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Thursday, May 14, 2015

God has to be "human like" (anthropomorphic) in some sense or he cannot be "God."  For example God has to be a person -- if he is a process or a natural phenomenon or a machine then he does not qualify for divinity.

So also, he has to be purposeful -- have objectives and do things -- not just sit like King Log.  Otherwise of what possible interest to us could he be?

But then God must also be some things that are very not-human, such as omnipotent.  If there are limits on God's power then again he is not God, even though he may be powerful and seem omnipotent to us, if he is not truly omnipotent then he is only superman.

And, again, for much the same reason, he must be omniscient -- although that leads logically to a King Log -- but still I don't see how a being that doesn't know everything that is and will go on can be said to be divine.

These things lead to all sorts of logical contradictions, and I have to say I would say that to be God he would have to be free of such contradictions and truly consistent.

Long ago I realized that such a being is just human nonsense, and I think most people do, even theists, since they tend to hedge their definition of God so as to make him fit logical necessity -- although when you think about it that is not only dishonest but a bit much.  And, of course, superman always is lurking about.

And of course God must be both perfect (which means he can only do that which is perfect) and at the same time have unlimited free will.  Huh?  God can't lie as that would be imperfect but he has to or his will would be limited.  My word the contortions theists go through to deal with this bit of plain logic.

How arrogant of me to say what God is and what God isn't.  Well that coin has two sides.

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