Does the doctrine that there is no power but God's

and it takes infinite power to make things where there is nothing

show that God and the creation have to be one and the same thing?

 

Religion may say that God creates all but that his creation is not him.  If it is then idolatry would be fine.  Even if an idol can be smashed, all you are doing is making God change shape.  You are not really harming your God.  The argument from the Bible that idols need makers and can be destroyed and so are not divine would be eviscerated.  We are going to ask if pantheism, the doctrine that all things and God are identical, is what faith in God leads to.

 

God cannot do that without exercising his power.  Whatever comes to be has to be made of God’s power.

 

Summary
 
God is immaterial. In contrast, the universe is matter and energy.

 

Some conclude that God is wholly different from matter and so he cannot have an effect on it.

 

This does not necessarily follow.

 

The Church responds that God can for he has all power and its unlimited power. But the amount of power is not the point. If you have all the wealth in the world, it will do you no good if you need medical assistance urgently and everybody else in the world is dead.

 

The best suggestion is that we do not know if it makes sense to say that matter can be affected by a spirit God or not.  If it is not possible, what about the notion that God acts in the universe for he is the universe?  That is the Pantheist solution.

 

Let us think to see if anything else points to Pantheism.

 

The thought that God can make things where there is absolutely nothing is mad.

 

It assumes that something cannot come about where there is nothing.

 

If it can there is no need for a God.

 

Yet it says something has come about where there was nothing after all.

 

It says God did it. 

 

So something cannot just come about unless there is a God.  That is a circular argument.

 

It is no better than, "1 is not 2.  Ever.  But if there is a God it can be."

 

So by a process of elimination a God who creates what is not him is nonsense.  God and the universe would be the same.

 

Many pantheists use logic yes but many also argue that religious experience tells them that they are as much God as Jesus is and that all things are God.  Many pantheists exist within the Church and they do not even realise it.  Pantheism is considered heresy as Romans 1 says the creation must never be mistaken for the creator or surmised to be as good as him.

Divine Infinity versus Creation not from anything

 

Creation where there was nothing implies that God is infinite. The difference between nothing and something is immeasurable in principle.  It would take infinite power to put something where there is only nothing.

 

St Thomas Aquinas denied that there was an infinite medium or distance between nothing and something for that has the wrong mental image. It imagines nothing changing into something. In fact there is nothing there to change.

Right if there is nothing to change that only accentuates that the difference between there not being anything there and then the anything being there is infinite. Either way you still have your infinite.

So Aquinas did not deny the infinite distance but a misunderstanding of it.

 

Creation where there is nothing directly says there is an infinite God.  God is his power as well.  God is considered to be perfect unity. 

 

 God has infinite power and is his infinite power.

 

If he can make new power that is not part of him then he is not infinite. Infinite for God means all without limit. Infinite + 1 means the infinite cannot be infinite but finite. God is not infinite like an infinite line of bricks which is infinite in length but not in height or width. He is infinite in the full sense.  There is no power that is not God.
 
If creation pops out of nothing by magic then magic creates not God and God is not God for there is a power he cannot control. And God's infinity is refuted.

 

 

A typical cop-out!

 

A Christian quote: "When we speak of the infinity of God, we are not using the word in a mathematical sense to refer to an aggregate of an infinite number of finite parts. God's infinity is, if you will, qualitative, not quantitative. It means that God is metaphysically necessary, morally perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, etc."

 

The answer is that it has to be both qualitative and quantitive.  If your quality of love is endless then it is infinite in the mathematical sense as well.  If it were not so it would follow that love that is low in quantity is still high in quality.  The two go together.  Thus if God is an infinite number then it follows that nothing can exist that is not God.  God is nature.

 
God is Act Not Potency
 
Christianity holds that God is act and not potency – potency means having the power to act but not using it.
 
A perfect being would have to be act and not potency.
 
If God makes something small it follows that he did not use the power to make a bigger one and so he must be both potency and act which is absurd as even the most bigoted believing Christian philosopher confesses. This consideration demolishes the necessary being argument totally. It give us reason to think that even if the argument for that being seems valid there is something wrong - or if not wrong then there is something missing in us and our elevators do not all rise up to the top floor - with us that makes us mistake it for validity. At one time, all people thought there was no higher number than ten. A cat thinks there is nothing more to life than eating and sleeping and hunting.
 
Pantheistic God cannot have Free Will
 
Creation is impossible so if God wishes to make anything he has to make it from himself. This is Pantheism which teaches that God and the universe and all in it are one and the same. God does not have free will for he cannot sin or change so it follows that we cannot have it either for we are God. What we will is really what God wills for it is God that is doing things while pretending to be us. So if we want to murder and do so it is God’s will and we don’t do wrong.
 
Pantheism
 
What is infinite cannot become what is finite because that contradicts the rule that the whole is greater than the part. The infinite is like the whole and the finite is like the part.
 
God is supposed to be an infinite spirit, that is, a being without parts and therefore having no separation in it. God can’t become parts for parts are finite. But if that is true then how can the man be different from the mouse? Even if separation is an illusion it is still evident that separation exists. God would not become the universe to suffer.
 
Atheism is closer to pantheism than theism.
 
Pantheism is self-evidently absurd and if you want to believe in God you have to go for it. Atheism with all its problems is more rational so it should be the accepted option. Agnosticism would be unacceptable for it would imply that either Pantheism or atheism could be true whereas Pantheism is too silly to be true. If you want to believe in God you have to believe that God is the creation for to say he is not is still subscribing to Pantheism the doctrine that he is creation and adding the absurdity of God not being the creation as well. Suppose atheism for the sake of argument is not an option. To simply settle for Pantheism is the most rational thing to do for it reduces the absurdities or contradictions or paradoxes or whatever you want to call them.

 

Pantheism  when explicit gives you a god that is not functionally a God so in that sense it is close to atheism.  Mainstream religion hides its leanings towards Pantheism.

No Copyright