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Notes -
They both are.
Yes, me too.
Eh, I do think they're separate people, but when I say "God" I'm referring to the Father or to the other two acting in his stead. I certainly hold them all in esteem as God.
Anyways, I don't really see why you bring up the trinity here. Jesus said his Father sent him, and his father is God, so I think it's accurate to say that God sent Jesus even if you hold to the Trinitarian definition.
This still isn't first principles; first principles would be something like inventing the concept of women from whole cloth based on extremely abstract ideals. I'd describe what you're talking about as top-down reasoning (applying principles to reality), as opposed to bottom-up reasoning where you observe reality and try to build principles from your observations. When I talk about first principles I'm referring to the cosmological argument, the ontological argument, and similar arguments.
And this is where we disagree! I think the entity that is described in the Old and New Testament is God even if his actual nature is very different from what I expect.
It's reasoning from nature. You deduce your wife's nature from your senses and then reason from that nature to other things.
It's the same with me and God, just His nature is different from your wife's.
Have you ever had someone who agrees with the Cosmological argument explain it, asked them questions, etc? Or is your exposure mainly by people who don't agree with it giving their rebuttals?
But then what does God mean? Is it any different from telling me that the entity described in the Old Testament is a Lion or a Blogalsnarf? It doesn't mean anything to be God unless there is a something that God means.
You're still using "God" as something other than an identifier.
God is whatever person or entity did the things described in the Old Testament, performed the Atonement, etc. It's not a definition, it's an identifier. It doesn't have to mean anything--identifiers, such as our names, generally don't mean anything at all. And God isn't "a god", he's God; if the word were "Blogalsnarf" it would work just as well to signify who it is that we're talking about.
If your concept of God is more closely tied to the definitional one (God as the first cause) then to your direct experiences with him, then in my hypothetical, the being who performed everything in the Old Testament, performs miracles, atoned for our sins, etc. would not be God. They would instead be two separate entities, who I'll call scripture-god and platonic-god, and it would be questionable whether the latter even exists (in this fake hypothetical, of course).
I think this is wrong. Our belief in God should be based on direct experience with him, and relatively direct experience (e.g. through scriptures, through others' accounts with him), much more than it should be based on philosophy. This is the point of my whole line of questioning. I'm not saying philosophy is wrong, but in the end if reality and philosophy conflict, reality should win out; and even if you think they will never conflict, it still matters that you give reality precedence on the off chance you happen to be wrong about the philosophy.
I haven't read any rebuttals of the cosmological or ontological arguments, they just seem obviously wrong to me. If you'd like, I'll read into them some more to make sure I understand them, and then take you up on the implicit offer, thanks.
We are running into the problem here where I believe it is clear that the God of the Old and New Testament clearly identifies with Being itself, "I Am Who Is." St. Paul explicitly links together the Greek concept of the God of the philosophers with the God of the Bible in Acts 17 by quoting a Greek philosopher and identifying that definition of God as the one he has come to preach. Then there are hundreds of other places where it's clear that God is not in the created order, not changing, sustaining the being of everything at all times. (Psalm 102:25-27):
Acts 17:27-28:
My belief in God is based on my direct experience of Him in my life, including revelations through contemplation and meditation. It is based on the Divine revelation of the Bible and the personal revelation that Christians have recorded throughout the centuries. And these both point to the Classical conception of God. Learning more about the classical conception of God helps me then go back and interpret the revelation I have received and which was revealed through the public ministry of Jesus Christ. It is all a positive feedback loop bringing me deeper and deeper into Love.
Without the positive feedback of the classical conception of God, though, my spiritual life went nowhere. What does it matter if God isn't all that He is? If he's just like some alien dude who did everything in the Bible? That has no implications on who I am, what morality is, the Good, the True, the Beautiful. If He doesn't actually explain anything, if He's not actually the Summum Bonum? I'd be left with a cool role model but if I disagreed with His actions it's conceivable that my judgements are better than his. The Cool Role Model called God is just a potential tyrant.
I feel like I need to tap in someone who is better at communication here, because clearly I'm not getting my point across.
It doesn't matter how closely your definition of God aligns with reality. That's totally irrelevant. I haven't even started making arguments about God's nature. We're still laying the groundwork here, or at least I'm trying to, but it's not working.
I'm trying to get you to concede that, where definition and reality conflict, reality should win out. If you can't concede that, then there is not even any theoretical amount of evidence that will convince you that your understanding of God is not both perfect and complete, and no point to this discussion.
This is why I opened with the question I did--if God himself were to tell you your definition of him is wrong, would you believe him? Or does your definition take precedence over his own words?
"In theory reality can never conflict with theory though!"
Yes, this is true of all theories, and yet reality conflicts with most of them.
I realize the hypothetical is a bit unfair--"If you were wrong, and knew you were wrong, would you accept defeat?"--but it's also certainly unfair for you to continue this discussion if your answer to that hypothetical is "no" as it seems to be.
What you're saying here is, "if my theological framework is wrong, then according to my theological framework, God would simply be a powerful alien."
I think we have fundamental differences here but I am going to try my best to explain it.
I fully expect that my understanding of God is limited, inaccurate in some ways, etc. My current theological opinion of Divine Middle Knowledge, for example, and its implications on Free Will and creating souls destined for Hell, is currently permitted. But I wouldn't be particularly surprised if it was wrong and eventually declared heretical. If God through His Catholic Church forbade my current theological opinion, I would swiftly change course.
But if Jesus were to show up to me, prove to me that he's Jesus, then say something like, "Actually, what you call "God" in the Bible isn't transcendental at all. We're pretty powerful, but don't actually have the ability to create matter out of nothing, we are not actively sustaining your being, the Ten Commandments were really our best guess at moral laws but we are not really the basis for goodness. The universe has always existed and we never figured out why. We're just playing around in it. I'm offering you a good afterlife, at great personal cost to myself, so you should do what I say..."
That sounds really sketchy and dissatisfying. What would be the difference between this God and a powerful alien? If your conception of God is one that a sufficiently bored and long-lived alien species could imitate, then I really don't understand what the appeal of religion is to you.
The appeal to me is that it's true. I haven't chosen my opinions based on which ideas I liked most. There are other appeals (moral correctness, potential for growth, pretty much everything that typically goes along with religion) but first and foremost, I try to believe whatever's most true. Not that I actually believe aliens could imitate God.
So, as I said earlier, this reeks of "if God says my theological framework is wrong, then under my theological framework I find God to be unsatisfying." No. In the hypothetical we've already established that your theological framework is wrong! You'd better be really careful about rebuilding actual correct axioms before deciding you're ready to judge God and find him wanting.
That's what this is, in the end. "If God doesn't conform to my definition then he's not enough for me."
I'd be happy to tackle any of the underlying assumptions, but ideally I'd like to stick to just one:
Fortunately, it's not true and I have all the proof I need of that. However, if it were true I should just commit suicide and get it over with. Maybe that's extreme, the point is I would need to reevaluate quite a lot.
You really don't get it. Your question is, "What if I rip all the significance out of the world? Would you still call someone by their chosen name?" And the answer is, "Why on Earth do you think a name matters?"
\3. If morality doesn't inherently proceed from God, then God cannot possibly have a perfect understanding of morality
This is not the objection. The objection is, if morality is outside of God, then God is held to an outside standard. There is something outside God which is sovereign to God. In which case, cut out the middle man. Also, God can now be evil. If He can't then He's not free. If He can be evil, then following Him unreservedly is unwise.
Also, He could be lying to us about morality. A classical understanding of God provides the necessary background for something that "Cannot deceive nor be deceived." Take that away and we open up both doors.
As I said, I don't think aliens could imitate God either. Don't take the high ground about rejecting that position now.
No, it's not about the name, it's about the person behind the name. Real life doesn't work according to definitions. If I define OracleOutlook as "the person arguing with me who has orange hair" and you don't happen to have orange hair; that doesn't mean OracleOutlook doesn't exist, it means I was wrong about who you were. Same with God. You're still mixing up identifiers with definitions.
I thought I made that clear when I brought up the hypothetical about my dad secretly having a different name, or secretly not being my actual dad.
It's the objection you made. You said "'the Ten Commandments were really our best guess at moral laws but we are not really the basis for goodness.'" You truly seem to think that God cannot be omniscient outside of classical theism.
Again, "cut out the middle man" only makes sense if you're still in the classical theism framework. You need to understand that if the framework is wrong it is wrong.
I also believe God isn't the inventor of truth itself, nor the definition of it, nor whatever more complex thing classical theism would use to describe the idea that the concept of truth proceeds from God. 2+2=4 even if God doesn't exist. This doesn't mean God is "subject" to 2+2=4, or that it's an "outside standard he's held to", and it's utterly nonsensical to think, even if it were a standard he were held to, that one should therefore worship 2+2=4 instead. The law that 2+2=4 isn't written anywhere, it's not even necessarily a "law" at all; it's just how reality is.
Again, you're still within the classical theism framework. LDS theology holds that there is a 100% chance God will never be evil. He simply won't do it. "But within my framework if God can be evil he will be." OK, but if God can be evil then by definition we're already outside of your framework, and it no longer applies.
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