Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Daycare Nation
Omnipotence...Don't you mean "omniscience?" Omniscience means "knowing all." I think you are confusing this with "having all power," which is omnipotence..
We have the illusion of free will. We can choose to obey God, or we can go against his will or choose to believe there is no order. When I say "God," I don't mean an entity or being such as we are. That is a popular notion called "supernatural theism," which is the thing which most atheists think all Christians believe. In fact, very few real Christians believe that God is a "man in the sky" who crafted the universe as in a workshop, and stands apart from it, observing his work.
God is that thing which you refer to, which existed in eternity before the big bang. God is outside the universe (transcendence) and yet at the same time everything in the universe exists within him.... No one thing in the universe is God, but God's spark is in all things (immanence). This idea is called "panentheism," which is distinguished from "pantheism." Pantheism is the idea that everything IS God. Panentheism is the idea that everything is IN God.
Kenosis is a theory which holds that that God emptied a part of his divinity in order for us to exist. Within this paradigm, evil and suffering are allowed to exist because God is a loving parent who doesn't want to intercede, but would rather that we grow by making our own choices as individuals. Thus, eventually, we learn to abide by the correct spiritual principles instead of aligning ourselves with inert matter, blind mechanism, and animal instinct.
As God emptied himself for man to exist, so man empties himself of his own personal will in order to become like God.
Hope that helped.
|
Thanks! Sorry about the confusion between omniscience and omnipotence, I often get the two mixed up. That definately helped my understanding Assuming that God is a spiritual representation of perfection clears a lot of that up; the entire omniscience part. Thanks!
Concerning the big bang, if matter always existed, then we would have to presume that it wasn't created. It fits in with the entire time portion, because if it was never created, then could only exist from time repeating itself in a circle (no beginning/end). I don't see how something could exist without ever being created
Haha, I was fully aware about getting off topic responses Laila, you really can't go through a thread without them now!