A response to matoushin... part one..

Matoushin recently posted a long essay over on CalBHT. This will be my attempt to respond.

I'll first approach this as a philosopher (albeit a not very good one), then as a Christian.

if you want to read this, please on the permalink (the posting time) below.

Let's try to handle things as they come in order (ordered, of course, by chaos, ... whatever):

"... it seemed proper to me to try to understand God all the while understanding he's not understandable." A good place to start...

"A lot of my thought stems from (I think it's ) the Anselmnian definition of God which defines God as the greatest possible being."
um, I would say that this definition of God is problematic, and I'll discuss this a little later...

"Fundamental to my thought train is the notion that I and everyone I meet exist."
Ok, sure.

"In order for the universe to always have existed, the universe must be a necessary entity. ...This points out an important aspect of unnecessary entities, they must be created."
Why must always-existing things be necessary, and, the contrapositive, why must unnecessary things have a beginning?

That is, I understand (beginning) -> !(necessary), but I don't see how !(necessary) -> (beginning)

(! = "not", just in case...)

" Unnecessary entities can be made by other unnecessary entities, but somewhere at the top of the hierarchy there must be a necessary entity. ... So, if the universe isn't necessary, there must be some entity above the universe which is.
Why can't there simply be an infinite chain of unnecessary causes; that is, why can't there be a cause (call it A) for the universe, and a case B for A, and a cause C for B, etc forever? And, if you say that this cannot be the case because then the chain of causes would exist without a reason, then I would ask why it must have a reason.

This question, of why there must be a reason behind things, and whether or not something can exist meaninglessly, I would say this question lies behind much of the relativism and other philosophical problems of today.

"If we define God as the "greatest possible being", being necessary is surely greater than being unnecessary, and so we can attribute that to God."
A common response against the ontological proof for God is the fact that, potentially, the statement "god is the greatest possible being" has no meaning since there might not be a greatest possible being, just as the statement "L is the biggest number" (or, to be more precise, "L is the number of greatest magnitude.") has no meaning, since there is no greatest number.


"Now, God being the greatest possible being immediately lends us to throwing all sorts of great attributes at him. He isn't just good at loving, he is capable of the greatest love...."
A non-Christian could say that the greatest possible qualities are hatred and power, and end up with some wrathful God that has these two qualities to the greatest degree who likes throwing lighning bolts and tsunamis at people. What can you say to someone who asks why love is better than hate, or why omniscience is better than being able to forget everything, or... i dunno.

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I was gonna try to respond to all of the stuff in the original post, but my mind is now toasted, and I am tired. So let me say this:

All of these mental games can be fun and stuff, but they have some serious problems too. For instance, a lot of this stuff can be used in apologetics, but it can also lead to some serious arrogance as you try to argue with someone for the sheer sake of arguing and showing yourself to be a better philosopher or rhetorician. And, besides, it puts the main focus not on God, but on your own mental and philosophical skills.

(I would say that much of the philosophizing that goes under the name of theology are not the results of Christianity but rather the results of Greek thinking and philosophy and its effect on roman culture and philosophy.)

Instead, I think there is a better place to start: Jesus. We need to look at Him, focus on Him. In Him we will find reasons for believing in God. In him we will find what God is really like. In Him will we find the answers to why God made creation as he did, as you ponder about in the rest of your essay.

Jesus must be the center of what we study, of what we do, of who we are.

May we put Jesus at the center of everything.

Perhaps I am thinking I am seeing a problem when there is none. But, still, let me urge you to focus on God.

Perhaps I will respond to the rest of the essay at some future point, we shall see....