Is God always learning and growing too?

[challupa]

I got an email to day from someone that gave me their definition of god. I thought it was interesting and not one I had really thought of before.

They said they viewed god as a parent that was in the process of learning how to parent. He went on to say that the god of the OT was a dictator, always setting down rules and being vengeful when rules were broken. The god of the NT is a parent who has learned to not be so much of a dictator and to be a little more forgiving.

Now here comes the question... Do you think that god could ever evolve into a god that does not judge at all because he has grown and matured as a parent and at some point realizes that it is good parenting to send children to hell for eternity?

 

[Scarlett Wampus]

Now here comes the question... Do you think that god could ever evolve into a god that does not judge at all because he has grown and matured as a parent and at some point realizes that it is good parenting to send children to hell for eternity?

Some people believe in such a god and for them that is the true (or truer) god.

The conception of a creator god that is beyond all comprehension to our minds would be inscrutable of course. But if god, or what we understand by god, is a reflection of our own understanding then it would change just as our understanding does.

Although I don't subscribe to them there are a lot of interesting beliefs that have this idea of progressive enlightenment towards god (or whatever you call it) out there right now. Bahà'ì, Integral Spirituality and Process Theology for example.

 

[challupa]

Some people believe in such a god and for them that is the true (or truer) god.

The conception of a creator god that is beyond all comprehension to our minds would be inscrutable of course. But if god, or what we understand by god, is a reflection of our own understanding then it would change just as our understanding does.

Although I don't subscribe to them there are a lot of interesting beliefs that have this idea of progressive enlightenment towards god (or whatever you call it) out there right now. Bahà'ì, Integral Spirituality and Process Theology for example.

Really, I never knew Baha'i believed God was changing. I just thought they believed that God kept updating us through newer prophets from time to time. That's interesting.

I have never heard of Integral Spirituality or Process Theology. If anyone on this forum is either one, I would love to know what you believe.

 

[3.14]

he would not stop judging only change the basis he judge's by

 

[challupa]

he would not stop judging only change the basis he judge's by

Why? Why wouldn't he reach a level where he realized that nothing matters in the long run if we live forever and keep evolving too? Hypothetically that is...

 

[Scarlett Wampus]

Really, I never knew Baha'i believed God was changing. I just thought they believed that God kept updating us through newer prophets from time to time. That's interesting.

Please Bahà'ì followers correct me if I'm wrong but humanity in Bahà'ì is believed to be evolving through progressive religious revelation. It doesn't mean god is evolving as such but understanding of god becomes part of that process.

I have never heard of Integral Spirituality or Process Theology. If anyone on this forum is either one, I would love to know what you believe.

So would I I was very interesting in Integral Spirituality for a time.

 

[3.14]

could we ever match god? what would be the point if he stopped judging

 

[challupa]

could we ever match god? what would be the point if he stopped judging

Not sure why he needs to judge in the first place. If he gave humanity everlasting life then why would he need to care how long it took to evolve. Can't he just have us experiencing life or lives doing whatever we do until we get bored of it. If we don't "die", which most religions say, what difference should it make if we do bad things one life time and then in the next try to rectify the hurt we delivered in a past life. If we live forever, one life would really just be a blip on the screen, if that. If god set it up like that then we would theoretically be our own judge in charge of our own ways to rectify our bad behavior. However, the god of the bible would have to grow up alot before we'd see no judging.

 

[Mister Emu]

That would imply that there is a past or present for God... since I do not believe there is, I'd have to say no...

It would also imply that God is not perfect, something else I disagree with...

 

[rojse]

I got an email to day from someone that gave me their definition of god. I thought it was interesting and not one I had really thought of before.

They said they viewed god as a parent that was in the process of learning how to parent. He went on to say that the god of the OT was a dictator, always setting down rules and being vengeful when rules were broken. The god of the NT is a parent who has learned to not be so much of a dictator and to be a little more forgiving.

Now here comes the question... Do you think that god could ever evolve into a god that does not judge at all because he has grown and matured as a parent and at some point realizes that it is good parenting to send children to hell for eternity?

Sounds a bit like one of my favourite novels, Star Maker, to me. It's hard to describe the concept better than what Stapledon does in his novel, but it features a God that continues to learn on the results of God's previous actions.

 

[Storm]

I got an email to day from someone that gave me their definition of god. I thought it was interesting and not one I had really thought of before.

They said they viewed god as a parent that was in the process of learning how to parent. He went on to say that the god of the OT was a dictator, always setting down rules and being vengeful when rules were broken. The god of the NT is a parent who has learned to not be so much of a dictator and to be a little more forgiving.

Since your friend is obviously speaking of the God of the Bible, I'm curious as to how Jesus fits in.

Now here comes the question... Do you think that god could ever evolve into a god that does not judge at all because he has grown and matured as a parent and at some point realizes that it is good parenting to send children to hell for eternity?

Well, I don't believe God ever did judge us, so....

 

[MoonWater]

I got an email to day from someone that gave me their definition of god. I thought it was interesting and not one I had really thought of before.

They said they viewed god as a parent that was in the process of learning how to parent. He went on to say that the god of the OT was a dictator, always setting down rules and being vengeful when rules were broken. The god of the NT is a parent who has learned to not be so much of a dictator and to be a little more forgiving.

Now here comes the question... Do you think that god could ever evolve into a god that does not judge at all because he has grown and matured as a parent and at some point realizes that it is good parenting to send children to hell for eternity?

hey chalupa in this last sentence did you mean to say "it is BAD parenting..."? cause you said "GOOD parenting" and unless I'm misunderstanding that doesn't seem to jive with what you said earlier in your post. Just trying to clarify.

 

[arthra]

Scarlet Wampus wrote:

Although I don't subscribe to them there are a lot of interesting beliefs that have this idea of progressive enlightenment towards god (or whatever you call it) out there right now. Bahà'ì, Integral Spirituality and Process Theology for example.

and

Please Bahà'ì followers correct me if I'm wrong but humanity in Bahà'ì is believed to be evolving through progressive religious revelation. It doesn't mean god is evolving as such but understanding of god becomes part of that process.


Challupa wrote:

Really, I never knew Baha'i believed God was changing. I just thought they believed that God kept updating us through newer prophets from time to time. That's interesting.

Thanks friends for bringing up Baha'i Faith in this discussion..

Allow me to perhaps respond as a Baha'i and humbly clarify perhaps what the Baha'i view is.

Baha'is do have a concept called Progressive Revelation not "progressive enlightenment".

Baha'is believe God reveals progressively to humanity through the great Prophets and Manifestations of God over time and as there is need so that humanity can achieve what we call an ever advancing civilization. For us God is Unknowable and is not subject to the creation. Religious truth though we feel is relative to the time it is revealed..

The essential spiritual realities though for the great religions as they were revealed are the same we believe and don't change but the social laws and ordinances do change over time..to suit the advancement of humanity and the circumstances.. as the challenges that face humanity today are unique to this time.

- Art

 

[Falvlun]

I got an email to day from someone that gave me their definition of god. I thought it was interesting and not one I had really thought of before.

They said they viewed god as a parent that was in the process of learning how to parent. He went on to say that the god of the OT was a dictator, always setting down rules and being vengeful when rules were broken. The god of the NT is a parent who has learned to not be so much of a dictator and to be a little more forgiving.

Well, this would certainly clear up some things.

If you think about it, if God existed, there is nothing to say that he'd be this perfect, omnimax being. He just needs to be gigantically powerful in relation to us. He could just be a normal Joe in Universe XYZ, who created our universe in his basement, and works on us on the weekends.

Now here comes the question... Do you think that god could ever evolve into a god that does not judge at all because he has grown and matured as a parent and at some point realizes that it is good parenting to send children to hell for eternity?

I should hope so.

Though, as many theists like to point out, what seems good and logical from our puny perspective may not exactly be what is good and logical from the almighty's perspective.

I mean, doesn't it seem a little strange that we should be the ones to realize sending people to hell is bad parenting, before God does?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

What would happen if God got so depressed over criticism of His parenting that He committed suicide?

Seriously, it's always been my understanding that the concept of God was meant to convey Absoluteness, i.e. infinite, eternal, omnipresent, unchanging, and is forever beyond the ken of the mortal mind to know or describe.

However, unenlightened mankind has been created with the freewill to imagine their mental conceptualizations to be real and hence imagine what is unreal to be real, i.e. the concept that God exists in space and time and therefore subject to the same constraints as mortal man.

 

[Katzpur]

That would imply that there is a past or present for God... since I do not believe there is, I'd have to say no...

This is something I hear traditional Christians say pretty often. I'm wondering what the source of this belief is. What does it mean to you to say that God is "outside of time"? For instance, was there a time prior to when God created the universe. The Bible refers to "the beginning," implying that there was one. It also refers to the Second Coming of Christ, indicating to me that Christ will return to Earth in the future. I just don't get the concept of there not being a past or a present for God. Does it say this somewhere in the Bible? If so, I'm not aware of it.

 

[Mister Emu]

This is something I hear traditional Christians say pretty often. I'm wondering what the source of this belief is. What does it mean to you to say that God is "outside of time"? For instance, was there a time prior to when God created the universe. The Bible refers to "the beginning," implying that there was one. It also refers to the Second Coming of Christ, indicating to me that Christ will return to Earth in the future. I just don't get the concept of there not being a past or a present for God. Does it say this somewhere in the Bible? If so, I'm not aware of it.

Firstly, it is how I reconcile God's seeming foreknowledge with the idea that we have free-will... If God is outside of time, there is no past, present or future for God and thus it is not knowing what we will do, but what we have already done...

Then there is a biblical basis as well... from Jesus "Before Abraham was, I am" to me that says that Jesus is currently existing before Abraham was. Jesus is both in the present, and before Abraham at the same time, and by extension all times in between as well... by further extension all times in the future too...

 

[Falvlun]

What does it mean to you to say that God is "outside of time"? For instance, was there a time prior to when God created the universe. The Bible refers to "the beginning," implying that there was one.

I suppose it would depend upon whether there was change occuring before God created the universe. Time is essentially a measurement of change; without change, there is no time. Introduce change, ie create a universe, you introduce time.

I just don't get the concept of there not being a past or a present for God. Does it say this somewhere in the Bible? If so, I'm not aware of it.

The way I understand it is that an omnimax God is essentially infinite. An infinite being could never change because that would imply that there was something more for it to change in to. Additionally, past, present, and future all lose meaning since everything is already encased within the being... I guess there would only be the NOW.

As for the Biblical source, I found a good page earlier today that explained it quite well. Not only is there scriptual basis for the idea that God is changeless, but it seems to be a logical conclusion when you take the concept of God at face value:

Immutability Doctrine

 

[S-word]

I got an email to day from someone that gave me their definition of god. I thought it was interesting and not one I had really thought of before.

They said they viewed god as a parent that was in the process of learning how to parent. He went on to say that the god of the OT was a dictator, always setting down rules and being vengeful when rules were broken. The god of the NT is a parent who has learned to not be so much of a dictator and to be a little more forgiving.

Now here comes the question... Do you think that god could ever evolve into a god that does not judge at all because he has grown and matured as a parent and at some point realizes that it is good parenting to send children to hell for eternity?

God is today as he was yesterday and will be into all eternity, God is the only constant in that he constanly evolves into all eternity. No living mind can cease to evolve, show to me a mind that has ceased to evolve and I will show to you a mind that has ceased to exist.

God, the singularity, has become all that exists, and pervades all that exists, and all that exists is God. We, are but conglomerations of the elements of the universal body of God in which a supreme personality of Godhead develops or evolves.

These bodies of universal elements which are but wave particles gathered into the patterns that are perceived by the senses of others as physical bodies, are activated by the Logos which is the divine animating princile that pervades all that exists and the Logos is the life force or soul of God and the Logos is God.

It is into that ever evolving life force that animates the universal body, that all the information taken in through our physical senses in our interaction with the rest of the living body of God, is imprinted. When these bodies, Skin, hair, flesh, nerves, brain matter, and all that is we, is returned to the universal body, all that remains is the fascimile of our life which has been imprinted upon the every evolving mind or Spirit that is God.

Those stems that have grown in the brain which are never used, are eventually gobbled up by the pac-man. God is the First and the Last, the Beginning and End, the Alpha and Omega, the Father and Son, He encompasses all time in the cycles of universal activity, and we are but, points in time within the body of He who is able to descend into his dead past and draw upon his inner memories, which are we.

 

[Katzpur]

Mister Emu and Falvlun,

Thank you both for your answers. I guess I am just incapable of that kind of thinking. It just sound like words without meaning to me... God exising outside of time. The very fact that the creation of the earth is described in the Bible as being sequential in nature (first, God did this... second, God did this..., third, God did this...) tells me that time does exist for God. There was a time when the earth had been created, but there was no plant or animal life on it. There was a time when animals existed, but not humans. I guess I'm just extra dense or something.