Roman: A servant, I read your response, I'm not persuaded.
You weren't persuaded to change a life long position after a very shallow reading of an alternative view ? You don't say.
Romans:if space is not a "limiting factor" then in what sense does it bound him? If he has immediate access then it IS immanent.
AservantofJEHOVAH: If you would go back and read my actual remarks you would see that I never said that JEHOVAH is bound I said that his essence is bordered but his actualised potential is not bound because he is Telekinetic
If a border does not mean X is bordered by Y such that beyond Y X cannot access Y without a medium then I don't know what a border means, if you just insist on using the term border but rob it of all its actual meaning then our language means nothing. You might as well say God has literal toe nails, but what I mean by toe nails bears no relation to what we mean by toe nails in the physical world.
Telekinesis in this instance means being able to actualise potential and thus cause change or motion at a distance without an intermediary. Do some reading on a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement for an idea on what that might seem like as a phenomenon.
Roman: tell me what you mean by "border," if it cannot be "breached" then I don't know what you mean when you say God has immediate access to it.
AservantofJEHOVAH:here is a point beyond which his essence does not extend from its center.
Romans:I also don't know what you mean by virtually immanent as opposed to literally immanent, immanent just means immediately accessable without mediation, if the holy spirit is not something seperate from God then his knowlege and powers and literally immanent.
AservantofJEHOVAH: There is literal space between him and his creation this literal space has no impact on his capacity to access his creation in whole or in part.
Romans:Space and time are not abstractions, the past really does not exist, and the future really is not yet, and things are really distanced from one another, perhaps measurements of time and space are abstractoins sure, but what they measure are not. But even if they were abstractions, prior to creation what sense does it make to talk about space, what would that be an 'abstraction' of?
AservantofJEHOVAH:In what way does any of this prove that space and time are not abstractions. Abstractions are really descriptive of concrete realities saying that a thing is an abstraction is not the same as saying that it is not real. But we ought not to conflate abstraction with the concrete realities they are used to describe. We know that though the events of the past are completed or have progressed they determine the present to a large extent and even the future and ought not to be confused with the concept of the past tense itself.
I agree his holy spirit is his actualized potential, but if that potential is literally everywhere and immediate (none mediated), then what does it mean to say he's bounded?
I don't know where you got this Idea that I claimed that he was bound. His essence is bordered his power is unbound being telekinetic he can actualise potential over distance without mediation.
Romans:You keep telling me I'm "projecting" human type insecurities .... no I'm just noting what terms mean and noting that claiming God is unlimited yet bounded is a logical and metaphysical contradiction. I'm also asking what words you use mean, if "form" is not analogous to anything we usually mean by "form" it's literally meaningless.
I really hope you go back and read my post with a little more care his essence is bordered his power is not his spirit is a quality an attempt to describe his ability to project his actualised potential over distance all the while retaining complete control of it without a mediator.
Romans:1 John 3,2 doesn't mean literally since angels and the annointed don't have literal eyes, it means that they will have immediate knowledge of God.
They do literally see and by far superior means than physical eyes but the point is that they will closely resemble him as to both inward and outward quality
1. This wasn't a lifelong position of mine, and it's not charitable of you to assume I've only taken a "shallow reading."
ReplyDelete2. What does bordered mean if not bounded?
3. I know what quantum entanglement is, but as you know I’m sure quantum entanglement involves is not anything like telekinesis, but it’s rather the physical entanglement of particles at a distance, modelled mechanically and which is not really understood by science. But it is not usually described as a kind of unmediated causation. If telekinesis in the actual sense existed in the world, i.e. a person could access and have control over say, a brick, just as much as he could access and control his body, and his body did not act as a center of perception such that it limited it, and his existence didn’t depend on the functioning of various body parts, then I have no idea what it means to say he has a body.
4. What do you mean by “essence?” Generally an essence is an abstract set of essential properties, not something which can be described as having a border, so my ‘body’ is not my essence, every particle in my body will be different in about 10 or 15 years yet I will be the same person, I will also be the same person if I happened to be anointed and was resurrected in a non-physical state. So generally, God’s essence is thought to be his omnipotence/omniscience etc etc … Other than that, I don’t know what you mean by essence.
5. What makes my body my body is my direct access to it and it being a necessary condition of me, i.e., if you cut off my finger it is no longer part of my body, because I do not have direct access to it, i.e. it’s not just my mind that can move it, I have to “pick it up,” my body also is what my consciousness depends on as it’s center of perception and power … it’s not my “essence.”
6. According to contemporary physics space and time are not mere abstractions in that they would exist independent of human conceptualization. So, gravity is not a concrete reality, but it’s not an “abstraction” either, or if it IS an abstraction, you’re using the term in a way that it’s not usually used.
7. If I am bound by my body, I can exert power outside my body by use of my body. If God is bordered but that body, but not dependent on in for perception or power in anyway, or dependent on it in anyway, and it does not bound anything, then what is it bordering? His essence? What does that mean? Essence is an attributive concept.
I.e. the essence of a human is, for some thinkers, a "rational animal," essences are not concrete objects, they do not have extension. Our bodies delimit our power and perception which is exactly what makes it our body.
DeleteIf God is has a 'body' i.e. extension, yet that does not delimit any of his perception or power, what is it bordering (btw it's impossible for something to have a border without it being bound by that border in some what), if you're saying his "essence" I don't know what that means if that essence does not include his power and perception.
Btw, if your point is simply to deny Pantheism, i.e. God is distinct from creation, such that he does not exist literally everywhere, I agree with that, but that does not necessitate some kind of "body."
DeleteWhen we use literal (non metaphorical) language, even if we are using it analogically, if there is not analogue to what words actually refer in our own univocal sense, then we are speaking nonsense.
If I say God is a fortress that's a metaphor, when I say God gets angry it's literal but of analogy, i.e. we can not make a one to one connection between our anger and his, but we can understand what it means in terms of certain features of our emotional life.
This is why I am harping on what langauge means, I don't want to speak nonsense about God, and I frankly think that the almost entire theistic tradition of saying God is incorporeal is based on the incompatibility with corporeality and being unlimited. So My issue here is largely the inconsistency of language ... i.e. being "bordered, but not bounded" the vague use of telekenisis and appeals to quantum entanglement which is nothing like telekenisis, the unintelligable notion of a bordered essence, as though essence were a physical extended thing. And the contradiction of saying one person has a body, yet that body does not delimit that person in anyway in terms of their actions and perceptions, nor is it logically prior to the person such that the person 'depends' on it in some way.
My reply:https://aservantofjehovah.blogspot.com/2023/08/against-roman-xxiii.html?m=1
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