Monday, February 04, 2013

More Rumination on God and Love: is God Syonimous with Love or Is it Part of His Character?

  photo 4072YouAreHere2.jpg

On my boards poster "miles" quotes me:

mdsimpson92 on Sun Feb 03, 2013 7:57 pm
Metacrock wrote:At that time, I alluded to the linguistic-conceptual hangups of certain forms of God language. To repeat and enhance that idea, it is better to think of God as water, as a spring forming a stream. It would be better to think in terms of currents within an ocean, but that is too difficult and abstract for non-mariners and non-wayfarers.

This stream is the source and substance of what we think of as reality, a stream of consciousness, if I may adapt that term. This in turn is perceived as matter and energy, but in truth, those are just descriptions of perceptions of something more fundamental that appear to vary in speed or concentration.

he says:
Perhaps, I would prefer the Augustine concept of a vast ocean of conciousness and we are the salt. It does seem to match up well with your belief in God as consciousness. I do have one question, In this case does God equal Love or is that simply an intrinsic part of him? I ask this because I have also heard you claim that God is consciousness and when I think of love I think of it as a part of the mind (not to be confused with brain)
Julia: It's all... a dream...
Spike Spiegel: Yeah... just a dream...

Re: On God and Love

Postby Metacrock on Mon Feb 04, 2013 8:49 am
good Question Miles: is love a constituent part or is it ignominious with the whole?

If the former then that raises questions about God as a construct rather than an eternal reality. if God is made of parts that opens the door to questions like where do the parts come form, were they always together?

If the latter, one wonders if it makes coherent sense. How can a "thing" be synonymous with an emotion?

It just seems like if God has a character that's too much like having a personality. To answer these questions we would have to know more about God, which we can't know presumably. I think when say things like "God's character is love" I'm saying the way he seems to act toward us and the feeling I get from what I think is contact with God feels like to love to me. Thus I describe it as "character." When I say God is synonymous with love, God is love, I'm saying the basis of love is God. No god would mean no love. Love is not just an emotion that's produced by brain chemistry (after all there's no reason why we should even be conscious--love is the will to the good of the other, so it's a value and an act of will, an ideal).

If God is consciousness (the source of consciousness and conscious) that consciousness must will the good of the other. That's part of what we might call character.

3 comments:

tinythinker said...

Actually, he quotes you quoting me. :p

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

ok sorry

tinythinker said...

No problem, just didn't want people to be confused. :)