Hey Pat, one thing I heard, that makes a lot of sense to me, is the idea that these "stretch concepts" are actually thought of backwards. That is, we are made in the image of God, and as such, _we_ have power which is something like what God has, _we_ have intellect, which is something like what God has, etc. In that inversion the analogical concepts seem to me to make more sense, in that it is us who have some lesser version of these attributes of God, and not that God has a greater version of our attributes, if that makes sense.

@@VACatholic ^^ 💯

Just got a hold of your paper, will be reading and enjoying it also after this video 🕊

“Further, as strongly distinguished from your insistence that all that is not explicitly taught by Scripture is to be rejected, I would have maintained the position about the power of natural human reason to know things about God even if Scripture had said nothing on the topic of what can be known from natural human reason”. This seems to be nonsensical to me! If I am mis applying your statement, I do apologize but what I have gathered from this is you are saying that you can somehow know things of God even if that “thing” was not even stated by God at all? How can this be? That is like saying: I am walking on a beach, and I stumble upon a bike and then I philosophically deduce that the bike maker likes purple because the bike seat has a purple stitching on the seat cushion. This is overreaching which has been my entire problem with theologians and philosophers arguing about certain aspects pertaining to God that is simply pure speculation using only human reasoning and logic. Example William lane Craig and Molinism. As I have said before; Faith is the expression of a belief that God created it; not necessarily with evidence. Yes, faith is contrasted by knowledge but with what standard? How do I know which knowledge is correct? Why isn’t the Hindu Gods a trustworthy attestation? After all Hinduism is one of the oldest religions in the world! Your presumption is assuming Christianity is true! That the Christian God is God. On what grounds? What is so trustworthy to assert that this evidence is uniquely special when benched with other religions? If you remove all of scripture and ONLY have a philosophical understanding of a deity based on natural theology, there is no possible way of knowing anything to be true by any statements that are made. Why? Aristotle made several philosophical statements about motion and is utterly wrong based on what we know today. This is NOT faith; faith is not necessarily seeing anything particular about what you believe but by understanding the consistent considerations of the testimonials of the ones who either experienced it or are the ones commissioned to preach it. In this case, God revealed himself to Abraham and so I believe it? I was not there to know if Abraham truly heard God say anything to him. God revealed himself to Moses and ushered in his laws and so I believe them. I didn’t directly wittiness any of the miracles performed at the time of Egypt and yet I still believe that Moses’s testimonial is true. God came down from Heaven in human form and likeness and was crucified and was raised from the dead, and so I believe it. I was not around during Christs life and death to see him rise from the dead let alone ascend into heaven, yet I believe. Therefore faith is believing in something that one can’t necessarily see and places that hope in the one who has made promises (God) that we did not directly hear or see by those who have witnessed and experienced God in profound ways. As a result, or fruit from this belief, faith is expressed by obedience to the one who also commands something of the faithful, namely, to love God with all our heart, mind and spirt and to love our neighbor as ourselves. In this case, to believe that Father sent the Son into the world in human flesh and in human likeness as spoken to us by the prophets so that God can draw for himself a chosen people through Jesus Christ our LORD that is what the gospel is. Paul is explicitly and deliberately telling you in Romans 1 to Romans 3 that NOBODY not even one is righteous by themselves without the aid of God. There is NO ONE who seeks GOD. ALL (this is not exclusivity here) have turned away, they have together become worthless. But you are telling me that there could be people who lived their life that contradicts the very word of God himself whether Jew or Gentile? Paul also says “If it were up to man’s effort alone, no one would seek or find God. Were we created to seek God and find God? Of course, but by the fallen state of Adam and Eve this became an impossibility unless God has intervened such as; Noah, Abraham, Moses, Isiah etc. Otherwise, these men would not have had been saved and Gods wrath would be like Sodom and Gods judgement would be like Gohmora. So what saved them? God requested Noah to build an arc of a future deluge and so he believed. Abraham was told to leave his country to go to a place that was not his own, he left and so believed. This is redemptive faith! Believing in what God had stated regardless of how it was delivered they believed it and because of that belief they carried the command out and that was accredited to them as being righteous. Not because of some argument or some deep philosophical argument but because God spoke to them, and they obeyed him and THAT was the faith that saved them. Just as it is for us, that we believe that God created all things and that God by his own sovereignty came down from heaven became man to save for himself a chosen people. The mere fact you have criticized me by using a commentary that is exegeting the biblical text as how a commentary should operate somehow diminishes Sola Scriptura nor is scripture? Clearly, you do not like Spurgeon or Murray but that doesn’t diminish my argument at all because a commentary that is exegeting the text and teaches you how to better understand a particular verse or idea within the text does not therefore mean that it is not scripture. Your criticism seems to be to be a logical fallacy of the Ad hominin type. If you do not like the commentary authors fine but to diminish Sola Scriptura as you have done is interesting. Sola Scriptura is the rule of faith by which ALL external sources are benched against the word of God and if contradictions are found in it then it is to be rejected. This is how I know the book of Mormon and Jehovah’s witnesses and ALL other religions are false. Because Mormons claim that the Father God was once man (scripture contradiction in both OT and NT) Jehovah’s Witnesses are wrong because they deny Christ the Word as God and claim it was an Angel (Michael) and Islam is wrong because they deny Christ who is the word of God and therefore make the Father a liar by saying he sent his Son into the world for our sins. That is Sola Scriptura in action and in fact if not ALL of the early church fathers held, defending and used this view not the term but the argumentation therein meaning using Scripture to completely and utterly destroy the competing arguments. There are aspects towards the end that I agree with you one. That Gods grace is required for us to be in full communion with him. But again, the difference is how do we get there. I maintain that faith without seeing is that path (of course with exceptions because there are those who did see and did hear that came to believe) But many who saw Christ, heard him speak, even saw miracle still did not believe. Because of the hardness of their heart blinded them of the truth of what God spoke to us and became a stumbling block for them. But what I am getting from you is Scripture is not enough for all unless you have paired that with some acceptable natural theological argument such that scripture plus mans reasoning. To me this is the problem! Because I believe that to come to faith we need to believe with what we read (the bible) repent ( as we are ALL sinners), and confess Christ as LORD. we don’t need some deep philosophical argument that is so bullet proof that it repels all objections. You will always find plausible objections to any argument.

@@danielhaas9469 you didn't type enough. I enjoy reading full books in the comment section.

What are you going to do with a philosophy degree?

@@Jacob-TX Undecided. I'm discerning a religious vocation, but if that is not God's plan then most likely I will return to the private sector where I have worked before. There's also the possibility of staying in academia too, of course.

@@alistairkentucky-david9344 I've often thought of getting into philosophy. My priest asked me if I studied philosophy once, (apparently I'm naturally gifted sometimes), but I'm not going to get a degree. I'd rather just pick it up myself from books.

Nice beautiful

Wow, I didn't know a Catholic could be a theistic personalist. I thought Divine simplicity was de fide. Are those two ideas actually compatible?

Sodom and Gamorrah tells you otherwise... There was never a time had people been more moral than it is today. Yesterday has been the same as today as will be tomorrow.

@@NCSiebertdesign I mean, we can say that one period is more moral than another. Your comment seems to imply otherwise. To back up JustUsCrazy's point: We kill millions of babies per year. There is no equivalent evil in the middle ages.

@@NCSiebertdesign I'd argue against that. While there have definitely been all kinds of immodest behavior, during the middle ages Christiain ethics were the standard, although to what end these were upheld is debatable. This cannot be said of today according to the popular culture.

@@NCSiebertdesign Sodom and Gomorrah are way before the middle ages. If the 2 cities existed it would've been in the time of Abraham nearly 4,000 years ago

@@Wolfschanzeful you're right but that's our opinion as we can see more widespread of evil. But to God, there's no difference between someone in middle age who lied and those who kill in modern day. Evil is evil regardless.

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/lbiZormr27mxmo0.html

“You people are trying to bring us back to the dark ages!!!” “Actually yes”

Consider that this model for theism really developed from Ancient Greek philosophy, specifically Plato and really Aristotle. That was by and large a polytheistic society. God is accessible to human reason naturally so it is not a surprise for a to see largely similar conceptions of God having come about independently more than once. If anything it just supports this framework of the One the world came about from. As a Christian of course I do hold that Revelation is the more complete inerrant and fully trustworthy image of God (as it is God as He reveals Himself to humanity, rather than being discerned by humans from creation. All that said, this does add a certain dimension both for interreligious dialogue, and potential for a unique evidence for theism.

That’s just a term made up because the humanists loved the Roman Empire so much. They were to ignorant to see that the “dark ages” were considerably less dark than the era of the roman hedonist empire with their filthy religion full of depravities. Just like the “middle ages” is a stupid term, as if it is between two eras of light and goodness

It's like saying if God is all powerful, can he create a object that is impossible for him to pick it up. It's a paradox fallacies. Some people like to think impossible, like non existence square circle.

@@NCSiebertdesign Yeah, God can't do logically impossibilities (married bachelor). Russell's paradox argues that an omniscient being leads to logical contradictions.

If a being was all powerful(infinite) could it actually create "something" that would negate its infinite power to begin with?

@@clattereffect again, a paradox fallacies. Stop thinking impossible lol.

I think you may be misunderstanding Rasmussen’s position. He has an argument from arbitrary limits which argues that to say anything other than “God knows all logically possible truths” would be arbitrary. So there’s not claim that God only potentially knows all logically possible truths.

Whenever someone takes to the ambo and rants about the latest poll suggesting that a high percentage of Catholics don't believe in the Real Presence, my whispered response is "it's not that we don't believe in the Real Presence, we just don't believe in Plato." The children are all grown, maybe it's time to let the divorce happen.

Haven't watched yet, if that's true then that's too bad

What is the purpose of this? we can't prove God exists as is written: "by faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command so that what is seen was not made of of what was visible". This is precisely why atheists are atheists: they refuse to accept by faith that the universe was created by a unseen deity. there is nothing we can do or show to them other than preach the gospel to them and if they refuse then they refuse and we move on. We plant the seed ONLY we do not convert anybody. Conversion ONLY comes by God, through God and for God. If an atheist's comes into conversion it is only by faith and not based upon some highly sophisticated theological argument. When we overly complicate the gospel by trying to explain God outside of what was given then what we are in effect saying is the bible is NOT sufficient for conversion. Was Noah Abraham, Moses or any of of these folks given something visible to act on Gods command? Not at all, by faith these men and women acted and was then commended to them as righteousness because by faith Noah for example built a boat long before the deluge occurred. Abraham by faith without seeing what was promised to him left his abode and pitched his tent that he did not know where he was going. by Faith Moses believed in God during his exodus out of Egypt. Was not Thomas rebuked for openly stating that he won't believe in Christs resurrection unless he sees? Yes, for Christ said: "Do you believe only by seeing me? Blessed are those who come to believe without seeing me". Therefore, faith is accepting and believing and adhering to Gods command without actually experiencing or seeing God directly.

@@danielhaas9469 Hi, Daniel. Thanks for your reply. Certainly it is faith that is beyond reason which induces the willingness to respond to the work of grace, fundamentally in pursuing a living relationship with God. Nonetheless, The God Who is Truth chose to create Man in such manner as to constitute him a rational animal. In this way we both reflect and participate in His nature in a way that the rest of visible creation does not. Among the truths which are attainable to human reason, even if only among some highly gifted people and only after long, difficult, dangerous, and error-prone investigation, is the definitive conclusion that God is, and definitive conclusions of certain of His attributes. Because this is such a limiting condition, God has provided also revelation of these truths, in order that such knowledge not be limited to those who can successfully follow the difficult path of unaided reasoning on this matter, but instead can thereby become available to all. Nonetheless, there are men who pursue a program of philosophical investigation. Among them are people who are of good will, have not already for other reasons assented to Christian revelation, and have encountered difficulties and obstacles in virtue of errors and distortions in their philosophical formation. It is therefore, among other things, an act of service for men to remove obstacles to faith. For some men of good will, distortions of the representation of reality interferes with their ability to assent to what they mistakenly understand the Christian gospel to be, so it is an act of service for those who both possess philosophical clarity and faith charitably to identify distinctions which present the truth which is intelligible to human reason and dismisses the distortions interfering with the response of faith by these misinformed men of good will. In this way the Church provides that all men may be saved, even those who mistakenly suppose that Christianity necessarily entails intellectual suicide.

@@gregorybarrett4998 If you mean rational animal that means discernment of our physical reality yes. But we have no discernment of a spiritual one. As a result, no philosopher, theologian or critical thinker could ever conjure up what we have come to believe concerning God. Why? Because we have 0 capacity to even comprehend God and the spiritual. As God declared: none seek him and none follow in his ways. And "those who are not lead by the Sprit of Truth can not know God". Therefore, the only reason and the only way we even know God exists is because he revealed himself to us. First to the Jews and then Gentile. As we clearly see in the OT during the Prophetic age when God consecrated them to be carries of Gods word before they were even born and thus spoke to them at the appointed time to convey Gods message to the people of Israel (Gods chosen people) to stop sinning and turn back to the law God had established to Moses. These revelations did not come from great minds or thinkers or "Gifted" people but instead on the lowly and what the world would deem as weak minded or slow to learn. But through God they did extortionary things. The real question is then? Does Gods word tell us enough about how to know God or not? if the answer is yes, then we do not need philosophers or theologians ( Not in we don't need them but what benefit could they provide to equip us in Gods work) What we need are brothers and sisters of the Lord who are of sound mind to provide examples of the Christian life laid out by Christ and preached by the Apostles. If the answer is no. Then did God fail in some way of giving us everything we need? In that case yes, we would need philosophers and theologians because our faith is incomplete. But as is the case, we have all the information we need to know God and how to walk in his ways through Christ as the Apostles attested. So what does this mean? This means that anybody who tries to enter into the mind of God to figure out how God works or wouldn't work is meaningless and futile. As God also says: "Who knows the mind of God as to counsel him" or "Who can tell God no, what you have done is wrong" Believing in God especially in todays standards is not rational. Even when God revealed himself to Noah and requested that he make a boat wasn't he looked down upon from those who would perish in the flood after 20 or so years later? Remove obstacles of faith as in by what means? Faith is not rational and it can not be proven by any physical methodology. Why? Because God choose by faith to save a people to himself first Jew and then Gentile. Faith is to be understood in the acceptance of something unseen. Can you prove the existence of God definitively to an atheist? No, why not? Because Atheist lack and understanding of faith and what is blinding them is looking beyond the physical. Can they be saved? Of course, so long as they turn to an unseen God and God heals them. Can you convince a Jew or Muslim or (insert religion) by using arguments? Yes, but it it must be using the biblical narrative and to demonstrate that Christ fulfills the role of the Messiah established by the framework that God made known to us. I reject William Lane Craig's views on Molinism because it tries to explain how God chooses and establishes the entrance into Gods mind. This is NOT correct unless God himself revealed it to us. Otherwise it should be rejected. Christianity is to the worlds standard is intellectual suicide! Why? Because that is what God says about those who call themselves wise: "The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God for it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the learning of the learned I will set aside" Then Paul Goes on to say where then is the wise one? where is the debater of this age? Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith. For the Jews demand signs and the Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. Therefore, Faith is foolishness in the sight of the world but wise in Gods sight. Why should be seek philosophers and theologians who are teaching concepts not found in the bible? Perplexing to me as it is by faith we are saved not by any complicated theological or philosophical man-made concepts. As such, we should be seeking and surround ourselves in Gods people who love God and his word and build each other up and be made a spectacle to the unbeliever so that they may believe in Faith not because we have the best arguments for Gods existence for God knows his own and his own listen to him!

@@danielhaas9469 Hi, Daniel. Thanks for your reply. In it you reveal a man zealous to pursue the life of faith in fidelity to revelation. In broad strokes your conclusions have meaningful and appropriate application. And indeed your understanding and arguments in broad strokes have contexts in which they are correct. It remains, however, that your understanding is incomplete, which in turn leads to inadequate and at times erroneous conclusions. I don’t propose to present a detailed review, assessment, and where appropriate correction of your last post, but I will give some indicators which can help to fill in your understanding. It is man alone in visible creation who is able to recognize and in some measure understand transcendentals, such as truth, justice, love, creation, infinity, God. Indeed, man has pondered these throughout human history. This corresponds with man’s having been created as the sole member of visible creation that was created to participate in the supernatural life of grace. A principle of the reasoning process states that if a thing exists then we know from that fact that it is possible for that thing to exist. The fact that human history records the universal practice of pursuing transcendentals proves that it is possible for man to pursue transcendentals. Among many examples, the high water mark is the achievements of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, who had no exposure to revelation in Judaism, but nonetheless demonstrated in their own lives that it is possible through the careful use of natural human reason to know transcendentals including that God is, and several of His attributes. When you say that man has 0 capacity in this regard, Daniel, you are mistaken, doubtless from not having had exposure to the contributions of these pagan philosophers. What Paul was objecting to was not the use of human reason as applied to transcendentals, but to any pride which might demand that human reason be adequate to know and understand perfectly things which by their nature are too great for human reason to comprehend, and/or refuses to subject itself to the moral implications of such transcendentals. Another similar principle states that if something exists which cannot exist according to some understanding, then that understanding must suffer from some error or deficiency. Trent’s dialogue partner gave his testimony, saying that his path to Christian discipleship did not proceed from atheism through encountering a proclamation of the gospel to Christian discipleship. This is the path that you have proposed, Daniel, as the standard path of Christian evangelization, but it was not the path that he found meaningful. Instead, after finding modern characterizations of God to be vulnerable to atheist objections, he found that there were more refined, developed, precise medieval characterizations of God which were not vulnerable to any atheist objections. Since he was a man of good will and committed to the truth, he as a pagan abandoned his atheism in favour of theism. This set him free to investigate further questions of transcendentals, and this commitment to the truth as knowable to the human mind eventually led him to Christian faith and discipleship. His life bears testimony to the reality that there are at least some people who will become Christian, not because of a mistaken claim that Christianity is irrational to mock philosophers, but because Christianity is consistent with rational thought, even when it proves itself fully knowable only to God Himself, Who is beyond our reasoning ability.

It depends on what they mean by this. Could you elaborate on this thesis? What kind of anthropomorphic characteristics do they think God has?

@@appliedvirtue7731 I would imagine fingers, hands, a back, etc. IE: Things directly referred to in OT.

God has no metaphysical parts nor any anthropomorphic characteristics whatsoever. The Orthodox who insist on uncreated energies are generally out of line with our tradition. Francesca Stavrakopoulou, while a scholar, is an atheist who views the Bible through an entirely different lens. The truth is that the OT anthropomorphisms are not literal statements about the nature of God, since the OT is clear that God is one (Deut 6:4), immense (1 Kings 8:27), unchanging (Mal 3:6), and possesses many other perfections. The anthropomorphisms generally signify something about God in human language.

@@Xavier-gv1zx Yeah I'm not necessarily a fan of Stravrakop oloulou but there may be something to be said for the most ancient sources' concept of supreme deity. It may partly depend on how you understand the Angel of the Lord. If it is Christ then it comes and stands before Samuel, talks face to face to Gideon, and possibly wrestled with Jacob.

@@Jacob-TX Yeah that's what I mean, and also the Angel of the Lord has some bearing, because it is overtly anthropomorphic and is often interpreted as Christ.

I don't believe so because this has been ongoing for a century or more

I think it’s mostly an issue of who’s in the discussion. Francis Bacon once said “A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.” A large part of this is that the “dumbed down” conception of God discussed in this video is illogical in many ways, as opposed to the more advanced understanding of God which makes sense metaphysically. Historically, you had the uneducated classes with very little knowledge of philosophy, who understood God as a bearded man in the sky, and the educated classes who had an advanced understanding of philosophy and viewed God through the lens of classical theism. The former group never really had the “voice” to question it like the latter, being illiterate and whatnot, and thus merely trusted the latter group that God was real. Nowadays, universal education and technological advancements in communication have given those with “a little philosophy” voices to be heard, and so many have collectively come to the realization that their (dumbed down) understanding of God doesn’t make sense, causing them to turn to atheism. And so, by expanding the sphere of discussion, the conception of God discussed has been vastly dumbed down.

@@andytheawesome7592 makes sense

No. Someone said god said that.

@@dominicpardo4783 no. Someone wrote YHWH said that.

@@georgwagner937 No. First someone said it. Then someone wrote it. All mythology/legends starts with *ORAL* tradition.

@@dominicpardo4783 No. First someone thought it, then someone said it, then someone wrote it.

@@georgwagner937 Now you're getting it. Like every other myth

Nonsense only tangentially related to what was said in the video.

@@appliedvirtue7731 The existence of something is not determined a priori. Neither god nor anything.

Look up on youtube "thomistic institute creation". Basically the act of creation of God is continous, every aspect of matter is an emanation of God Himself. We don't know the true extent of the beginning and end of creation, if they exist, some think the whole universe will be renewed on judgement day, others that humans will be acceoted in heaven, living an unchanged universe behind.

Hello, nice question. I actually struggled with this one before. I do not consider it stupid at all. I think I would need to have you define “default” for me if possible because I didn’t understand that part. But in terms of God creating once, it is first important to understand that God knows moments of time in its immediacy (CCC 600), so it’s not like God has to look to some crystal ball to see what the future holds. No, God knows all in one act of knowing. God knowing time in its immediacy sheds light on his one time creation. I do think analogies help us understand how God creates in one single act. One example is that we can think about 2 or more objects in a single act of thought. Or another example is that a king in his castle sees the troops below him lined up in its immediacy and totality, whereas an individual troop only sees a portion of the line. In terms of how a *changeless* and outside of time God creates, I think time and change would have to be understood in light of it being extrinsic relations to God. Creation is an extrinsic relation to God but it isn’t some part intrinsic to God. For example, my neonate is shorter than me when he was first born while I stood at 5’11, but when he grows to be an adult, he can be taller than me. But the height difference isn’t an intrinsic relation to me, it’s an extrinsic relation to me and my son. Likewise, God undergoes “Cambridge change” (AKA extrinsic change) but not “intrinsic change” when he creates.

@@HoneybunMegapack Who's "they"? the muslims? The heretics?

@@HoneybunMegapack The first sip of the chalice of science may make you an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass there's God smiling at you. I do understand the universe better than the average person, or rather I understand the scientific theories more than most because I am studying at university right now. If you think God is a ghost and jusy a ghost, you are wtong, I already told you in another comment to take a minute to step back and understand how much the God we worship is greater than the strawman you pathethically keep knocking down. You seem to understand the word "mystery" as "off limits", but that's not what it means, the big bang theory was theorized by a catholic priest, as a model for the *how*, the mystery is the *why*, why does God loves us so much that He creates (present tense) the Universe? Elementary school mantra: science us about the how, where and whens, religion is about the who and the why.

@@HoneybunMegapack What part of the universe does the theist don’t know? Did Fr. Georges Lemaître, who came up with the Big Bang Theory, and the Catholic friar, Gregor Mendel, who is the father of modern genetics, know about the universe?

How could something that is not “being itself” be necessary? It seems obvious that existence itself, if it’s possible, must be necessary. Otherwise it could never get, well, existence, from anywhere. Why think something that isn’t “being itself” could be necessary?

@@AlamarianJ I would say the various deductive arguments for God (developed by those who have been called “theistic personalists”) upon analysis lead one to the conclusion that God is necessary. Certainly God is simple, non-physical, timeless, spaceless, etc., but I am not convinced by the view that He is totally undifferentiated Being. It just doesn’t make sense to me to think God’s personality and qualities are to be understood only in an analogical sense. That just doesn’t seem to accord with the biblical presentation of God to my mind

Just because God is personal (as in, having an intellect and a will) doesn't mean that God is a person. In fact, Christianity clearly states that God is a trinity of persons, not a person. In order for a thing to be necessary (that is, for a thing not to be dependent on anything else), that requires divine simplicity. Anything with parts is dependent on something else to unite the parts into a single whole. And divine simplicity entails that God's existence is identical to the divine nature, meaning that God is Being. Without divine simplicity, God's necessity ends up becoming a brute fact with no explanation.

@@appliedvirtue7731 I do believe in divine simplicity, but I am just sceptical of the Thomistic conception thereof. Could we just say that God’s personality - mind or whatever you want to call it - is irreducible? Even as he fully embodies the idea of love, justice, mercy, power, etc. This doesn’t seem too controversial to say one’s mind is irreducible. We reflect God’s nature in a limited sense having been made in his image. How could we not be a limited reflection of God’s personality? And as for the idea that talking of this aspect of God in a real not just analogical sense, I don’t see why that could make God brute. To ask why God has just the nature he has would seem as absurd as asking why a cat is a cat. One can always ask why, but there’s a logical stopping point where the question doesn’t mean anything. I also think the same question of why God is such and such could be pointlessly asked of the Thomistic God, but it doesn’t give the question force then either.

@@eliasarches2575 I'm not sure what this means. The Thomistic God is a personal God. His mind is not "reduced" to something else. He is His mind. But His mind is also the idea in His mind, and it is also His power, love, justice, mercy, and existence. What is separate in the creature is one in the creator. We are not reducing God to something impersonal. We are fully elaborating on what it would mean to have a personal God. God doesn't simply embody the ideas of love, justice, etc. He IS those things. To see what's wrong with your reasoning on God's nature, imagine if someone said to you that there was such a thing as a bluenana. It’s a banana that’s blue all over, but not just in any old way. No, a bluenana is a banana that’s necessarily blue. What makes it true that it’s only ever blue? That it’s a bluenana -- that’s all. You can't make the notion of a thing seem more plausible by listing a bunch of contingent traits and then claiming they're necessary. There's nothing the usual notion of a banana that would tie it together with being blue. Now suppose I added to the notion of a bluenana the further characteristic of being the sort of thing that has, essentially, the color that actual ripe bananas usually have. Now my proposed notion of a bluenana is not only implausible but implicitly self-contradictory. For now, I’ve implicitly attributed yellowness to bluenanas, as well as explicitly attributed blueness to them. And they can’t be both yellow and blue. In a similar way, it's impossible for God to be absolutely necessary without also being absolutely simple. To say He's one without the other is a contradiction. Because again, a composite thing requires a cause to bring together its parts, even if those parts are metaphysical.

Are you speaking of animal death or human death? For even Thomas Aquinas said animal death was part of God’s plan (Summa Theologiae question 96).

Thomas Aquinas believed in a Young Earth yet also believed that animal death was part of God's plan.

Spot on mate, this is exactly my frustrations with these types of discussions: What we learn about God is ONLY through God and by God ONLY. Plato, Aristotle and (insert any name here) fall significantly short on how we ought to articulate God. If Paul, who experienced Heaven and he said it would be sinful to discuss heavenly concepts in our human words then how can we even try to articulate who God is external from what was given to us. Plato and Aristotle had no concept of God in anyway shape or form. As understanding who God is can NOT come from human understanding but ONLY by God directly telling us who he is as he is. The only acceptable articulation of who God is is God just is or I AM who I AM, and any other attribute given to us by God himself ONLY. I would ignore anybody else who tries to articulate God outside of these constraints!

@@danielhaas9469 hello Daniel. Couldn't have said it better myself 👌🏼

@robert warner That is excatly what faith is! no amount of reasoning can alter ones mind. Reason can be used as stumbling blocks though and cause somebody to fall away from the faith. Science for example explains the how the Universe was created and not the "Who". But faith is accepting and believing in something that we can not directly see or even experience. But rather how experience and calmness comes from our faith that gives us assurances that we have the Spirit in us. But once we abandon Gods word then the Spirit of Truth and peace leaves us and hatred, malice and all kinds of evil take hold. That is how we know if somebody is a Christian or not. it is how they are living out their faith!

@@danielhaas9469 Exactly. I believe that we know God through Jesus and only through Jesus. Human reasoning is wholly inadequate. Jesus *said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? John 14:9 And... "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God... In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." John 1:1‭-‬2‭, ‬4‭-‬5 "The darkness did not comprehend it..."

Who gives a fuck what the bible says?

Medievals didn't believe that God was a "static force of nature." Stop strawmanning.

@@appliedvirtue7731 When they describe to me in this video an unchanging source completely without substance how is that any different? Ontologically God makes more sense having transcendent attributes, the maximum potential for growth and the maximum potential for substance. Transcendent power over time, space, and matter doesn’t necessitate being timeless, spaceless, immaterial, and thereby incoherently described as “completely other.” None of these incoherent descriptive words, or anything close, are used to describe God in scripture, they are the interjection of the philosophies of men to obscure the image of God from humanity.

@@boltrooktwo First, God is not a substance because a substance is a "thing" and God is not "a thing" but subsistent being itself. Second, God's immutability does not mean He is "static." In fact, God is Pure Act. As St. Thomas says, He understands and wills, and in this sense, He moves Himself (see Summa Theologiae I.19.1). Third, the reason why God must be immaterial is that He is the first cause. If He had a physical body by His nature, He would have parts and would need a cause of His existence. Furthermore, a physical God in time and space would be one who changed and would thus be a mixture of act and potency. Any mix of act and potency requires a cause to actualize its potential. The purely material God you worship is not the creator of the cosmos but a lesser entity. If we are to identify the God of the Bible with the first cause, we must read the passages that anthropomorphize Him in light of Him being the first cause. To appeal to the Bible is no answer to this either, for I can always say that the Bible passages you see as being literal descriptions of God's body are better explained in a different way (perhaps non-literally, perhaps analogically, and perhaps as being a physical avatar puppeted by God). Furthermore, there are passages in the Bible that are in accord with the medieval view. Num. 23:19, 1 Sam. 15:29, Ps. 102:26, Mal. 3:6, 2 Tim. 2:13, Heb. 6:17-18, and Jam. 1:17 all claim that God is unchanging. John 1:18, John 4:24, 2 Cor. 3:17-18, 1 Tim. 1:17, 1 Tim. 6:16, Rom. 1:20, and Col. 1:15 all claim that God is a spirit or is immaterial. Most of all, the Thomistic doctrine that God is Being itself is affirmed by the name He gave Moses in Exodus 3:14: "I am that I am."

@@appliedvirtue7731 Thanks for the long version of the same argumentation in the video. Just because you have only experienced temporal matter with your five senses does not mean there isn’t such a thing as eternal matter. If you don’t have an eternal soul, for instance, you couldn’t possibly exist with God in eternity to have eternal life. Numbers 23: 19, only describes God as having greater integrity and faith than the audience of the message, it has nothing to do with substance or having no potential for growth, the same for 1 Sam. In fact all of these scriptures are coherent because they are giving bounds to the nature and substance of God, God doesn’t lie, that is a virtue but a limitation, God just isn’t everything or God wouldn’t be anything that could be perceived or communicated. God is certain things and He is not others. Being is defined by describing the limitations of being. We are made in the likeness and image of what God is expressed as temporally or you create a conflict with much of what Jesus said, did, is, and the importance of the mission of Christ along with the significance and purpose of life.

@@boltrooktwo Your description of God makes Him into a creature. Let us assume for a moment that matter can be eternal. What is the cause of this eternal matter then? Nothing made of eternal matter can be uncaused, because all material things are made of parts and undergo change. Thus, a God made of eternal matter wouldn’t be God at all but yet another created entity.

Out of curiosity, why aren't you a fan of Akin?

@@computationaltheist7267 he seems to appeal to much to modern Science© and has a few modernist tendencies and talking points

@@jonphinguyen Science is great, don't overdoubt it.

@@jonphinguyen What do you mean by less few modernist talking points? Can you give examples?

If you want to caricature the philosophy, go right ahead. For people seriously trying to engage with questions at the limits of what can be known, philosophy is necessary. "God is being itself" is not a stipulation or definition. It's affirmed by both Old and New Testaments but it's not a philosophical axiom. It's derived from reason, with the only axioms being the laws of logic and the apparent existence of the universe (or at least the certain existence of the thinker's own consciousness). Anyone genuinely interested in whether the philosophical arguments for God are truly sound can read a very accessible introduction by Rasmussen, "How Reason Can Lead To God"

​@@ToxicallyMasculinelol Yes or they can look at the vast majority of professional philsophers who identify as atheist and determinist (source Phil paper survey). Outside of purely theist philosophers like Rasmussen/Plantinga/etc. nobody takes this type of philosophy seriously. You cannot affirm ontological truths (aka God is being itself) from reading religious texts, this is why it is fringe philosophy.

​@@creatinechris so you just follow what the crowd says? that seems more illogical than the "fringe" philosophy you demean which btw is incredibly influential in the history of Western philosophy and civilization. also Aquinas is not an idiot. he doesn't define ontological truths from religious texts, if you actually read his stuff you would know that. have you considered that today most "professional philosophers" have a vested interest in believing God isn't real because, if God was real, would be held accountable for their actions? i have lived for a materialist atheist for 10 years and all it brought me was darkness, despair, and apathy. after investigating and reading countless different books on the meaning of life and philosophy, including psychologically damaged navel-gazers like Kant, Nietzche, and Foucalt, it finally clicked with Aquinas. more than that, it is common sense. if you really believed there was no God you would either have killed yourself (as our lives are objectively far more painful than they are rewarding for 99% of human beings) or you would be a wanton sadist. if you want pure honesty, ask a child. every child knows that they have a soul, that they are here for a reason, and that the universe is more than just numbers and chemicals. it is only when we, the children, grow older that we are beaten up by the evils of the world, and shouted and brigaded into humiliation by "professional philosophers" and those who are just as damaged as we are that we claim to become "enlightened atheists". i think you should really step back and ask yourself why you are on a Catholic channel arguing with Catholics that God isn't real. either you have some unresolved issues you're taking out in the form of derisive comments or you are watching these videos because in your heart you want to be convinced of God's existence, but you cannot desaturate your brain from the evil cynicism of this world.

atheism is a novelty in human history. atheists did not exist in the ancient world. humanity is made for God. only today in our arrogance have we convinced ourselves otherwise, out of a desire to be "free" and look at the results... we are slaves to ourselves. look at the incredible rates of mental illness, destroyed relationships and families, and a pervasive culture of selfishness and hedonism... if there is no God there is only the will to power, as Nietzche said. there is no morality. there is only the self and the senses. even if God wasn't real, seems like we'd do a lot better to believe in God notionally than to insist dogmatically on atheism. but of course there is a God, so that is not a tenable position

material determinism is also nonsensical as it leads to the conclusion that the logical processes in your brain which lead to your belief in determinism are themselves meaningless, because they are mere deterministic phenomena. it refutes itself. i will pray for you

This is perhaps the most bonkers fideist take I've ever heard.

@@appliedvirtue7731 You're lucky. These guys are a dime a dozen on Disqus, or at least they were when I frequented that place.

Straw _compared to what he saw_ and not just straw as if everything he said was false. By the way, if he were your favorite Protestant theologian/pastor etc... would you write this kind of comment ?

@@appliedvirtue7731 then u prob don't understand what he's actually saying cuz it's not fideism...

@@TheBrunarr I don't fideism is, other than it's Latin for Faithism. It does sound like some sola scriptura nonsense though. People are going to use words that they don't know. I've learned to just read the context more generally.

No I don’t think that’s what classic theists are trying to do. They start with objects in the natural world and reason from there to something which has divine attributes and is the ground of all being. From there they say this is what is understood as God. At that point you’re welcome to say “that’s not God,” and it certainly won’t have proved the Christian God, but most people struggle to conceive how to this ground of all being with divine attributes can be called anything but God.

Definition of the word God is "that of which nothing greater can be thought of". You'll hardly build a consistent hierarchy of values without arriving at a similar conclusion, God IS. Ponder about it for a while, I know I quite enjoyed when I first managed to see how simple, powerful and beautifuk this idea is. It's not a proof, but it's a nice glimpse of the finish line for your path to come around and acceot God's existance.

@@HoneybunMegapack >[•••]It's not a proof [•••] -my previous comment Greatness is not subjective, but it's flexible, those are different things. A word or concept is flexible when it has a universal vague definition that gets precise in each philosophy. Something subjective changes from person to person, I share my conception of greatness with a lot of fellow catholic and orthodox people who have an interest in philosophy, but I don't share my subjective memories with anybody. And I'm just encouraging you to think about this concept, I doubt you've ever found yourself thinking about God in those terms, try thinking "Everything I consider good, important and true, can I imagine something greater than that? Do those ideas converge? Can I make them converge?" Maybe God will speak to you then.

@@HoneybunMegapack That's a completely idiotic criticism for catholicism, do you know under how much scrutiny and manhours and reviews church documents go through? Yes, I personally may hold incoherent views here and there, but the teachings of the church are hundreds of times mote reliable than the "peer reviewed" papers we all accept as accurate, there are no contradictions, if there were, why aren't they widely and consistently brought up in the publicly available debates of catholic apologists vs atheists? The atheists have to swap out their talking points extremely often, because it's hard to prove false something that's true.

What other support are looking for? Or what else do you need to come to know the Lord? God revealed himself to us not us coming to know God. As it is then, God who revealed himself to us made known some of his attributes not because a crazy intelligent person philosophically explored God and came to know this knowledge. Therefore, it is by Faith that we have come to believe and obey and adhere to Gods command. that is to believe that God the Father sent unto us God the Son not to condemn the world but to save it. If you believe this then you will be saved. Any other theoloical argument made by man is irrelivent and meaningless unless it was made known to us by revelation by God directly!

If you don't understand the arguments, then it's not meant for you.

Some of you express is captured by the sense that much of what classical theists seem to conclude is driven by eliminating what God is not. Most classical theistic concede, I would think, it’s one thing to say God is timeliness, but a whole other thing to say what it’s like to actually be timeless. Bishop Barron thomistic institute talk is a great overview of classical thesim by my lights.

That debate wasn't about classical theism. It was about whether the existence of God can be known through human reason and I showed that could be done with copious citations from Church Fathers, both from the East and West.

All Dyer could come up with is a chewed-up version of presuppositionalism - David Hume and Spinoza were more relevant than the Church Fathers all around his argumentation - and landing some of his tricks: depicting the other position as metaphysical absurdity. Dyerites will be Dyerites and send heart emojis. No surprise.

@@TheCounselofTrent But such claims made by any church father are not really any better than a claim by Joe Schmuck, because neither can prove their knowledge.

Why is there a Dyerite in every KZfaq video's comment section? Go worship your composite Hindu God dude.

hello brother and sister we muslim meet ramadhan this month i hope god bless the world to become more peaceful place and help those who suffer, i just want to tell some information and fact about quran and bible, this is a friendly reminder the quran multiple times correcting the bible in many cases first in exodus the bible stated people in exodus could be 2 or 3 million, historian put some estimation that in ancient egypt the population could be around 5 million , so the exodus to be that many is impossible not just that based on scholars observation there would be a problem with logistic and the line of people that way too long and the collapse of egyptian economy also pharaoh chase the jew only with 600 chariots and that too many people would not perfectly fit the historical proof, all christian channel and scholars taht regard this issue seriously excuses taht its only thousand not million because the word eleph in 600 eleph doesnt mean thousand but clan so instead 600 eleph as thousand plus woman and childern they make it clan to fit the historical result and proof but the census that moses did and tax resulting in 600 thousand shekels stuff, that when you read the narrative the result of the tax only compatible wehn the israelite is above million so its true that bible said its up to million It is the silver that is directly connected with the census of Num 1:1-46. The fact that 100 talents plus 1,775 shekels exactly equals 603,550 bekas utterly refutes those who try to make "eleph" mean clans, not the number 1000. to render to the small number in bible its require scribal error in the total resulting number among many hereditary scribal error in jewish torah but the quran said its only small number and the bible said the ruler in joseph time called pharaoh but more accurately is quran because the term pharaoh only used in new kingdom not previous period of egypt the quran stated that the ruler in joseph time didnt called as pharaoh the quran simply stated it as king the quran also know the name moses means newborn and the pharaoh family member name him egyptian name not hebrew name and the quran is preserved orally by memorization also have fixed text unlike new testament that written in greek and can be pharaphrased if scholars said many of new tetsament is only in spelling differeneces , then quran is really better than the new testament the nt scribes they didnt uttilize the same scribal technic like this semitic language holy book does whiches you need to always copy it with verbatim and not adding words as interpolation like we found in new testament and old testament, also the new testament that like kjv based on byzantine is not as accurate as earliest manuscript, the nestle aland also have differences with majority greek manuscript and contain eclectic reading unlike previously and quran is not as bloody as people think in fact the bible is more bloody and severe in killing people as you know when you read the old testament also patriach that depicted in bible as sinner is not like quran sites.google.com/site/isthebiblegodsword/interpolations-in-the-bible/interpolations-in-the-bible www.dawahmaterials.com/answering-christians/50-bible-corruptions-contradictions-and-textual-criticisms/97-the-corruption-of-the-torah kzfaq.info/get/bejne/b7lzeKaDzbesh2Q.html quranic preservation muslimprophets.com/article.php?aid=37 patriach commit sin? www.jesus-resurrection.info/bible-prophets.html patraich commit sin? unpleasant.ffrf.org/ genocide www.layittoheart.com/septuagint.html septuagint problem sites.google.com/site/errorsinthebible/dss-lxx-vs-mt bible error skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/topics/about.html contradiction www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/ rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bible_interpolation interpolation sites.google.com/site/isthebiblegodsword/interpolations-in-the-bible/interpolations-in-the-bible interpolation kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Y8igjdugl76YcoU.html contradictory claim kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Z8thn7pyyNPFfYU.html quran preservation www.thetextofthegospels.com/2017/08/some-shortcomings-of-nestle-aland.html?m=1 nestle aland problem kzfaq.info/get/bejne/kJ9ygquZyc_ckYE.html NT variant kzfaq.info/get/bejne/aa6iZJt-stubnp8.html NT variant kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oLqqnNqlmb_Fe30.html byzantine text heres the proof no interpolation found in quran amd no need textual criticism like bible does that they need to lift up the variation so you could return to the original , so bible is not always the same text throughout the ages without need to return to original, peace this is only a friendly reminder lets be kind a

Imaginary how? Are the arguments put forth by Christians on the existence of God erroneous? If so, how?

@@SJohnson529 Imaginary as they don't exist and Christians can't show that their god, no matter what the version, exists. There are many arguments by Christians to try to show their god exists. Pick any of them and I'll be happy to dismantle it.

Edgy

@@velkyn1 You’ll happily dismantle the strongest arguments made by a 2000 year old intellectual tradition in a KZfaq comment? Good luck. Try a little humility friend.

Something that I expect from a typical Dawkins rant. Dismiss the argument by saying that it is imaginary. Way to go there