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How do we know there's a God? What is he like?

Re: Can God do or say anything to cause you to reject him?

Postby jimwalton » Mon Jan 23, 2017 3:55 pm

God coming to earth as a man and raping women.
God telling lies.
God killing people for the fun of it and laughing while they die.
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Re: Can God do or say anything to cause you to reject him?

Postby Steve the Horse » Wed Jan 25, 2017 11:19 am

So you believe God to be moral because he hasn't performed any of those actions, or any other actions that you would consider to be out of his character. Is that accurate?
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Re: Can God do or say anything to cause you to reject him?

Postby jimwalton » Wed Jan 25, 2017 11:22 am

I feel like this is a trick question, so I'm wary of it. I think God is moral for two reasons: (1) righteousness is one of his attributes as revealed to us, so I presuppose it on the authority of the Word of God that has been evidenced to me in other ways, and (2) his moral actions bear out that #1 is true.

So I'm not ready to agree that God is moral because he hasn't performed any of these actions. He is moral because that is his nature, and he has evidenced the performance of moral actions. I'm not ready to fall into a trap that claims he is moral based on negative evidence or the absence of evidence.
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Re: Can God do or say anything to cause you to reject him?

Postby Steve the Horse » Thu Jan 26, 2017 11:50 am

Thanks for clarifying. I didn't mean for that to be a trick question, and I'm not trying to trap you. Just trying to figure out exactly why you believe God is moral.

At one point, it sounded like you were saying you perceive God as moral based on his actions, because actions are how we can tell whether a being is moral or not. Now, based on (1) above, it sounds like you're presupposing God as moral because the Bible tells you he is. Is one of those accurate? Or is it something else?

Again, I know it's hard to judge sincerity through text, but I'm not trying to be tricky. Honestly trying to figure out motives.
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Re: Can God do or say anything to cause you to reject him?

Postby jimwalton » Thu Jan 26, 2017 11:53 am

Much earlier in the thread I said, "The only way we know anything about God is because he/she/they reveals himself to us. We cannot (usually) perceive God with our senses or with scientific experiments. The knowledge of God is not that kind of knowledge, just as the determination of true guilt in a court of law is neither a sensory nor a scientific pursuit. So we have to go by revelation and experience as well as evidence. As we observe evidences for God in nature, by His revelation in the Bible, and by our experiences it becomes reasonable to conclude that God is a moral being. I can't be mistaken because I am following the trail of the revelation, which is unequivocally the goodness and righteousness of God. The revelation takes precedence over my perspectives, which are important but subjective. My subjective perceptions have to be weighed against the authoritative revelation. ... What I said is that we can know about God from the Bible, from our experiences, and from evidence. Essentially they all fall under the category of revelation. God reveals himself to us generally in nature and in science. He reveals himself specially to us in the Bible. And He reveals himself occasionally and specifically to us through our experiences."
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Re: Can God do or say anything to cause you to reject him?

Postby Steve the Horse » Tue Jan 31, 2017 10:15 am

What method can you use to arrive at 100% certainty on a belief?

I ask because I don't think there's a single belief I hold that I would say I have 100% certainty about. To me, 100% certainty means I don't think there's any possibility I could be wrong and nothing could ever change my mind, but I can't think of any situation in which I could justify that level of certainty. I can get almost negligibly close to 100% on some things, to the point where it's not really worth the time to think about, but I don't think I can ever get all the way there.

How are you arriving at 100%?
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Re: Can God do or say anything to cause you to reject him?

Postby jimwalton » Tue Jan 31, 2017 10:19 am

It's because I've been over this ground so many times. I have studied the Bible, searched my thoughts, read books, been through my own crises of faith, conversed with others, observed the work of God in the world, weighed the evidence, and through it all I have become SO convinced of the truth of truth of the Bible (through evidence, experience, and confidence in the authority of the Bible as God's word). I am just as confident in the morality of God as I am in the existence of the real world and my existence in it as a conscious being.
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Re: Can God do or say anything to cause you to reject him?

Postby Steve the Horse » Wed Feb 01, 2017 10:00 am

What would you say to a member of a different religion who gave a similar answer as to how they've come to 100% certainty about the morality of their god?
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Re: Can God do or say anything to cause you to reject him?

Postby jimwalton » Wed Feb 01, 2017 10:01 am

Either one of us is right and the other wrong, or we are both wrong, but we can't both be right. Truth can't be self-contradictory.
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Re: Can God do or say anything to cause you to reject him?

Postby Steve the Horse » Thu Feb 02, 2017 11:52 am

I agree. So how can you be sure that you're the one who is correct if both of you are using the same method to reach your conclusions?
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