examples demonstrate that God did manifest a physical form before He was incarnated in Jesus. However, this physical form wasn't necessarily human flesh and blood. Quite possibly a human appearance, like the angels ...
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Affable Geek's comment that "my understanding is that Mormons reject the Credal terminology, but accept the upshot" is pretty much on the money. In my research to answer this question, it seems that the Catholic concept of the Hypostatic Union is mixed in with a lot of Trinitarian implications that LDS theology rejects. However, the basic concept of the ...
7
The term you are looking for is 'Deism'. It says there is a God, but doesn't say that he does much. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson in particular, and several of the Foubding Fathers were in fact Deists, leading Benjamin Franklin to the aphorism, "God helps them who help themselves".
1 Peter, by the way, mentions that in the last days, there will come scoffers ...
7
My understanding from growing up in an Anglican church:
We pray to God the Father. He is the one that answers our prayers. Not a perfect verse for this, but the only one I could think of:
“Again, truly I [Jesus] tell you that if two of you on earth agree
about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in
heaven" (Matthew 18:19 ...
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There is some confusion about the word ‘anthropomorphism’ as it is found in the Bible. The basic idea is that anything that is ‘unworthy’ of being attributed to God, which is a human characteristic applied to God in order for us to understand something higher and nobler, is anthropomorphic. For example when the Bible says Noah found favor in the eyes of the ...
6
The answer is actually pretty straightforward, but it is very difficult for people to accept.
1) God's values, desires, teachings, commandments and interactions with man were exactly the same in the Old Testament as the New Testament.
In the New Testament, we learn that God is love. Jesus' "new commandment" is that we love one another. But this really ...
6
Short Answer: When we say "God is omnipotent" we mean "He has the power to do whatever He pleases". There are other definitions, such as "capable of doing anything man can think up", but by such definitions He would not be considered "omnipotent".
Semantics
As indicated in the wikipedia post you linked, there are many definitions for the word omnipotent. ...
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"God is omnipotent" does not mean "God is everything". If we say "God is good" then it means "God is not evil". It means "God does not do evil things", but that is a limitation imposed by his nature, and not by lack of power.
There is a word for the view that God is everything, and the word is Pantheism. It is not a part of Christianity.
6
I guess I'd question whether or not God's children really do suffer more than the wicked. We all suffer in this world, and while some Christians suffer horrific things, so do non-believers. But assuming the premise is true...
This is one of the great philosophical questions to which there are many answers given. There are several possible reasons for any ...
6
God is love, but punishes evil
It is important to understand the love is not something that God does--it is something that God is (1 John 4:16). God is loving toward all He has made (Psalm 145) and is, indeed, incredibly merciful. He even delights in mercy and forgiveness.
However, He punishes evil as well, and this is a good thing. Yet, His purpose is ...
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No, God does not.
In hebrew the word there is נָסָה the KJV translates it as "tempt", but strong's translates it as "to test". In fact if you check out other translations you'll find thats how they translate it as well.
So what was God doing in Genesis 22? Was he tempting Abraham or testing him? Reading on in the chapter God makes it clear.
2 “Take ...
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The fundamental assertion of Open Theism is a fairly simple proposition - it posits that God experiences time in a fashion not unlike that of mere mortals. Unlike the more mainstream understanding of God's relationship to time - namely that God does not exist in time, nor is He constrained by it, in Open Theism, God, like man, is unaware of what the future ...
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The Nephilim are a subject of much debate. There are a number of views on what they were, the two prominent views being the Sethite view and the Angelic view. Both are an opinion on who or what the "sons of God" are.
The Nephelim are most notably mentioned in Genesis and seem to be a driving decision to send the Flood of Noah.
The Nephilim were on the ...
5
Jonathan Edward's Ontological Argument
In his "Essay on the Trinity" (and private notebooks and public sermons), Jonathan Edwards suggested a form of ontological argument for each of the three persons of the Trinity. Anselm's argument starts from a definition of a hypothetical God who perfects all excellences and proceeds to show God must actually exist ...
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