Sells, you have opened up a whole new line of thinking here for me, and I'm wrestling with its implcations.

>>The thing I was trying to get at in this article is the mistake of making God an object in the universe... God is pure event<<

This establishes a path which, surely, leads away from, rather than towards, the Christian tradition and its historical foundations in the actions of one man.

The Hindu philosophy, for example, sees the world as part of God; for many Hindus God is not a person but "a force, an energy, a principle". This dovetails coherently, surely, with your de-objectivisation of the Christian God.

It is also somewhat at odds with the very concept of Jesus. Surely, the "sent his only son" background founders on the reef of "pure event"? And where does "man in his image" fit, once God no longer exists as an object in the universe?

I realise that you gave yourself a double indemnity against questions like this with "I know this sounds like I have contradicted myself but I beg your indulgence" and "Mature thinking will see past this".

But having convinced myself that I finally understood one of your observations, I am now anxious to discover whether I can double that tally in short order, or whether to retire once again in total disarray.

Pericles

The importance of Jesus lies in what he says and does, in event. Worship of the man would be idolatry. God is in the event of Jesus. That is why we can say God is love because Jesus acted out of love rather than violence. This also makes sense of Barth’s adage “there is no inhumanness in God.”

It is interesting to think about Luke’s scheme, the risen Christ ascends into heaven to sit at the right hand of God. What survives of Jesus? His body is presumable somewhere in Palestine but the event of him lives in memory and is active in the world. The disciples meet him on the road. We may then ask, where is Jesus? Calvin says that Jesus is in a way present in the Eucharist and in a way not. We may also say that he is present in faithful preaching in a way, but in a way not since the earthly Jesus has gone from us.

My problem with most of the posts in this thread is that few can detach themselves from the sort of theism that became unfashionable in classical Greece. In Christianity we are dealing with something else entirely.

This cannot be likened to your suggestion about Hinduism because what we are dealing with when we speak about God is a real living person, that is the meaning of the incarnation. He can never be reduced to force, principle, energy

Didn't Jesus say he is God? Didn't he also say No one comes to the Father but through me? That only he has seen the Father?

The Disciples met Jesus who had risen from the dead (I [have the power to] lay down my life and take it up again, literally, biologically -- the meaning of "omnipotence"). Then Jesus rose to sit at the right hand of the Father, which proposition is beyond human scientific testing (which does not make it untrue).

Peter, do you believe Jesus is God, and can do what God the creator has the power to do -- reorganize molecules, create molecules?

Christianily can't be believed without faith/trust in what God says about himself, because basically what God says is so beyond human testing and comprehension -- beyond current human ideas of science.

What do you believe about the living God? The one believers have conversations with, a personal relationship with, are transformed in their bent/violent natures by [part of the meaning of "omniscience"]?

What about the job he came to do -- unbend that nature? What about sin, he came do destroy [part of the meaning of "omnipresence"]?

We are neither omniscient (our idea of science, our grasp of the facts that make up reality/the universe is limited), omnipotent (can't lay down our lives or raise up a human dead four days), or omnipresent (we need cell phones, airplanes, television to extend our "presence").

Jesus, on the other hand, as creator of the universe (that which we can see, or think we can see of reality), can turn the molecules of water into the molecules of wine, skipping the seed, vine, grape stages -- and grape-pressing -- which is his suggestion to you of how much higher are his ways than yours/ours.

As creator of the universe, he can wait until his friend Lazarus is dead four days, body's cellular structure breaking down -- putrefaction -- and by command call him back to bodily integrity, to life, by the way, without brain damage. Another hint to humans about how his ways are "higher" than ours.

Sells and Pericles,

Nazareth was historically a Greek city state. Jesus, although a Jew (Hebrew, Aramaic), seems likely well versed in Hellistic ways. Some Bible narratives clearly indicate Greek influence. (Greek) Atomism was lost, but picked-up again latter by the Christian church. Hinduism, adopts a Holistic approach. The former assigns parts and components and the latter flows and cycles. Just the same, any mythical system needs to be systematically institutionalised or it will die.

If Jesus was a learned person, he may have built arguments based on Attic Greek, not Koine Greek, as taught by theological colleges. Relatively, advanced concepts are difficult to express in Koine. Koine was replaced by Latin. The link between episte and teche was broken resulting in the loss of the Philosophy of Science to the West.

Some contemporary scientists argue we need both holism (systems) and reductionism (parts)to understand the universe. If so, a pragmatic approach to "How does God exist", should adopt both approaches: e.g., neurology would be reductionist and Psychology, often holistic.

Other animals [chickens, mice (BFSkinner)]do seem able to express superstitious behaviour, however, institutionalistion of that behaviour into belief systems and rites systems, would seem to require the higher cognitive capacities of humans. Islam is a good example, arising in the early seventh century, owing to the theo-cultural and political situation.

Operant condictioning might induce a monkey on to how to ring a bell three times and wave bread in the air, in a very spefic fashion. Or to chatter, while walking in cycles around a building, waving a chain with smoking incense on its end. Just the same, it is unlikely our primate counsin could develop a "sophicated" holistic (mystical)"system". Albeit, chimps to have more basic cultures.

Imagine a person who is blind from birth and has not seen anything. Is it possible for us to explain to him How does God look like?
:-)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6146292.stm

If this is proved [and there is high probability], all Earthy man made/self made Gods are untrue. It tends me more and more to towards abstract Brahman which humans call it God or whatever.