God and Nature

[Morkeliph]

Something that I have been thinking about lately has to do with the idea of God and his relationship to nature. I post this on here realizing that many do not believe in God, but I think that if they will set that aside for the moment, at least considering God as a character in the Bible, that they may find this topic interesting. At least I do.

The question is, what is God's relationship to the laws of nature? Does God live by natural laws or does he possess endless and infinite power so as to even defy the very laws of nature? I propose that God's power falls is constrained by natural laws by which even he lives by. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter:

Looking at every commandment that God gives to his children we can see a natural obedience-blessing contingency. That is, we are told that God provides us blessings contingent upon obeying his law. He also provides punishments contingent upon disobedience to the law. For example, we are promised blessings of security for being self-reliant and wise with our money and resources. Another, we are promised blessings of health and prosperity for living by the law of chastity (sexual relations only to those whom we are legally and lawfully wedded). In both of these examples, and several others, the blessing is actually the natural result of following the rule. The self-reliant is blessed with security as a natural consequence of being self-reliant. The chaste is blessed with health and prosperity as a natural consequence of restricting sexual activity to a single individual (by avoiding STD's, etcetera). In this sense, these commandments are not laws in and of themselves, but really descriptions of natural laws and contingencies. In other words, God gives his children these commandments in order to inform them of how the universe works. Adherence or disobedience to these laws is rewarded or punished by the naturally occurring consequences of such.

As for situations in which it appears that God is above the laws of nature, who is to say that we fully comprehend the laws of nature that God lives by. I would contest that if God can change water into wine, he does so via natural processes of which we are not fully aware. What seems to us a miracle is actually natural and lawful to God, and we only call it miraculous because we do not understand how it is done. If we, however, knew everything that God knows, then we would not be so astonished by what may in reality be a very simple act.

Obviously there are gaps in this idea, but then again, there are obvious gaps in the opposite. If God doesn't follow laws of nature, then why does the rest of the universe? If God exists apart from nature, then what is God? These are interesting questions that I think provoke some concentrated thought. Perhaps you have some ideas.

[GenocideAlive]

I see where you're going / coming from, but I would consider it to be akin to the world consists of quadrillions of flies and spiderwebs. Flies are people and spiderwebs are the natural laws--we are affected, controlled, or limited by the spiderwebs.

God on the other hand, would be like a human--completely immune and cutting swaths through the webs as he wants or sees fit.

Or water--that we (as marine animals) are contained and exist within the water (natural laws), but God stands astride water like a man in 2ft of a river. He can force or bend the water even through movement, and is even beyond the containment of the water.

Given that "God's" power is infinite, any fortress he builds no matter how sturdy he can immediately overpower to the extent of being able to completely disregard.

[FallenLord]

This is an interesting topic.

Please clarify either way, but it appears you are suggesting that all of God's actions can be replicated with the use of technology. (Not necessarily technology that we have access to now.)

For example, that we will eventually be able to reproduce the parting of the Red Sea using technology, or calling down fire from above, throwing armies into panicked chaos, granting people fluency in languages they don't otherwise understand, turning water into wine, performing resurrections, etc. (Actually, we can already perform a virgin birth, no?) [If that is your meaning,] I generally agree with you. But it's still possible that some of the miracles were in specific contradiction to natural laws.

As far as the Jews are concerned, it seems relatively clear that many of the sacrificial laws were related to natural hygiene (as per your example of the natural blessing of faithful marriage). I.e., the washings, the quarantine procedures, etc. In this case there is certainly nothing artificial.

[Dark_Magneto]

I think the abrahamic gods as well as several others are at odds with nature. They are very contrary to the natural state of things. We have strong instinctual programming to be promiscuous with multiple partners. This makes a great deal of sense from a natural standpoint because it greatly increases your offspring and ensures the continuation of your genes/proliferation of life. From a religious perspective, our desires are primarily there to torment us since nature is contrary to the religious anachronistic dogma of monogamy and abstinence until an obligatory ritual of marriage is performed, which never happens for many.

[Veeger]

I don't believe that God operates within the laws of nature, but that God obligates Himself to work His miracles through as natural a process as possible.

For example, that we will eventually be able to reproduce the parting of the Red Sea using technology

We have already proven how this happened. In the Red Sea is a very large reef that stretches all the way across the width of the Sea. This interested a Russian scientist, who calculated that if an Easterly wind blew at 30 meters per second, or stronger, and was focused on the reef, the waters indeed could part the waters, and over the course of several hours, would have dried the ground enough to walk over. Here (http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040122-113947-8632r.htm) is an article for referrence, though it doesn't entail an experiment I watched on TLC many years ago, where a scaled-down model of the Gulf of Suez (the location believed to be where Moses and the Jews crossed), and successfully tested this theory.

This isn't to say that it wasn't a miracle (something had to be directing the North-South wind to the East and down at that exact spot), but this shows that God generally chooses to use natural laws to His advantage as much as possible.

You make an interesting point, Morkileph, about the commandments having natural benefits and consequences. However, I think the laws were written with more depth than just, "you'll be happier". As you may have read earlier, I firmly believe that Sin is a very real substance, and not just some vague "thing" that we have to assume exists, and God didn't not just "make up" the laws, but He told us what causes Sin to enter your soul, in the hopes that we could recognize it and stop it in its tracks.

Unfortunately, because we are born out of Sin, we are so dispositioned to it that we can never truly be free of it. Which was why Jesus' sacrifice became a necessity.

But, I won't get into that. You wanted this to be strictly about God and nature. I just wanted to explain my theory on God's Commandments.

[Prozerran]

Or, perhaps long ago before the enlightenment when people followed strict religious codes above all law and religion played a more political role, some lowly priest sat by the Red Sea, and this natural process occurred causing the Red Sea to "part." Witnessing this seemingly unexplainable event, this man feels he has been given some divine vision. Thus, in this divine, shocking vision, said individual tells the story of Moses and the Parting of the Red Sea to his children. His children tell their children, and generations later, the story is recorded. This same thing happens over and over again. One day, someone happens upon these stories, translating and translating to no end, and from this, we get a summation from Monks of the ancient texts. This is kept very secret, for centuries, until one day, a man happens upon a destroyed temple where these texts are found, forming what we now know of as the Bible.

This fiction brought to you today by Proz, who asks that anything you attempt to assert here in the Intellectual Roundtable at least contain some ounce of evidence and support.

[Yoda]

I've often noticed that people who live in accordance with God's laws end up being happier. People who are promiscious or who get drunk every weekend or are addicted to drugs are living very empty lives.

As what was FL, there aren't so many "natural" benefits or punishments for following or rejecting (respectfully) God's laws. People are not in so much danger for STD's and can easily stop unwanted pregnancies by using contraception or murdering the child in his/her early stages (i.e. using abortion eg RU486). If someone was pregnant in the 19th century when unmarried, then they would have been completely shunned by society.

However it is still my belief that God does reward those who are faithful to Him, even if it is only in the next life. (Anyone heard the story of Job?)