How God works: very religious view (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 22, 2024, 16:33 (186 days ago) @ dhw

From Reasons to Believe:

https://reasons-prod.storage.googleapis.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/RNL_May-Jun_2024...

"The scene touches on the profound differences between limited humans and our limitless
Creator. Answering prayers requires perfect wisdom, knowledge, power, and love. It also
requires the ability to hear and respond to myriad petitions simultaneously. In his book Beyond the Cosmos, Hugh Ross ponders God’s supernatural abilities through a scientific lens. As Hugh explains, humans are constrained to “a single, unidirectional, unstoppable timeline,” which forces us “to communicate with other individuals (or groups) sequentially.” God operates outside of this constraint. Hugh posits that God could extend a timeline perpendicular to ours, thus allowing God to give undivided attention to multiple prayers at once.

"Not only is God capable of hearing all prayers, but he also cares deeply for the needs and
concerns of his children (1 Peter 5:7). Bruce Almighty represents prayers as objects that
can be, and often are, ignored (think of all your unread emails). Scripture reveals that the
prayers of God’s people are kept ever present in his throne room as incense in golden bowls
(Revelation 5:8; 8:3–4)."

Comment: this is in distinct contrast to how I believe. Adler says God's attention to us is 50/50. There is a vast spread of beliefs about God as this comparison shows, because everyone choses the God He wishes to believe in. dhw rales at me for doing exactly that. When you arrive at belief, as I did, after much reading, you must pick the sort of God you wish to believe in. I chose the prevailing Western mono-theistic all-everything version. But I never could adopt the God is dhw's vivid imagination.

dhw picks very a humanized God who has needs for entertainment in the free-for-all concept dhw offers. And dhw's God has to experiment which means his God is not all-powerful. In the discussion of the issue of boredom as a factor in our reality dhw's God does not wish to be bored. dhw's God is a Siamese twin with him.