Philosophy of God Analyzed

The *Kind* of Being God is: On First Cause, The Absolute, and the Infinite

Research by Kerry A. Shirts

The Christian stance concerning God is contradictory since they have adapted Greek philosophy. Below is a rather typical Christian idea that I analyze.

Here again, I think some of Mortimer Adler's observations are useful. If we are saying something is "uncaused", we really mean that it posesses being in and of itself. Nothing caused it to come into being and nothing can destroy it. It exists uncontingent. But if a being is "uncaused", then it is also CHANGELESS. It could not have been different than it is. To suppose that it could have been DIFFERENT means supposing that something could have happened (or not happened)that would have CAUSED it to be different. But we have already said that this being is UNCAUSED. I was caused by my parents. Change my parents and you would have changed ME. A candle flame is caused by heat, oxygen and the candle. If any of them had been changed, the flame will be changed. God is caused by NOTHING, so there is NOTHING that can CAUSE him to be different.

My response:

I have thought about this some more. You are clearly wrong here. Jesus was caused by who? HIS .... uh.... FATHER. That is clearly in the Bible. Why you guys continue to proclaim you are Christians and reject the Bible is something I can't quite figure. Forgive me for being dense on that.

Now then, lets examine Jesus closer. Is he God? The Christians and we Mormons can only answer this in one way and compatibly remain Christians. Yes, Jesus IS God. Whatever immutability or simplicty or any other quality that is ascribed to God, MUST be compatable with Jesus Christ.

Jesus is God in his own right and person, and he is a revelation of what God his Father is. He is not only a revelation of the BEING of God, but the KIND of being God is. Jesus is NOW and will be FOREVER GOD, who possesses ALL power in heaven and earth. Is he without form? No. He has his body, in the form of a man. Is Jesus Christ illimitable? Not as to his glorious body; that has limitations, dimensions, proportions. Is Jesus Christ without parts? Not as to his person; his body is made up of trunk, limbs, a head, etc. So God's infinity, so far as is spoken of in holy scripture, does not refer to his person, but evidently to the attributes of his mind - to his intelligence, wisdom, power, patience, mercy, and whatsoever other qualities of mind or spirit he possesses.

Whatever of eternity may be ascribed to the existence of the Lord Jesus, he must have had a beginning as a son; that term implies a relation, and that relation had a beginning. There must have been a time when he was not as Son. He became son hence changed his relation from not-son to son. We know there was a time when he was not a man, that is as flesh and bones. And we know he became a man, hence another change. So he was mortal, and in time died and was resurrected into immortality... ANOTHER change. There was a time when ALL power in heaven and earth was GIVEN to him (Matt 28:18)-hence there must have been a time when he did NOT possess it, hence ANOTHER change. A change from the condition of holding SOME power to that of possessing ALL power.

Jesus himself says that he can do NOTHING of himself, but what he seeth the Father do; for what things soever he doeth [the Father of Jesus], these also doeth the Son likewise (John 5:19). Back in the early 1980's a wrote a research paper on just these two verses. My research indicated that many scholars simply skipped this verse and verse 20 altogether. Edersheim, "Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah", vol. 1, p. 471 beat around the bush. H.H. Halley, "Bible Handbook," skipped the verses (p. 537f), Obert C. Tanner's "The New Testament Speaks," stops at verse 17 (p. 162f), The "New Revised Bible COmmentary," commented on it signifying that Jesus and His Father are One in works, while the "New Oxford Annotated Bible" noted that "Jesus Sonship involved the identity of his will and actions (and we would say these include His death *AND* resurrection!), while Joseph Cavanaugh "Evidences of Our Faith" (p. 124f)clearly evidences Jesus' resurrection, "Our Lord had to show the *Reality of His Physical Body*." Cavanaugh then indicated "By physical resurrection we mean that his HUMAN BODY which was dead was restored to life." Then he proclaims that God is a spirit without a body! But earlier he had stated that Jesus and His Father are One. He is confused. If Jesus saw and did what His own Father did (as He emphatically states in John 5:19f!) and Jesus was then resurrected (as He had seen of His own Father!), then how is God a spirit? Christian theology is muddled on this point. George Lamsa, "More Light on the Gospel," comments all around verses 19, 20, but ignores them and their implication. The Anchor Bible commenting on Jesus seeing what His Father had done, notes "There is a reference to Pre-existence." Then the "New Schofield Reference Bible" states that Jesus is merely claiming that He and his Father work together. That is not the meaning of the verses however.

Interestingly, in the accepted doctrine of Orthodox Christianity that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is as the Father is, that is, of the SAME nature and essence. O.K., then, as God, the Father, begot Jesus, the Son, may not the Son in time also beget a son or sons? Or, after ascribing to the Son the SAME nature and the SAME POWER as is ascribed to the Father, can Orthodoxy limit the Son by denying him reproductive power and contend that Jesus must endure without exercising it?

If the existence of the Son was essential to the perfection of God, the Father - and it cannot be thought of in any other light - may it not be, Since the Son is of the same nature as the Father, that the fact of Fatherhood is necessary to the perfection of the Son? To deny him the power of attaining it would be to limit his power, which may not be done according to Orthodoxy. Isn't it likely that the same cause or impulse, or necessity, that led God the Father to beget a Son, create a world, and provide for its redemption, would impel the Son, since he is of the same nature as the Father, to do the same things? And where was the beginning of such proceedings? And where will they end? Or will they end?

Jesus Christ is not without passions - after all, the shortest verse in the entire Bible is "Jesus wept." As in Jesus Christ dwelt "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" so also in him is gathered the qualities, attributes and perfections that go to the making of God.

God CANNOT be considered as absolute infinite. Jesus's body is NOT infinite. Neither is it UNCAUSED. When beings are infinite after their kind, they are only limited by things of a different nature, and therefore the perfections possessed by those beings of a different nature will constitute no limitation to their infinity. i.e., Jesus's Godhood, yet his limiting physical body. His body does nothing to bother his Godhood, but Jesus is not absolute infinite either. God is only infinite in power and faculties, not in person, hence not absolute infinite. This is Jesus Christ - the ONLY God of the Bible. If your philosophy does NOT square with what and who Jesus is, then you are following the wrong God.

Now, it is postulated by Christians that:

Another way to look at this is to say that God is a NECESSARY being. Since he causes himself, NOTHING (external to himself) could possibly have prevented him from existing.

Well lets look at this necessary being for a moment. To think of the First Cause as totally independent is to think of it as that which existed in the absence of all other existence. Seeing that if the presence of any other existence is necessary, it must be partially dependent on that other existence, and so cannot be the First Cause. Not only, however, must the First Cause be a form of being which has no necessary relation to any other form of being, but it can have no necessary relation within itself. There can be nothing within it which determines change, and yet nothing which prevents change. For if it contains something which imposes such necessities or restraints, this something must be a cause higher than the First Cause, which is absurd. Thus the First Cause must be in every sense perfect, complete, total; including within itself all power, and transcending all law. Or, absolute.

BUT... these 3 conceptions - the Cause, the Absolute, the Infinite - all equally indispensable, contradict each other when viewed in conjunction, as attributes of one and the same being! A Cause, cannot, as such, be absolute. The absolute cannot as such be a Cause! The Cause exists only in relation to its effect. The effect is an effect of the Cause. With the absolute, there can be no relation. And one way that was used to get out of this is the succession of time. The Absolute exists first by itself, and then afterwards becomes a cause. But then the infinite rears up and clobbers us! How can the infinite become that which it was not from the first? If Causation is a possible mode of existence, that which exists without causing is not infinite! That which becomes a cause has passed beyond its former limits.

A necessary cause cannot be conceived as absolute and infinite. If necessitated by something beyond itself, it is thereby limited by a superior power. And if necessitated by itself, it has in its own nature a necessary relation to its effect.

The absolute is incapable of a necessary relation to anything else, but it is also incapable of containing, by its very nature, an essential relation within itself. The absolute cannot be conceived as consciousness, neither can it be conceived as unconsciousness! It can't be complex or simple, it can't be conceived by difference, or the absence of difference, it cannot be identified with the universe, neither be distinguished from it. The One and the Many, regarded as the beginning of existence, are thus alike incomprehensible.

But Jesus Christ (GOD) came to earth and IS comprehensible, so I say there is something drastically wrong with following philosophy in trying to define or understand God. I say Jesus Christ is the answer to any and all philosophy of man. What Jesus is, God is. The KIND of being Jesus is, is the KIND of being that God is.