God is not omniscient

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Three in the morning there, and you want to get into this?

"The Word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing assunder of the soul and the spirit, and of the joints and the marrow, and is a critic of thoughts and intents of the heart."
Hebrews 4:12

The pattern of God's likeness is replicated in ma ...[text shortened]... itual status, experientially 'duking it out' with the sin nature, resident within the body.

O.K., so when we are born we don't have spirits, but the Holy Spirit dwells in us and runs proxy for our future spirits. Then, once we are saved, we get our own spirit where God dwells. So, is the spirit best construed as an immaterial substance ontologically distinct from the soul, or as a divine property of the immaterial soul? If the former, then I'm unclear as to what introspectively discernable difference there would be if your spirit was switched with the spirit of another Christian. What would feel different, from your perspective, if your spirit was switched with the spirit of another Christian?

Originally posted by bbarr
O.K., and what is the spirit? Suppose that, for instance, God decided to switch our spirits. What sort of difference would we be able to discern, on the basis of introspection, following such a switch? I understand the use of the term 'soul' to refer to mind, as this is how all the modern philosophers use the term. I am unclear about what is left over after you account for the body and the mind of a person.

I have a humble illustration that might allow for a clearer grasp of the concepts the way I see them (it may also be disingenuous in other ways – I don't maintain that my views are a dogmatic representation of orthodox Christian doctrine).

If we take a hot air balloon as being analogous to the complete human being, then the gondola would represent the external, material body; the occupant controlling this whole system as the soul; and the balloon canopy represents the spirit.

Depending on which type of spirit (in the Christian sense, Adam was "inflated"* with the Holy Spirit -- God-breathed) is in the balloon envelope, the human will have more buoyancy, resilience, peace and “freedom” in life. (I'm not using the term “Spirit filled” in the way most of the charismatic Christian movements do, where it has become a short lived bubbling excitement that fades with the first sign of trouble)

As accounted for by the fall, humans now live with a deflated envelope, handicapped - a specter of what we once were... and can once again become.

* I'm sure this could start a few flatulence jokes.

Originally posted by bbarr
O.K., so when we are born we don't have spirits, but the Holy Spirit dwells in us and runs proxy for our future spirits. Then, once we are saved, we get our own spirit where God dwells. So, is the spirit best construed as an immaterial substance ontologically distinct from the soul, or as a divine property of the immaterial soul? If the former, then I'm unc ...[text shortened]... rent, from your perspective, if your spirit was switched with the spirit of another Christian?

Good question. I don't know. But I'll imagine nonetheless! Using God as the type, each member of the Godhead is distinct in personality and function, but equal in essence. Specifically, they all possess the same attributes as enumerated previously.
Your body and mind is different than mine, as can be clearly demonstrated. We are identified in person by our bodies. We are identified when absent by our minds. When separated from our bodies, we are still identifiable by our minds (soul) to God and others.

This apodosis has absolutely no proof, but I'll throw it out there now and research it later...

I say the human spirit is unique to each regenerated person, and is somehow related to the projection of the same. For lack of a better (more Scriptural) description, my spirit is my raiment, my temple.

Originally posted by bbarr
O.K., so when we are born we don't have spirits, but the Holy Spirit dwells in us and runs proxy for our future spirits. Then, once we are saved, we get our own spirit where God dwells. So, is the spirit best construed as an immaterial substance ontologically distinct from the soul, or as a divine property of the immaterial soul? If the former, then I'm unc rent, from your perspective, if your spirit was switched with the spirit of another Christian?

Everybody is born with a spirit, cause i think the spirit gives life to the flesh(body) and future spirit doesn't exist , does make sense, cause when we get saved the our spirit is spared the eternal codemnation in the lake of fire, n the Holy Spirit comes and dwells with our spirit "kinda controls us because u asked Jesus to come into u during the process of getting saved" and when one dies his soul (mind) and body perish but the spirit remains to be judged, so can't say either but mayb soul+body is the material property of the spirit, and no switching of spirit unless u have demonic powers of astral projection (can make your spirit leave ur body and wander around or even possess fellow guy)

Originally posted by Choxx
Everybody is born with a spirit, cause i think the spirit gives life to the flesh(body) and future spirit doesn't exist , does make sense, cause when we get saved the our spirit is spared the eternal codemnation in the lake of fire, n the Holy Spirit comes and dwells with our spirit "kinda controls us because u asked Jesus to come into u during the process o ...[text shortened]... projection (can make your spirit leave ur body and wander around or even possess fellow guy)

??? 😲🙄😕

Originally posted by Choxx
Everybody is born with a spirit, cause i think the spirit gives life to the flesh(body) and future spirit doesn't exist , does make sense, cause when we get saved the our spirit is spared the eternal codemnation in the lake of fire, n the Holy Spirit comes and dwells with our spirit "kinda controls us because u asked Jesus to come into u during the process o ...[text shortened]... projection (can make your spirit leave ur body and wander around or even possess fellow guy)

That is possibly the worst constructed sentence I have ever read here.

Originally posted by Starrman
That is possibly the worst constructed sentence I have ever read here.

This is probably the worst piece of constructive criticism that I have ever read here. 😀

Originally posted by dj2becker
This is probably the worst piece of constructive criticism that I have ever read here. 😀

It's still better than all the jibes that tend to be substituted for rebuttal around here.

Originally posted by Starrman
That is possibly the worst constructed sentence I have ever read here.

we are not in an english class 😵😛🙄

Originally posted by stocken
Reading about deductive arguments from a link supplied by Hal (http://www.logicalfallacies.info/index.html), I shall now attempt to show you that God is not omniscient:

a) Humans are made in Gods image
b) Humans are not omniscient
Therefore:
c) God is not omniscient

That's a deductive argument, right? If the premises are true, then the conclusion must also be true. Yes?

You clearly did not read the site very carefully.What you have presented is logical falacy not a deductive arguement.

a) This does not imply that everything about God can be found in man or Man would be God !
b) Do you have proof that no humans are ominiscent ? Some Christians believe that Jesus was (I think).

Bye the way, us programmers have Booleans which can be true, false or null.

Originally posted by twhitehead
You clearly did not read the site very carefully.What you have presented is logical falacy not a deductive arguement.

a) This does not imply that everything about God can be found in man or Man would be God !
b) Do you have proof that no humans are ominiscent ? Some Christians believe that Jesus was (I think).

Bye the way, us programmers have Booleans which can be true, false or null.

You're really rubbing it in, huh? Give the guy a break -- he's a newbie to the concept of formal logic. If you took the time to read the thread, you'll notice that you are the umpteenth person to point this out.

Originally posted by twhitehead
...programmers have Booleans which can be true, false or null.

You're absolutely wrong about that. A boolean can never be null. It's either true or false. You can, however, interpret an empty variable (a variable with no value is a variable of null) as boolean false, but that doesn't make the variable nor the non-existent value in it, boolean.

For instance, if the variable x is not set to a specific value it's null. In a conditional however, the programming language can interpret null as false:

if ( !x ) {
// This block will execute because null is interpreted as boolean false...
}

Note that even though the empty x is interpreted as boolean false (or the conditional wouldn't work) x is not a boolean variable because it contains no boolean value. Semantics? Nope. These are important distinctions to note if you want to be a good programmer. If the variable x is an integer variable containing the value 0 it will be interpreted as boolean false also. If it's a string variable containing an empty string (not the same as null) it will still be evaluated as boolean false, but it's not in fact a boolean. See?

Other than that, you're right. I am still learning my "formal logic" as Hal has it. I think this one is ironclad though:

1) A boolean is a term describing one of two possible values: true or false.
2) Null is the absence of a value.
Therefore:
3) Null is not boolean.

Originally posted by stocken
You're absolutely wrong about that. A boolean can never be null. It's either true or false. You can, however, interpret an empty variable (a variable with no value is a variable of null) as boolean false, but that doesn't make the variable nor the non-existent value in it, boolean.

For instance, if the variable x is not set to a specific value it's null. ...[text shortened]... true or false.
2) Null is the absence of value.
Therefore:
3) Null is not boolean.

Null is the absence of boolean value.

Originally posted by Halitose
Null is the absence of boolean value.

Nope. Null is the absence of a value. 🙂 Boolean or otherwise.