Do god(s) understand themselves?

[JDMS]

This is a difficult question to phrase correctly, and honestly, even the title doesn't really cover it.

My question is... if gods have an innate purpose, role, etc... do they understand it, or are they at least aware of it themselves? Or, in your view, do they have no innate role?

If they were not created, do you think that they know they weren't, without a shadow of a doubt? Or do you believe gods are just as prone to asking questions about their existence, as humans do? If humans look to the gods when we don't have the answers, what do gods look to?

Or maybe gods have no ability to think, ponder, or perceive themselves as humans do. Maybe they exist in a way unfathomable to the human mind.

They could just have no tendency to ask questions, or perhaps they simply don't need to if said god(s) are omniscient. It's hard to imagine, but I suppose a truly omniscient god would know for a fact it is omniscient, so it wouldn't question it.

I suppose that could be one major thing that sets gods aside from humans, besides power.

Anyways feel free to take this debate in any direction, really.

 

[Heyo]

This is a difficult question to phrase correctly, and honestly, even the title doesn't really cover it.

My question is... if gods have an innate purpose, role, etc... do they understand it, or are they at least aware of it themselves? Or, in your view, do they have no innate role?

If they were not created, do you think that they know they weren't, without a shadow of a doubt? Or do you believe gods are just as prone to asking questions about their existence, as humans do? If humans look to the gods when we don't have the answers, what do gods look to?

Or maybe gods have no ability to think, ponder, or perceive themselves as humans do. Maybe they exist in a way unfathomable to the human mind.

They could just have no tendency to ask questions, or perhaps they simply don't need to if said god(s) are omniscient. It's hard to imagine, but I suppose a truly omniscient god would know for a fact it is omniscient, so it wouldn't question it.

I suppose that could be one major thing that sets gods aside from humans, besides power.

Anyways feel free to take this debate in any direction, really.

You can assign any property you like to your imaginary being but some are logically impossible, like omnipotence and complete self understanding.

To understand something, you need to build a model of it in your mind. The complexity of that model is limited by the complexity of your mind. That's why no-one is able to completely understand themselves.

 

[JDMS]

You can assign any property you like to your imaginary being but some are logically impossible, like omnipotence and complete self understanding.

To understand something, you need to build a model of it in your mind. The complexity of that model is limited by the complexity of your mind. That's why no-one is able to completely understand themselves.

Why are these imaginary beings limited in their self-understanding? You say it's impossible for them to completely understand themselves, yet you cite the limited nature of the mind as the reason. Why is a god necessarily limited by a mind? Would they even have a mind, in the human sense of the term? Many god concepts do not involve a physical body, and thus no physical brain, either. And the only minds we know of work off of the physical. So how then are you able to say it'd be impossible if they are (in theory) working on a completely different system than we are?

 

[Heyo]

Why are these imaginary beings limited in their self-understanding? You say it's impossible for them to completely understand themselves, yet you cite the limited nature of the mind as the reason. Why is a god necessarily limited by a mind? Would they even have a mind, in the human sense of the term? Many god concepts do not involve a physical body, and thus no physical brain, either. And the only minds we know of work off of the physical. So how then are you able to say it'd be impossible if they are (in theory) working on a completely different system than we are?

Because the substance of the brain is of no relevance here. Imagine some "non physical" mind. Even that non physical mind has a limited complexity L. With that limited complexity L it can hold a model of any thing with a complexity K < L.
Make the mind more complex, lets say M > L then you need another mind with complexity N > M to model M. Even an infinitely complex mind wouldn't be complex enough to understand an infinitely complex mind.
See it as a logical analogue to Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem and Turing's Halting Problem.

 

[blü 2]

Why are these imaginary beings limited in their self-understanding? You say it's impossible for them to completely understand themselves, yet you cite the limited nature of the mind as the reason. Why is a god necessarily limited by a mind?

Gods have minds because we make them in our image.

Why would we devise a god with whom we have no qualities in common? That god would be completely irrelevant to us, no?

Instead our gods have useful functions. They created the world and the stars, they control important things like weather, war and luck, they form a focus for tribal solidarity, and they're nasty to those who don't treat the alpha human right. And they have girlfriends who look after love, childbirth and the hearth (because in those days there seems to have been very little concept of or opportunity for women's lib).

Although, that said, now that gods don't matter, we can devise them any way we please. This time the problem is that gods with nothing in common with humans are, in human terms, just boring.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

This is a difficult question to phrase correctly, and honestly, even the title doesn't really cover it.

My question is... if gods have an innate purpose, role, etc... do they understand it, or are they at least aware of it themselves? Or, in your view, do they have no innate role?

If they were not created, do you think that they know they weren't, without a shadow of a doubt? Or do you believe gods are just as prone to asking questions about their existence, as humans do? If humans look to the gods when we don't have the answers, what do gods look to?

Or maybe gods have no ability to think, ponder, or perceive themselves as humans do. Maybe they exist in a way unfathomable to the human mind.

They could just have no tendency to ask questions, or perhaps they simply don't need to if said god(s) are omniscient. It's hard to imagine, but I suppose a truly omniscient god would know for a fact it is omniscient, so it wouldn't question it.

I suppose that could be one major thing that sets gods aside from humans, besides power.

Anyways feel free to take this debate in any direction, really.

I think this is a beautiful, deeply spiritual question that touches on mystical aspects, too seldom brought up, for fear of raising judgements of heresy.

I look forward to reading its responses and will myself comment once I get a space to do so.


Humbly,
Hermit

 

[PureX]

God's are human concepts that represent existential conditions and circumstances that we humans don't understand. That is their purpose. To help us deal with the existential unknown.

God's are not autonomous physical phenomena. They are cognitive conceptual phenomena. What they can know or not know is up to us.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

This is a difficult question to phrase correctly, and honestly, even the title doesn't really cover it.

My question is... if gods have an innate purpose, role, etc... do they understand it, or are they at least aware of it themselves? Or, in your view, do they have no innate role?

If they were not created, do you think that they know they weren't, without a shadow of a doubt? Or do you believe gods are just as prone to asking questions about their existence, as humans do? If humans look to the gods when we don't have the answers, what do gods look to?

Or maybe gods have no ability to think, ponder, or perceive themselves as humans do. Maybe they exist in a way unfathomable to the human mind.

They could just have no tendency to ask questions, or perhaps they simply don't need to if said god(s) are omniscient. It's hard to imagine, but I suppose a truly omniscient god would know for a fact it is omniscient, so it wouldn't question it.

I suppose that could be one major thing that sets gods aside from humans, besides power.

Anyways feel free to take this debate in any direction, really.

There is a mystical interpretation on being, that views worldliness as the answer to questions within God.

It says that God and Man are two sides of the same, singular reality: God owns the questions [codes] and Man, their [manifested] answers. They are each in possession of the “jigsaw piece” that the other is missing and shall be in constant search for one another, on their way back to singularity.

 

[syo]

Yes, they understand themselves.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Imagine some "non physical" mind. Even that non physical mind has a limited complexity L. With that limited complexity L it can hold a model of any thing with a complexity K < L. Make the mind more complex, lets say M > L then you need another mind with complexity N > M to model M. Even an infinitely complex mind wouldn't be complex enough to understand an infinitely complex mind. See it as a logical analogue to Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem and Turing's Halting Problem.

This reminds me of a comment I saw some number of years ago (paraphrased), 'If the human brain were simple enough to understand, we would be too simple to understand it.'

 

[Quintessence]

First and foremost, @JDMS - this is one of the most interesting sets of questions I've ever seen on the forums. Thank you for this! This'll be one to think about, and all my thoughts on this are quite preliminary based on my experiences interacting with various gods of different types.

My question is... if gods have an innate purpose, role, etc... do they understand it, or are they at least aware of it themselves? Or, in your view, do they have no innate role?

I do firmly accept that the gods have an innate role based on their inherent natures. Things are what they are and must act in accord with that. As for whether or not there is a self-aware understanding of that role? In my experiences so far, it depends on the god.

Most of the gods I worship and interact with are not like "persons" as we would understand them. As such, I hesitate to ascribe self-awareness in the sense humans understand that term to, say, Storm Spirit. I senes an awareness there, but whether or not Storm Spirit is understanding of its role amongst other gods is an open question to me.

When I've crossed paths with gods that operate more like the human understanding of "persons" though - like the ones widely recognized in historical Pagan pantheons - I get a much stronger sense of self-awareness and an understanding of their role, if not a sense of their duty to their role. That said, the gods in polytheistic religions are not omnimax, so their awareness of their role has limits and is finite. It's vastly greater than the human understanding, certainly.

If they were not created, do you think that they know they weren't, without a shadow of a doubt? Or do you believe gods are just as prone to asking questions about their existence, as humans do? If humans look to the gods when we don't have the answers, what do gods look to?

I don't know. I may respectfully ask this to the more human-like gods I have a relationship with. In many cases, polytheist gods have a distinct lineage and origin though, so I suspect that'll be what comes out of it. Whether or not they ask existential questions about all of this, though? No idea. Though I imagine they consult with each other, from time to time.

Or maybe gods have no ability to think, ponder, or perceive themselves as humans do. Maybe they exist in a way unfathomable to the human mind.

Some of them seem to, in my experience - the ones like Storm Spirit that are so non-human questions like this don't really apply or would be a gross anthropomorphism.

 

[Twilight Hue]

This is a difficult question to phrase correctly, and honestly, even the title doesn't really cover it.

My question is... if gods have an innate purpose, role, etc... do they understand it, or are they at least aware of it themselves? Or, in your view, do they have no innate role?

If they were not created, do you think that they know they weren't, without a shadow of a doubt? Or do you believe gods are just as prone to asking questions about their existence, as humans do? If humans look to the gods when we don't have the answers, what do gods look to?

Or maybe gods have no ability to think, ponder, or perceive themselves as humans do. Maybe they exist in a way unfathomable to the human mind.

They could just have no tendency to ask questions, or perhaps they simply don't need to if said god(s) are omniscient. It's hard to imagine, but I suppose a truly omniscient god would know for a fact it is omniscient, so it wouldn't question it.

I suppose that could be one major thing that sets gods aside from humans, besides power.

Anyways feel free to take this debate in any direction, really.

A god will understand only what the person understands as its only a mental avatar, so it's always limited to that person's own capabilities and intellect.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Gods (and Goddesses) know what they are. They have powers and limitations. In Hinduism, their primary purpose is to help people.

 

[JDMS]

I think this is a beautiful, deeply spiritual question that touches on mystical aspects, too seldom brought up, for fear of raising judgements of heresy. I look forward to reading its responses and will myself comment once I get a space to do so.

First and foremost, @JDMS - this is one of the most interesting sets of questions I've ever seen on the forums. Thank you for this! This'll be one to think about, and all my thoughts on this are quite preliminary based on my experiences interacting with various gods of different types.

Thank you both! I try to only post topics I haven't seen be discussed in other threads. I find myself thinking about these things often. There are many questions about the nature of godhood that are left unanswered, ignored, or perhaps feared.

I also appreciate your responses on a forum where skepticism thrives. I know it must be hard sharing experiences with skeptics, but I'm sure a lot of us besides myself still value all inputs, and frankly, I take personal experiences like you've had (Quintessence) seriously, especially over arguments about theological concepts and doctrine.