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Hogshead1,
God’s own self-evolution from unconsciousness and mere potentiality into self-consciousness, personality, and self-actualization?
That sounds like the Egyptian polytheistic image of God [Atum], as they claimed he created himself.
I have never heard it from the Hebrews or from Scripture. Instead Scripture claims he does not change.
True, Kerwin, many do assume Scripture says that God does not change. And there are many passages to back that idea. However, it is too easily overlooked that about 100 passages do attribute change to God, e.g., Gen. 6:6, Hosea 11:8, for starters. Scripture is not a book of metaphysics, as I have said many times. Hence, it never addresses questions such as why did God create or does God need creation, or any related questions. However, most f the predication of God , in Scripture, is relative predication. It’s tough to be a father without children, it’s touch to be a creator without a creation, a savior without ones to save, a lover without anyone to love, etc. These imply that God does need the world. To me, the big question is: If God does not need the world, if God could be as happy, whole, and complete without it as with it, why did God bother to create it? If it is just for us and us alone, then God should butt out of it. If God really doesn’t need it, and can get nothing out of it, then the universe is totally meaningless to God. I don’t thinks having needs makes you inferior. The most powerful are the most needy. Was Toscanini any less of a great conductor because he needed an orchestra? Are the Beetles less artists because they needed musical instruments, among other things? I add that fact God needs the universe does not mean God can exploit it. God is a social-relational being, who arises out of his or her relationships with others. God, then, enjoys an unsurpassable direct, immediate empathic to all feeling. If we are not happy, then God cannot be happy. Too often, teh Christian religion and others have unduly pitted altruism against egotism. In reality, they belong together. If you truly care for yourself, you have to care for others, as we are all social-relational beings. We cannot be happy unless our sisters and brothers are happy. Even if you just try and think of yourself, yes, you are also being altruistic. Worrying about what will happen in your future is essentially worrying about another person, your future self, that other guy you will become. I say that, because moment to moment, we are new beings. No thinker thinks twice. So even selfishness is utterly impossible without some real degree of altruism.
hoghead1…IF GOD CHOSE TO SHARE LIFE WITH OTHER THINGS AND RECIEVES PLEASURE FROM THAT, by enjoying their interactions in life , where does that mean he “needs” it as some form of necessity, a desire is not a necessity now is it? The “gift” of life is just that a “gift’. NO scripture say GOD needed anything, what “scripture’ say is that “GOD so loved the world that he gave his only (human) begoten SON, that whosoever bleives in him “should” not parish.
GOD IS SOVERIGN, no matter how he intermixes with his creation. IMO
peace and love to you and yours. …….gene
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