What are the thoughts on this issue?
I am not talking of its supposed personality traits, but about what it is made up of. What interacts with our physical world?

Most things we see have been discovered to consist of smaller particles. Complex things in particular consist of smaller things. What does its grand complexity consist of?

Or is this question presupposing some thing(s) it shouldnt according to you?

Gpd is immaterial. God is not complex. He is simple.

Here is St. Thomas on the matter: First part, Question 3, Article 7, "I answer that"

First, from the previous articles of this question. For there is neither composition of quantitative parts in God, since He is not a body; nor composition of matter and form; nor does His nature differ from His "suppositum"; nor His essence from His existence; neither is there in Him composition of genus and difference, nor of subject and accident. Therefore, it is clear that God is nowise composite, but is altogether simple.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1003.htm

Thank you.
Is st Thomas's viewpoint staved by passages in the bible? ie. what is the basis upon which he makes these conclusions?
Is this the viewpoint of current day christian apologists? Is it official church dogma?

Gaudiness.

God is immaterial (def: does not exist), oh and ineffable. Nothing can be said about such a non-being. There is a surprising amount of literature about this immaterial, ineffable unbeing though.

http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/V1.htm#5

This is the Vatican 1 Council documents. Type in 'singular' in your browser search bar to see the dogma of God's simplicity.

St. Thomas bases his argument off of philosophy, (and though I didn't read it all, I'm assuming so does the council), especially Aristotle (whom he calls 'The Philosopher'. He doesn't list any biblical verses in his reasoning, but I don't see any Bible verses against this position. Also, the fact that God is Triune is not expressed in the Bible, but thanks to Greek philosophy we are able to understand that God is indeed a Trinity.

Nice job, moderator.

This doesn't leave Jesus/God in a very good spot.

In other words God is made out of nothing.

Alright, I take that to mean that there is no direct basis for or against his position in the bible. Are there other positions with a following?

Well, there are definitely supporting passages in the Bible listing God's attributes and nothing goes against what St. Thomas said. I could look it up but I'll let you if you want to know. A quick search brought this up about God in the Bible.

http://christianity.about.com/od/bib...lefactsgod.htm

Catholics have to believe the dogma of God's simple nature and as shown above.
Other religions (or bad Catholics) may believe in other things, such as:

The Divine being everything (brahman) and you (atman) must realize that you are God (Hinduism),

The divine being nothing, but everything at the same time "All is one, one is none, none is all" (Buddhism),

God having been human and then became God and lives near a star called Kolob (Mormans).

Etc

no

Yes. Granted there are lots of different Hindu beliefs, but basically the goal is to realize their atman is brahman. There are Hindu gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva (Creator, Sustainer, Destroyer), but the Hindus want to escape the cycle of reincarnation and to do so they must realize they are god (as everything is)

Or instead of saying no could you provide me what you think Hindus believe?

Hindus are essentially monotheists in the same way Christians are (IOW, not really)

of thought

the same thing that makes that girl in Monkey banana's avatar move

The bible says that God "IS" love.

Love is purely creative, while hate is purely destructive.

The biblical Gods love can be destructive, he destroyed humans and other animals a few times.

This is true. As a parent I have rules for my child. If parents didn't love them they wouldn't have rules for them.

The bible also has the definition of what "love" is, and what it isnt.

Mankind has rules, and when we break them and get punished we cant say anything. All we can do is see our error and make it a point to learn from it.

Actually that's a good answer. I'm serious.


If one asks a zen master some some the more common answers will be that the master will hold up one finger, do a "katsu" shout, hit you with his bamboo stick or keep silent. The point is to get the student to find the answer through his body, the moment of surprise takes the student for a splitsecond out of his mind and if he's ready (Or lucky? I don't know yet.) the answer will be seen.

In any case, in zen one can't think one's way to the understanding of what God is. Many enlightenment experiences are recorded in zen literature, I don't know of a single one where the seeker arrived at his understandung with the help of conceptual mind.

meh. There's a pretty big difference between the entity-personal god of the abrahamic faiths and the non-entity 'god' of buddhism (perhaps this counts for Spinoza's God aswell?).

You're right. It's an important fact however that the folklore version of God (entity-personal god of the abrahamic faiths) has little to do with the mystics version of God. Every major religion has such a branch of mysticism which is unfortunately almost never mainstream. Even in buddhism there is a mystics side to it and a folklore side where people are content to simply worship a guy called Buddha (Jesus) or try to jump off the wheel of samsara (try to get a ticket to heaven).

You probably know that already. What might be new to you (and it was certainly surprising to me when I found out) is that contemporary zen does resonate with christianity, specifically with what Jesus and some christian mystics have said and taught. They claim that what Jesus and some other christian mystics have discovered is the very same that is discoverd in zen. In order to make such understanding accessible easier in the west some zen masters employ the language found in the bible. Christianity and Buddhism in its mystic forms aren't incompatible.

I think that it's of little use and probably a waste of time to dismantle the folklore version of God if one wants to find out what God is. That time and effort may be better spent in studying what the experts had/have to say.

She is made of stolen souls and has glowing, gray eyes. She also wears sandals that have wings on them, which I know doesn't add to what she's made of but they are so cool that I had to mention them.