(WARNING: This is 338 WORDS and takes ALMOST 55 SECONDS to read. ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK, Ye of the Short Attention Span.)
A thread about whether God has wings led to a surprising amount of discussion and confusion. The very question "Does God have wings?" is contrary to the fundamental notion of Divine Simplicity.
Here is a description of Divine Simplicity in somewhat hifalutin language, but you can probably get the basic idea:
One notion that appeals to me is God as Pure Consciousness or Mind.
Idealism is the notion, popular in ancient times and today, that Mind is the fundamental stuff of all reality - our universe and the spiritual realm. In books like The Idea of the World, Bernardo Kastrup suggests that our universe is a mental construct of the Master Consciousness (in Christian terms, God). We collectively experience this mental construct in the same way.
But we - individuals - are also constructs of this Master Consciousness. We exist within the master construct but each have our inner worlds of perceptions, feelings, emotions and whatnot, as well as our free will. The same wood be true of the inhabitants of the spiritual realm - angels, demons and whatnot.
This makes a great deal of sense to me. It is consistent with many otherwise puzzling Christian doctrines. It is a way of thinking about God that is consistent with Divine Simplicity and all the "omni" attributes of Him.
Idealism - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Idealism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
The Idea of the World - Amazon.com
A thread about whether God has wings led to a surprising amount of discussion and confusion. The very question "Does God have wings?" is contrary to the fundamental notion of Divine Simplicity.
Here is a description of Divine Simplicity in somewhat hifalutin language, but you can probably get the basic idea:
Divine simplicity is central to the classical Western concept of God. Simplicity denies any physical or metaphysical composition in the divine being. This means God is the divine nature itself and has no accidents (properties that are not necessary) accruing to his nature. There are no real divisions or distinctions in this nature. Thus, the entirety of God is whatever is attributed to him. Divine simplicity is the hallmark of God’s utter transcendence of all else, ensuring the divine nature to be beyond the reach of ordinary categories and distinctions, or at least their ordinary application.
The Bible tells us God is Spirit, Light, Love - all consistent with Divine Simplicity. But it also says God has wings. This is an anthropomorphism (attributing human or animal characteristics to God). This is not consistent with Divine Simplicity.One notion that appeals to me is God as Pure Consciousness or Mind.
Idealism is the notion, popular in ancient times and today, that Mind is the fundamental stuff of all reality - our universe and the spiritual realm. In books like The Idea of the World, Bernardo Kastrup suggests that our universe is a mental construct of the Master Consciousness (in Christian terms, God). We collectively experience this mental construct in the same way.
But we - individuals - are also constructs of this Master Consciousness. We exist within the master construct but each have our inner worlds of perceptions, feelings, emotions and whatnot, as well as our free will. The same wood be true of the inhabitants of the spiritual realm - angels, demons and whatnot.
This makes a great deal of sense to me. It is consistent with many otherwise puzzling Christian doctrines. It is a way of thinking about God that is consistent with Divine Simplicity and all the "omni" attributes of Him.
Idealism - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Idealism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
The Idea of the World - Amazon.com
