Real.

What God is: Not.

Fixed it.

What God is: Not. — StreetlightX

"One abyss calls to another

The abyss of my spirit
Always invokes with cries
The abyss of god -
Say which may be deeper."

Meister Eckhart



God is the not that is not not.

Are you turned on by darkness ?
Thanks for casting light on this topic.

My favourite :)

God is not knot; not gnat; not nut.
God is everything you believe it to be
And he is the subject of belief
So therefore what he is not
Is a known entity.

You don't know god,
You can't know he exists
He can exists without anyone knowing
And the faithful believe in him.

God is not, IMO, the God of ancient scriptures such as the Bible etc... The 3O's and various other capabilities traditionally attributed to God are logically disprovable.

My opinion is that there is probably is an intelligence behind the creation of universe, but it hard to classify its exact nature.

God does not exist.

People exist. Things in the universe exist. The planets in their courses exist. While there are clear limits to our knowledge, everyone knows what it means to exist.

God does not exist.

If God does exist, then that is not God. All existing things are relative to one another in various degrees. It is actually impossible to imagine a universe in which there is, say, only one hydrogen atom. That unique thing has to have someone else imagining it. Existence requires existing among other existents, a fundamental dependency of relation. If God also exists, then God would be just another fact of the universe, relative to other existents and included in that fundamental dependency of relation.

In other words, God could not be God. He would be at best some sort of super-alien, flitting about the creation flashing super powers, seemingly irrationally. That is what the Flying Spaghetti Monster is. Its “worshippers,” the “Pastafarians,” are the latest in a long line of skeptics, though with perhaps a finer sense of humor. And even if said Monster existed, it could not be God. There would be no reason to worship it; in fact, one would do well to avoid it and its “noodly appendages.”

Those who say they do not believe in God often give lack of evidence for their unbelief. This is a confusion of knowledge and faith. It is also an error of logic — absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There cannot be any empirical evidence of the existence of God, for God does not exist. — Bishop Pierre Whalon

Remainder here. Makes an important point about the nature of existence which is generally neglected.

Not God was a grilled cheese sandwhich eaten in a New York diner on August 24, 1982. But what was the name of the diner? Who served it? Will it appear again?

Does anyone have more information about what caused the grilled cheese, so that I might predict the next one?

I am genuinely confused what you and Whalon mean by “believe” in if not “agree assertions of the existence of”, whether that agreement is based on faith or reason or whatever. In the English that I know, to believe in something is to think, for whatever reason and with whatever certainty, that something exists. The only alternative I can come up with is some sort of theological noncognititivism.

I think that the intelligence behind the creation of the universe must be from beyond spacetime - it created spacetime so it must be external to spacetime.

In that sense maybe it does not have existence in the manner that we understand conventionally, but it must exist in the sense that it must be able to interact in some way with matter/energy/spacetime else it could not of created such.

So I don't believe in a purely spiritual creator of the universe - it is not possible to wish/think/shout a universe into existence.

I think there’s a difference between ‘to be’ and ‘to exist’, but that for complex historical reasons, this is a distinction that is very hard to make nowadays.

But the theological distinction is based on the observation that the word ‘exist’ actually has a specific meaning - ‘ex-‘, other than, outside of, or apart from (exile, external), and ‘ist’ to be or to stand. So to ‘exist’ means to ‘be apart’, to be ‘this thing' as distinct from 'that'.

I think that the intelligence behind the creation of the universe must be from beyond spacetime — Devans99

'Existence' is what 'the transcendent' is transcendent in relation to. Whereas we have naturalism bred into us, so, for us, what exists is generally identified with the phenomenal realm, the domain of appearance.

In that sense maybe it — Devans99

'It'? What are we speaking of here? (But, do notice how thought is always naturally inclined to 'objectify' whatever it considers. That is an important point. Not much time to write now, will expand on these themes later.)

I think that the intelligence behind the creation of the universe must be — Devans99

And (the) grounds for thinking the universe was "created"?

Real. — Pfhorrest

:smirk:

So, what is it that God is not, in your opinion? — Daniel

God is not God.

(i.e. G ∈ ∅)

great forum topic.

'God' hasn't been established; so, all talk of 'is' or 'is not' can only amount to idle chatter, or worse, such as claiming is or is not as if it were true.

God does not exist. — Bishop Pierre Whalon

that something is exists. — Pfhorrest

Following the via negativa alluded to in the Meister Eckart stanza - thereby pushing into paradoxical phraseology - I would underscore the contrast between:

1) God is an abyss.

and

2) God does not exist.


Some other writer, I forget who, described god as "that which recedes to a great distance."* God as qualityless recession.

My personal view: Whalon - like most mystics - is exaggerating, or contorting or molesting language, to make his point. His point is valid but carries the unwelcome, unwholesome odor of paradox. A good part of why logophile, logicophile philosophers are so hostile to god-talk. There is a catalog of spiritual experiences best described by way of the counterpoise of: X = not-X.

* Barbusse? Schreber?

Elias Canetti on Schreber. Crowds and Power, p. 436.

God must not come too near men, for the nerves of living beings have such a power of attraction for him that he would not be able to free himself from them again and so would endanger his own existence. — Canetti

And (the) grounds for thinking the universe was "created"? — 180 Proof

See this OP:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6218/the-universe-cannot-have-existed-forever/p1

God does not exist. — Bishop Pierre Whalon

How is that different from atheism?

How is that different from atheism? — jorndoe

This is a rhetorical question.

How is that different from atheism? — jorndoe

If God does exist, then that is not God. — Bishop Pierre Whalon

Whalon appears to be affording god an existential status categorically different from the existence of people, objects, "things in the universe."

Again, we're moving in the direction of mystical, paradoxical phraseology. Philosophy - even language - is spectator to this sport.

Paradoxical phraseology is best suited to describe a certain kind of spiritual excitation. Better not to say a word. But these ecstatic moments can be so transformative and so exciting that it's difficult to hold one's peace. Mum is the wisest Word.

Again, we're moving in the direction of mystical, paradoxical phraseology. Philosophy - even language - is spectator to this sport. — ZzzoneiroCosm

You could say that.

Reminds me a bit the the Olympians. Once someone took a good look at Mount Olympus and didn't find them, they had relocated to :sparkle: "otherworldly" realms.

God as qualityless recession. — ZzzoneiroCosm

And now resigned from existence, too, of all things.

Whalon - like most mystics - is exaggerating, or contorting or molesting language, to make his point. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Pierre Whalon is bishop of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe and point he's making is perfectly orthodox; the fact that everyone here is baffled by it is predictable. Think of something that exists, that is not composed of parts, and does not begin and end in time. So, being composed of parts, and beginning and ending in time, is the 'mark' of 'all things that exist'. True or false? So, if God is not composed of parts (being simple) and does not begin and end in time (being eternal), then God does not exist. This doesn't say that God is unreal - what it's showing is that a lot of the argumentation about God is misplaced. As he says, many of the atheist arguments against God, is against a God that really doesn't exist - hence, 'straw God arguments'.

A good part of why logophile, logicophile philosophers are so hostile to god-talk. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Logophilic/logiphilic philosophers should perhaps consider how language itself and human rationality have properties traditionally associated with the divine.

Here are some quotes that bolster the notion that the Enlightenment project is a transformation of monotheism into humanism.

Reason, which conceives God as an infinite being, conceives, in point of fact, its own infinity in God.

The necessary being is one that it is necessary to think of, that must be affirmed absolutely and which it is simply impossible to deny or annul, but only to the extent to which it is a thinking being itself. Thus, it is its own necessity and reality which reason demonstrates in the necessary being.

“God is unconditional, general – 'God is not this or that particular thing' – immutable, eternal, or timeless being.” But absoluteness, immutability, eternality, and generality are, according to the judgment of metaphysical theology itself, also qualities of the truths or laws of reason, and hence the qualities of reason itself; for what else are these immutable, general, absolute, and universally valid truths of reason if not expressions of the essence of reason itself?

Philosophy presupposes nothing; this can only mean that it abstracts from all that is immediately or sensuously given, or from all objects distinguished from thought. In short, it abstracts from all wherefrom it is possible to abstract without ceasing to think, and it makes this act of abstraction from all objects its own beginning. However, what else is the absolute being if not the being for which nothing is to be presupposed and to which no object other than itself is either given or necessary?
— Feuerbach

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/future/future0.htm

Paradoxical phraseology is best suited to describe a certain kind of spiritual excitation. Better not to say a word. But these ecstatic moments can be so transformative and so exciting that it's difficult to hold one's peace. Mum is the wisest Word. — ZzzoneiroCosm

An interesting position. But what of great music, great art, great poetry? While I like the idea of silent monasteries, I'd also like an entire culture of ecstatic moments. Humans insist on 'magic,' and the billboards are happy to give us magic commodities. When I remember great parties, I also recall great music and great conversation, everything aimed at the 'magic' of life and its ecstasies and opportunities.

"One abyss calls to another

The abyss of my spirit
Always invokes with cries
The abyss of god -
Say which may be deeper."

Meister Eckhart



God is the not that is not not. — ZzzoneiroCosm

This is a beautiful post. Thank you.

baffled by it — Wayfarer

Only the eternal 'IS' is real and lasting, called 'ungenerated and deathless' by Parmenidies, to say that it is permanent, it due to no opposite or alternate such as not-anything or 'Nothing', which is to further say that the 'IS' is all there is and that the 'IS' has no option not to be and that it must be.

Some might want to have a secondary degree of realness to what appears to us as temporary, since it has to bee of thee real 'IS', the temporary which ever changes and must go away, it never being able to remain as anything particular even for an instant, so it seems; but, strictly speaking, what is temporary is not really real like the 'IS'.

Apparently, any transient state of the 'IS' is returnable to any other state of the 'IS', as like being 'topological', in a rough way of analogy, granting somehow that the 'IS' must ever remain as itself and kind of still to be said as unchanging at heart.

The transitions, or transmutations, of the 'IS' have to happen, for some unknown reason, these apparently guided by what we can only so far call the laws of nature.

Such, then, does the Great Wheel of the 'IS' have to turn and return, it being helpless/powerless over not doing so.

Also, from First Principles of philosophy, on would think that the eternal 'IS', having no input, needs be not anything in particular, which is in agreement here, and thus, I would seem, a kind of everything, at its level, whatever that means for it.

'God' hasn't been established; so, all talk of 'is' or 'is not' can only amount to idle chatter, or worse, such as claiming is or is not as if it were true. — PoeticUniverse

Given that g/G is undefined - undecidable - a (the) "mystery", g/G is not an (the) answer to any question whatsoever, and begs them all.

So, if God is not composed of parts (being simple) and does not begin and end in time (being eternal), then God does not exist. This doesn't say that God is unreal - what it's showing is that a lot of the argumentation about God is misplaced. [ ... ] many of the atheist arguments against God, is against a God that really doesn't exist - hence, 'straw God arguments'. — Wayfarer

A second-order argument against theism (i.e. demonstrating the falsity and incoherence of theistic claims about - predicates attributed to - g/G) and not against g/G as such, however, is neither "idle" nor a "strawman"; and, consistent with the tradition of via negativa, recommends that some of us ought to shut our 'pious' holes since nothing true or intelligible or definite can be said (vide Witty), let alone sermonized, for or against g/G as such.

Pierre Whalon is bishop of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe and point he's making is perfectly orthodox; the fact that everyone here is baffled by it is predictable. — Wayfarer

What has me "baffled" is why "the orthodox", like the good Bishop, perennially lose their nerve and keep on grasping for smoke & barking glossolalia at shadows. Apparently this pia fraus pantomime still consoles enough believers for it to go on being worth all of the intellectually disingenuous & self-abnegating trouble (pace Philo of Alexandria, Eckhart, Tillich, Cupitt et al).

recommends that some of us ought to shut our 'pious' holes since nothing true or intelligible or definite can be said (vide Witty), let alone sermonized, for or against g/G as such. — 180 Proof

I heard that Wittgenstein was quite a religious guy, actually. The thrust of ‘that of which we cannot speak’ was not that speech was idle, but that it falls short. So he points to the ineffable beyond speech, but, unlike what the positivists said, this was not because metaphysics was ‘nonsense’ but that it too fell short.

There are indeed things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. — Wittgenstein

Traitor to the cause, perhaps?

Those “marks of all things that exist” are also all equally marks of all beings, and everything real, unless you beg the question of saying there is a real being called God who’s different from all the other things you’re taking as paradigmatic examples of real existing beings, in which case you may as well beg the question of God’d existence too. But if you want to look around at all the ordinary stuff like rocks and trees and so on and say that God isn’t like that stuff and so doesn’t exist, you can also say he isn’t real and isn’t a being and isn’t anything else you might want to say about all that ordinary stuff. If you don’t, then you’ve just made “real” and “being” mysterious terms, since apparently real beings don’t have to have anything in common with all this stuff we’re familiar with; and there’s no reason not to also deprive “existence” of it’s meaning just as much.