Reflection: Initial Realistic Minimum Requirements Concerning the Nature of God
Philosophical Christianity
I am a Christian, and for me, the question of what the nature of this God is - this God who is such a wonderful enrichment of my life - is of immense importance.
In addressing this question, however, the issue is not how I would like God to be.
What I desire God to be is irrelevant.
Equally irrelevant is what others believe or demand that God should or must be.
With respect to God's nature, much remains epistemologically inaccessible to us.
Or does anyone seriously know what God is composed of?
Can anyone seriously demonstrate with ultimate certainty that there is nothing physical or nothing biological about God?
The kind of substance God possesses eludes us.
Although so much remains beyond our epistemic reach, there are nevertheless several empirical facts concerning God that can serve as reliable points of orientation.
One of the most important empirical pieces of evidence is that God communicates with us human beings and intervenes in our lives.
In my view, these empirical pieces of evidence, which are available intersubjectively, should constitute the starting point of our inquiry into the nature of God.
The first research question could therefore be formulated as follows:
"How must God be constituted in order to be capable of communicating successfully with us and intervening in our lives?"
My first stipulative answer is:
"God must be capable of interaction in the ontological sense."
That means:
1. God must possess a structure.
2. This structure must be sufficiently concrete to constitute an ontological interaction partner for other actual beings.
3. In order to be an actual, concrete interaction partner, God's structure must possess properties in space and time.
4. Although concrete, God's structure must be flexible.
For only then can the reciprocal structural modulation that occurs in every interaction take place.
In my view, these constitute some realistic minimum requirements concerning the nature of God.
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