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Chapter 2a
- 1. ©Dr. Norman L. Geisler Master’s Class Chapter 2
- 2. Recognizing False GodsRecognizing False Gods “It’s impossible to recognize a counterfeit without knowing the genuine.”
- 3. I.I. The True God:The True God: TheismTheism II.II. False Views of God:False Views of God: Deism Finite Godism Atheism Pantheism Panentheism Polytheism Neotheism
- 4. THEISM:THEISM: God Created All
- 5. DEISM:DEISM: God is beyond the world but not in it
- 6. FINITE GODISM:FINITE GODISM: God is beyond the world, but is limited in power and/or perfection
- 7. ATHEISTS:ATHEISTS: No God at all
- 8. PANENTHEISM:PANENTHEISM: God is in all
- 9. POLYTHEISM:POLYTHEISM: There are many finite gods
- 10. THEISM VERSUS DEISMTHEISM VERSUS DEISM PROBLEM: God did the big miracle (creation) but not smaller ones (like the resurrection) Beyond World & In the World Beyond World & not In the World
- 11. THEISM VERSUS FINITE GODISMTHEISM VERSUS FINITE GODISM InfiniteInfinite FiniteFinite PROBLEMS:PROBLEMS: 1.Contrary to principle of causality; “Every finite being needs a cause.” So, God would need a Cause (in which case He would not be God but a creature)
- 12. THEISM VERSUS FINITE GODISMTHEISM VERSUS FINITE GODISM InfiniteInfinite FiniteFinite PROBLEMS:PROBLEMS: 2. No guarantee of victory over evil, in which case evil is more ultimate than good.
- 13. THEISM VERSUS ATHEISMTHEISM VERSUS ATHEISM God existsGod exists No God existsNo God exists PROBLEMS:PROBLEMS: 1.There is no evidence for atheism (Evil presupposes God) 2.There is strong evidence against it (cosmological, teleological and moral argument)
- 14. THEISM VERSUS PANTHEISMTHEISM VERSUS PANTHEISM God made allGod made all I am not GodI am not God Evil is reaEvil is reall God is allGod is all I am GodI am God Evil isn’t realEvil isn’t real PROBLEMS:PROBLEMS: 1.You changed from not knowing you were god, to knowing you are god, but God doesn’t change. 2. It denies experiences, yet uses it to find and share their truth.
- 15. THEISM VERSUS POLYTHEISMTHEISM VERSUS POLYTHEISM One GodOne God InfiniteInfinite Many GodsMany Gods FiniteFinite PROBLEMS:PROBLEMS: 1.1.Every finite needs an infinite causeEvery finite needs an infinite cause (polytheistic gods need a Creator)(polytheistic gods need a Creator) 2.2.A uni-verse needs a uni-Cause (cf.A uni-verse needs a uni-Cause (cf. the Anthropic Principle)the Anthropic Principle)
- 16. THEISM VERSUS PANENTHEISMTHEISM VERSUS PANENTHEISM MonopolarMonopolar No partsNo parts InfiniteInfinite IndependentIndependent AbsolutelyAbsolutely perfectperfect UnchangingUnchanging BipolarBipolar PartsParts FiniteFinite DependantDependant Not perfectNot perfect ChangingChanging
- 17. The Problem with Panentheism 1. God is a self-caused which is impossible. 2. God and the world are mutually dependent, which is impossible. 3. God is changing which is not possible without an unchanging basis for change (which would be more ultimate than God). 4. God is not perfect (which demands a Perfect by which He is measured).
- 18. The Problem with Panentheism 5. Their concept of change is incoherent for- a) There is no continuity in the change b) It is change w/o anything that changes c) It is annihilation/recreation without a Creator to do the recreation.
- 19. NeotheismNeotheism Five Characteristics of Neotheism 1. God not only created this world ex nihilo but can (and at times does) intervene unilaterally in earthly affairs. 2. God chose to create us with incompatibilistic (libertarian)5 freedom - freedom over which he cannot exercise total control.
- 20. NeotheismNeotheism Five Characteristics of Neotheism 3. God so values freedom - the moral integrity of free creatures and a world in which such integrity is possible - that he does not normally override such freedom, even if he sees that it is producing undesirable results. 4. God always desires our highest good, both individually and corporately, and thus is affected by what happens in our lives.
- 21. NeotheismNeotheism Five Characteristics of Neotheism 5. God does not possess exhaustive knowledge of exactly how we will utilize our freedom, although he may very well at times be able to predict with great accuracy the choices we will freely make. Read Geisler’s article: http://www.ovrlnd.com/FalseDoctrine/Neotheism.html
- 22. The Problem with NeotheismThe Problem with Neotheism 1. They claim God is Infinite 2. They claim God has parts 3. But an infinite being can’t have parts a. Everything with parts can have more parts b. But there cannot be more than an Infinite c. Hence, an infinite Being cannot have parts
- 23. The Inconsistencies of NeotheismThe Inconsistencies of Neotheism 1. They claim God is temporal. 2. But what is temporal undergoes change, for time measures change. 3. Hence, a temporal God changes. 4. But what changes is caused, for— a. Change moves from potential to act b. And no potential can actualize itself. 5. But Neotheists believe God is uncaused. 6. Hence, the neotheistic view is inconsistent.
Editor's Notes
- THEISM: God created the world, and He’s holding it up. There’s a God beyond the world. He brought the world into existence. He made the world ex nihilo, or out of nothing more than His word and His will, and He continues to sustain it by His power. He can also intervene in the world. Three Theists where Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas. Geisler calls these the triple A’s.
- DEISM: God is beyond the world and He created the world, He is not in the world. He set it up and then left it. He made it but He doesn’t monkey with it. God made the world, but He doesn’t perform miracles. He made it but He is not holding it up. It like a ball, you throw it and then it goes on it’s own. God threw the world into existence and it’s been running on natural laws since then. God does not intervene. Who are some famous deists? (Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Voltaire)
- FINITE GODISM: God is beyond the world but is limited in power and/or perfection. He is not an all-powerful God. Some would say that while God is perfect, He is limited in power. Some would say He’s limited in power and perfection. Who would some finite godists be? (Plato, John Stewart Mills, Rabbi Kushner author of Why Bad Things Happen to Good People)
- ATHEISTS: No God at all. There is a world and no God. Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, everything that ever was is and will be. This is the whole ball of wax. Where do agnostics and skeptics fit? They all hold an atheistic worldview. The skeptic says, “I doubt it,” and the agnostic says, “I don’t know,” but they develop their whole worldview without God. It is an a-theistic worldview. So they fall under atheist as far as worldview is concerned. Who are some famous atheists? (Jean Paul Sartre, Bertrand Russell is an agnostic, Albert Camus, Freud, Karl Marx, Nietzsche the father of the “God is dead” movement)
- PANENTHEISM: Probably the hardest one to get a hold of. PAN means “all”, EN means “in”, THEISM means “god.” So if you break it down etymologically it means “All in god.” It actually makes better sense backward, “God is in all.” God isn’t the universe, but He’s in the universe and He has two poles. One of his poles is the physical universe. The other pole is outside the universe. It is the potential pole. This philosophy has four other names: Bipolar Theism, Dipolar Theism, Process Theology (God is in process), Organicism (God is like a gigantic organism). Who are the proponents of this view? (The father of this view is Alfred North Whitehead, the son of an Anglican minister famous British philosopher, mathematician. His most famous student was Charles Hartshorne. Charles Hartshorne was his assistant at Harvard and then moved to the University of Texas. Another one is John Cobb.. Cobb believes that every tenth of a second we change. It is a different you as a person. The you this second goes out of existence and a brand new you comes into existence only to pass with the next second.)
- POLYTHEISM: There are many finite gods. There are many gods in the universe, none beyond the universe. There are many gods. You know, a god of the rain, a god of the sun, a god here and a god there. The ancient Greeks believed in polytheism. They had a pantheon with a hierarchy of gods, with one god (Zeus) who is the head. This is known as henotheism. The ancient Egyptians also practiced polytheism. You’d think that in the modern world we would have moved past that but we haven’t. Can you name a religion that practices polytheism? (Mormons are polytheists. They claim we can become gods, and there are many gods. Wicca is polytheistic, they sometimes call themselves neo-pagans. Other polytheists are those who practice witchcraft, a lot of the New Age religions, and of course Hinduism. In Hinduism there are 330 million gods. That means that there almost one god for every 20.5 people on the face of the earth as of September 8, 2009. According to this religion there are many finite gods in the world.
- Theism believes that God is beyond the world and in the world, while deism believes that God is beyond the world but not in the world. Theism believes that God created the world out of nothing, and so he can do other miracles. Deism says He made the world but He can’t do any more miracles. The problem is easy to pinpoint. If God did the big miracle, like creation, why can’t he do the smaller ones? If god can create life to begin with, why can’t he resurrect the dead? You can’t tie the hands of that kind of God. If God can create the universe out of nothing more than His will and His word, then why can’t He perform miracles now? If He can make something out of nothing, why can’t He make something out of something? What is harder? To make wine out of water, or to make water out of nothing? To take a handful of nothing and make water is harder than turning water into wine. Right? After all, water turns into wine all the time. It rains, waters the roots of the vines, the vines grow grapes from that water, the grapes are crushed, the juice is extracted, and then fermented into wine. In a miracle like turning the water into wine, the process is simply speeded up and the middle man is excluded. So deism crumbles in that it has an inherent contradiction. They say God made the world but can’t interact with it. He did the big miracle but can’t do the small miracle. Why not?
- Finite godism is contrary to the principle of causality is one of the fundamental laws of all thought. It says that everything that has a beginning has a beginner. Everything that comes to be has a cause. Everything that is limited has a limiter. So if everything that is limited has a limiter, then that limiter can’t be limited, or he would have had to have a limiter, and you can’t go on in finite regress, therefore there must be a first unlimited limiter, a first uncaused cause. Every finite being needs a cause. Now if every finite being needs a cause, and god is finite, then god would need a cause. In that case, the cause of God would be God, and not that finite god. So finite godism doesn’t explain anything. It doesn’t explain itself, because it’s finite and limited. It doesn’t explain why it exists, rather than why it doesn’t exist. They only thing that can explain that is a God who does exist, and cannot not exist. In the finite godism view, a God would be needed, in which case, this finite god would not be god, he would be a creature.
- The people who buy into the finite godism view are wrestling with the issue of evil. The argument is that if there is an all-powerful God who is good, there wouldn’t be evil. But there is evil, therefore God cannot be all-powerful. They want to believe that God is perfect and good, but therefore the existence of evil must mean that God is not infinite, or all-powerful. However, the god of finite godism doesn’t solve that problem. The god of infinite godism has his hands tied by the world he has made and he can’t intervene. So the only solution to the problem is not a finite limited god, it’s an infinite all-powerful God, a god who in the end can be victorious. The argument is that if God is good He would defeat evil If God is all-powerful He could defeat evil Evil is not yet defeated, therefore there is no such God What is missing in the minor premise of this argument is the word “yet.” Evil is not yet defeated. Let’s restate the argument: If God is all-powerful He could If God is all good He would He hasn’t yet done it . . . Logically, then, what follows? He will! Amen. God will because He is all powerful and He can, and He’s all good so He will. If He wants to do it, and He can do it, and it’s not yet done, sit tight, as the Contemporary Christian song says, “Hold on, help is on the way.” So their argument really boomerangs on them. It doesn’t prove the finite god view.
- There is no evidence for atheism. Why? The main evidence that people offer against the existence of God is the problem of evil. But as C. S. Lewis pointed out, when he was an atheist, it’s a circular argument. They say there’s injustice in the world therefore there cannot be a God. But where does one get the idea of injustice, which means “not just.” How do we know there is something that is not just unless we know there is something that is just. How can one argue that something is absolutely wrong? Yet they do it all the time. They argue that some things are absolutely wrong, such as murdering an innocent child. That is absolutely wrong, they argue and then go on to say, “See! There is no God.” But the only way to measure absolute wrong is against that which is absolutely right or just. Therefore, by pinpointing evil, one presupposes that there is an absolute good by which evil is known. This of course leads us back to God as the absolute standard of good. The most they can say is that with all the evil in the world there must be some malicious being out there. But he has to be finite, he has to be created, and his name is the devil. The problem with atheism is that there is strong evidence against it: cosmological, teleological, and the moral argument. Every moral law has a moral law giver, and I’ve never seen an atheist who didn’t believe in a moral law. Even if there’s one moral absolute there has to be a God. Why? You cannot have an absolute moral law without an absolute moral law giver. The cosmological argument, we’ve already said that everything that has a beginning has a cause. The universe has a beginning, therefore the universe has a cause. The teleological argument is that every design has a designer. The universe shows design, therefore it must have a designer. So there is good strong evidence for there being a God, but there is no evidence to support the position that there is no God.
- Theism versus pantheism is a little harder. Pantheism is the all embracing philosophy that will swallow anything. If you go to India and you preach the gospel, they’ll say, “That’s just wonderful that Jesus is your guru.” They say, “We’ll just add another god to our pantheon of gods.” God is all. Just to illustrate the power of pantheism, suppose I draw a big circle on the marker board and in the center I put “God.” Then I ask you to come up here and draw a little circle in relationship to God and put your name in it. Where do you put your circle? Are you inside of the circle, or are you outside of the circle? (Allow students to respond.) If you put your circle outside of the circle, then you don’t exist because there is nothing outside of God. God is omnipresent. God is infinite. God is everywhere. There is nothing outside of God, so if you put your circle outside of God that means that you do not exist. If you put your circle inside then you are god. Since we all must be in the circle, then we are all gods. Everything and everyone is god. You either put your circle outside of the infinite or inside the infinite. If it’s outside, then you don’t exist. If it’s inside, then you are part of god. That’s the argument for pantheism. It’s a little harder to defeat that argument. Let’s look at the differences between theism and pantheism. Theism: God made all. Pantheism: God is all. Theism: I am not God. Pantheism: I am God. Theism: Evil is real. Pantheism: Evil isn’t real. Here’s a logical problem with their argument. If God is all, and God is good, then what? Then all is good and therefore evil cannot exist. But evil does exist. They argue therefore, that evil isn’t real. Geisler said someone once gave him a T-shirt that said on the front: “There are two things that are crystal clear . . . “ Then on the back it said, “There is a God, and you’re not Him.” Now how do you defend the premise that you’re not God? If there is a God and He infinite, and you’re not God, then you don’t exist. If you’re inside the circle then you’re part of God. How do you get out of the dilemma? Some would say that the statement, “I am God” is contradictory. I’m not God. That’s a contradiction. I’m finite and He’s infinite. That’s like saying the finite is infinite. But that is begging the question. The statement “I am God” is not a contradiction or God couldn’t say it. Not even God can affirm a contradiction. God can’t violate the law of logic. It goes against His very being. It’s impossible for God to lie. Well if God can say, “I am God,” and it’s not a contradiction, then why can’t you say it? You say, “Because I’m not God.” Well that begs the question. That has yet to be proven. Saying you’re not god doesn’t prove that you’re not god. That is the question. Well here is an argument that I think can be used against pantheism. Every pantheist knows that there was once a time when he didn’t think he was a god. Then through study or enlightenment, he came to realize that he was God. Shirley McLain put it this way, “The big problem in the world today is that humanity has amnesia. We’ve all forgotten we are god.” Therefore we need to be awakened from our amnesia. Okay, so there was a time when you didn’t think you were god, and then you really changed, you really were awakened, and now you think you are god. Right? So they have to infer, “I came to know that I am god.” But if there is a God and He’s infinite, and all-knowing and unchangeable, and all those other things that are essential to Divinity, then He always knew He was God, and if you didn’t always know you were God, then you’re not God. Because He’s unchangeable. He can’t go from not knowing He’s God to knowing He’s God. You went from not knowing you’re God, to knowing you’re God, therefore changed, and He doesn’t so you’re not. If you woke up one morning and said, “By Jove, I’m God,” well God never woke up one morning and said, “By Jove I’m God.” He always knew that He was God. He’s unchangeable, He is beautiful, He’s eternal, and you’re not it. The proof is that you doubt, but God doesn’t doubt. You change, but God doesn’t change. You come to know, but God always knows. Some might argue that maybe God does have those attributes. That God does change. But you have to have an unchanging changer. You have to have something that can change things from a state of potential to a state of actual, who has Himself always been actual. You can’t have a potential God. There has to be something, someone who has always been actual. Change implies that one was once in a state of potentiality. It implies that one has not achieve a certain state of being. So there must be something or someone who is the prime mover, who is not Himself moved, who does not need anyone to move Him. Who has never needed to change because He has eternally existed in a state of perfection. The pantheists believe that God is truth, and everything opposed to God isn’t evil, but is merely an illusion, and if you say that my view of theism is false, then it is really only an illusion, it is the opposite of reality and as such it is not real, and if it is not real, then how can they say that I am really wrong when I way that theism is the truth? The very fact that they write books against our view means that they think there is some reality there that is inconsistent with their view. If they believe there is something real with our view, then it suggests that our view must be true. According to their typology, it cannot be both real and untrue. But if it is not real, then how can they refute that does not exist? Another way to get at this, is that all pantheists have to deny their senses. If I say that I’m finite, about five foot ten, and not finite, that’s what my senses tell me. My senses tell me that I’m changing. I used to be a body builder, and my senses tell me that I’m not a body builder any longer. I look in the mirror and I see with my eyes, that I am not a body builder. So if I’m god, then I cannot be finite, I cannot be changing, therefore I have to deny what my senses tell me. Everything I experience tells me that I’m not God. So they have to deny their senses. For them all these things our senses tell us is merely a mirage. The problem is that they cannot even communicate their view without trusting their senses. They say, don’t trust your sense, but you are holding and reading their book which they wrote. Can you trust your eyes to get those words? They say you can’t trust your senses, because if you do, it is evident that you are not God. But to hear, read, and receive their view you have to trust your senses. Why do they write books and give speeches when they know that the words coming out of their mouth into your ears are just an illusion and cannot be trusted? The presuppose the opposite of their view while they espouse their view. Further, they do not live their views. They respond to danger based upon what they see and hear. If you can’t trust your senses, and what you see and hear is just an illusion, then why do they stop at train tracks when they hear the bells and see the crossbars dropping? The very foundation of their view is false.
- The gods of the polytheistic view are by their very nature, creatures. They are finite, they are limited to a beginning and an end. They have borders. They potential, and not pure actuality. They are not uncaused, causes. They are limited by their very nature, and every limited thing has a limiter. Therefore there must be an unlimited limiter. Secondly, a uni-verse needs a uni-Cause. This is a simple way of putting what scientists now call “the anthropic principle. The anthropic principle says that this universe is truly a uni-verse; it truly has unity. One set of physical laws, one set of mathematical laws, thus there is one mind behind it. This goes back the unified field theory that Einstein and others were seeking. One explanation for all, because there has to be one mathematical formula that can ultimately put this whole thing together. Einstein said, “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.” Einstein believed that the mastermind behind it all is so great that when we discover that, everything else will seem as nothing by comparison. Furthermore, they say, that from the very moment of the big-bang, the whole universe was pre-tuned and pre-tweaked for the emergence of human life. This speaks of one mind with advanced planning stamped on the whole universe—physically, mathematically, and also teleologically, which means that the design implies creation for a purpose.
- The view of the panentheists is that God is bipolar, that there is a distinction between what God is in His physical relationship to the universe, or his actuality, and the other pole, God as a potentiality, that which He is becoming. Their view is that God has two poles. The Orthodox view is monopolar, that is one pole. Very simply our position is that God is. He is pure actuality. He isn’t becoming anything, He already is. Their view is that God has parts. The Orthodox view is that God has no parts, He is simple and indivisible. The Orthodox view is that God is without limits and is therefore, infinite. Their view is that God is limited and finite. The Orthodox view is that God is independent, He doesn’t need anything else. Everything else depends on Him, but He’s independent from everything else. Their view is that God is dependent on the world and the world is dependent on God. Geisler quotes a panentheist (Charles Hartsbaugh?) who said, “We are co-creators of God with God.” You and I are co-creators of God with God. God is creating Himself, and we’re helping Him to create Himself. The Orthodox view is that God is absolutely perfect. They believe God is not absolutely perfect, but that He is growing into perfection. He is getting more perfect every day in everyway. Remember the old liberal mantra that the world is getting better every day in every way? That died, and what was born in it’s place? Process Theology. God is getting better every day in everyway, because you can see that the world isn’t getting better. You can’t see God, so it’s a little harder to disprove. Their view is that God is growing in perfection, so that when you and I do something good, we are adding to the perfection of God. We’re really making a difference in Him. But what do you give to God that has everything? What can you add to Him? Can you send an idea up and God’s says, “Oh! I never thought of that. Thank you for your input.” In a theistic God you can’t give Him any new ideas. You can’t add anything to Him. You can give Him any new power. Nor can you take anything away. There’s nothing you can do for a theistic God. Instead, a theistic God adds to you. A theistic God makes you better and better. A theistic God improves you. But the God of Process Theology says that when you go out and make a difference. When you go out and fight poverty, and health care issues, and racism, that is going to count forever that you are adding to the very attributes of God. God is made better, and the whole universe is improved because you have added to the perfection of God. The Orthodox view is that God is not changing, and does not change. The panentheist view is that God is in the process of changing. The theistic view is that God is the unmoved mover. If the universe is moving, if every element in the universe, every atom, every electron, is in movement, there must exist something or someone who started the movement without needing any other outside influence to move Him. This is God. He doesn’t change because He is already perfect. He initiates movement, but He doesn’t need anyone to initiate His movement. They ask, how can you relate to a God that doesn’t change. You need a more user friendly God. You need a God you can pet and who will purr. So their God is a far more user friendly God. He’s far more pliable, and you can actually get things done. They will argue that in the Bible God changes His mind. Abraham negotiated with God over Sodom and Gomorrah. So they claim that their God is depicted right there in the Bible. If your God has already made up His mind and will not change, then what is the value of prayer?
- First, in their view, God is a self-caused being. He is causing His own existence. But you can’t cause your own existence. Why? To need to be caused, you’d have to not exist. To cause, you’d have to exist. So to cause your own existence, you’d have to exist and not exist at the same time. The Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, claim that Jesus is a created being. They say that Jesus is the very first created being. But there’s a problem. Two times in the Bible we are told that Jesus created everything which was created: John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. NKJV Col 1:15-17 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. NKJV So there is a glaring philosophical paradox in the theology of the Jehovah Witnesses. The law of non-contradiction says that A is not non-A. No two contradictory statements can be true at the same time in the same way. Jesus cannot be and not be at the same time. He cannot Be the Creator, and not Be at the same time. But the Bible clearly states that Jesus created everything that was created, and without Him nothing was made that was made. So what can you do with that? The Jehovah Simply change the text of Scripture. They add one word and that one word changes everything. Their version includes the word “other.” John 1:3 in their version states, “All other things were made through Him, and with Him nothing else was made that was made.” In Colossians 1:16, their version says, “For by him all other things were created. . .” Clearly they blatantly change the text to fit their theology because even they see the logical contradiction of their position. A second problem with the panentheist view is that in their view God and the world are mutually dependent, which is impossible. I can hold you up, or you can hold me up, but we cannot hold one another up. One is dependant upon the other. We cannot be mutually dependant in this scenario. Likewise, God cannot be dependant upon the universe which He created. Something has to be causing it. They cannot be causing one another. They cannot be mutually dependant in a causal relationship. Third, a problem with their view is that God is changing, which is impossible without an unchanging basis for change (which would be more ultimate than God. What is change? It is moving from a state of potentiality to actuality. Change is actualizing a potential. But no potential cannot actualize itself. No stone makes itself into a building and no steel makes themselves into a bridge. No potential actualizes itself. It merely has the potential to be actualized. You have to have an actualizer outside of the potential—the mason, or the iron worker. Now if God is changing, and you can’t cause your own existence, then there has to be some cause outside of God to create God, and of course that cause would be God. Fourth, their God is not perfect. But you cannot say something is not perfect unless you have a standard of perfection by which you measure the perfection or non-perfection of someone or something else. To say something is not perfect necessitates the existence of the perfect. Just as to say that something is false implies there is something that is ultimate truth. So if their God is not perfect, then that’s too bad for them, because I know a God who is. And beside Him there is not other god, there is no other perfection. So if a process God is getting better, there must be a best. There must be an absolute standard outside of God by which we measure their movement toward perfection. But that perfection is God.
- Their view offers no continuity in the change. They have no point of ultimate perfection, therefore how does one measure change and how does one argue that God growing or changing in His perfection. There is not continuity, not ultimate goal toward which one moves, no way to measure that movement, and nothing by which to say that change has occurred at all. They do not think that there is an unchanging anything that is the source of change, there is no unchanging changer, or unmoved mover. If there isn’t a point of beginning, a place from which one moves and toward which one moves, then there is no change. For example, if you move from one house to another, you know where you have moved from to where you have moved, and how far you moved, but without a point of origin, there is no movement from. If you can’t ever remember from where you moved, how do you know you have ever moved. Maybe you were born in the house and have never moved into the house. You don’t know without a point of origin. They argue for a God who changes, but deny an ultimate point of origin. You have annihilation, in that as change occurs, that which was prior ceases to exist, and you have recreation without a creator. You have something from nothing without a creator. That’s a bigger miracle than Theism ever dreamed of. In their theology we are all in a constant state of annihilation and recreation. Every tenth of a second the old you goes out of existence and a new you comes into existence. This is true of you, me, God, the universe, everything. Everything exists in a constant state of annihilation and recreation, without a Creator. But it is illogical, because nothing can’t create something. The very sentence is illogical—Nothing, can’
- 1. God not only created this world ex nihilo but can (and at times does) intervene unilaterally in earthly affairs. 2. God chose to create us with incompatibilistic (libertarian)5 freedom - freedom over which he cannot exercise total control.
- 3. God so values freedom - the moral integrity of free creatures and a world in which such integrity is possible - that he does not normally override such freedom, even if he sees that it is producing undesirable results. 4. God always desires our highest good, both individually and corporately, and thus is affected by what happens in our lives.
- 5. God does not possess exhaustive knowledge of exactly how we will utilize our freedom, although he may very well at times be able to predict with great accuracy the choices we will freely make.6
- 1. They claim Cog is temporal. 2. But what is temporal undergoes change, for time measures change. 3. Hence, a temporal God changes. 4. But what changes is caused, for— a. Change moves from potential to act b. And no potential can actualize itself. 5. But Neotheists believe God is uncaused. 6. Hence, the neotheistic view is inconsistent.
- Where would you put Neotheism?