From: hporopudas@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi
Subject: Re: GOD is EXISTENCE
Organization: Nokia Telecommunications.
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 07:47:34 GMT


In article <exukjb.258.717697025@exu.ericsson.se>,
exukjb@exu.ericsson.se (ken bell) writes:
> In article <1992Sep28.093515.1@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi>
hporopudas@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi writes:
>>From: hporopudas@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi
>>Subject: Re: GOD is EXISTENCE
>>Date: 28 Sep 92 07:35:15 GMT
>
>
>>In article <1992Sep26.215440.25625@u.washington.edu>,
>>sieferme@milton.u.washington.edu (Eric Sieferman) writes:
>>> In article <1992Sep25.154002.1@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi>
>>hporopudas@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi writes:
>>>>
>>>> Hi !
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If God is 'Existence' as is defined in the Holy Bible
>>>> (in 2nd Moses 3:14-15 and in gospel of Johannes 8:28-29),
>>>> then who dares to assert that God does not exist. ?
>>>>
>>>>         Hannu.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Me.
>>>
>>> Next question?
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> | Eric Sieferman            |    sieferme@u.washington.edu          |
>>> | U. of W., M.C.I.S.        |    (206) 685-3104                     |
>
>
>> Don't take the trouble, you asserted just that you yourself does not exist.
>
>>          Hannu.
>
> Hey, let's be economical. No use giving Hannu a lesson in first order
> predicate logic when we can make an argument right on his own biblical turf.
>
> I begin by pointing out that biblical scholars today do not interpret "I AM
> WHO AM" = "JEHOVAH" to mean "I AM HE WHO EXISTS", or "I am he who has
> existence as his essential nature."  This has been the common interpretation
> by theologians anxious to sustain the traditional doctrine of medieval
> theology that God is ens reliassimum, "Being Itself", a doctrine which rests
> on the more basic Aristotelian idea that God's being must be devoid of
> incomplete realization ['purus actus'] and becoming, and goes back to
> Augustine's platonization of christianity, and perhaps even earlier to Philo
> of Alexandria's similar platonizing of the hebrew scriptures long before. It
> was Plato who defined eternity as that which does not become, for nothing
> that is in a state of becoming, he argued, ever *is*; it never fully
> "exists".  This idea was passed down to the schoolman through Boethius in
> medieval theology and philosophy and entered the contemporary religious
> thought-world of Protestant and Catholic with the status of an
> unquestionable axiom of western religion.
>
> Not only has this notion of God's being timeless and Being Itself come in
> for trenchant criticism among contemporary analytic philosophers of
> religion, such as A. Kenny and W. Rowe, and many others, but modern
> biblicists themselves have shown that there is no scriptural support for
> this conception of the Hebrew or Christian god; it is an accretion of
> the hellenizers. The passage Hannu quotes here is about the only one ever
> adduced in support of it, yet it is commonly agreed among theologians to be
> one of the most obscure passages in the Bible.  Biblical scholars now
> render 'Jehovah' to mean 'The Eternal One', and the "I AM" used in Exodus is
> as meaning the same.  Throughout the bible, god is spoken of as having
> neither beginning nor end in time, but never as trascending temporality or
> becoming altogether, and certainly this god is not spoken of in Tillichian
> manner as 'being itself.'
>
> So, the answer to Hannu is [oddly enough]: Read your bible!
>


 Discussion between Prophet and Existence (=God):

 Prophet:          "Who are You ?"
 Existence (=God): "I AM WHO AM"
 Prophet:          "What I tell them about Who sent me to say these matters ?"
 Existence (=God): "Say to them: 'I AM' sent me to say these matters to you."


> References:
>
> Cullman, Christ and Time.
> G.D. Yarnold, The Moving Image (London, 1966)
> S.Clarke, Sermons, 17th ed., (London, 1746)
> A.N. Prior, Papers on Time and Tense (Oxford 1968); Past, Present, and
> Future (Oxford, 1967).
>
> The are the only ones I can readily think of.  Any one interested in
> following up on the recent work in biblical scholarship, should e-mail
> me for further references, since haven't looked at them for some time.
>
> //////////////////////////////////////
> /* Kenny  *   Welcome to Mind Wars! */
> //////////////////////////////////////

  I'am sorry but I must go now. Thanks for the discussion.

    ---Hannu.