Alright, for today's (rather soon coming) post, I intend to lay out a very basic description of some characteristics of the Christian God and discuss why they're necessary. Then, I will do the same thing with "Logic", (which word I will be using in that context to describe the driving force in a secular materialist universe). We will find that Logic satisfies several of the conditions necessary to function as an ultimate foundation, but that it lacks in two very important ways: first (and most importantly) people can be wrong about Logic (and I'll discuss why this doesn't apply to the Christian God). Second, if Logic were the final ultimate, then it would also be the limiter of things, leaving incomprehensible (and therefore never asked) certain questions which we do ask and attempt to answer, because those questions would be unjustifiable by means of logic alone. Finally, I'll do some Q and A, and maybe discuss in more depth the case where someone has never heard of God, reasons for their condemnation, and a discussion about whether we should be morally indignant with God for their sake (why or why not). And, maybe, if there's space, I'll talk about why Humanism doesn't repair the leaky secular boat.

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So, first of all, some characteristics of God and of God's revelation to us. Most or all of this has been said before in my blog. God, being infinite, has revealed a lot of characteristics to us, some of which cannot be described with any small number of words. These characteristics are chosen for discussion because I think they are sufficient to establish a "way of thinking" about things, enabling the reader to go look at the Bible and see the other Characteristics about God, and perform similar exercises. Also, these characteristics are especially relevant to a discussion with secular materialists and secular humanists, because they participate in answering several objections from the nonbeliever.

1G. God as the first revelator. -- God's revelation is our first and best knowledge, and is prior to all other aspects of our thought or existence  It is necessary because it puts God's revelation prior to our fallible faculties. This is done, partly, by God making us in His image.

2G. God is omnipotent -- God is capable of doing anything that He wants, whenever He wants. There are no exceptions. This is necessary because it means that God can never be subverted; making Him a dependable foundation.

3G. God is omniscient -- God knows everything. Nothing is hidden from Him. Again, necessary because it means that God cannot be subverted or tricked. He is a reliable foundation.

4G. God is omnipresent -- There is no location where God's will is not effective. This is necessary because you can't just accidentally walk into a room where God is no longer the best ultimate foundation.

5G. God is honest -- God will never lie; everything God says is true. This and 3 make God a reliable source of information. We can trust God's revelation.

6G. God's revelation is to everyone, involuntarily -- God is no respecter of persons. Nobody will be able to say "I didn't receive God's revelation". This is necessary so that we don't have to wonder, "did God reveal Himself to me?". It also means that nobody can ever be wrong about God, (we'll talk more about this below).

7G. God is one God, supreme -- Two or more Gods means two different, separate, and somehow unique gods. All systems of which I am aware, which have more than one god, end up eventually either putting those gods at odds with one another or placing one above the other. Polytheistic faiths which call themselves "christian" (like the Jehovah's witnesses or LDS, though they are not true Christians), put Jesus below the father in power. Polytheistic "non-Christian" faiths pit their gods against one another. If there are two, then they are different, and thus have different wills. This unity is a necessary quality of God, so that there is just one, always consistent, always reliable source. We can't go "ask dad because mom always says no".

8G. God is a trinity -- This not only fits the evidence wonderfully, but it enables us to have a God who simultaneously limited himself, becoming of no accord, becoming as one of us, to empathize with us, and to reveal Himself to us in a way that we could comprehend, while also maintaining His omnipotence, and maintaining the separateness and distinction between Himself and us, the aspects of Him which are incomprehensible to our limited minds. Also, it enables us to handle issues related to sin and justice, by providing an infinite sacrifice to atone for our infinite debt.

[note: I included 7 and 8 to narrow the field, but I think they are more relevant to discussions with other religious people than to discussions with Atheists]

9G. God is a personal God. He chose to reveal Himself to us, and thus did so.The method of God's revelation. -- God is a personal God. He chose to reveal himself to us, and thus did so. God did so, specifically, by means of His own omnipotent power. This is necessary because it means that the revelation doesn't depend on us. Also, it enables us to account for things which are immaterial, such as our consciousness. This is also necessary because it enables a distinction between "omnipotent" and "unlimited". God is limited by His will, and nothing else, making Him truly ultimate in every way. An impersonal god becomes either unlimited or non-omnipotent. In short, a truly unlimited, impersonal, omnipotent being would necessarily be doing literally everything it was capable of doing, all the time.

10G. God's character and qualities are unchanging -- This does not mean that God's mood is unchanging, any more than hydrogen ceases to be hydrogen in the presence of the various elements with which it reacts quite differently (not a perfect example). God's character is unchanging, so the things He likes and dislikes will never change. God's qualities are unchanging, so, for example, He will always be omnipotent.

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OK. Now let's do the same thing with Logic (this was a really fun thought experiment the first time I did it). I will phrase these from the perspective of the "Logicist", with some scattered commentary by me the Christian. So, it might say "Logic is omnipotent", though I don't believe that.

1L. Logic as the first revelator -- Since the universe evolved out of some [[insert quantum speculations here]], by means of logical processes, we are made essentially in the image of Logic. We think logically because of the way our atoms are arranged in our minds.

2L. Logic as omnipotent -- One might say that Logic determines everything that happens everywhere, and strictly speaking, everything which is logical does happen. In this way, it might partially satisfy this statement, and it otherwise seems to satisfy the intent. However, Logic is not truly omnipotent, because it is neither personal nor real; it's a set of abstract rules which are binding on everything. Since it is not a real thing, but rather a description of the way that other things behave, Logic finds itself limited by literally every other thing. This means that we don't actually know how things will behave, because as soon as something acts strangely we will have to simply say that the rules we thought we knew don't actually apply. Logic, therefore, if a set of rules which govern everything actually exist, is essentially unknowable, and so any set of logical rules which we want to define in order to presuppose them would be arbitrary.

3-4L. Logic as omniscient and omnipresent -- Logic is fundamental to, and included in, all information about the physical world.

5L. Logic is honest -- it never lies. It's a reliable source of information.

6L. Logic as having revealed itself to everyone, involuntarily -- This requires further examination. How does a person, made in the image of Logic, come to illogical conclusions, especially when the relevant information is readily available? To wit, we can be wrong about logic, and this wrongness is not only common, but also not due to any fault of our own; it is unintentional, and happens only because our minds are imperfect. This lack of universality in the mind undercuts 1L. The reparative option would be for the Logicist to say that all people know true Logic, but they actively choose to deny it because of their sinful opposition to it. However, this places Logic as an authority figure, in a world where the concept of authority doesn't exist, and anyway sometimes even the most ardent Logicist might make a rudimentary algebraic error. The issue is that "how much of Logic was revealed initially" cannot be defined in such a way that it allows for Logic to fulfill the other requirements (its impersonal nature allows no arbitrary division between its parts, where some are revealed now and others later, to a mind strictly made in its own image, while still allowing error in the former parts after revelation of the latter parts).

More concisely, why would a person actively choose to reject logic? It is illogical to do it, and Logic contains no mechanism for generating objects which defy itself. The answer is that persons do not actively choose to reject logic; they do it accidentally, and they do it at all levels. People can be wrong about Logic.

Furthermore, in my experience, the word "involuntarily" doesn't apply to Logic. I've met some people who would attempt to place Logic as ultimate in retrospect, after deduction, but I've never met anyone who truly did so a priori. They would say that they were doing it a priori, but when asked 'why?', they would respond with something like "out of necessity", or "nobody lives like that". When pressed on what they meant by "out of necessity", the responses came down to things like "to survive", etc. such that survival was the reason for applying Logic. Logic was not the ultimate foundation, they had arbitrarily assigned goals for themselves (survival, happiness, etc.), and Logic was the only means to achieving those goals. That said, several Christians would make this same mistake in describing God's revelation, so it doesn't strictly mean that Logicism has failed on this account, but until I meet a Logicist who doesn't make this mistake I can only suppose that it is a normative characteristic of the religion for some reason.

7L. Logic as one set of rules, supreme -- I think Kant would have something to say about this.

8L. Logic is not a trinity. It attempts to explain not sympathy, nor justice, nor our qualities, nor its own qualities. #8 is not applicable.

9L. Logic as impersonal -- This impacts the discussion of omnipotence above. Apart from the (perhaps obvious) implications that can be drawn by reading and then negating the things written in 9G, an impersonal foundation also leaves our worldview broken in another way. Log only deals in "what" and "how". However, we are philosophers, asking stupid questions all the time; we want to know "why". The quippy refutation of the ontological argument finds its messenger delivering descriptions of things non-logical, never seen nor experienced. Either Logic must find a way to account for things non-logical, or Logic is not the end and final foundation for everything.

10L. Logic as eternal and unchanging -- If this were true about our current conception of Logic, then the laws of thermodynamics would have reduced {U} to oblivion an eternity ago. Suppose then that we don't fully understand Logic; it must be reasonable since we don't fully understand God either, right? The problem is, we don't know how much of Logic is known vs how much is misunderstood.

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OK, So, answers to some potential questions:

Q. If nobody can be wrong about God, why are there so many religions?
A. They know the truth about God, but they reject God because they dislike the truth and the true God for this or that reason. There are no accidental rejections of the true God.

Q. What about people who have never heard of the Christian God?
A. They know that God exists, and they know right from wrong. If they lived a sinless life, then they would escape hell. Yet they still do wrong. Thus, they know enough for their condemnation.

Q. How can a good God send them to hell?
A. This question comes from a person who underestimates the seriousness of sin. A more appropriate question would be, "How can a just God not send everyone to hell"? The Bible teaches us that God has chosen, because of his will and not because of any merit of ours, an elect group to which He would show his mercy, and God chose that the rest would receive their just punishment. God is able to do this while still being just, because His son absorbed the penalty for the sins of the elect (see Romans 9).

Q. Does this mean, from an epistemological standpoint, that I can just claim any god I want, as long as it meets the above qualities? Like what about the Muslims?
A. No. We didn't talk about Islam in this post, but it's wrong for other reasons. This post was mostly targeting secularism. The full list necessary qualities which a God must have in order to be the ultimate foundation for our reasoning is identical to the list of all of the qualities of the Christian God.

Q. You didn't explain X, Y, or Z, objections that I have to Christianity.
A. That's right. I didn't. I can't guess at what other objections you have. Comment them or something, and I'll get to it.

"You tell me 'stop judging', but that's judging me."