Is God Non-Physical?

[LightofTruth]

So a physical God. Seems you are a rebel when it comes to God's attributes. Most opt for a non-physical God. Do you believe God physically exists somewhere in the universe?

Jesus ascended to his Father in heaven. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

 

[LightofTruth]

Imagine, imagination, image. An image is what you have in your mind. (And that is not only an artefact of the English language.) According to most scholars man is made as god has imagined him, not as a mirror image.

I go by the biblical use of the word image

 

[LightofTruth]

To say that no man can see my face and live means I have a face. And to say that no man has ever seen God means that no mortal man has seen God else he would die on the spot.
The LORD whom Moses seen face to face was the angel of the LORD who was sent by God having God's name in him.
The LORD whom Moses spoke on the mount forbid Moses to see His face but allowed him to see his back. And because Moses had come so close to seeing the face of God his own face shined.

 

[Heyo]

I go by the biblical use of the word image

You go by what you think the biblical use is. People who have studied the bible (at an university level, not in bible school) mostly disagree.

 

[atanu]

Before you say yes, I'd consider anything non-physical unable to physically interact with the universe.

If God is non-physical and does interact with the universe, how is this possible if God is not physical.

OTOH, if God is physical, shouldn't we be able to detect/measure God?

But what is physical?

 

[atanu]

Does anyone else find the gender specific pronoun in this message ironic? God has no material or form, but is a Dude?

Yeah.

Usually, creator god (brahmA in Hinduism) is considered male whereas Nature (Prakriti) is considered female. The latter is the fertile ground which germinates and gives form/s to male brahmA's seeds (thoughts-imaginations).
...

 

[LightofTruth]

You go by what you think the biblical use is. People who have studied the bible (at an university level, not in bible school) mostly disagree.

No, I go by the actual use of the word.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Why do we officiate our existence as the only cause and effect existence there is?

We simply don't know if there is anything out beyond existence as we know it.

We know that the current conditions and past conditions of our universe can't possibly last forever. We also know we can't get something from absolute nothing.

By way of logic there must be something perpetual and of eternal existence.

Whether actual time exists or not is irrelevant. Through eternity from one form to another events happen in sequence, and per instance only one outcome achievable. And on and on we go.

It's quite possible that an unconditioned reality exists that is the grounds of all being. It is an existence that needs no other conditions for its existence.

And if intelligence proves out to be only possible by way of intelligence then perhaps we are dealing with an eternal intelligence.

This is a possibility I can't ignore.

That was a very long-winded way of not answering the question.

 

[ChristineM]

It is kind of funny how the scans were possibly taken.

The MRI scan results were derived from
Brain Scan Can Detect Whether Or Not You're In Love.

But that is not the love I am referring to.
But the love of a parent to a child.
The love from a helping hand to a life struggling to survive.
The love of one man giving up his life to his friends.

.

Ahh so you are not referring to love yet love was the subject of your question. So what are you referring to?

 

[Hawkins]

I am saying it it not reasonable to guess

Before you can confirm how an alien is composed of, you can guess legitimately. That's reasonable. It's not reasonable to get to a conclusion though.

 

[ChristineM]

Before you can confirm how an alien is composed of, you can guess legitimately. That's reasonable. It's not reasonable to get to a conclusion though.

For some maybe, guessing answers all their questions bet doesn't actually answer anything, for others knowledge is more important.

 

[Hawkins]

For some maybe, guessing answers all their questions, for others knowledge is more important.

Guess is more like an hypothesis which is needed all the times for humans to begin their knowledge accumulation. Such a guess once confirmed will turn into a theory.

 

[ChristineM]

Guess is more like an hypothesis which is needed all the times for humans to begin their knowledge accumulation.

No, a hypothesis is made on limited evidence, not guesswork

 

[Hawkins]

No, a hypothesis is made on limited evidence, not guesswork

Well a guess is the lack of evidence too. People may term it differently.

 

[Samantha Rinne]

Before you say yes, I'd consider anything non-physical unable to physically interact with the universe.

If God is non-physical and does interact with the universe, how is this possible if God is not physical.

OTOH, if God is physical, shouldn't we be able to detect/measure God?

Ah, materialism. The idea that anything not of a physical world is not real. The idea which is doomed from the start because it comes up with an idea of physical, yet fails to clarify what it is.

Before we start...
Do we mean by physical, firm enough to touch? Because sunlight and rain are not in this way very physical, yet as a result grass and crops grow.
Do we mean able to be seen? Because radiation and viruses can't be seen without special equipment but they very much affect the world.
Do we mean constructed of materials not of matter? Well, thoughts are a result of neurons firing but the actual thoughts have no substance. Yet thoughts invent many things that make the world what it is today, and our fears hold us back from many experiences we'd otherwise do.
Even concepts like democracy which have no form at all have a profound impact on the world.

So even by your own rigged perception of what God should be, I have proven that in fact, non-physical things do affect the world. The only case you could make is that God is somehow outside this reality. But if we go by deism, that doesn't seem to need to matter. God would have simply created everything from a wormhole and closed it to leave us to it (I'm not, strictly speaking, a deist but I'm not a full-blown micromanagement God either).

 

[LightofTruth]

You go by what you think the biblical use is. People who have studied the bible (at an university level, not in bible school) mostly disagree.

The Greek equivalent for the word image found in Gen 1:26 is the word eikon. Now, have a look at how the Greek equivalent is used in the N.T.

eikōn

Total KJV Occurrences: 22

image, 22

Matt 22:20, Mark 12:16, Luke 20:24, Rom 1:23, Rom 8:29, 1Cor 11:7, 1Cor 15:49, 2Cor 3:18, 2Cor 4:4, Col 1:15, Col 3:10, Heb 10:1, Rev 13:14-15 (4), Rev 14:9, Rev 14:11, Rev 16:2 (2), Rev 19:20, Rev 20:4

 

[Heyo]

The Greek equivalent for the word image found in Gen 1:26 is the word eikon. Now, have a look at how the Greek equivalent is used in the N.T.

eikōn

Total KJV Occurrences: 22

image, 22

Matt 22:20, Mark 12:16, Luke 20:24, Rom 1:23, Rom 8:29, 1Cor 11:7, 1Cor 15:49, 2Cor 3:18, 2Cor 4:4, Col 1:15, Col 3:10, Heb 10:1, Rev 13:14-15 (4), Rev 14:9, Rev 14:11, Rev 16:2 (2), Rev 19:20, Rev 20:4

I'm not a bible scholar myself but isn't the creation story in the OT?

 

[wellwisher]

Before you say yes, I'd consider anything non-physical unable to physically interact with the universe.

If God is non-physical and does interact with the universe, how is this possible if God is not physical.

OTOH, if God is physical, shouldn't we be able to detect/measure God?

According to Einstein matter (mass) cannot move at the speed of light. If you plug into the equations for Special Relativity, you get an infinite energy requirement. The speed of light is the cut off for the state we call matter. If God is not matter, he would need to exist on the other side of that discontinuity and have a reference at the speed of light. This science is consistent with God being the light of the world.

Energy, such as light, moves at the speed light but is also able to impact matter. Energy is the bridge between God and the material universe. In Genesis, God was brooding over the deep; in his speed of light reference He says let here by light! This made a bridge between the two references, allowing God the spirit, to interact with the material creation.

In inertial references or the reference of matter, we live in space-time, where space and time are integrated. At the speed of light reference of God, inertial space-time, breaks down into separated time and space. One can move in time, without the constraint of space and one can move in space without the constant of time. The former allows one to know the history of the universe in all places at the same time; omniscience. While the latter allows one to be anywhere in zero time; omnipresent.

The interaction of the God reference, with inertial material reference, would amount to disconnected space or disconnected time interacting with space-time. This should give us space-space-time affects or space-time-time affects, respectively. Gravity, for example, is an acceleration, which has the units feet/sec/sec which is one part distance and two parts time; space-time-time. Acceleration is a manifestation of the God reference in inertial and is part of all the forces.

Note: If you plug into the equations for Special Relativity as velocity V increase toward the speed of light space-time or space and time appears to contract. At the speed of light, this contracts our perception of the universe to what appears to be a universe that is only a point-instant in space-time. This reference, at the speed of light, is how omnipresence and omniscience work. If the universe looked like a point, then everything is overlapping and one is everywhere at the same time.

 

[Samantha Rinne]

Not me. Why? Because we either refer to God in the second person singular (i.e. You or Thou) or the second person plural (i.e. You or Thou), or in the third person singular (He, She, or It) or the third Person plural (They).

The only sentence in the OP which uses the third person singular possessive form of He" is: "His existence is non-physical and is distinct from His creations." So, which version are you most comfortable with or which do you think is most accurate?"

• "Your existence is non-physical and is distinct from Your creations."
• "Thy existence is non-physical and is distinct from Thy creations."
• "His existence is non-physical and is distinct from His creations."
• "Her existence is non-physical and is distinct from Her creations."
• "Its existence is non-physical and is distinct from Its creations."
• "Their existence is non-physical and is distinct from Their creations."

Its is wrong.
Thy means "your". It's just archaic.

Their is fine as it depicts the Trinity.

His or her are fine, but his is preferred not because of chauvinism, as feminists believe, but because the Bible draws a parallel numerous times to us being God's Bride. Yup, even people born male, during the Last Days get to put on a pretty dress and pick up a sword to fight for God's Kingdom.

 

[ChristineM]

Well a guess is the lack of evidence too. People may term it differently.

I see something of a difference between limited evidence and no evidence.