Defining God

9/29/2013

 
I'm not a fan of defining God. I am of the opinion we don't have enough information to assign many of the qualities designated to Deities (such as omnipotence and omnibenevolence). However, I do assign certain qualities that I feel are consistent with reason and our current knowledge. These can be summarized by the Voltaire quote on the front page: 
It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason.
-Voltaire

Necessary: I came to believe in a Deistic God because of the cosmological argument for the existence of God. For me, God is a logical requirement of the universe. In addition, the evidence in nature seems to necessitate a God.  God is a necessary fact.


Eternal: God must be eternal in order to be the First Cause required by the cosmological argument. He must exist before, during, and after time. 


Supreme: God, as the creator of the universe, is inherently more powerful than anything else in it. This isn't to be confused with omnipotence. He is the most powerful thing in the universe, but not omnipotent.


Intelligent: To some degree, God must be intelligent. If he was, at one point, all that existed, then it would require some amount of intelligence to perform the action of creation.

10/20/2013 09:59:16 am

I am in the process of writing a post about Deism for my blog. I think it would be appropriate to link sites. Check out the first post and the reference to the Atheist monument at the Bradford County Courthouse. I would not classify myself as formally Deist, probably more Theist. Makes me think of the modern argument about autism spectrum disorder and Asperger's syndrome.


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