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From "The Essence of Christianity", talking about the incarnation of God as Christ:

Who then is our Saviour and Redeemer? God or Love? Love; for God as God has not saved us, but Love, which transcends the difference between the divine and human personality. As god has renounced himself out of love, so we, out of love, should renounce God; for if we do not sacrifice God to love, we sacrifice love to God, and in spite of the predicate of love, we have the God — the evil being — of religious fanaticism.

Feuerbach argued that Christians assign to the deity those predicates which are the perfections of the human species and which are absolute for it. A predicate is not divine because God possesses it; rather, God possesses it because it is in itself thought to be divine. Without these predicates, God would be a defective being. Consequently, when Christians affirm that God is love, it is the predicate that is decisive. The Christian could not permit the possibility of a subject behind the predicate, so to speak, who could or could not love. But if love is the defining predicate, and if the Christian is affirming that God renounced his Godhead for the sake of humanity, then Feuerbach argued that this is an unconscious confession that love is more important than God.

Doug, run with it!

I think I understand the essence of this, but feel free to post your interpretations!

ChristianLoeschel wrote:From "The Essence of Christianity", talking about the incarnation of God as Christ:

Who then is our Saviour and Redeemer? God or Love? Love; for God as God has not saved us, but Love, which transcends the difference between the divine and human personality. As god has renounced himself out of love, so we, out of love, should renounce God; for if we do not sacrifice God to love, we sacrifice love to God, and in spite of the predicate of love, we have the God — the evil being — of religious fanaticism.

ChristianLoeschel wrote:Feuerbach argued that Christians assign to the deity those predicates which are the perfections of the human species and which are absolute for it. A predicate is not divine because God possesses it; rather, God possesses it because it is in itself thought to be divine.

DOUG
Anselm was a good example of this. He defined God as "The being than which none greater can be conceived." So, he held, whatever is a great-making property, God has it. Similarly, Rene Descartes held that God possesses all perfections. That is the essence of the ontological argument for God's existence: existence is a great-making property (or a perfection, whichever you want to call it), so God must have it. Therefore, God exists. (This is ultimately a terrible argument. Want a FF presentation on this?)

ChristianLoeschel wrote:Without these predicates, God would be a defective being. Consequently, when Christians affirm that God is love, it is the predicate that is decisive. The Christian could not permit the possibility of a subject behind the predicate, so to speak, who could or could not love. But if love is the defining predicate, and if the Christian is affirming that God renounced his Godhead for the sake of humanity, then Feuerbach argued that this is an unconscious confession that love is more important than God.

Doug, run with it!

I think I understand the essence of this, but feel free to post your interpretations!

DOUG
These are excellent points. This is a good way of framing the problem of evil also. The basic problem is this: how can there be a loving, all-powerful, all-knowing God when the world has so much pain and suffering? Most of the major theological defenses to the problem revolve around positing that there is some other element besides love (such as free will) that are more important than God's desire to have less pain and suffering in the world, and so God allows pain and suffering in order to keep that feature of the world intact. But isn't love essentially compassion and the desire directed toward another being to have less suffering happen to that being?

But then what happens to "God is love"? If God IS love, and something is more important than love, I guess something is more important than God.

I once belonged to a religion whose founder said (I'm not quoting here, just giving the gist) that god is love, but he defined that love as whatever it is that holds atoms and molecules together. He also said that Jesus is always there "where 2 or 3 are gathered" in his name, because when he "ascended into heaven" he basically disassembled himself atomically, and spread his atoms all over the atmosphere. Of course, calling that group (at least the originators) Christian is interesting, when you consider most other Christians' definitions of Christianity. They believe Jesus is god and the son of god, to no more - and no less - extent than anyone else is, just the first to recognize the relationship ("isn't it written ye are the sons of god and the children of the most high").

Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote:I once belonged to a religion whose founder said (I'm not quoting here, just giving the gist) that god is love, but he defined that love as whatever it is that holds atoms and molecules together. He also said that Jesus is always there "where 2 or 3 are gathered" in his name, because when he "ascended into heaven" he basically disassembled himself atomically, and spread his atoms all over the atmosphere. Of course, calling that group (at least the originators) Christian is interesting, when you consider most other Christians' definitions of Christianity. They believe Jesus is god and the son of god, to no more - and no less - extent than anyone else is, just the first to recognize the relationship ("isn't it written ye are the sons of god and the children of the most high").

DOUG
That reminds me of a scene from Big Daddy, the anti-evolution Chick tract. Go here and scroll down a bit to see how the student "refutes" the professor's explanation of how atoms are held together. They are held together by Jesus!

DOUG:
That is the essence of the ontological argument for God's existence: existence is a great-making property (or a perfection, whichever you want to call it), so God must have it. Therefore, God exists. (This is ultimately a terrible argument. Want a FF presentation on this?)

It sounds like a circular argument to me. Basically, its saying that God exists because by the definition of God as a perfect being he has to possess the quality of "existance". But that is a manmade definition. So basically, humans define God as existing, therefore he exists.

Christian

ChristianLoeschel wrote:It sounds like a circular argument to me. Basically, its saying that God exists because by the definition of God as a perfect being he has to possess the quality of "existance". But that is a manmade definition. So basically, humans define God as existing, therefore he exists. Christian

DOUG
The philosopher Schopenhauer remarked that "considered by daylight...and without prejudice, this famous Ontological Proof is really a charming joke."

The Fillmores weren't anti-evolution, they just believed the components of the universe and the force that holds it together, as well as evolves it, is god - they were quite scientific for their time (definitely NOT bible literalists). But then, they viewed the "wonders of science" and the "wonders of god" to be the same thing.

My mother was fond of the quote (I don't know the original source), "If god didn't exist, man would have had to create him" - when she was in her atheist moods, she'd add, "so, of course man did" - I'd usually quip back that certainly no woman would create him - we have enough trouble with our own fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons to create a god in their image.